It is hard to realize how deeply Wolsey felt the seizure of his two colleges. They had been the pride and joy of his declining years. Instead of working earnestly to avert their surrender into the King’s hands, as a true servant would have done, Cromwell permitted and almost welcomed it, as a means to give him a chance to further his own ends, and wrote empty, and, it would seem, almost contemptuous letters of consolation to the Cardinal, of which that of August 18 is an excellent example[166]. Instead of going to his master in his sorrow and disgrace, as Wolsey repeatedly requested him to do, he held himself aloof, and under the pretext of looking after the Cardinal’s interests at Court, contrived for his own rise and advancement. It is true that he stood by Wolsey in the parliamentary crisis in 1529, and that it was largely through his efforts that Wolsey obtained his temporary pardon in February, 1530; but when, at the last, the Cardinal’s enemies turned against him a second time and secured his complete downfall, there is no record of Cromwell’s saying a word or doing a thing in his behalf. On November 29, 1530, Wolsey died, shattered and disgraced. It is very unfortunate that there still exist so few of Cromwell’s letters during the last two years of Wolsey’s life. There are preserved at present only twelve letters from him during this period[167], seven of which are addressed to Wolsey. In none of them does he give evidence of a sincere desire to serve his master at all costs; the dominant note of the greater part of them is one of selfish and rather supercilious advice; of a morality easy and cheap, because the preacher of it evidently felt himself beyond the possibility of its ever being applicable in his own case. There is also very little trustworthy information about the means he employed to introduce himself to the King, except what has already been mentioned in connexion with Wolsey’s fall. Foxe asserts that Sir Christopher Hales, Master of the Rolls, commended him to Henry, and further affirms that Sir John Russell said a good word for him, in return for Cromwell’s saving his life at Bologna, so that the latter was enabled to have a private conversation with the King in Westminster Gardens[168]. Part of this story is obviously false; Cromwell could not have been at Bologna when Sir John Russell was (between 1524 and 1528), because he was occupied in England at that time, as his correspondence shows. To judge from this, little reliance can be placed on the rest of Foxe’s tale; and there are no contemporary documents that bear out his statements. Another story, which is perhaps more probable, is that of Chapuys[169], who states that at Wolsey’s death Sir John Wallop attacked Cromwell with insults and threats, so that the latter for protection procured an audience with Henry, whom he promised to make the richest king that ever was in England. Henry, it appears, was so struck with this offer, that he immediately made