“Sir,” he exclaimed, “rise, I implore you! My Lord of Northumberland comes to arrest me! If he has a commission, and you are with him for that purpose, you will be pleased to let me see it.”
“My lord,” answered Walsh, “if it please your grace, it is true that I have one; but we cannot permit you to see it. They have added to the paper on which it is written some instructions that we are bound not to make known.”
“Then,” cried Wolsey, melting into tears, “all is over with me! They deprive me even of the means of defending myself, and my cruel enemies behold all their schemes accomplished. It is well, sir,” continued the archbishop, turning his back on the Earl of Northumberland; “I consent to surrender myself to you, but not to my Lord of Northumberland, who comes here only to enjoy my discomfiture. As to you, I know you; your name is Walsh, and you are one of the officers of the king, my master. Therefore I do not demand your commission; his will is sufficient. I am perfectly aware that the greatest peer in the realm is liable to be arrested by the lowest subject, if such be his majesty’s good pleasure. This is why I shall obey you without delay. Begin, then, to put your orders into execution. If I had known them, I would have assisted you myself; but, at least, I submit.”
Saying this, the archbishop seated himself in silence; but the tears continued to flow rapidly down his cheeks.
Meanwhile, Lord Percy felt so deeply wounded by the suspicion manifested by the archbishop, and his believing him to be actuated by a principle of low revenge and cruelty in coming to arrest him, that he was about to withdraw without offering him a solitary word of consolation, as he had intended; but a sudden feeling of compassion induced him to return and take a seat by his side.
Wolsey was deeply moved by this.
“My lord,” he exclaimed, “I swear before God I am innocent of all the crimes my enemies impute to me, beyond doubt, for the purpose of securing my death!
I have committed many errors, I know; but it has been against God and against myself that I have committed them, and not against my king, whom I have always served with an inviolable fidelity. I have possessed great riches; but I employed them in founding great and useful establishments. I have held correspondence with foreign princes, and have acquired great influence in their councils, but I have always used it in the interests of my king and the state. And now he has abandoned me to the malice of my enemies, and does not hesitate an instant to believe all the calumnies they have heaped upon my head! No, I shall indulge in vain illusions no longer. I go now to my death; and it is my king who strikes the fatal blow! Ah!” continued Wolsey, transported by his feelings, “would I might appear before him, that I might justify myself in the face of heaven and earth! Then I should fear no man living under the sun. But, no; it will not be thus. I shall die without vindication, in the depths of some obscure prison, some noisome dungeon! Not a friend has remained faithful; not a single voice has been raised in my defence!”
“Friendship,” replied Northumberland, “is but a vain word, a beautiful sound that dissolves in the air, a shifting sand requiring the one who reposes on it always to remain on his guard, to beware; for one-half of the world is too frivolous and the other half too selfish for any confidence ever to be placed in them.”
“Therefore you yourself feel no compassion for me?” said Wolsey, looking at him.