so strong was the witness that he had gathered against
her that he could not but try his Fate once more--to give the King, as
so often he had done, proof of how diligently his minister fended for
him and how requisite he was, as a man who had eyes in every corner of
this realm.

To do that it was necessary that he should find her cousin; he had all
the others under lock and key already in that palace. But her
cousin--he must come soon or he would come too late!

Privy Seal was a man of immense labours, that carried him to burning
his lamp into hours when all other men in land slept in their beds.
And, at that date, he had a many letters to indite, because the
choosing of burgesses for the Parliament was going forward, and he had
ado in some burghs to make the citizens choose the men that he bade
them have. He gave to each shire and burgh long thought and minute
commands. He knew the mayor of each town, and had note-books telling
him the opinions and deeds of every man that had freedom to elect all
over England. And into each man he had instilled the terror of his
vengeance. This needed anxious labours, and it was the measure of his
concern that he stayed now from this work to meditate a full ten
minutes upon this matter of bringing Thomas Culpepper before the King.

Thus, when, after he had for many hours been busy with his papers,
Lascelles, the gentleman informer of the Archbishop's, came to tell
him that he had seen Thomas Culpepper at Greenwich that dawn and had
followed him to the burning at Smithfield, whence he had hastened to
Hampton, the Lord Privy Seal took from his neck his own golden collar
of knighthood and cast it over Lascelles' neck. In part this was
because he had never before been so glad in his life, and in part
because it was his policy to reward very richly them that did him a
chance service.

'Sir,' he said, 'I grudge that ye be the Archbishop's man and not
mine, so your judgment jumps with mine.'

And indeed Lascelles' judgment had jumped with Privy Seal's. He was
the Archbishop's confidential gentleman; he swayed in many things the
Archbishop's judgments. Yet in this one thing Cranmer had been too
afraid to jump with him.

'To me,' Lascelles said, 'it appeared that the sole thing to be done
was to strike at the esteem of the King for Kat Howard, and the sole
method to strike at her was through her dealings with her cousin.'

'Sir,' Cromwell interrupted him, 'in this ye have hit upon mine