as true;[698] and he seems also to
have sought the mediation of Charles V. But Agostini further declared
that Wolsey had written to Clement, urging him to excommunicate Henry
and raise an insurrection, by which the Cardinal might recover his
power.[699] By Pontefract, Doncaster, Nottingham, with feeble (p. 248)
steps and slow, the once-proud prelate, broken in spirit and shattered
in health, returned to meet his doom. His gaol was to be the cell in
the Tower, which had served for the Duke of Buckingham.[700] But a
kindlier fate than a traitor's death was in store. "I am come," he
said to the monks of Leicester Abbey, "I am come to leave my bones
among you." He died there at eight o'clock on St. Andrew's morning,
and there, on the following day, he was simply and quietly buried.
"If," he exclaimed in his last hour, "I had served God as diligently
as I have done the King, He would not have given me over in my grey
hairs." That cry, wrung from Wolsey, echoed throughout the Tudor
times.[701] Men paid _le nouveau Messie_ a devotion they owed to the
old; they rendered unto Caesar the things that were God's. They reaped
their reward in riches and pomp and power, but they won no peace of
mind. The favour of princes is fickle, and "the wrath of the King is
death". So thought Wolsey and Warham and Norfolk. "Is that all?" said
More, with prophetic soul, to Norfolk; "then in good faith between
your grace and me is but this, that I shall die to-day and you shall
die to-morrow."[702]

[Footnote 698: _Ibid._, iv., 6018, 6199, 6273,
6738.]

[Footnote 699: De Vaux writes on 8th November,
1530, to Montmorenci, that the King had told him
"where and how" Wolsey had intrigued against him,
but he does not repeat the information (_ibid._,
iv., 6720), though Bryan's remark (_ibid._, iv.,
6733) that "De Vaux has done well in disclosing the
misdemeanour of the Cardinal" suggests that De Vaux
knew more than he says.]

[Footnote 700: So Chapuys reports (iv., 6738); that
Wolsey had used Agostini to sound Chapuys is
obvious from the latter's remark, "were the
physician to say all that passed between us, he
could not do anything to impugn me".]