The next morning early Cranmer was summoned to the Council, and was kept long waiting in an ante-room amongst suitors and serving-men. Dr. Butts, Henry's privileged physician, saw this and told the King that the Archbishop of Canterbury had turned lackey; for he had stood humbly waiting outside the Council door for an hour. Henry, in a towering rage, growled, "I shall talk to them by-and-by." When Cranmer was charged with encouraging heresy he demanded of his colleagues that he should be confronted with his accusers. They refused him rudely, and told him he should be sent to the Tower. Then Cranmer's turn came, and he produced the King's ring, to the dismay of the Council, who, when they tremblingly faced their irate sovereign, were taken to task with a violence that promised them ill, if ever they dared to touch again the King's friend. But though Cranmer was unassailable, the preachers who followed his creed were not. In the spring of 1546 the persecutions under the Six Articles commenced afresh, and for a short time the Catholic party in the Council had much their own way, having frightened Henry into abandoning the Lutheran connection, in order that the vengeance of the Catholic league might not fall upon him, when the Emperor had crushed the Schmalkaldic princes.[257] Henry's health was visibly failing, and the two factions in his Court knew that time was short in which to establish the predominance of either at the critical moment. On the Protestant side were Hertford, Dudley, Cranmer, and the Queen, and on the other Gardiner, Paget, Paulet, and Wriothesley; and as Katharine's influence grew with her husband's increasing infirmity, it became necessary for the opposite party if possible to get rid of her before the King died. In February 1546 the imperial ambassador reported: "I am confused and apprehensive to have to inform your Majesty that there are rumours here of a new Queen, although I do not know why or how true they may be. Some people attribute them to the sterility of the Queen, whilst others say that there will be no change whilst the present war lasts. The Duchess of Suffolk is much talked about, and is in great favour; but the King shows no alteration in his behaviour towards the Queen, though she is, I am informed, annoyed at the rumours."[258] Hints of this sort continued for some time, and evidently took their rise from a deliberate attack upon Katharine by the Catholic councillors. She herself, for once, failed in her tact, and laid herself open to the designs of her enemies. She was betrayed into a religious discussion with Henry during one of his attacks of illness, in the presence of Gardiner, much to the King's annoyance. When she had retired the Bishop flattered Henry by saying that he wondered how any one could have the temerity to differ from him on theology, and carried his suggestions further by saying that such a person might well oppose him in other things than opinions.