Every one was eagerly watching and listening for the smallest indications of the royal pleasure; and Cavendish was told that Anne Boleyn at dinner with the king showed her dissatisfaction at Wolsey's kindly reception. She denounced the cardinal in no measured terms, but without any immediate result, as after dinner the king called Wolsey into his private room and talked with him for some time; "the which blanked his enemies very sore, and made them to stir the coals, being in doubt what this matter would grow into, having now none other refuge to trust to but Mistress Anne, in whom was all their whole and firm trust and affiance." Wolsey rode off to "Master Empson's house, called Euston, three miles from Grafton," where he spent the night, and received a visit from Gardiner, who was thought to come as a spy; but Wolsey talked to him about indifferent subjects, and showed that his sense of personal dignity was still strong. Next morning he rode early to the Court, and saw the king for a short time; but Anne Boleyn had prepared a picnic at Hatwell Park, and carried off Henry with her, that Wolsey might not have much opportunity for private talk. The king bade a hurried farewell to Wolsey and Campeggio, and then rode away with Anne, while the legates returned to London. Campeggio did not reach Dover till 8th October, and before he was allowed to embark his luggage was ransacked by the king's officials. This extraordinary violation of the privileges of an ambassador was characteristic of the unscrupulous meanness to which Henry was now ready to descend. He hoped to find amongst Campeggio's papers the Pope's decretal about the law of the divorce. If he had found it Wolsey might still have been useful. He might have been compelled to continue the proceedings of the legatine court, and give judgment in Henry's favour, sheltering himself under the terms of the commission, and applying the interpretation of the decretal. In this way the first measures wrung out of the Pope when he wished to be conciliating might have been used in a high-handed fashion against the conclusions of his settled policy. But Campeggio had already been instructed by the Pope to burn the decretal. Nothing was found as the result of the search, which only revealed the cardinal's poverty. He had come to England ill provided, and had gained nothing from the royal bounty. This unworthy device seems to have been of Henry's own devising; and as soon as he heard of its failure Wolsey's doom was sealed. The king had treated him graciously, to the dismay even of Anne Boleyn, a few days before; now he abandoned him to his enemies, who had their weapons of attack in readiness. On 9th October the king's attorney sued for a writ of _præmunire_ against Wolsey, on the ground that his acts done as legate were contrary to the statute. After this Wolsey's ruin was a foregone conclusion. CHAPTER X THE FALL OF WOLSEY 1529-1530