An unfortunate event tended still more to strike men’s imaginations. It was reported that the Bishop of Rochester, that prelate so terrible to the reformers and so good to the poor, had narrowly escaped being poisoned by his cook. Seventeen persons were taken ill after eating porridge at the episcopal palace. One of the bishop’s gentlemen died, as well as a poor woman to whom the remains of the food had been given. It was maliciously remarked that the bishop was the only one who frankly opposed the divorce and the royal supremacy. Calumny even aimed at the throne. When Henry heard of this, he resolved to make short work of all such nonsense; he ordered the offence to be deemed as high-treason, and the wretched cook was taken to Smithfield, there to be _boiled to death_.[123] This was a variation of the penalty pronounced upon the evangelicals. Such was the cruel justice of the sixteenth century. [Sidenote: Reginald Pole.] While the universities, parliament, convocation, and the nation appeared to support Henry VIII., one voice was raised against the divorce. It was that of a young man brought up by the king, and that voice moved him deeply. There still remained in England some scions of the house of York, and among them a nephew of that unhappy Warwick whom Henry VII. had cruelly put to death. Warwick had left a sister Margaret, and the king, desirous of appeasing the remorse he suffered on account of the tragical end of that prince, ‘the most innocent of men,’[124] had married her to Sir Richard Pole, a gentleman of her own family. She was left a widow with two daughters and three sons. The youngest, Reginald, became a favorite with Henry VIII., who destined him for the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury. ‘Your kindnesses are such,’ said Pole to him, ‘that a king could grant no more, even to a son.’[125] But Reginald, to whom his mother had told the story of the execution of the unhappy Warwick, had contracted an invincible hatred against the Tudors. Accordingly, in despite of certain evangelical tendencies, Pole, seeing Henry separating from the pope, resolved to throw himself into the arms of the pontiff. Reginald, invested with the Roman purple, rose to be president of the council and primate of all England under Queen Mary. Elegant in his manners, with a fine intellect, and sincere in his religious convictions, he was selfish, irritable, and ambitious. Desires of elevation and revenge led a noble nature astray. If the branch of which he was the representative was ever to recover the crown, it could only be by the help of the Roman pontiffs. Henceforward their cause was his. Loaded with benefits by Henry VIII., he was incessantly pursued by the recollection of the rights of Rome and of the White Rose; and he went so far as to insult before all Europe the prince who had been his first friend.