and before that time was elapsed, the Pope himself adjourned it
indefinitely, by requiring the King and Queen to come to Rome and
have it tried there. But by good luck for the King, word was
brought to him by some of his people, that they had happened to
meet at supper, THOMAS CRANMER, a learned Doctor of Cambridge, who
had proposed to urge the Pope on, by referring the case to all the
learned doctors and bishops, here and there and everywhere, and
getting their opinions that the King’s marriage was unlawful. The
King, who was now in a hurry to marry Anne Boleyn, thought this
such a good idea, that he sent for Cranmer, post haste, and said to
LORD ROCHFORT, Anne Boleyn’s father, ‘Take this learned Doctor down
to your country-house, and there let him have a good room for a
study, and no end of books out of which to prove that I may marry
your daughter.’ Lord Rochfort, not at all reluctant, made the
learned Doctor as comfortable as he could; and the learned Doctor
went to work to prove his case. All this time, the King and Anne
Boleyn were writing letters to one another almost daily, full of
impatience to have the case settled; and Anne Boleyn was showing
herself (as I think) very worthy of the fate which afterwards befel
her.
It was bad for Cardinal Wolsey that he had left Cranmer to render
this help. It was worse for him that he had tried to dissuade the
King from marrying Anne Boleyn. Such a servant as he, to such a
master as Henry, would probably have fallen in any case; but,
between the hatred of the party of the Queen that was, and the
hatred of the party of the Queen that was to be, he fell suddenly
and heavily. Going down one day to the Court of Chancery, where he
now presided, he was waited upon by the Dukes of Norfolk and
Suffolk, who told him that they brought an order to him to resign
that office, and to withdraw quietly to a house he had at Esher, in
Surrey. The Cardinal refusing, they rode off to the King; and next
day came back with a letter from him, on reading which, the
Page 155
Dickens, Charles – A Child’s History of England
Cardinal submitted. An inventory was made out of all the riches in
his palace at York Place (now Whitehall), and he went sorrowfully
up the river, in his barge, to Putney. An abject man he was, in
spite of his pride; for being overtaken, riding out of that place
towards Esher, by one of the King’s chamberlains who brought him a
kind message and a ring, he alighted from his mule, took off his
cap, and kneeled down in the dirt. His poor Fool, whom in his
prosperous days he had always kept in his palace to entertain him,
cut a far better figure than he; for, when the Cardinal said to the
chamberlain that he had nothing to send to his lord the King as a
present, but that jester who was a most excellent one, it took six
strong yeomen to remove the faithful fool from his master.
The once proud Cardinal was soon further disgraced, and wrote the
most abject letters to his vile sovereign; who humbled him one day
and encouraged him the next, according to his humour, until he was
at last ordered to go and reside in his diocese of York. He said
he was too poor; but I don’t know how he made that out, for he took
a hundred and sixty servants with him, and seventy-two cart-loads
of furniture, food, and wine. He remained in that part of the
country for the best part of a year, and showed himself so improved
by his misfortunes, and was so mild and so conciliating, that he
won all hearts. And indeed, even in his proud days, he had done
some magnificent things for learning and education. At last, he
was arrested for high treason; and, coming slowly on his journey
towards London, got as far as Leicester. Arriving at Leicester
Abbey after dark, and very ill, he said – when the monks came out