[Sidenote: Which he will not receive.] But the Tudor princes were invariably most calm when those around them were panic-stricken. From the moment that the real danger was known, the king's own hand was on the helm--his own voice was heard dictating his orders. Lincolnshire had again become menacing, and Suffolk had written despairing letters; the king told him "not to be frightened at his shadow."[166] The reactionary members of the council had suggested a call of parliament, and a proclamation that if any of the king's subjects could prove the late measures of the government to be against the laws of God or the interests of the commonwealth, these measures should be undone. They had begged, further, that his Highness would invite all persons who had complaints against Cromwell and the bishops to come forward with their proofs, and would give a promise that if the charges could be substantiated, they should be proceeded against and punished.[167] At such a crisis the king refused either to call a parliament to embarrass his hands, or to invite his subjects to argue against his policy. "He dared rather to testify that there never were in any of his predecessors' days so many wholesome, commodious, and beneficial acts made for the commonwealth: for those who were named subverters of God's laws he did take and repute them to be just and true executors of God's laws." If any one could duly prove to the contrary, they should be duly punished. "But in case," he said, "it be but a false and untrue report (as we verily think it is), then it were as meet, and standeth as well with justice, that they should have the self-same punishment which wrongfully hath objected this to them that they should have had if they deserved it."[168] [Sidenote: November 1.] On the 29th of October he was on the point of setting off from London; circulars had gone out to the mayors of the towns informing them of his purpose, and directing them to keep watch and ward night and day,[169] when Norfolk reached the court with the two messengers. [Sidenote: The insurgent emissaries are detained at the court.] [Sidenote: The king writes private letters to the lords and gentlemen.] Henry received them graciously. Instead of sending them back with an immediate answer, he detained them for a fortnight, and in that interval gained them wholly over to himself. With their advice and assistance he sent private letters among the insurgent leaders. To Lord Latimer and the other nobles he represented the dishonour which they had brought upon themselves by serving under Aske; he implored both them and the many other honourable men who had been led away to return to their allegiance, "so as we may not," he said, "be enforced to extend our princely power against you, but with honour, and without further inconvenience, may perform that clemency on which we have determined."[170]