more
successful. In France the profuse bribery of the English agents would have
failed with the university of Paris but for the interference of Francis
himself, eager to regain Henry's goodwill by this office of friendship. As
shameless an exercise of the king's own authority was needed to wring an
approval of his cause from Oxford and Cambridge. In Germany the very
Protestants, then in the fervour of their moral revival and hoping little
from a proclaimed opponent of Luther, were dead against the king. So far
as could be seen from Cranmer's test every learned man in Christendom but
for bribery and threats would have condemned the royal cause. Henry was
embittered by failures which he attributed to the unskilful diplomacy of
his new counsellors; and it was rumoured that he had been heard to regret
the loss of the more dexterous statesman whom they had overthrown. Wolsey,
who since the beginning of the year had remained at York, though busy in
appearance with the duties of his see, was hoping more and more as the
months passed by for his recall. But the jealousy of his political enemies
was roused by the king's regrets, and the pitiless hand of Norfolk was
seen in the quick and deadly blow which he dealt at his fallen rival. On
the fourth of November, on the eve of his installation feast, the Cardinal
was arrested on a charge of high treason and conducted by the Lieutenant
of the Tower towards London. Already broken by his enormous labours, by
internal disease, and the sense of his fall, Wolsey accepted the arrest as
a sentence of death. An attack of dysentery forced him to rest at the
abbey of Leicester, and as he reached the gate he said feebly to the
brethren who met him, "I am come to lay my bones among you." On his
death-bed his thoughts still clung to the prince whom he had served. "Had
I but served God as diligently as I have served the king," murmured the
dying man, "He would not have given me over in my grey hairs. But this is
my due reward for my pains and study, not regarding my service to God, but
only my duty to my prince."

[Sidenote: Cromwell's Policy]

No words could paint with so terrible a truthfulness the spirit of the new
despotism which Wolsey had done more than any of those who went before him
to build up. From tempers like his all sense of loyalty to England, to its
freedom, to its institutions, had utterly passed away, and the one duty
which the statesman owned was a duty to his "prince." To wh