Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/276

256 unequal, without trespassing on his subjects' purses; and the conservative faction in the council took advantage of his ill humour to whisper that the fault was in the carelessness, the waste, and the corruption of the privy seal. Cromwell knew it well. He required, probably, no information that his enemies would spare no means, fair or foul, for his destruction. But their plots and proceedings had been related to him two years before by his friend Allen, the Irish Master of the Rolls, in a report of expressions which had been used by George Paulet, brother of the lord treasurer, and one of the English Commissioners at Dublin. Cromwell, it seems, had considered that estates in Ireland forfeited for treason, or non-residence, would be disposed of better if granted freely to such families as had remained loyal, than if sold for the benefit of the Crown. Speaking of this matter, 'The King,' Paulet said, 'beknaveth Cromwell twice a week, and would sometimes knock him about the pate. He draws every day towards his death, and escaped very hardly at the last insurrection. He is the greatest briber in England, and that is espied well enough. The King has six times as much revenues as ever any of his noble progenitors had, and all is consumed and gone to nought by means of my lord privy seal, who ravens all that he can get. After all the King's charges to recover this land, he is again the only means to cause him to give away his revenues; and it shall be beaten, into the King's head how his treasure has been needlessly wasted and consumed, and his profits and revenues given away by sinister means.' 'Cromwell,' Paulet added, 'has been so handled and taunted by the council in these matters, as he is weary of them; but I will so work my matter, as the King shall be informed of every penny that he hath spent here; and when that great expence is once in his head, it shall never be forgotten there is one good point. And then I will inform him how he hath given away to one man seven hundred marks by the year. And then will the King swear by God's body, have I spent so much money and now have given away my land? There was never king so deceived by man. I will hit him by means of my friends.'—State Papers, vol. ii. p. 551. It is not clear how much is to be believed of Paulet's story so far as relates to the King's treatment of Cromwell. The words were made a subject of an inquiry before Sir Anthony St Leger; and Paulet meant, it seemed, that the 'beknaving and knocking about the pate' took place in private before no witnesses; so that, if true, it could only have been known by the Two years