nd his colleagues represented to Henry that, although the
Archbishop was spreading heresy, no one dared to give evidence against a
Privy Councillor whilst he was free. The King promised that they might
send Cranmer to the Tower, if on examination of him they found reason to
do so. Late that night Henry sent across the river to Lambeth to summon
the Archbishop from his bed to see him, told him of the accusation, and
his consent that the accused should be judged and, if advisable, committed
to the Tower by his own colleagues on the Council. Cranmer humbly thanked
the King, sure, as he said, that no injustice would be permitted. Henry,
however, knew better, and indignantly said so; giving to his favourite
prelate his ring for a token that summoned the Council to the royal
presence.

The next morning early Cranmer was summoned to the Council, and was kept
long waiting in an ante-room amongst suitors and serving-men. Dr. Butts,
Henry's privileged physician, saw this and told the King that the
Archbishop of Canterbury had turned lackey; for he had stood humbly
waiting outside the Council door for an hour. Henry, in a towering rage,
growled, "I shall talk to them by-and-by." When Cranmer was charged with
encouraging heresy he demanded of his colleagues that he should be
confronted with his accusers. They refused him rudely, and told him he
should be sent to the Tower. Then Cranmer's turn came, and he produced the
King's ring, to the dismay of the Council, who, when they tremblingly
faced their irate sovereign, were taken to task with a violence that
promised them ill, if ever they dared to touch again the King's friend.
But though Cranmer was unassailable, the preachers who followed his creed
were not. In the spring of 1546 the persecutions under the Six Articles
commenced afresh, and for a short time the Catholic party in the Council
had much their own way, having frightened Henry into abandoning the
Lutheran connection, in order that the vengeance of the Catholic league
might not fall upon him, when the Emperor had crushed the Schmalkaldic
princes.[257]

Henry's health was visibly failing, and the two factions in his Court knew
that time was short in which to establish the predominance of either at
the critical moment. On the Protestant side were Hertford, Dudley,
Cranmer, and the Queen, and on the other Gardiner, Paget, Paulet, and
Wriothesley; and as Katharine's influence grew with her husband's
increasing infirmity, it b