three hundred and forty thousand pounds sterling,[*] was a bad and a chargeable security for a debt, which was not a third of the value. * Herbert. Stowe. The king, now freed from all foreign wars, had leisure to give his attention to domestic affairs; particularly to the establishment of uniformity in opinion, on which he was so intent. Though he allowed an English translation of the Bible, he had hitherto been very careful to keep the mass in Latin; but he was at last prevailed on to permit that the litany, a considerable part of the service, should be celebrated in the vulgar tongue; and by this innovation he excited anew the hopes of the reformers, who had been somewhat discouraged by the severe law of the six articles. One petition of the new litany was a prayer to save us “from the tyranny of the bishop of Rome, and from all his detestable enormities.” Cranmer employed his credit to draw Henry into further innovations; and he took advantage of Gardiner’s absence, who was sent on an embassy to the emperor: but Gardiner having written to the king, that, if he carried his opposition against the Catholic religion to greater extremities, Charles threatened to break off all commerce with him, the success of Cranmer’s projects was for some time retarded. Cranmer lost this year the most sincere and powerful friend that he possessed at court, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk; the queen dowager of France, consort to Suffolk, had died some years before. This nobleman is one instance that Henry was not altogether incapable of a cordial and steady friendship; and Suffolk seems to have been worthy of the favor which, from his earliest youth, he had enjoyed with his master. The king was sitting in council when informed of Suffolk’s death; and he took the opportunity both to express his own sorrow for the loss, and to celebrate the merits of the deceased. He declared, that during the whole course of their friendship, his brother-in-law had never made one attempt to injure an adversary, and had never whispered a word to the disadvantage of any person. “Is there any of you, my lords, who can say as much?” When the king subjoined these words, he looked round in all their faces, and saw that confusion which the consciousness of secret guilt naturally threw upon them.[*] * Coke’s Inst. cap. 99.