I have been to you a true and humble wife,
At all times to your will conformable;
Ever in fear to kindle your dislike,
Yea, subject to your countenance, glad or sorry
As I saw it inclined.”
She appealed to the Pope himself; then rising, bowed to the king, and refused to face the court again. The trial dragged on, and Henry became impatient and demanded speedy judgment.
Meanwhile Clement had made a treaty with the Emperor, and was no longer solicitous to retain the goodwill of the English king. He therefore revoked the commission, and ordered the cause to be transferred to Rome for a new trial. Henry, baffled and beaten, was furious, and Anne Boleyn skilfully fanned the flame of his wrath. She suggested that Wolsey had bungled the matter, and forthwith his doom was sealed. He was dismissed from his office as chancellor, and brought to trial for breaking an old law which forbade appeals to Rome. Wolsey said truthfully that he had only appealed to the Pope at the king’s request. Henry, however, denied that he had sanctioned the proceeding, and Wolsey, to the joy of his enemies, was found guilty. All his property was seized, and after he had made an abject submission, he was ordered to withdraw to his diocese of York.
Here he flung himself with all his old energy into his work as archbishop, and soon won the affection of the north-country folk. But he hungered and thirsted for his former greatness, and made the serious error of communicating with the ambassadors of the French king and the Emperor. When Henry heard of it his anger blazed forth once more. This was treason and nothing less, and Wolsey’s arrest was immediately ordered. Early in November he began his journey southward under an armed guard. Sick and heart-broken, with his health undermined, he travelled as far as Leicester, where at his coming the abbot of the place met him with the light of many torches and received him with great reverence. “Father abbot,” said he, “I am come to lay my bones among you.” Truer words were never spoken. A few days later he died, lamenting with his failing breath—
“Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, He would not in my age