Henry was furiously angry at the contents of this letter. His situation with regard to Norfolk was indeed peculiarly galling to a man of his pride and temper. Norfolk for the moment was indispensable; he might not be a very good general, but he was the only one Henry possessed. Until the rebellion was suppressed the King could not afford to quarrel with him. But, while conscious of his own helplessness, Henry did not trust Norfolk in the least. He did not believe that the desperate letter contained a true account of the rebels’ position; in his eyes it was all a trick to frighten him into coming to terms. Yet Norfolk could not be superseded, because there was no one to take his place, and he could not be forced to insist that the rebels should either fight or accept Henry’s terms, because if Henry threatened him too boldly it was very probable that he would join the rebels himself. In the replies which were drawn up on 2 December, the King put a great restraint upon himself. Nevertheless the private letter which he sent to Norfolk was sufficiently alarming. Henry complained that Norfolk’s desperate reports agreed neither with the information of spies nor with each other. In the first campaign he had particularly declared that he could hold the line of the Trent, and had attributed all his ill success to Shrewsbury’s advance to the Don. Now he said that he could hold neither Don nor Trent, and yet it was evident that Shrewsbury’s advance had saved a large district for the King[20]. From Newark he had written that he would esteem no promise made to the rebels nor think his honour touched in the breach of it[21], but nevertheless he had come to terms with them, disbanded his army without any exploit, and favoured their petitions at court. “We have now declared to you our whole stomach, as to him that we love and trust, which if you take as it is meant we doubt not but you will thank us, and by your deeds cause us eftsoons to thank you.”[22] This was on the whole a temperate letter, but there is an undercurrent of restrained fury running through it which must have been very alarming to Norfolk. Such a rebuke might have goaded a loyal man into fighting immediately, or might have frightened a cautious man into going straight over to the rebels; but Henry knew Norfolk’s character. The only emotion which it aroused in him was an intense desire to dispose of this tiresome business and return to court, where his “back-friends” must be intriguing against him.