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REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 17.
even Lord Southampton bore a share, to bring Tunstall forward in Gardiner's place.[1] And though this scheme failed, through the caution of the principal persons interested, the grievances remained, embittered by a forced submission: a fresh debt had been contracted, bearing interest till it was paid.
As great, or a greater, danger embarrassed Cromwell from the folly of his friends. So long as the tide was in their favour, the Protestants indulged in insolent excesses, which provoked, and almost justified, the anger with which they were regarded. Hitherto they had held a monopoly of popular preaching. Tradition and authority had been with the Catholics: the rhetoric had been mainly with their adversaries. AugustIn the summer the interest of London was suddenly excited on the other side by a Catholic orator of extraordinary powers, a Dr Watts, unknown before or after this particular crisis, but for the moment a principal figure on the stage. Watts attracted vast audiences;- ↑ 'Then said Craye to me, There was murmuring and saying by the progress of time that my lord privy seal should be out of favour with his prince. Marry, said I, I heard of such a thing. I heard at Woodstock of one Sir Launcelot Thornton, a chaplain of the Bishop of Durham, who shewed me that the Earl of Hampton, Sir William Kingston, and Sir Anthony Brown were all joined together, and would have had my Lord of Durham to have had rule and chief saying under the King's Highness. Then said Craye to me, It was evil doing of my lord your master that would not take it upon hand, for he might have amended many things that were amiss; for, if the Bishop of Winchester might have had the saying, he would have taken it upon hand. Well, said I, my lord my master is too good a lawyer, knowing by his book the inconstancy of princes, where there is a text that saith: Lubricus est primus locus apud Reges.'—MS. ibid.
