Page:Hutton, William Holden - Hampton Court (1897).djvu/107

Rh sorrow for the most faithful and by far the greatest of his ministers, his greedy eagerness for the dead man's money, and the sad hours spent by the faithful Cavendish between Norfolk, Gage, and the lords of the council, cross-questioned and browbeaten about the paltry sum he had left—is truly characteristic of the meanness of the age that was yet so strong. It is a pathetic ending to Wolsey's connection with Hampton Court. The King is transforming it—it is full of his creations, and new monograms and arms on every wall and archway are teaching men to forget who first designed the great house. It is there, in the house he had coveted and at last enjoyed, that the master learns the death of the man who had made the greatness of his reign. "Thus ended the life of the right triumphal Cardinal of England, on whose soul Jesus have mercy!"

"How Henry spent his time at Hampton Court, in hunting and tilting, in playing games and making love, Mr. Ernest Law has most happily set forth in his "History of Hampton Court Palace." And Anne, too, now queen, sat working with her needle when she did not attend the King in the field. But queens were even less abiding than ministers under Henry VIII. In the summer of 1536 the arms of Queen Anne were altered at Hampton Court into the arms of Queen Jane.

In September 1537 the new Queen came there, and "took to her chamber." By this time it would seem the new buildings were finished, and on the east front,