Now
Norfolk was safe under bolts and bars, whilst Wriothesley and Paulet were
openly insulted by Hertford and Dudley, and, like their chief Gardiner,
lay low in fear of what was to come when the King died.[262] They were
soon to learn. The King had been growing worse daily during January. His
legs, covered with running ulcers, were useless to him and in terrible
torture. His bulk was so unwieldy that mechanical means had to be employed
to lift him. Surrey had been done to death in the Tower for high treason,
whilst yet the King's stiffened hand could sign the death-warrant; but
when the time came for killing Norfolk, Henry was too far gone to place
his signature to the fatal paper. Wriothesley, always ready to oblige the
strong, produced a commission, stated to be authorised by the King,
empowering him as Chancellor to sign for him, which he did upon the
warrant ordering the death of Norfolk, whose head was to fall on the
following morning. But it was too late, for on the morrow before the hour
fixed for the execution the soul of King Henry had gone to its account,
and none dared carry out the vicarious command to sacrifice the proudest
noble in the realm for the convenience of the political party for the
moment predominant.

On the afternoon of 26th January 1547 the end of the King was seen to be
approaching. The events of Henry's deathbed have been told with so much
religious passion on both sides that it is somewhat difficult to arrive at
the truth. Between the soul in despair and mortal anguish, as described by
Rivadeneyra, and the devout Protestant deathbed portrayed by some of the
ardent religious reformers, there is a world of difference. The accepted
English version says that, fearing the dying man's anger, none of the
courtiers dared to tell him of his coming dissolution, until his old
friend Sir Anthony Denny, leaning over him, gently broke the news. Henry
was calm and resigned, and when asked if he wished to see a priest, he
answered: "Only Cranmer, and him not yet." It was to be never, for Henry
was speechless and sightless when the Primate came, and the King could
answer only by a pressure of his numbed fingers the question if he died in
the faith of Christ. Another contemporary, whom I have several times
quoted, though always with some reservation, says that Henry, some days
before he died, took a tender farewell of the Princess Mary, to whose
motherly care he commended her young brother; and that he then s