before his eyes.'[329] These words of Cromwell were wise. Union in the truth is the great want of all ages. But Henry added his comment. He refused to turn to the right or to the left. He would not himself hold, nor did he intend to permit England to hold, any other doctrine than that prescribed by his own sovereign authority, sword in hand. Cromwell did not fail to let it be known by what method the king meant to bring about this union; he insisted on penalties against all who did not submit to the Bible and against those who put upon it a wrong interpretation. Henry intended to strike right and left with his vigorous lance. To carry out the scheme of union a commission was appointed, the result of which, after two years' labors, was a confused medley of truths and errors.[330] [Sidenote: CROMWELL'S HONORS AND WEALTH.] Strange to say, although Cromwell was now on the brink of an abyss, the king still heaped favors upon him. He was already chancellor of the Exchequer, first secretary of state, vicegerent and vicar-general of England in spiritual affairs, lord privy seal, and knight of the Garter; but he was now to see fresh honors added to all these. The earl of Essex had just died, and a week later died the earl of Oxford, who had been lord chamberlain. Hereupon Henry made Cromwell, 'the blacksmith's son,' whom Norfolk and the other nobles despised so heartily, earl of Essex and lord chamberlain, and had his name placed at the head of the roll of peers. Wealth was no more wanting to him than honors. He received a large portion of the property of the deceased lord Essex; the king conferred on him thirty manors taken from the suppressed monasteries; he owned great estates in eight counties; and he still continued to superintend the business of the crown. We might well ask how it came to pass that such a profusion of favors fell to his lot just at the time when the king was angry with him as the man who had given him Anne of Cleves for a wife; when the imprisonment of Barnes, his friend and confidential agent, greatly compromised him, and when, in addition to these things, Norfolk, Gardiner, and the whole Catholic party were striving to put down this _parvenu_, who offended them and stood in their way. Two answers may be given to this question. Henry was desirous that Cromwell should make a great effort to secure the assent of parliament to bills of a very extraordinary character but very advantageous to the king; and it was his hope that the titles under which Cromwell would appear before the houses would make success easier. Several contemporaries, however, assigned a different cause for these royal favors. 'Some persons now suspect,' wrote Hilles to Bullinger, 'that this was all an artifice, to make people conclude that he [Cromwell] must have been a most wicked traitor, and guilty of treason in every possible way; or else the king would never have executed one who was so dear to him, as was made manifest by the