His way of dealing with the Carthusians was equally characteristic. The Carthusians were in the Church what Darcy was in the State: men of the old imaginative type, of austere life and ascetic habits, in whom still glowed the fiery enthusiasm of Hildebrand. They could not accept Henry as God’s viceregent upon earth. The three priors--Houghton, Webster, and Lawrence--were “ripped up in each other’s presence, their arms torn off, their hearts cut out and rubbed upon their mouths and faces.”[227] Three more were chained upright to posts, where they stood for fourteen days, “without the possibility of stirring for any purpose whatever, held fast by iron collars on their necks, arms, and thighs.”[228] Then they were hanged and disembowelled. In 1537, ten were still resolute. They were chained in Newgate like the others, where, according to Stowe, nine “died ... with stink and miserably smothered.” The tenth, who survived, was hanged. Had Henry been hampered, like Darcy, with scruples about honour, truth, or conscience, he too might have been undone. His power lay in his capacity for doing what was needful for success. He enticed Aske to London, and, when he held him, slew him. He pardoned Darcy, and then sent him to Tower Hill. Lacking force to crush the rebels, Norfolk, in the royal name, pacified the people with pardon and promises of redress. They dispersed, thinking themselves safe. Henry ignored his pledges, risings followed; but, when the country had been tranquillized and his army was again in peaceful possession, he thus instructed the Duke:-- “Our pleasure is, that ... you shal, in any wise, cause suche dredfull execution to be doon upon a good nombre of thinhabitauntes of every towne, village, and hamlet, that have offended in this rebellion, aswell by the hanging of them uppe in trees, as by the quartering of them, and the setting of their heddes and quarters in every towne, greate and small, and in al suche other places, as they may be a ferefull spectacle to all other herafter, that wold practise any like mater: whiche We requyre you to doo, without pitie or respecte, according to our former letters; remembring that it shalbe moche better, that these traitours shulde perishe in their wilfull, unkynde, and traitorous folyes, thenne that so slendre punishment shuld be doon upon them, as the dredde thereof shuld not be a warning to others.”[229] Norfolk was after Henry’s pattern. The rebels were his friends--men with whom he had pledged himself to act shortly before. But he had chosen his side, he had made his bargain, and he earned his pay. He was never weary of boasting of his cruelty toward the defenceless yeomanry:-- “They shall be put to death in every town where they dwelt.... As many as chains of iron can be made for in this town and in the country shall be hanged in them; the rest in ropes. Iron is marvellous scarce.”