'God is very far away,' he answered.
'Sir, my lord,' she cried, and brushed again the tress from her forehead. 'Ye have made this King rich with gear of the Church: if ye will be friends with me ye shall make this King a pauper to repay; ye have made this King stiffen his neck against God's Vicegerent: if you and I shall work together ye shall make him re-humble himself. Christ the King of all the world was a pauper; Christ the Saviour of all mankind humbled Himself before God that was His Saviour.'
Cromwell said 'Amen.'
'Sir,' she said again; 'ye have made this King rich, but I will give to him again his power to sleep at night; ye have made this realm subject to this King, but, by the help of God, I will make it subject again to God. You have set up here a great State, but oh, the children of God do weep since ye came. Where is a town where lamentation is not heard? Where is a town where no orphan or widow bewails the day that saw your birth?' She had sobs in her voice and she wrung her hands. 'Sir,' she cried, 'I say you are as a dead man already—your day of pride is past, whether ye aid us or no. Set yourself then to redress as heartily as ye have set yourself in the past to make sad. That land is blest whose people are happy; that State is aggrandised whence there arise songs praising God for His blessings. You have built up a great city of groans; set yourself now to build a kingdom where "Praise God" shall be sung. It is a contented people that makes a State great; it is the love of God that maketh a people rich.'
Cromwell laughed mirthlessly:
'There are forty thousand men like Wriothesley in England,' he said. 'God help you if you come against them; there are forty times forty thousand and forty times that that pray you not again to set disorder loose in this land. I have broken all stiff necks in this realm. See you that you come not against some yet.' He stopped, and added: 'Your greatest foes should be your own friends if I be a dead man as you say.' And he smiled at her bewilderment when he had added: 'I am your bulwark and your safeguard.'
... 'For, listen to me,' he took up again his parable. 'Whilst I be here I bear the rancour of your friends' hatred. When I am gone you shall inherit it.'
'Sir,' she said, 'I am not here to hear riddles, but here I am to pray you seek the right.'
'Wench,' he said pleasantly, 'there are in this world many rights—you have yours; I mine. But mine can never be yours nor yours mine. I am not yet so dead as ye say; but if I be dead, I wish you so well that I will send you a phial of poison ere I send to take you to the stake. For it is certain that if you have not my head I shall have yours.'
She looked at him seriously, though the tears ran down her cheeks.