This page has been validated.
290
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 17.
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;[1] 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.[2] 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, unlocked for.
April 12.On the 12th of April, amidst failure abroad and increased discontent at home, Parliament- ↑ The Bishop of Chichester to Cromwell: Strype's Memorials, vol. ii. p. 381.
- ↑ Another instance of Tunstall's underhand dealing had come to light. When he accepted the oath of supremacy, and agreed to the divorce of Queen Catherine, he entered a private protest in the Register Book of Durham, which was afterwards cut out by his chancellor. Christopher Chator, whose curious depositions I have more than once quoted, mentions this piece of evasion, and adds a further feature of some interest. Relating a conversation which he had held with a man called Crave, Chator says, 'We had in communication the Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More attainted of treason. Craye said to me he marvelled that they were put to death for such small trespasses; to whom I answered that their foolish conscience was so to die. Then I shewed him of one Burton, my Lord of Durham's servant, that told me he came to London when the Bishop of Rochester and Thomas More were endangered, and the said More asked Burton, 'Will not thy master come to us and be as we are?' and he said he could not tell. Then said More, 'If he do, no force, for if he live he may do more good than to die with us.''—Rolls House MS. first series.
