end of the conspiracy formed against the king's Protestant wife by Wriothesley, Gardiner, and their friends. Henry then rejoined the queen. His features still reflected his excitement and anger; but as he approached her he tried to assume an air of serenity. She had not clearly understood what was the subject of conversation between the king and the chancellor; but the king's words had startled her. She received him gracefully and sought to excuse Wriothesley, saying: 'Albeit I know not what just cause your majesty has at this time to be offended with him, yet I think that ignorance, not will, was the cause of his error; and so I beseech your majesty (if the cause be not very heinous), at my humble suit to take it.' 'Ah, poor soul!' said the king, 'thou little knowest how evil he deserveth this grace at thy hands.'[463] CHAPTER XI. CLOSE OF THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. (1546-JANUARY, 1547.) [Sidenote: THE NEW COURT.] Weighty consequences followed the miscarriage of the conspiracy formed against the queen. It had been aimed at the queen and the Reformation; but it turned against Roman Catholicism and its leaders. The proverb was again fulfilled,--'Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein.' The wind changed; Romanism suffered an eclipse, it was no longer illumined by the sun of royalty. The first to fall into disgrace with Henry VIII. was, as we have seen, Wriothesley. The king displayed his coolness in various ways. The chancellor, disquieted and alarmed for his own pecuniary interests, was annoyed to see preparations for establishing a new Court of Augmentations, by which his privileges and emoluments would be lessened. He earnestly entreated the king that it might not be established in his time. 'I shall have cause,' he wrote, on October 16, 'to be sorry in my heart during my life, if the favor of my gracious master shall so fail, that partly in respect of his poor servant he do not somewhat of his clemency temper it. Thus I make an end, praying God long to preserve his Majesty.'[464] In spite of all his efforts, he lost the royal favor, and the new court which he so much dreaded was erected.