The king was now dangerously ill, but he showed no signs of tenderness. People said that he had never hated nor ruined any one by halves; and he was determined, after the death of the eldest son, to sacrifice the father. Norfolk was very much surprised to find himself a prisoner in the Tower, to which he had consigned so many prisoners. He wrote to the lords to let him have some books, for he said that unless he could read he fell asleep. He asked also for a confessor, as he was desirous of receiving his Creator; and for permission to hear mass and to walk outside his apartment in the daytime. At the age of seventy-three, after having taken the lead in the most cruel measures of the reign of Henry VIII., from the death of Anne Boleyn to the death of Anne Askew, he now found that the day of terror was approaching for himself. His heart was agitated and fear chilled him. He knew the king too well to have any hope that the great and numerous services which he had rendered to him would avail to arrest the sword already suspended over his head. Meanwhile the prospect of death alarmed him; and in his distress he wrote from his prison in the Tower to his royal master:--'Most gracious and merciful sovereign lord, I, your most humble subject, prostrate at your foot, do most humbly beseech you to be my good and gracious lord.... In all my life I never thought one untrue thought against you or your succession, nor can no more judge or cast in my mind what should be laid to my charge than the child that was born this night.... I know not that I have offended any man... unless it were such as are angry with me for being quick against such as have been accused for sacramentaries.' And fancying that he detected the secret motive of his trial, he added: 'Let me recover your gracious favor, with taking of me all the lands and goods I have, or as much thereof as pleaseth your Highness.'[473]