Thomas Howard, the minister of Henry VIII., was one of the most interesting characters of his generation. He was naturally a strong Conservative; Chapuys never doubted that “the change in matters of religion [was] not to his mind”: in 1534 he even went so far as to tell the French ambassador that he would not consent to a change, and this speech having been repeated to the king, occasioned his momentary disgrace.[216] At one time Lord Darcy, the head of the reactionary party, counted on his support against Cromwell, though he warned Chapuys not to trust him implicitly, because of “his inconstancy.”[217] Yet, under a certain appearance of vacillation, he hid a profound and subtle appreciation of the society which environed him; this “inconstancy” made his high fortune. He had a sure instinct, which taught him at the critical moment where his interests lay, and he never was deceived. Henry distrusted him, but could not do without him, and paid high for his support. Howard, on his side, was keenly distressed when he found he had gone too far, and when the northern insurrection broke out, and he was offered the command of the royal forces, the Bishop of Carlisle, with whom he dined, said he had never seen the duke “so happy as he was to-day.”[218] Once in the field against his friends, there were no lengths to which Thomas Howard would not go. He never wearied of boasting of his lies and of his cruelty, he wrote to assure Henry he would spare no pains to entrap them, and would esteem no promise he made to the rebels, “for surely I shall observe no part thereof, for any respect of that other might call mine honor dystayned.”[219] As Cromwell behaved toward Lambert, so he behaved toward the Carthusians. Though they were men in whose religion he probably believed as sincerely as he believed anything, and in whose cause he had professed himself ready to take up arms, when they were sent to the stake he attended the execution as a spectacle, and watched them expire in torments, without a pang. Men gifted like Howard were successful in the Reformation, and Norfolk made a colossal fortune out of his polities. The price of his service was thirteen convents, and his son Surrey had two; of what he made in other ways no record remains. Such was the new aristocracy; but the bulk of the old baronage was differently bred, and those who were of the antiquated type were doomed to pass away.