Cromwell seems to have owed him no good-will, and to have taken no pains to disguise his sentiments. Having the king’s ear, he sent Bonner to supersede him as ambassador in France; and from the letters of that monster (as time-serving then as he was afterwards bloody-minded), and which are all meant to play up to the known tastes or prejudices of his patron, it is plain enough that Gardiner was disliked and distrusted by Cromwell, whom he in his turn was as studious to affront by the insults which he heaped upon this his mean-spirited vassal, and the savage ill-humour with which he resigned to him his office. He returned, however, to England; and as a man changes his latitude, but not his temper, who crosses the seas, Gardiner still continued to be a thorn in Cromwell’s side; and on a comparison of dates, it will be seen that he had scarcely set foot in England before a change began to manifest itself in the counsels of the king, and Cromwell’s influence, even long before he was attainted, to decline. What, indeed, could induce the latter to be instrumental to his recall from France (as Fox implies he was), and thereby to put his enemy in a situation where he could do him more mischief, it is vain at this time of day to inquire; but it seems probable that Gardiner was thought to be playing a game of his own in his master’s service; and to be accommodating the foreign relations of his country to a policy that suited himself, or at least the cause which he had at heart.[303] But in truth it must have been a very difficult matter for a minister of those times to have found the right place for the bishop of Winchester, whose talents were such, that it was alike unsafe to use or to refuse them. The character of this double-edged tool the king had learned to appreciate when it was too late; and on making a fresh will shortly before his death, showed no disposition to meddle with it more, by excluding Gardiner from the number of his executors (for in a former will, which was now cancelled, his name was found amongst them), and on being reminded of the omission by Sir Anthony Browne, he replied, that he had acted advisedly, seeing that “if he were in his testament he would cumber them all.”[304]