All this was well known to the Duke of Norfolk, and was laid before the king. The commissions were recalled, pardons were granted to the rioters, and the loan was allowed to drop. But Wolsey had to bear all the odium of the unsuccessful attempt, while the king gained all the popularity of abandoning it. Yet Henry VIII. resented the failure, and was angry with Wolsey for exposing him to a rebuff. In spite of his efforts Wolsey was ceasing to be so useful as he had been before, and Henry began to criticise his minister. Brave and resolute as Wolsey was, his labours and disappointments began to tell upon him. Since the failure of the Conference of Calais he had been working not at the development of a policy which he approved, but at the uncongenial task of diminishing the dangers of a policy which he disapproved. The effects of this constant anxiety told upon his health and spirits, and still more upon his temper. He might be as able and as firm as ever, but he no longer had the same confidence in himself. It was perhaps this feeling which led Wolsey to show the king the extremity of his desire to serve him by undertaking the desperate endeavour to wring more money from an exhausted people. Wolsey had done his utmost to satisfy the king; he had accepted without a murmur the burden of popular hatred which the attempt was sure to bring. There is a pathos in his words, reported by an unfriendly hand, addressed to the council: "Because every man layeth the burden from him, I am content to take it on me, and to endure the fume and noise of the people, for my goodwill towards the king, and comfort of you, my lords and other the king's councillors; but the eternal God knoweth all." Nor was it enough that he submitted to the storm; he wished to give the king a further proof of his devotion. Though others might withhold their substance, yet he would not. He offered the king his house at Hampton Court, which he had built as his favourite retreat, and had adorned to suit his taste. It was indeed a royal gift, and Henry had no scruple in accepting it. But the offer seems to show an uneasy desire to draw closer a bond which had been gradually loosened, and renew an intimacy which was perceptibly diminishing.