Michael Throgmorton is employed by Cromwell to betray Pole, and betrays his employers.
But I have now to mention a minor drama of treachery winding into the interstices of the larger. When Pole first awoke serious suspicion by being raised to the Cardinalate, Michael, younger brother of Sir George Throgmorton, volunteered to Cromwell to go to Rome, make his way into Pole’s service, and become a spy upon his actions. His offer was accepted. He went, and became Pole’s secretary; but, instead of betraying his master, he betrayed his employers; and to him the “Liber de Unitate Ecclesiæ” was in all probability indebted for the fresh instalment of scandals which were poured into it before publication,[277] and which have furnished material for the Catholic biographers of Henry the Eighth. Throgmorton’s ingenious duplicity enabled him to blind the English government through the spring and summer. He supplied them with reports in a high degree laudatory of the cardinal, affirming entire confidence in the innocency of the legatine mission; and if they were not misled as to Pole’s purposes, they believed in the fidelity of the spy. It was not till the day before leaving Liège that he threw off disguise, and wrote to Cromwell in language which was at last transparent.
Pole will return to Rome, and will publish his book,
Unless the king will submit to the Pope.
The excellent intentions of the legate, he said, having been frustrated by events, and his pure and upright objects having been wickedly misconstrued, he was about to return to Rome. The Pope, whose gracious disposition towards England remained unabated, had issued indulgences through all Christendom for a general supplication that the King’s Grace and the country might return to the Church. These would be naturally followed by a rehearsal of the king’s actions, and accompanied by censures. It was likely, in addition, that, on Pole’s return to Rome, his Holiness would request his consent that his book should be set in print, “as it will be hard for him to deny, for the great confidence they have therein.” “Hereof,” Throgmorton concluded, “I have thought it necessary to advertise you, considering the short departure of the legate, upon whose return, as you see, hangs both the divulgating of the censures, the putting forth of his book, and the sending also of new ambassadors to all Christian princes. I suppose you have a great desire for a true knowledge of his mind and acts in this legacy. It makes many men marvel to see the King’s Grace so bent to his ruin, rather than to take some way to reconcile him. Your lordship may best think what is best to be done.”[278]
Cromwell’s answer to this communication, though long, will not be thought too long by those who desire to comprehend the passions of the time, and with the time the mind of its ruling spirit.
Cromwell replies. He had thought that the king’s goodness might have softened Pole,
Or at least have commanded the fidelity of Throgmorton.
“I thought,” was the abrupt commencement,[279] “that the singular goodness of the King’s Highness shewed unto you, and the great and singular clemency shewed unto that detestable traitor your master, in promising him not only forgiveness, but also forgetting of his most shameful ingratitude, unnaturalness, conspiracy against his honour, of whom he hath received no more, but even as much, and all that he hath—I thought, I say, that either this princely goodness might have brought that desperate rebel from his so sturdy malice, blindness, and pervicacy, or else have encouraged you to be his Highness’s true and faithful subject. But I now remember myself too late. I might better have judged that so dishonest a master could have but even such servants as you are. No, no! loyalty and treason seldom dwell together. There can no faithful servant so long abide the sight of so heinous a traitor to his prince. You could not all this season have been a spy for the king, but at some time your countenance should have declared your heart to be loyal. No! You and your master have both well declared how little fear of God resteth in you, which, led by vain promise of promotion, thus against his laws work treason towards your natural prince and country, to serve an enemy of God, an enemy of all honesty, an enemy of right religion, a defender of iniquity, a merchant and occupier of all deceits.