after to dance with them, and so to have of them acquaintance. And, Sir, they furthermore require of your Grace license to accomplish the cause of their repair.' To whom the Cardinal answered, that he was very well contented that they should do So. Then the maskers went first and saluted all the dames as they sat, and then returned to the most worthiest, and there opened a cup full of gold, with crowns and other pieces of coin, to whom they set divers pieces to cast at. Thus in this manner perusing all the ladies and gentlewomen, and to some they lost, and of some they won. And this done, they returned unto the Cardinal, with great reverence, pouring down all the crowns into the cup, which was about two hundred crowns. 'At all,' quoth the Cardinal, and so cast the dice, and won them all at a cast; whereat was great joy made. Then quoth the Cardinal to my Lord Chamberlain, 'I pray you,' quoth he, 'show them that it seemeth me that there should be among them some noble man, whom I suppose to be much more worthy of honour to sit and occupy this room and place than I; to whom I would most gladly, if I knew him, surrender my place, according to my duty.' Then spake my Lord Chamberlain unto them in French, declaring my Lord Cardinal's mind, and they rounding him again in the ear, my Lord Chamberlain said to my Lord Cardinal, 'Sir, they confess,' quoth he, 'that among them there is such a noble personage, whom, if your Grace can appoint him from the other, he is contented to disclose himself, and to accept your place most worthily.' With that the Cardinal, taking a good advisement among them, at the last, quoth he, 'me seemeth the gentleman with the black beard should be even he.' And with that be arose out of his chair, and offered the same to the gentleman in the black beard, with his cap in his hand. The person to whom he offered then his chair was Sir Edward Neville, a comely knight of a goodly personage*, that much more resembled the King's person in that mask than any other. The King, hearing and perceiving the Cardinal so deceived in his estimation and choice, could not forbear

* Probably a handsomer figure than the King. This (though not the subtlest imaginable) would be likely to be among Wolsey's court-tricks, and modes of gaining favour.

laughing; but plucked down his visor, and Master Neville's also, and dashed* out with such a pleasant countenance and cheer, that all noble estates there assembled, seeing the King to be there amongst them, rejoiced very much. The Cardinal eftsoons desired his highness to take the place of estate, to whom the King answered, that he would go first and shift his apparel; and so departed, and went straight into my lord's bedchamber, where was a great fire made and prepared for him; and there new apparelled him with rich and princely garments. And in the time of the King's absence, the dishes of the banquet were clean taken up, and the tables spread again with new and sweet perfumed clothes; every man sitting still until the King and his maskers came in among them again, every man being newly apparelled. Then the King took his seat under the cloth of state, commanding no man to remove, but sit still, as they did before. Then in came a new banquet before the king's majesty, and to all the rest through the tables, wherein, I suppose, were served two hundred dishes or above, of wondrous costly meats and devices, subtilly devised. Thus passed they forth the whole night with banqueting, dancing, and other triumphant devices, to the great comfort of the King, and pleasant regard of the nobility there assembled.

"All this matter I have declared at large, because ye shall understand what joy and delight the Cardinal had to see his Prince and sovereign Lord in his house so nobly entertained and pleased, which was always his only study, to devise things to his comfort, not passing of the charges or expenses. It delighted him so much, to have the King's pleasant princely presence, that nothing was to him more delectable than to cheer his sovereign lord, to whom he owed so much obedience and loyalty, as reason required no less, all things well considered.

"Thus passed the Cardinal his life and time, from day to day, and year to year, in such great wealth, joy, and triumph, and glory, having always on his side the King's especial favour; until Fortune, of whose favour no man is longer assured than

* This "dashed out" is in the best style of bluff King Hal, and capitally well said by Cavendish.

she is disposed, began to wax something wroth with his prosperous estate, [and] thought she would devise a mean to abate his high port; wherefore she procured Venus, the insatiate Goddess, to be her instrument. To work her purpose, she brought the King in love with a gentlewoman, that, after she perceived and felt the King's goodwill towards her, and how diligent he was both to please her, and to grant all her requests, she wrought the Cardinal much displeasure; as hereafter shall be more at large declared."

Pretty Anne Bullen completed the ruin of Wolsey for having thwarted her, and not long afterwards was sent out of this very house from which she ousted him, to the scaffold, herself ruined by another rival. On the Cardinal's downfall, Henry seized his house and goods, and converted York Place into a royal residence, under the title of Westminster Place, then, for the first time, called also Whitehall.

ii.

"It is not impossible," says Mr. Brayley (Londiniana, vol. p. 27.) "that the Whitehall, properly so called, was erected by Wolsey, and obtained its name from the newness and freshness of its appearance, when compared with the ancient buildings of York Place. Shakspeare, in his play of King Henry VIII., makes one of the interlocutors say, in describing the coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn

'So she parted,

And with the same full state paced back again
To York Place, where the feast is held.'

To this is replied,

Sir, you

Must no more call it York Place, that is past.
For since the Cardinal fell, that title's lost :
'Tis now the King's, and called Whitehall.'"

It is curious to observe the links between ancient names and their modern representatives, and the extraordinary contrast sometimes exhibited between the two.

The

"Judge," who by Henry's orders went to turn Wolsey out of his house, without any other form of law,-a proceeding which excited even the fallen slave to a remonstrance, was named Shelly, and was one of the ancestors of the poet! the most independent-minded and generous of

238

CHAP. XI.

Henry the Eighth. His Person and Character. - Modern Qualifications of it considered. - Passages respecting him from Lingard, Sir Thomas Wyat, and others. His Additions to Whitehall. A Retrospect at Elizabeth. Court of James resumed. Its gross Habits. - Letter of Sir John Harrington respecting them.-James's Drunkenness. Testimonies of Welldon, Sully, and Roger Coke. - Curious Omission in the Invective of Churchill the Poet. Welldon's Portrait of James. Buckingham, the Favourite. - Frightful Story of Somerset. Masques.- Banqueting House. Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson: Court of Charles the First. Cromwell. Charles the Second. James the Second.

W

E have said more about Wolsey than we intend to say of Henry the Eighth; for the son of the butcher was a great man, and his master was only a king. Henry, born a prince, became a butcher; Wolsey, a butcher, became a prince. And we are not playing upon the word as applied to the king; for Henry was not only a butcher of his wives, he resembled a brother of the trade in its better and more ordinary course. His pleasures were of the same order; his language was coarse and jovial; he had the very straddle of a fat butcher, as he stands in his doorway. Take any picture or statue of Henry the Eighth, fancy its cap off, and a knife in its girdle, and it seems in the very act of saying "What d'ye buy? What d'ye buy?" There is even the petty complacency in the mouth, after the phrase is uttered.

And how formidable is that petty unfeeling mouth, in the midst of those wide and wilful cheeks! Disturb the self-satisfaction of that man, derange his bile for an