e
loyalty of any people, was now to be broken by death. The King was
able to make his usual progress in August and September, 1546; from
Westminster he went to Hampton Court, thence to Oatlands, Woking and
Guildford, and from Guildford to Chobham and Windsor, where he spent
the month of October. Early in November he came up to London, staying
first at Whitehall and then at Ely Place. From Ely Place he returned,
on the 3rd of January, 1547, to Whitehall, which he was never to leave
alive.[1155] He is said to have become so unwieldy that he could
neither walk nor stand, and mechanical contrivances were used at
Windsor and his other palaces for moving the royal person from room to
room. His days were numbered and finished, and every one thought of
the morrow. A child of nine would reign, but who should rule? Hertford
or Norfolk? The party of reform or that of reaction? Henry had
apparently decided that neither should dominate the other, and
designed a balance of parties in the council he named for his
child-successor.[1156]

[Footnote 1155: This itinerary is worked out from
the _Acts of the Privy Council_, ed. Dasent, vol.
i.]

[Footnote 1156: This is the usual view, but it is a
somewhat doubtful inference. Henry's one object was
the maintenance of order and his own power; he
would never have set himself against the nation as
a whole, and there are indications that at the end
of his reign he was preparing to accept the
necessity of further changes. The fall of the
Howards was due to the fear that they would cause
trouble in the coming minority of Edward VI. Few
details are known of the party struggle in the
Council in the autumn of 1546, and they come from
Selve's _Correspondance_ and the new volume (1904)
of the _Spanish Calendar_ (1545-47). These should
be compared with Foxe, vol. v.]

Suddenly the balance upset. On the 12th of December, 1546, (p. 422)
Norfolk and his son, the Earl of Surrey, were arrested for treason and
sent to the Tower. Endowed with great poetic gifts, Surrey had even
greater defects of character. Nine years before he had been known as
"the most foolish proud boy in Engla