History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. III

Sept 17. In whose behalf the corporation interfere in vain.

There were, perhaps, circumstances in the case beyond those which appear; but, instead of listening to the request of the City, the archbishop spirited away the preacher into Kent, and his friends learned, from the boasts of their adversaries, that he was imprisoned and ill used. He was attached, it seems, to the Victuallers’ Company. “There is no persecution,” wrote a Protestant fanatic, “except of the Victuallers; of which sect a certain impostor of the name of Watts, formerly of the order of wry-necked cattle, is now holding forth, oh, shame! in the stocks at Canterbury Bridewell, having been accustomed to mouth elsewhere against the Gospel.”⁵³²

Charles V. endeavours to prevent the German marriage.

While England was thus fermenting towards a second crisis, the German marriage was creating no less anxiety on the Continent. As it was Cromwell’s chief object to unite England with the Lutherans, so was Charles V. anxious above all things to keep them separate; and no sooner was he aware that the Duke of Cleves had consented to give his sister to Henry than he renewed his offer of the Duchess of Milan. The reply was a cold and peremptory refusal;⁵³³ and the Emperor seeing that the English government would not be again trifled with, determined to repair into Flanders, in order to be at hand, should important movements take place in Germany.⁵³⁴ To give menace and significance to his journey, he resolved, if possible, to pass through France on his way, and in a manner so unformal and confidential as, perhaps, might contribute towards substantiating his relations with Francis, or, at least, might give the world the impression of their entire cordiality.

He proposes a visit to Paris.

Reginald Pole submits a paper to the Pope on the condition of England.

France and Spain are at last united. Let them proclaim the king a public enemy.

Alarm felt in England.

The proposal of a visit from the Emperor, when made known at Paris, was met with a warm and instant assent; and many were the speculations to which an affair so unexpected gave occasion in Europe. But the minds of men were not long at a loss, and Henry’s intended marriage was soon accepted as an adequate explanation. The danger of a Protestant league compelled the Catholic powers to bury their rivalries; and a legate was despatched from Rome to be present at the meeting at Paris.⁵³⁵ Reginald Pole, ever on the watch for an opportunity to strike a blow at his country, caught once more at the opening, and submitted a paper on the condition of England to the Pope, showing how the occasion might be improved. The Emperor was aware, Pole said, that England had been lost to the Holy See in a Spanish quarrel, and for the sake of a Spanish princess; and he knew himself to be bound in honour, however hitherto he had made pretexts for delay, to assist in its recovery. His Imperial oaths, the insults to his family, the ancient alliance between England and the house of Burgundy, with his own promises so often repeated, alike urged the same duty upon him; and now, at last, he was able to act without difficulty. The rivalry between France and Spain had alone encouraged Henry to defy the opinion of Europe. That rivalry was at an end. The two sovereigns had only to unite in a joint remonstrance against his conduct, with a threat that he should be declared a public enemy if he persisted in his course, and his submission would be instant. He would not dare to refuse. He could not trust his subjects: they had risen once of themselves, and he knew too well the broken promises, the treachery and cruelty with which he had restored order, to risk their fury, should they receive effective support from abroad. Without striking a single blow, the Catholic powers might achieve a glorious triumph, and heal the gaping wound in the body of Christ.⁵³⁶ So wrote, and so thought the English traitor, with all human probabilities in his favour, and only the Eternal Powers on the other side. The same causes which filled Pole with hope struck terror into weak and agitated hearts in the country which he was seeking to betray; the wayfarers on the high-roads talked to each other in despair of the impending ruin of the kingdom, left naked without an ally to the attacks of the world.⁵³⁷

Charles enters France.

Spreading round him such panics and such expectations, the Emperor entered France almost simultaneously with the departure of Anne of Cleves from her mother’s side to the shores of England. Pity that, in the game of diplomacy, statesmen are not compelled to use their own persons for their counters! are not forbidden to cast on others the burden of their own failures!

He is received with splendid courtesy,

And brings in his train an English traitor named Brancetor.

Francis, in order to show Charles the highest courtesy, despatched the constable Montmorency, with the Dauphin and the Duke of Orleans, to Bayonne, and offered, if the Emperor distrusted him, that his sons should be detained as pledges for his good faith. Charles would not be outdone in generosity; when he gave his confidence he gave it without reserve; and, without accepting the security, he crossed the frontier, attended only by his personal train, and made his way to the capital, with the two princes at his side, through a succession of magnificent entertainments. On the 1st of January he entered Paris, where he was to remain for a week; and Henry, at once taking the initiative, made an opportunity to force him, if possible, to a declaration of his intentions. Attached to the Imperial household was a Welshman named Brancetor, uncle of “young Rice,” who had been executed for a conspiracy against Henry’s life in 1531. This man, having been originally obliged to leave England for debt, had contrived, while on the Continent, by assiduity of treason, to assume the more interesting character of a political refugee. He had attached himself to Pole and to Pole’s fortunes; he had exerted himself industriously in Spain in persuading English subjects to violate their allegiance; and in the parliament of the previous spring he had been rewarded by the distinction of a place in the list of attainted traitors.

Brancetor is taken by the French police, in compliance with a demand of Sir Thomas Wyatt.

Analogous occupations had brought him to Paris; and, in conformity with treaties, Henry instructed Sir Thomas Wyatt, who was then in England, to repair to the French court, and require his extradition. Wyatt imprudently affected to consider that the affair belonged rather to the police than to the government, and applied to the constable for Brancetor’s arrest. Montmorency was unaware of the man’s connexion with the Emperor. Wyatt informed him merely that an English subject who had robbed his master, and had afterwards conspired against the king, was in Paris, and requested his apprehension. He had been watched to his lodgings by a spy; and the provost-marshal was placed without difficulty at Wyatt’s disposal, and was directed to attend him.

Brancetor appeals to the Emperor.

The police surrounded the house where Brancetor was to be found. It was night. The English minister entered, and found his man writing at a table. “I told him,” Wyatt reported in his account of the story, “that, since he would not come to visit me, I was come to seek him. His colour changed as soon as he heard my voice; and with that came in the provost, and set hand on him. I reached to the letters that he was writing, but he caught them afore me, and flung them backwards into the fire. I overthrew him, and cracked them out; but the provost got them.” Brancetor upon this declared himself the Emperor’s servant. He made no attempt to escape, but charged the officer, “that his writings and himself should be delivered into the Emperor’s hands.” He took a number of papers from his pocket, which he placed in the provost’s charge; and the latter not daring to act further in such a matter without further instructions, left a guard in the room with Wyatt and the prisoner, and went to make a report to the chancellor. “In the mean time,” says Wyatt, “I used all the soberness I could with Brancetor, advising him to submit himself to your Majesty; but he made the Emperor his master, and seemed to regard nothing else. Once he told me he had heard me oft times say that kings have long hands; but God, quoth he, hath longer. I asked him what length he thought that would make when God’s and kings’ hands were joined together; but he assured himself of the Emperor.” Presently the provost returned, and said that Brancetor was to remain in his charge till the morning, when Wyatt would hear further. Nothing more could be done with the provost; and after breakfast Wyatt had an interview with Cardinal Granvelle and the chancellor. The treaties were plain; a clause stated in the clearest language that neither France, nor Spain, nor England should give shelter to each other’s traitors; but such a case as Brancetor’s had as clearly not been anticipated when they were drawn; and the matter was referred to the Emperor.

Charles grants an audience to Wyatt.

He will defend his followers, English or Spanish, treaty or no treaty.

Charles made no difficulty in granting an audience, which he seemed rather to court. He was extremely angry. The man had been in his service, he said, for years; and it was ill done to arrest a member of his household without paying him even the courtesy of a first application on the subject. The English government could scarcely be serious in expecting that he would sacrifice an old attendant in any such manner. Wyatt answered sturdily that Brancetor was his master’s subject. There was clear proof, he could vouch for it on his own knowledge, that the man committed treason in Spain; and he again insisted on the treaties. The Emperor cared nothing for treaties. Treaty or no treaty, a servant of his own should pass free; “and if he was in the Tower of London,” he said, “he would never consent so to charge his honour and conscience.” Brancetor had come to Paris under his protection; and the French government would never do him the dishonour of permitting the seizure of one of his personal train.

Wyatt complains of the treatment of English subjects by the Inquisition.

He was so displeased, and there was so much truth in what he said, that Wyatt durst not press him further; but opened ground again with a complaint which he had been instructed also to make, of the ill usage of Englishmen in Spain by the Inquisition. Charles again flashed up with imperious vehemence. “In a loud voice,” he replied, “that the authority of the Inquisition depended not upon him. It had been established in his realm and countries for good consideration, and such as he would not break – no, not for his grandame.”

It was unreasonable, Wyatt replied, to punish men merely for their want of allegiance to Rome. They were no heretics, sacramentaries, Anabaptists. They held the Catholic faith as truly as any man.

Charles refuses t o interfere.

“The king is of one opinion,” Charles replied, “and I am of another. If your merchants come with novelties, I can not let the Inquisition. This is a thing that toucheth our faith.”

“What,” Wyatt said, “the primacy of the Bishop of Rome!”

“Yea, marry,” the Emperor answered, “shall we now come to dispute of tibi dabo claves. I would not alter my Inquisition. No; if I thought they would be negligent in their office, I would put them out, and put others in their rooms.”

All this was uttered with extraordinary passion and violence. Charles had wholly lost his self-command. Wyatt went on to say that the Spanish preached slanders against England, and against the king especially, in their pulpits.

“As to that,” said the Emperor, “preachers will speak against myself whenever there is cause. That cannot be let. Kings be not kings of tongues; and if men give cause to be spoken of, they will be spoken of.”

The French court betrays confidence.

He promised at last, with rather more calmness, to inquire into the treatment of the merchants, if proper particulars were supplied to him.⁵³⁸ If alarm was really felt in the English court at the Emperor’s presence in Paris, Wyatt’s report of this interview was not reassuring. Still less satisfactory was an intimation, which was not long in reaching England, that Francis, or one of his ministers, had betrayed to Charles a private article in the treaty of Calais, in 1532. Anticipating at this time a war with Spain, Henry had suggested, and Francis had acquiesced in a proposal, should Charles attack them, for a partition of the Flemish provinces. The opportunity of this visit was chosen by the French to give an evidence of unmistakeable goodwill in revealing an exasperating secret.

Keeping these transactions so ominous of evil before our minds, let us now return to the events which were simultaneously taking place in England.

December 11. Anne of Cleves arrives at Calais,

Where she remains weather-bound for a fortnight,

And learns to play at cards.

On the 11th of December the Lady Anne of Cleves was conducted, under a German escort, to Calais, where Lord Southampton and four hundred English noblemen and gentlemen were waiting to receive her, and conduct her to her future country. The “Lion” and the “Sweepstake” were in the harbour – the ships which two years before had fought the Flemings in the Downs. As she rode into the town the vessels’ yards were manned, the rigging was decorated with flags, and a salute of a hundred and fifty guns was fired in her honour. By her expectant subjects she was splendidly welcomed; but the weather was wild; fifteen days elapsed before she could cross with ease and expedition; and meanwhile she was left to the entertainment of the lords. Southampton, in despair at her absence of accomplishments, taught her, as a last resource, to play at cards. Meantime, he wrote to advertise the king of her arrival, and thinking, as he afterwards said, that he must make the best of a matter which it had become too late to remedy, he repeated the praises which had been uttered so loudly by others of the lady’s appearance. He trusted that, “after all the debating, the success would be to the consolation of his Majesty, and the weal of his subjects and realm.”⁵³⁹

Dec. 27. She lands in England.

Dec 29. Monday. She is received by Cranmer at Canterbury.

Wednesday Dec. 31. The king comes to meet her at Rochester.

At length, on Saturday, December the 27th, as the winter twilight was closing into night, the intended Queen of England set her foot upon the shore, under the walls of Deal Castle. The cannon freshly mounted, flashed their welcome through the darkness; the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk had waited in the fortress for her landing, and the same night conducted her to Dover. Here she rested during Sunday. The next morning she went on, in a storm, to Canterbury; and on Barham Down stood Cranmer, with five other bishops, in the wind and the rain, to welcome, as they fondly hoped, the enchantress who would break the spell of the Six Articles. She was entertained for the evening at Saint Augustine’s. Tuesday she was at Sittingbourne. On New-Year’s Eve she reached Rochester, to which the king was already hastening for the first sight of the lady, the fame of whose charms had been sounded in his ears so loudly. He came down in private, attended only by Sir Anthony Brown, the master of the horse. The interview, agitating under all circumstances, would be made additionally awkward from the fact that neither the king nor his bride could understand each other’s language. He had brought with him, therefore, “a little present,” a graceful gift of some value, to soften the embarrassment and conciliate at first sight the lovely being into whose presence he was to be introduced. The visit was meant for a surprise; the king’s appearance at her lodgings was the first intimation of his intention; and the master of the horse was sent in to announce his arrival and request permission for his Highness to present himself.

Sensations of the master of the horse on his first interview.

The king is “quite discouraged and amazed.”

 

He retreats hastily to Greenwich,

And laments the fate of princes.

Sir Anthony, aware of the nature of Henry’s expectations, entered the room where Anne was sitting. He described his sensations on the unlooked-for spectacle which awaited him in moderate language, when he said, “that he was never more dismayed in his life, lamenting in his heart to see the lady so unlike that she was reported.”⁵⁴⁰ The graces of Anne of Cleves were moral only, not intellectual, and not personal. She was simple, quiet, modest, sensible, and conscientious; but her beauty existed only in the imagination of the painter. Her presence was ladylike; but her complexion was thick and dark: her features were coarse; her figure large, loose, and corpulent. The required permission was given. The king entered. His heart sank; his presence of mind forsook him; he was “suddenly quite discouraged and amazed” at the prospect which was opened before him. He forgot his present; he almost forgot his courtesy. He did not stay in the room “to speak twenty words.” He would not even stay in Rochester. “Very sad and pensive,” says Brown, he entered his barge and hurried back to Greenwich, anxious only to escape, while escape was possible, from the unwelcome neighbourhood. Unwilling to marry at all, he had yielded only to the pressure of a general desire. He had been deceived by untrue representations, and had permitted a foreign princess to be brought into the realm; and now, as fastidious in his tastes as he was often little scrupulous in his expression of them, he found himself on the edge of a connexion the very thought of which was revolting.⁵⁴¹ It was a cruel fortune which imposed on Henry VIII., in addition to his other burdens, the labour of finding heirs to strengthen the succession. He “lamented the fate of princes to be in matters of marriage of far worse sort than the condition of poor men.”

“Princes take,” he said, “as is brought them by others, and poor men be commonly at their own choice.”⁵⁴²

He complains of his disappointment to Cromwell.

Cromwell, who knew better than others knew the true nature of the king’s adventure, was waiting nervously at Greenwich for the result of the experiment. He presented himself on the king’s appearance, and asked him “how he liked the Lady Anne.” The abrupt answer confirmed his fears. “Nothing so well as she was spoken of,” the king said. “If I had known as much before as I know now, she should never have come into the realm.” “But what remedy?” he added, in despondency.⁵⁴³ The German alliance was already shaking at its base: the court was agitated and alarmed; the king was miserable. Cromwell, to whom the blame was mainly due, endeavoured for a moment to shrink from his responsibility, and accused Southampton of having encouraged false hopes in his letters from Calais. Southampton answered fairly that the fault did not rest with him. He had been sent to bring the queen into England, and it was not his place to “dispraise her appearance.” “The matter being so far gone,” he had supposed his duty was to make the best of it.⁵⁴⁴

January 2. Friday.

Saturday, January 3. Arrival of the Lady Anne at the palace.

Henry endeavours to extricate himself,

Sunday. January 4.

And requires an explanation of the pre-contract

Among these recriminations passed the night of Friday, while Charles V. was just commencing his triumphal progress through France. The day following, the innocent occasion of the confusion came on to Greenwich. The marriage had been arranged for the Sunday after. The prospects were altogether dark, and closer inspection confirmed the worst apprehensions. The ladies of the court were no less shocked than their husbands. The unfortunate princess was not only unsightly, but she had “displeasant airs” about her; and Lady Brown imparted to Sir Anthony “how she saw in the queen such fashions, and manner of bringing up so gross, that she thought the king would never love her.” Henry met her on the stairs when her barge arrived. He conducted her to her apartments, and on the way Cromwell saw her with his own eyes. The sovereign and the minister then retired together, and the just displeasure became visible. “How say you, my lord?” the king said. “Is it not as I told you? Say what they will, she is nothing fair. The personage is well and seemly, but nothing else.” Cromwell attempted faintly to soothe him by suggesting that she had “a queenly manner.” The king agreed to that;⁵⁴⁵ but the recommendation was insufficient to overcome the repugnance which he had conceived; and he could resolve on nothing. A frail fibre of hope offered itself in the story of the pre-contract with the Count of Lorraine. Henry caught at it to postpone the marriage for two days; and, on the Sunday morning he sent for the German suite who had attended the princess, and requested to see the papers connected with the Lorraine treaty. Astonished and unprepared, they requested time to consider. The following morning they had an interview with the council, when they stated that, never anticipating any such demand, they could not possibly comply with it on the instant; but the engagement had been nothing. The instrument which they had brought with them declared the princess free from all ties whatever. If the king really required the whole body of the documents, they would send to Cleves for them; but, in the meantime, they trusted he would not refuse to accept their solemn assurances.

Monday, January 5.

He exhibits his reluctance to the lady, but in vain.

He must put his neck into the yoke,

And marries Tuesday, January 6

Cromwell carried the answer to Henry; and it was miserably unwelcome. “I have been ill-handled,” he said. “If it were not that she is come so far into England, and for fear of making a ruffle in the world, and driving her brother into the Emperor and French king’s hands, now being together, I would never have her. But now it is too far gone; wherefore I am sorry.”⁵⁴⁶ As a last pretext for hesitation, he sent to Anne herself to desire a protest from her that she was free from contracts; a proof of backwardness on the side of the king might, perhaps, provoke a corresponding unwillingness. But the impassive constitution of the lady would have been proof against a stronger hint. The protest was drawn and signed with instant readiness. “Is there no remedy,” Henry exclaimed, “but that I must needs, against my will, put my neck into this yoke?” There was none. It was inevitable. The conference at Paris lay before him like a thunder-cloud. The divorce of Catherine and the crimes of Anne Boleyn had already created sufficient scandal in Europe. At such a moment he durst not pass an affront upon the Germans, which might drive them also into a compromise with his other enemies. He gathered up his resolution. As the thing was to be done, it might be done at once; delay would not make the bitter dose less unpalatable; and the day remained fixed for the date of its first postponement – Tuesday, the 6th of January. As he was preparing for the sacrifice, he called Cromwell to him in the chamber of presence: “My lord,” he said openly, “if it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do that I must do this day for none earthly thing.”

His dislike increases to aversion, and his hope of children is frustrated.

The marriage was solemnized. A last chance remained to the Privy Seal and to the eager prelates who had trembled in the storm on Barham Down, that the affection which could not precede the ceremony might perhaps follow it. But the tide had turned against the Reformers; and their contrivances to stem the current were not of the sort which could be allowed to prosper. Dislike was confirmed into rooted aversion. The instinct with which the king recoiled from Anne settled into a defined resolution. He was personally kind to her. His provocations did not tempt him into discourtesy; but, although she shared his bed, necessity and inclination alike limited the companionship to a form; and Henry lamented to Cromwell, who had been the cause of the calamity, that “surely he would never have any more children for the comfort of the realm.”⁵⁴⁷

The results of the disappointment not immediately visible.

Theological controversy in London between Gardiner and the Protestants,

Who are protected by Cromwell.

The union of France and the Empire, which had obliged the accomplishment of this unlucky connexion, meanwhile prevented, so long as it continued, either an open fracas or an alteration in the policy of the kingdom. The relations of the king and queen were known only to a few of the council. Cromwell continued in power, and the Protestants remained in security. The excitement which had been created in London by the persecution of Dr. Watts was kept alive by a controversy⁵⁴⁸ between the Bishop of Winchester and three of the Lutheran preachers: Dr. Barnes, for ever unwisely prominent; the Vicar of Stepney, who had shuffled over his recantation; and Garrett, the same who had been in danger of the stake at Oxford for selling Testaments, and had since been a chaplain of Latimer. It is difficult to exaggerate the audacity with which the orators of the moving party trespassed on the patience of the laity. The disputes, which had been slightly turned out of their channel by the Six Articles, were running now on justification, – a sufficient subject, however, to give scope for differences, and for the full enunciation of the Lutheran gospel. The magistrates in the country attempted to keep order and enforce the law; but, when they imprisoned a heretic, they found themselves rebuked and menaced by the Privy Seal. Their prison doors were opened, they were exposed to vexatious suits for loss or injury to the property of the discharged offenders, and their authority and persons were treated with disrespect and contumely.⁵⁴⁹ The Reformers had outshot their healthy growth. They required to be toned down by renewed persecution into that good sense and severity of mind without which religion is but as idle and unprofitable a folly as worldly excitement.

Gardiner preaches a Popish sermon at Paul’s Cross.

Foolish insolence of Dr. Barnes.

Gardiner complains to the king.

In London, on the first Sunday in Lent, the Bishop of Winchester preached on the now prominent topic at Paul’s Cross: “A very Popish sermon,” says Traheron, one of the English correspondents of Bullinger, “and much to the discontent of the people.”⁵⁵⁰ To the discontent it may have been of many, but not to the discontent of the ten thousand citizens who had designed the procession to Lambeth. The Sunday following, the same pulpit was occupied by Barnes, who, calling Gardiner a fighting-cock, and himself another, challenged the bishop to trim his spurs for a battle.⁵⁵¹ He taunted his adversary with concealed Romanism. Like the judges at Fouquier Tinville’s tribunal, whose test of loyalty to the republic was the question what the accused had done to be hanged on the restoration of the monarchy, Barnes said that, if he and the Bishop of Winchester were at Rome together, much money would not save his life, but for the bishop there was no fear – a little entreatance would purchase favour enough for him.⁵⁵² From these specimens we may conjecture the character of the sermon; and, from Traheron’s delight with it, we may gather equally the imprudent exultation of the Protestants.⁵⁵³ Gardiner complained to the king. He had a fair cause, and was favourably listened to. Henry sent for Barnes, and examined him in a private audience. The questions of the day were opened. Merit, works, faith, free-will, grace of congruity, were each discussed, – once mystic words of power, able, like the writing on the seal of Solomon, to convulse the world, now mere innocent sounds, which the languid but still eager lips of a dying controversy breathe in vain.

Barnes, too vain of his supposed abilities to understand the disposition with which he was dealing, told the king, in an excess of unwisdom, that he would submit himself to him.

Interview between Barnes and Henry.

Barnes affects to recant.

Henry was more than angry: “Yield not to me,” he said; “I am a mortal man.” He rose as he spoke, and turning to the sacrament, which stood on a private altar in the room, and taking off his bonnet, – “Yonder is the Master of us all,” he said; “yield in truth to Him; otherwise submit yourself not to me.” Barnes was commanded, with Garrett and Jerome, to make a public acknowledgment of his errors; and to apologize especially for his insolent language to Gardiner. It has been already seen how Jerome could act in such a position. An admirer of these men, in relating their conduct on the present occasion, declared, as if it was something to their credit, “how gaily they handled the matter, both to satisfy the recantation and also, in the same sermon, to utter out the truth, that it might spread without let of the world.”

Like giddy night-moths, they were flitting round the fire which would soon devour them.

Confident in the German alliance, the king provokes a quarrel with the Emperor.

He instructs Wyatt to reproach Charles with ingratitude.

In April, parliament was to meet – the same parliament which had passed the Six Articles Bill with acclamation. It was to be seen in what temper they would bear the suspension of their favourite measure. The bearing of the parliament, was, however, for the moment, of comparative indifference. The king and his ministers were occupied with other matters too seriously to be able to attend it. A dispute had arisen between the Emperor and the Duke of Cleves, on the duchy of Gueldres, to which Charles threatened to assert his right by force; and, galling as Henry found his marriage, the alliance in which it had involved him, its only present recommendation, was too useful to be neglected. The treatment of English residents in Spain, the open patronage of Brancetor, and the haughty and even insolent language which had been used to Wyatt, could not be passed over in silence, whatever might be the consequences; and, with the support of Germany, he believed that he might now, perhaps, repay the Emperor for the alarms and anxieties of years. After staying a few days in Paris, Charles had gone on to Brussels. On the receipt of Wyatt’s despatch with the account of his first interview, the king instructed him to require in reply the immediate surrender of the English traitor; to insist that the proceedings of the Inquisition should be redressed and punished; and to signify, at the same time, that the English government desired to mediate between himself and the king’s brother-in-law. Nor was the imperiousness of the message to be softened in the manner of delivery. More than once Henry had implied that Charles was under obligations to England for the Empire. Wyatt was instructed to allude pointedly to these and other wounding memories, and particularly, and with marked emphasis, to make use of the word “ingratitude.” The object was, perhaps, to show that Henry was not afraid of him; perhaps to express a real indignation which there was no longer reason to conceal.