country so dear. But the French faction at the court, Anne and her relations, and the hot-tempered young men who surrounded him, were still able to work upon his wounded pride. Could they plunge the country into war at the side of Francis, they would recover their ascendancy. Any day might see some fatal step taken which could not be recovered. Both Anne and Rochford were bold, able, and unscrupulous, and Cromwell, with a secret in his hand which would destroy them, saw that the time was come to use it.
That it was not accident which connected the outburst of the storm on Anne's head with the political negotiations is certain from Cromwell's own words. He told Chapuys that it was the disappointment which he had felt at the King's reply to him on the Wednesday after Easter that had led him to apply the match to the train.[1]
A casual incident came to his assistance. A Privy Councillor, whose name is not mentioned, having remarked sharply on the light behaviour of a sister who was attached to the court, the young lady admitted
- ↑ "Et que a luy avoit este l'auctorite de descouvrir et parachever les affairs de la dicte Concubine, en quoy il avoit eu une merveilleuse pene; et que sur le desplesir et courroux qu'il avoit eu sur le reponse que le Roy son maistre m'avoit donné le tiers jour de Pasques il se mit a fantasier et conspirer le dict affaire," etc. Chapuys to Charles V., June 6, 1536.—MS. Vienna; Spanish Calendar, vol. v. part 2, p. 137. From the word "conspirer" it has been inferred that the accusation of Anne and her accomplices was a conspiracy of Cromwell's, got up in haste for an immediate political purpose. Cromwell must have been marvellously rapid, since within four days he was able to produce a case to lay before a Special Commission composed of the highest persons in the realm assisted by the Judges, involving the Queen and a still powerful faction at the court. We are to believe, too, that he had the inconceivable folly to acknowledge it to Chapuys, the most dangerous person to whom such a secret could be communicated. Cromwell was not an idiot, and it is impossible that in so short a time such an accumulation of evidence could have been invented and prepared so skilfully as to deceive the Judges.
