Rooms already had been assigned to the King and the Queen. The entrance to Catherine's rooms may still be seen in the east side of the Clock-court. Henry often made a stay of several days; and hardly had Wolsey been disgraced before Anne Bullen, equivocal though her position was, had her own apartments.
Wolsey himself used the Palace as his chief country retreat, and up to the summer of 1529 was constantly there, in hiding from the sweating sickness, or seeing ambassadors on matters of the first importance. In 1526 and 1527 treaties were signed there. In March 1527 long discussions took place there as to the marriage treaty by which the little Princess Mary, only ten years old, was to be given to the middle-aged roué Francis I. Henry was then living in the Palace, with Catherine and Wolsey.[1] When the treaty, seven months later, after that magnificent progress of the Cardinal to Amiens which his usher so lovingly narrates,[2] was finally ratified, the splendid ambassage—"eighty persons or above of the noblest gentlemen in all France," with Du Bellay and Anne de Montmorency among them—was right royally entertained by Wolsey. And here Cavendish makes it certain that the scene was Hampton Court. Henry would have them entertained with a hunt at Richmond, and then to go on to the Cardinal's house; and mighty were the preparations made to receive
