king's companion in pleasures, Wolsey his counsellor in policy; Brandon, favourite to Henry, Wolsey, to the king. Wolsey takes this Buckingham to task, who (otherwise a brave gentleman) was proud and popular; and that tower is easily undermined whose foundation is hollow. His own folly, with Wolsey's malice, overthrew him. Vain-glory ever lieth at an open guard, and giveth much advantage of play to her enemies. The duke is condemned of high treason, though rather cor-rival with the king for his clothes than his crown, being excessively brave in apparel.

The axe that kills Buckingham, frights all others, who turn contesting into complying with our archbishop,-now cardinal, legate a latere, and Lord-Chancellor. All the Judges stood at the bar of his devotion. His displeasure [was] more feared than the king's, whose anger, though violent, was placable; the cardinal's, of less fury, but more malice. Yet, in matters of judicature, he behaved himself commendably: I hear no widows' sighs, nor see orphans' tears, in our chronicles, caused by him. Sure, in such cases, wherein his private ends made him not a party, he was an excellent justiciary, as being too proud to be bribed, and too strong to be overborne.

Next, he aspires to the triple crown; he only wants "Holiness," and must be Pope. Yet was it a great labour for a Tramontane to climb over the Alps to St. Peter's chair; a long leap from York to Rome; and, therefore, he needed to take a good rise. Besides, he used Charles V., emperor, for his staff; gold he gave to the Romish cardinals, and they gave him golden promises; so that, at last, Wolsey perceived, both the emperor and the court of Rome delayed and deluded him.

He is no fox whose den hath but one hole. Wolsey, finding this way stopped, goes another way to work, and falls off to the French king, hoping, by his help, to obtain his desires. However, if he help not himself, he would hinder Charles the emperor's designs; and revenge is a great preferment. Wherefore, covertly he seeks to make a divorce betwixt queen Catherine dowager, the emperor's aunt, and king Henry VIII., his

master.

Queen Catherine's age was above her husband's; her gravity above her age; more pious at her beads, than pleasant in her bed; a better woman than a wife; and a fitter wife for any prince than king Henry. Wolsey, by his instruments, per

• Tramountain was the orthography, in Fuller's days, of "one born on the northern side of the Alps, one not an Italian."-EDIT.

suades the king to put her away, pleading they were so contiguous and near in kindred, they might not be made continuous (one flesh) in marriage, because she before had been wife to prince Arthur, the king's brother. Besides, the king wanted a male heir, which he much desired.

Welcome whisperings are quickly heard. The king embraceth the motion. The matter is entered in the Romish court, but long delayed; the Pope first meaning to divorce most of the gold from England in this tedious suit. But here Wolsey miscarried in the master-piece of his policy. For he hoped, upon the divorce of king Henry from queen Catherine his wife, which with much ado was effected, to advance a marriage betwixt him and the king of France's sister, thinking, with their nuptial ring, to wed the king of France eternally to himself, and mould him for farther designs: whereas, contrary to his expectation, king Henry fell in love with Anna Boleyn, a lady whose beauty exceeded her birth, though honourable; wit, her beauty; piety, all; one for his love, not lust: so that there was no gathering of green fruit from her till marriage had ripened it; whereupon the king took her to wife.

Not long after followed the ruin of the Cardinal, caused by his own viciousness, heightened by the envy of his adversaries. He was caught in a premunire, for procuring to be legate de latere, and advancing the Pope's power against the laws of the realm; and eight other articles were framed against him, for which we report the reader to our chronicles.* The main was his Ego et rex meus,† wherein he remembered his old profession of a schoolmaster, and forgot his present estate of a statesman. But as for some things laid to his charge, his friends plead, that where potent malice is promoter, the accusations shall not want proof, though the proof may want truth. Well: the broad seal was taken from him, and some of his spiritual preferments. Yet was he still left bishop of Winchester, and archbishop of York; so that the king's goodness hitherto might have seemed rather to ease him of burdensome greatness, than to have deprived him of wealth or honour; which whether he did out of love to Wolsey, or fear of the Pope, I interpose no opinion.

Home now went Wolsey into Yorkshire, and lived at his manor of Cawood, where he wanted nothing the heart of man could desire for contentment. But great minds count every place a prison, which is not a king's court; and just it was, that

• Fox's "Acts and Monuments," p. 996.

"I and my king.”—EDIT.

he who would not see his own happiness, should therefore feel his own misery. He provided for his installing archbishopstate, equivalent to a king's coronation; which his ambition revived other of his misdemeanours, and, by command from the king, he was arrested by the earl of Northumberland, and so took his journey up to London. By the way, his soul was racked betwixt different tidings; now hoisted up with hope of pardon, then instantly let down with news of the king's displeasure, till at Leicester his heart was broken with these sudden and contrary motions. The story goes, that he should breathe out his soul with speeches to this effect: "Had I been as careful to serve the God of heaven, as I have to comply with the will of my earthly king, God would not have left me in mine old age, as the other hath done.”

His body swelled after his death, as his mind did whilst he was living; which, with other symptoms, gave the suspicion, that he poisoned himself. It will suffice us to observe, if a great man, much beloved, dieth suddenly, the report goes that others poisoned him if he be generally hated, then, that he poisoned himself. Sure, never did a great man fall with less pity. Some of his own servants, with the feathers they got under him, flew to other masters. Most of the clergy (more pitying his profession than person) were glad, that the felling of this oak would cause the growth of much underwood.

Let geometricians measure the vastness of his mind by the footsteps of his buildings,-Christ-Church, White-Hall, Hampton-Court and no wonder if some of these were not finished, seeing his life was rather broken off than ended! Sure, king Henry lived in two of his houses, and lies now in the third,— I mean, his tomb at Windsor. In a word, in his prime he was the bias of the Christian world, drawing the bowl thereof to what side he pleased.

CHAPTER IV.

THE LIFE OF CHARLES BRANDON, DUKE OF SUFFOLK.

CHARLES BRANDON Was son to sir William Brandon, standard-bearer to king Henry VII., in whose quarrel he was slain in Bosworth-field; wherefore the king counted himself bound in honour and conscience to favour young Charles, whose father spent his last breath to blow him to the haven of victory, and caused him to be brought up with prince Henry, his second

son.

The intimacy betwixt them took deep impression in their tender years, which, hardened with continuance of time, proved indelible. It was advanced by the sympathy of their active spirits, (men of quick and large-striding minds loving to walk together,) not to say, that the looseness of their youthful lives made them the faster friends. Henry, when afterwards king, heaped honours upon him, created him viscount Lisle and duke of Suffolk.

Not long after, some of the English nobility got leave to go to the public tilting in Paris, and there behaved themselves right valiantly; though the sullen French would scarce speak a word in their praise. For they conceived, it would be an eternal impoverishing of the credit of their nation, if the honour of the day should be exported by foreigners. But Brandon bare away the credit from all, fighting at barriers with a giant Almain,* till he made an earthquake in that mountain of flesh, making him reel and stagger; † and many other courses at tilt he performed to admiration. Yea, the lords beheld him not with more envious-than the ladies with gracious eyes, who darted more glances in love, than the other ran spears in anger against him; especially Mary the French queen, and sister to king Henry VIII., who afterwards proved his wife.

For, after the death of Lewis XII. her husband, king Henry her brother employed Charles Brandon to bring her over into England, who improved his service so well that he got her

Almain, a German.-EDIT.

R

† HOLLINSHED, p. 833.

good-will to marry her. Whether his affections were so ambitious to climb up to her, or hers so courteous as to descend to him, (who had been twice a widower before,)* let youthful pens dispute it it sufficeth us, both met together. Then wrote he in humble manner to request king Henry's leave to marry his sister; but, knowing that matters of this nature are never sure till finished, and that leave is sooner got to do such attempts when done already; and wisely considering with himself, that there are but few days in the almanack, wherein such marriages come in, and subjects have opportunity to wed queens, he first married her privately in Paris.†

King Henry, after the acting of some anger, and showing some state-discontent, was quickly contented therewith; yea, the world conceiveth that he "gave this woman to be married to this man," in sending him on such an employment. At Calais they were afterward re-married, or, if you will, their former private marriage publicly solemnized, and, coming into England, lived many years in honour and esteem, no less dear to his fellow-subjects than his sovereign. He was often employed general in martial affairs, especially in the wars betwixt the English and French, though the greatest performance on both sides was but mutual indenting the dominions each of other with inroads.

When the divorce of king Henry from queen Catherine was so long in agitation, Brandon found not himself a little aggrieved at the king's expense of time and money for the court of Rome in such matters, wherein money is gotten by delays, will make no more speed than the beast in Brazil, which the Spaniards call Pigritia, which goes no farther in a fortnight than a man will cast a stone. Yea, Brandon well perceived that cardinal Campeius and Wolsey in their court at Bridewell, wherein the divorce was judicially handled, intended only to produce a solemn nothing, their court being but the clock set according to the dial at Rome, and the instructions received thence. Wherefore, knocking on the table, in the presence of the two cardinals, he bound it with an oath, that "it was never well in England since cardinals had any thing to do therein:" and from that time forward, as an active instrument, he endeavoured the abolishing of the Pope's power in England.

First married to Margaret Nevile, after to Anne daughter to sir Anthony Brown. + HOLLINSHED, p. 836.