Page:The Queens of England.djvu/331

 ANNE BOLEYN. 291 without reluctance, and more than once betrayed such inde- cision on this point, that it may be surmised he would not have totally cast him off, had not the vast pecuniary advantages cer- tain to accrue to himself by such a measure urged him on. Anne's pertinacity to banish Wolsey never subsided. She watched every symptom of returning pity in Henry, and by re- peating everything disadvantageous -to the cardinal which she could learn, kept up in his mind the displeasure which she had originally excited, until she extorted a promise from the king that he would see Wolsey no more. The bills found against the cardinal for the abuse of his power while in office were, it is said, the result of Anne Boleyn's unceasing efforts to ruin him, and so conscious had the fallen favorite become of this, that he left no means untried to gain her intercession with the king for the mitigation of his punishment. The pity shown by Henry when he learned the dangerous ill- ness of the cardinal, some months after, proves that his heart was not always inaccessible to gentler feelings than those which generally marked his rugged and selfish nature, for he not ojily sent him a ring, in token of his good will, but instructed Anne Boleyn to send with it some mark of hers. The fallen Wolsey would have escaped much humiliation had he then died, for the returning good will and clemency of the king were but of brief duration, and his recovery to something like health was soon followed by his arrest for high treason. It was no slight aggravation to his chagrin, that to the Earl of Northumberland was consigned the warrant for his arrest ; and that nobleman, not forgetting that the cardinal had been instru- mental in destroying the happiness of his life, trembled violently with the agitation of his feelings, and treated Wolsey very ig- nominiously, causing his legs to be bound to the stirrups of his mule, like a common malefactor. It was only at the end of the month's imprisonment, and an acknowledgment of being guilty of praemunire, that Wolsey obtained his liberty, after having, through the medium of Crom- well, humbly but vainly solicited the aid of Anne Boleyn in his favor with the king. What must have been the secret rage of the cardinal at being compelled to sue, and sue in vain, to her whom, however he might have flattered, he in his heart de- spised. Having enriched the royal coffers with his possessions, Henry, as a favor, permitted Wolsey to retire to his see at York with an income of four thousand pounds a year, which to him,