way in which things were handled."[1] The calling in the secular arm meant invasion and open war. To advise it was treasonable in any English subject. There may be circumstances under which treason of such a kind might be morally defended. No defence, moral or political, can be made for Wolsey; and it was the more discreditable because at this time he was professing the utmost devotion to his King, and endeavouring to secure his confidence. Three different petitions Norfolk discovered him to have sent in, "desiring as much authority as ever he had." Norfolk no doubt watched him, and may have learnt enough to suspect what he was doing. The whispers and the messages through the intriguing physician had not gone unobserved. The King persisted in his generous confidence, and could not be persuaded that his old friend could be really treacherous,[2] but he consented to send him down to his diocese. Wolsey went, still affecting his old magnificence, with a train of six hundred knights and gentlemen; but he never reached his cathedral city. Chapuys heard, to his alarm, that the physician was arrested and was in the Tower. He congratulated himself that, were all revealed which had passed between him and Wolsey, nothing could be discovered which would compromise his own safety. But it was true that Wolsey's physician had betrayed his master, revealing secrets which he had bound him-
- ↑ "J'ay reçeu lettres du medicin du Cardinal, par lesquelles il m'advertit que son maystre pour non sçavoir en quelles termes sont les affaires de la Reyne, il ne scauroit particulierement quel conseil donner et que estant informe, il y vouldroit donner conseil et addresse comme ce estoit pour gagner paradis. Car de la depend son bien, honneur et repoz, et qu'il lui semble pour maintenant que l'on debvroyt proceder a plus grandes censures et a la invocation du bras seculier. Car maintenant il n'y a nul nerf."
- ↑ T. Arundel to Wolsey, Oct. 16, 1530.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. iv. p. 3013.
