d letter (see _L. and P._,
XVIII., i., Introd., p. xlix.; pt. ii., Introd., p.
xxxiv.; _Original Letters_, Parker Society, ii.,
614, 627; Dixon, _Church Hist._, vol. ii., chaps,
x., xi.).]

[Footnote 1113: In 1518 (_L. and P._, ii., 4450).]

Disloyalty, meanwhile, was no more extinct than diversity in (p. 402)
religious opinion. Early in 1541 there was a conspiracy under Sir John
Neville, in Lincolnshire, and about the same time there were signs
that the Council itself could not be immediately steadied after the
violent disturbances of the previous year. Pate, the ambassador at the
Emperor's Court, absconded to Rome in fear of arrest, and his uncle,
Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, was for a time in confinement; Sir John
Wallop, Sir Thomas Wyatt, diplomatist and poet, and his secretary, the
witty and cautious Sir John Mason, were sent to the Tower; both
Cromwell's henchmen, Wriothesley and Sadleir, seem to have incurred
suspicion.[1114] Wyatt, Wallop and Mason were soon released, while
Wriothesley and Sadleir regained favour by abjuring their former
opinions; but it was evident that the realisation of arbitrary power
was gradually destroying Henry's better nature. His suspicion was
aroused on the slightest pretext, and his temper was getting worse.
Ill-health contributed not a little to this frame of mind. The ulcer
on his leg caused him such agony that he sometimes went almost black
in the face and speechless from pain.[1115] He was beginning to look
grey and old, and was growing daily more corpulent and unwieldy. He
had, he said, on hearing of Neville's rebellion, an evil people to
rule; he would, he vowed, make them so poor that it would be out of
their power to rebel; and, before he set out for the North to
extinguish the discontent and to arrange a meeting with James V., he
cleared the Tower by sending all its prisoners, including the aged (p. 403)
Countess of Salisbury, to the block.

[Footnote 1114: _L. and P._, xvi., 449, 461, 466,
467, 469, 470, 474, 482, 488, 506, 523, 534, 611,
640, 641; _cf._ the present writer in _D.N.B._, on
Mason and Wriothesley.]

[Footnote 1115: _Ibid._, XIV., ii., 142; xvi., 121,
311, 558, 589, 590; _D.N.B._, xxvi., 89.]

A greater trial than the failure of James to accept