The official politicians of Ireland generally took care to be on good terms with the virtual ruler of England, and to watch for every sign of change in the distribution of royal favours. Cromwell was therefore well bespattered with flattery; but there were murmurs, some at least of which reached his ears. St. Leger the discreet may or may not have glanced obliquely at the Lord Privy Seal when he said of himself that 'he had too long abstained from bribery to begin now.' But his colleague George Paulet was more outspoken, and declared openly that 'the Lord Privy Seal drew every day towards his death, and that he escaped very hardly at the last insurrection, and that he was the greatest briber in England, and that he was espied well enough.' Cromwell had given orders that the Commissioners should not interfere with castles in Lord Butler's possession, and to this Paulet objected, hinting that Butler's head as well as Cromwell's might easily be disposed of. His reading of Henry's character was exactly the same as Wolsey's. 'I will,' he said, 'so work matters that the King shall be informed of every penny that he hath spent here; and when that great expense is once in his head, it shall never be forgotten; there is one good point. And then I will inform him how he hath given away to one man 700 marks by year, and then will the King swear "By God's Body, have I spent so much money and have given away my land." I will find the means to put the matter in the King's head, after that wise as shall be to his displeasure; and yet shall he not know which way it came.' Paulet gave Alen a most amusing description of the fashion in which Henry treated the minister to whom he gave such power. 'The King beknaveth him twice a week and sometimes knocks him well about the pate; and yet when he hath been well pommelled about the head, and shaken up as it were a dog, he will come out into the great chamber shaking of his bush with as merry a countenance as though he might rule all the roast.' The appointment of the High Commissioners was a 'flym flawe to stop the imagination of the King and Council' as to Cromwell's object in promoting great grants to Lord Butler. The suggestion of course is that Cromwell was bribed by Butler, and the fact that Paulet was not punished shows that there were limitations to the minister's power. Paulet said as much, or nearly as much, to Grey as to Alen and Aylmer, and Grey repeated it to the King with some softening of the words. Paulet was evidently hostile to the Butlers; so was Grey, and the fact that they had been on friendly terms was thought evidence of their conspiring in the Geraldine interest.[218] [Sidenote: Charges against Grey. Circuit of the Council in the South, 1539.]