were instantly written to the ambassadors at foreign courts, desiring them to make known the blow which had been struck and the causes which had led to it.[1]
- ↑ 'His Majesty remembering how men wanting the knowledge of the truth would else speak diversely of it, considering the credit he hath had about his Highness, which might also cause the wisest sort to judge amiss thereof if that his ingratitude and treason should not be fully opened unto them.'—Ibid. The opening sentences of the letter (it was evidently a circular) also deserve notice: 'These shall be to advertise you that when the King's Majesty hath of long season travailed, and yet most godly travaileth to establish such an order in matters of religion as neither declining on the right hand or on the left hand, God's glory might be advanced, the temerity of such as would either obscure or refuse the truth of his Word refrained, stayed, and in cases of obstinacy duly corrected and punished: so it is that the Lord Privy Seal, to whom the King's Majesty hath been so special good and gracious a lord, hath, only out of his sensual appetite, wrought clean contrary to his Grace's intent, secretly and indirectly advancing the one of the extremes, and leaving the mean,
council chamber at the Palace at Westminster. The Lieutenant of the Tower entered with the King's commands to take him prisoner. In a burst of passion he clutched his cap and flung it on the ground. 'This, then,' he said to the Duke of Norfolk and the rest of the council assembled there, 'this, then, is my guerdon for the service that I have done. On your consciences, I ask you, am I a traitor? I may have offended, but never with my will. Such faults as I have committed deserve grace and pardon; but if the King my master believes so ill of me, let him make quick work and not leave me to languish in prison.'
'Part of the council exclaimed that he was a traitor; part said he should be judged by the bloody laws which he had himself made; words idly spoken he had twisted into treason; the measure which he had dealt to others should now be meted out to him.'The Duke of Norfolk, after reproaching him with his many villanies, tore the George from his neck. The admiral (Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton), to show that he was as much his enemy in adversity as in prosperity he had pretended to be his friend, stripped off the Garter. He was then led down into a barge by a gate which opened on the river, and was conducted to the Tower. The people in the City knew nothing of his arrest until they saw Mr Cheyne and two archers of the guards at his house door.'—Marillac to the Constable, June 23, 1540: MS. Bibliot. Impér. Paris.
