In the meantime came the Cardinal, in the King's great extremity, an apt comforter for a desperate man. He cried in his ear, "Take order, Sire, with your realm: who shall rule during the minority of your daughter? Ye have known my service, what will ye have done? Shall there not be four regents chosen, and shall not I be principal of them?" Whatsoever the King answered, documents were taken that things should be as my Lord Cardinal thought expedient. As many affirm, a dead man's hand was made to subscribe a blank, that they might write above the signature what pleased them best. This finished, the Cardinal posted to the Queen. At the first sight of the Cardinal, she said, "Welcome, my Lord. Is not the King dead?" Divers men are of divers opinions as to what moved her so to conjecture. Many whisper that of old his part was in the pot, and that the suspicion thereof caused him to be inhibited the Queen's company. Howsoever it may have been before, it is plain that, after the King's death, and during the Cardinal's life, whosoever might guide the Court, he got his secret business sped by that gracious lady, either by day or by night. Whether the tidings liked her or not, she mended with as great expedition of that daughter as ever she did before of any son she bare. The time of her purification was accomplished sooner than the Levitical law appoints: but she was no Jewess, and therefore in that she offended not. King James departed this life on the thirteenth day of December, in the year of God 1542, and on news thereof the hearts of men began to be disclosed. All men lamented that the realm was left without a male to succeed; yet some rejoiced that such an enemy to God's truth was taken away. By some he was called a good poor-man's king; by others he was termed a murderer of the nobility, and one that had decreed their utter destruction. Some praised him for suppressing theft and oppression; others dispraised him for the defiling of men's wives and of virgins. Men spake as affection led them. And yet none spake altogether beside the truth; for all these things were in part so manifest that, as the virtues could not be denied, so could not the vices be cloaked by any craft. [Sidenote: The Cardinal claims the Regency.]