had, in fact, brought about the marriage, kept aloof from her. She sent expressly to Cromwell, and repeatedly, but in vain; he refused to see her, for he know that he stood on the edge of a precipice already; that he had deeply offended the choleric monarch by promoting this match; and that he was surrounded by spies and enemies, who were watching for occasion for his ruin. There is no doubt whatever that his ruin was already determined, but Cromwell was an unhesitating tool of the quality which Henry needed; for it was just at this time that Henry executed the relatives of Cardinal Pole, and probably it was an object of his to load that minister with as much of the odium of that measure as he could before he cast him down. Cromwell still, then, apparently retained the full favour of the king, notwithstanding this unfortunate marriage, but the conduct of his friends precipitated his fate.
Bishop Gardiner, a bigoted Papist, and one who saw the signs of the times as quickly as any man living, did not hear Henry's scruples about a Lutheran wife with unheeding ears. On the 14th of February, 1540, he preached a sermon at St. Paul's Cross, in which he unsparingly denounced as a damnable doctrine the Lutheran tenet of justification by faith without works. Dr. Barnes, a dependant of Cromwell's, but clearly a most imprudent one, on the 28th of February, just a fortnight afterwards, mounted the same pulpit, and made a violent attack on Gardiner and his creed. Barnes could never have intimated to Cromwell his intention to make this assault on a creed which was as much the king's as Gardiner's, or he would have shown him the fatality of it. But Barnes, like a rash and un-reflecting zealot, not only attacked Gardiner's sermon, but got quite excited, and declared that he himself was a fighting-cock, and Gardiner was another fighting-cock, but that the garden-cock lacked good spurs. As was inevitable, Henry, who never let slip an opportunity to champion his own religious views, summoned Barnes forthwith before a commission of divines, compelled him to recant his opinion, and ordered him to preach another sermon, in the same place, on the first Sunday after Easter, and there to read his recantation, and beg pardon of Gardiner. Barnes obeyed. He read his recantation, publicly asked pardon of Gardiner, and then, getting warm in his sermon, reiterated in stronger terms than ever the very doctrine he had recanted.
Old Richmond Palace. (From a print in the British Museum.)
The man must have made up his mind to punishment for his religious faith, for no such daring conduct was ever tolerated for a moment by Henry. He threw the offender into the Tower, together with Garret and Jerome, two preachers of the same belief, who followed his example.
The enemies of Cromwell rejoiced in this event, believing that his connection with Barnes would not fail to influence the king. So confidently did they entertain this notion, that they already talked of the transfer of his two chief offices, those of vicar-general and keeper of the privy seal, to Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, and Clarke, Bishop of Bath. But the king had not yet come to his own point of action. Cromwell's opponents were, therefore, astonished to see him open Parliament on the 12th of April, as usual, when he announced the king's sorrow and displeasure at the religious dissensions which appeared in the nation, his subjects branding each other with the opprobrious epithets of Papists and heretics, and abusing
