Nevertheless he was not allowed to return to the north, but was kept in London, much against his will, from the winter of 1529[74] till at least as late as July 1535. The King would have been well advised to remember the proverb about idle hands. Darcy, the statesman and warrior, was kept some five years with nothing to do but brood over the changes which were taking place around him, and over the violation of his deepest and most honourable feelings. Cromwell and the King might have foreseen the result. Darcy had a strong sentiment of personal loyalty to the King; he could not bear it to be thought that “Old Tom had one traitor’s tooth in his head.” But as an honest man and a good Christian he felt he could not stand by and see the Queen and her daughter dishonoured, the Church destroyed, and the land brought under an absolute despotism, without making an effort to save them. The doctrine of the responsibility of the minister salved his conscience; it was easy to believe that if only Cromwell could be removed, Henry would turn back from the strange and dangerous road along which he was being led. Darcy was on intimate terms with Lord Hussey, a member of one of the new official families which sprang up so plentifully under the Tudors. Sir William Hussey, father to John, Lord Hussey, was Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in 17 Edward IV[75]; his parents are unknown. John Hussey assisted in putting down Lovell’s Rebellion in 1486, and obtained a footing at Court. He was partner to the exactions of Empson and Dudley, and on the accession of Henry VIII was obliged to obtain a pardon, but he did not lose favour with the King. He received large grants of land in Lincolnshire, where his seat was at Sleaford[76]; there he was unpopular with his neighbours, who accused him of arrogance and ostentation[77]. He served in France in 1513, and was employed on diplomatic missions until in 1529 he was summoned to the House of Lords as Baron Hussey of Sleaford. Through the whole of his career he had been a loyal and unquestioning supporter of the government as it was. His promotion was probably due to the King’s desire to strengthen his party in the House of Lords. He did what was required of him; he signed the document requesting the Pope to sanction the divorce of Katherine, and gave evidence for the King at the Queen’s trial. But Darcy, who was really opposed to the divorce, had done as much as this. There is no doubt, however, that Henry believed Hussey to be a man whom he could safely trust, for in 1533 he was appointed chamberlain to the King’s daughter Mary, who had just been declared illegitimate[78]. It was to his tender care she was confided for the time of insult and desolation her father had in store for her. Unfortunately for Hussey a warm friendship sprang up between Mary and his wife Lady Anne, the daughter of George Grey, Earl of Kent[79]. Hussey himself, though fairly hard-hearted, seems to have been touched by the sufferings of his