The bond betwixt Henry and his subjects, which had lasted thirty-eight years, and had survived such strain as has rarely been put on the loyalty of any people, was now to be broken by death. The King was able to make his usual progress in August and September, 1546; from Westminster he went to Hampton Court, thence to Oatlands, Woking and Guildford, and from Guildford to Chobham and Windsor, where he spent the month of October. Early in November he came up to London, staying first at Whitehall and then at Ely Place. From Ely Place he returned, on the 3rd of January, 1547, to Whitehall, which he was never to leave alive.[1155] He is said to have become so unwieldy that he could neither walk nor stand, and mechanical contrivances were used at Windsor and his other palaces for moving the royal person from room to room. His days were numbered and finished, and every one thought of the morrow. A child of nine would reign, but who should rule? Hertford or Norfolk? The party of reform or that of reaction? Henry had apparently decided that neither should dominate the other, and designed a balance of parties in the council he named for his child-successor.[1156] [Footnote 1155: This itinerary is worked out from the _Acts of the Privy Council_, ed. Dasent, vol. i.] [Footnote 1156: This is the usual view, but it is a somewhat doubtful inference. Henry's one object was the maintenance of order and his own power; he would never have set himself against the nation as a whole, and there are indications that at the end of his reign he was preparing to accept the necessity of further changes. The fall of the Howards was due to the fear that they would cause trouble in the coming minority of Edward VI. Few details are known of the party struggle in the Council in the autumn of 1546, and they come from Selve's _Correspondance_ and the new volume (1904) of the _Spanish Calendar_ (1545-47). These should be compared with Foxe, vol. v.]