"Well, sir," said Wolsey, "you may go. Go with him, secretary; and see that he be well tended, but allowed to have speech of no one."
The priest and the secretary withdrew in silence; and no sooner were they gone, than, abandoning his kingly dignity, Henry started from his seat, and strode up and down the room in one of those fits of passion which, even then, would sometimes take possession of him. At length, stopping opposite Wolsey, who stood up the moment the king rose, he struck the table with his clenched hand. "He shall die!" cried he; "by heaven, he shall die! Let him be attached, my Wolsey."
"My sergeant-at-arms is with me, your grace," replied the cardinal, "and shall instantly execute your royal will. Better arrest him directly, lest he fear and take flight."
"Whom mean you?" cried the king. "Ha! I say attach Edward Bohun, Duke of Buckingham."
"In regard to the Duke of Buckingham, my liege," replied Wolsey, less readily than he had before spoken, "will you take into your royal consideration whether it may not be better to suffer him to proceed a while with his treasonous schemes? for I question if the evidence we have at present against him would condemn him with the peers."
"But he is a traitor," cried Henry; "an evident traitor; and, by my faith! shall suffer a traitor's death."
"Most assuredly he is a black and heinous traitor," answered Wolsey. "And yet your grace will think what a triumph it would be for him if his peers should pronounce him innocent. He has store of friends among them. Far better let him proceed yet a while, and, with our eyes upon him, watch every turn of his dark plot, and seize him in the midst, when we shall have such proof that even his kindred must, for very shame, pronounce his guilt. In the mean time, I will ensure that he be so strictly guarded that he shall have power to do no evil."
"You are right, my Wolsey; you are right!" cried the king, seating himself, and laying his hand upon the papers; "let it be conducted as you say. But see that he escape not, for his ingratitude adds another shade to what is black itself. As to this Sir Osborne Maurice, 'tis a noble spirit perverted by that villain Buckingham. I have seen and watched the seeds of many virtues in him."
"It must be painful, then, for your grace to command his arrest," said Wolsey; "and yet he is so near your royal person, and his treason is so manifest, that the very love of your subjects requires that he should suffer death."
"And yet," replied Henry, fixing his eye upon the cardinal, and speaking emphatically; "and yet, even now I feel the warm blood of the English kings flowing lightly in my veins, which but for him would have been cold and motionless: and shall I take his life that has saved mine? No, Wolsey, no! It must not be! He has been misled, but is not wicked."