[157] Baudkyn, cloth made partly of silk and partly of gold. Derived from Baldacca, an Oriental name for Babylon, being brought from thence.—“Baldekinum—pannus omnium ditissimus, cujus, utpote stamen ex filio auri, subtegmen ex serico texitur, plumario opere intertextus.” Ducange Glossar. in voce. It sometimes is used for a canopy or cloth of state.
[158] The name of Cardinal Wolsey’s fool is said to have been “Master Williams, otherwise called Patch.” An inquiry into this very curious feature in the domestic manners of the great in ancient times could not fail to be very interesting. Mr. Douce has glanced at the subject in his Illustrations of Shakspeare; and gave his friends reason to hope for a more enlarged inquiry at a future period: it would afford me real pleasure to hear that his intentions were not finally abandoned.
[159] The Bishop of Bayonne, who paid him a visit of commiseration at this period, gives the following affecting picture of his distress, in a most interesting letter which will be found in the Appendix; he says: “J’ay esté voir le Cardinal en ses ennuis, où que j’y ay trouvé le plus grand example de fortune qu’ on ne sçauroit voir, il m’a remonstré son cas en la plus mauvaise rhétorique que je vis jamais, car cueur et parolle luy falloient entièrement; il a bien pleuré et prié que le Roy et Madame voulsissent avoir pitié du luy—mais il m’a à la fin laissé sans me povoir dire austre chose qui vallist mieux que son visage; qui est bien dechue de la moitié de juste pris. Et vous promets, Monseigneur, que sa fortune est telle que ses ennemis, encores qu’ils soyent Anglois, ne se sçauroyent garder d’en avoir pitié, ce nonobstant ne le laisseront de le poursuivre jusques au bout.” He represents him as willing to give up every thing, even the shirt from his back, and to live in a hermitage if the king would desist from his displeasure.
[160] Dr. Wordsworth’s edition and the later manuscripts read: “which had bine a strange sight in him afore;” but this can hardly be right? The splendour of Cromwell’s subsequent fortunes, their tragical close, and the prominent figure he makes in the events of this reign, which are among the most important of modern history, gives this circumstantial account a great degree of interest. His father was a blacksmith at Putney, the son was first an agent to an English factory at Antwerp, then a trooper in the Duke of Bourbon’s army, and was present at the sacking of Rome. It appears that he assisted Mr. Russell (afterwards Earl of Bedford), in making his escape from the French at Bologna, and it is probably to this circumstance that he owed the friendly offices of that gentleman at a subsequent period. After passing some time in the counting-house of a Venetian merchant, he returned to England and studied the law. Wolsey, it appears, first met with him in France, and soon made him his principal agent in the dissolution of monasteries and the foundation of his colleges. It was a trust which he discharged with ability, and is said to have enriched himself; yet he here complains that he “never had any promotion at the cardinal’s hands to the increase of his living.” And he tells the cardinal in his troubles, that “the soliciting his cause hath been very chargeable to him, and he cannot sustain it any longer without other respect than he hath had heretofore.” He says, “I am a thousand pounds worse than I was when your troubles began.” And after announcing the king’s determination to dissolve the cardinal’s colleges, he says: “I intreat your grace to be content, and let your prince execute his pleasure.”
Cardinal Pole relates that he openly professed to him his Machiavelian principles; he had learned, he said, “that vice and virtue were but names, fit indeed to amuse the leisure of the learned in their colleges, but pernicious to the man who seeks to rise in the courts of princes. The great art of the politician was, in his judgment, to penetrate through the disguise which sovereigns are accustomed to throw over their real inclinations, and to devise the most specious expedients by which they may gratify their appetites without appearing to outrage morality or religion.” He shared largely in the public odium in which the cardinal was held, and Pole, who was then in London, says that the people loudly clamoured for his punishment.
[161] The day after it appears Cromwell was at court, and sought an audience from the king, which was granted him; Cardinal Pole, who had the account from Cromwell himself and others who were present, relates that upon this occasion Cromwell suggested to the king a mode of overcoming the difficulty of the pope’s opposition to the divorce, by taking the authority into his own hands, and declaring himself head of the church within his own realm. The king gave ear to the proposition, and was so well pleased with Cromwell, that he thanked him, and admitted him to the dignity of a privy counsellor. This was the first step; to carry into effect this project his assistance was deemed necessary, and he arrived at length to the highest honours of the state; but at last became the victim of his own Machiavelian intrigues, and the vindictive spirit of the monarch. It has been doubted whether Cromwell deserves the credit of attachment to his fallen master to the whole extent which some writers have supposed. It is evident, from the very interesting conversation above, that he despaired of ever seeing Wolsey reinstated in his fortunes, and he was too subtle in his policy to have endeavoured to swim against the stream of court favour. That the cardinal suspected his fidelity to his cause is evident from fragments of two letters published by Fiddes among Mr. Master’s collections, in one of which Cromwell says: “I am informed your grace hath me in some diffidence, as if I did dissemble with you, or procure any thing contrary to your profit and honour. I much muse that your grace should so think or suspect it secretly, considering the pains I have taken, &c. Wherefore I beseech you to speak without faining, if you have such conceit, that I may clear myself; I reckoned that your grace would have written plainly unto me of such thing, rather than secretly to have misrepresented me. But I shall bear your grace no less good will. Let God judge between us! Truly your grace in some things overshooteth yourself; there is regard to be given to what things you utter, and to whom.”
The cardinal, in answer to this, protests: “that he suspects him not, and that may appear by his deeds, so that he useth no man’s help nor counsel but his. Complaint indeed hath been made to him, that Cromwell hath not done him so good offices as he might concerning his colleges and archbishoprick; but he hath not believed them; yet he hath asked of their common friends how Cromwell hath behaved himself towards him; and to his great comfort hath found him faithful. Wherefore he beseecheth him, with weeping tears, to continue stedfast, and give no credit to the false suggestions of such as would sow variance between them, and so leave him destitute of all help.”
But the testimony of Cavendish in his favour is conclusive; he says that, by reason of “his honest behaviour in his master’s cause, he grew into such estimation in every man’s opinion, that he was esteemed to be the most faithfullest servant to his master of all other, wherein he was of all men greatly commended.”
[162] In prease, i. e. the press or crowd.
[163] A writer before cited (Dr. Pegge), is of opinion that the House of Commons could not do otherwise than acquit him, notwithstanding the validity of several of the articles alleged against him, because he had either suffered the law for them already, or they were not sufficiently proved: indeed some of them were not proper grounds of censure.