Henry’s proposal is communicated to the Emperor.
The temptation was so well adjusted to the temperament of Francis that it seemed as if he felt an excuse necessary to explain his declining the combination. The French chancellor told Norfolk that his master was growing old, and that war had lost its charm for him. But, in fact, the proposal was, based upon a blunder for which Cromwell’s despair was probably responsible. Francis, at the moment, was under the influence of the Cardinal of Ferrara, who had come from Rome on a crusading expedition; and, so far from then desiring to quarrel with Charles, he simply communicated to him Henry’s suggestions; while the Queen of Navarre gave a warning to Norfolk that, if the Anglo-German league assumed an organized form, it would be followed by an alliance as close and as menacing between France and the Empire.[556]
The Germans back out also,
Cromwell had again failed; and another and a worse misadventure followed. The German princes, for whose sake the Privy Seal had incurred his present danger, had their own sense of prudence, and were reluctant to quarrel with the Emperor, so long as it was possible to escape. Experience had taught Charles the art of trifling with their credulity, and he flattered them with a hope that from them he would accept a mediation in behalf of the Duke of Cleves, which he had rejected so scornfully when offered by England.
And the foreign policy of Cromwell, as well as the domestic, fails equally.
The Bishop of Chichester is sent to the Tower,
And is almost followed by Tunstall.
Thus was Henry left alone, having been betrayed into an attitude which he was unable to support, and deserted by the allies for whom he had entangled himself in a marriage which he detested. Well might his confidence have been shaken in the minister whose fortune and whose sagacity had failed together. Driven forward by the necessity of success or destruction, Cromwell was, at the same time, precipitating the crisis in England. Gardiner, Tunstall, and Sampson the Bishop of Chichester, were his three chief antagonists. In April Sampson was sent to the Tower, on a charge of having relieved “certain traitorous persons” who had denied the king’s supremacy.[557] The two others, it is likely, would soon have followed: the Bishop of Chichester accused them of having been the cause of his own misconduct, to such extent as he admitted himself to have erred;[558] and although Tunstall equivocated, he at least would not have escaped imprisonment, had the Privy Seal remained in power, if imprisonment had been the limit of his sufferings.[559] To the eyes of the world, the destroyer of the monasteries, the “hammer of the monks,” remained absolute as ever. No cloud, as yet, was visible in the clear sky of his prosperity, when the moment came, he fell suddenly, as if struck by lightning, on the very height and pinnacle of his power. If events had been long working towards the catastrophe, it was none the less abrupt, surprising, unlooked for.
April 12. Parliament meets.
Cromwell opens the session with a speech on unity of opinion.