INTRIGUES.
For a few days past the king's gout had grown worse, and, to his
wrath and grief, it confined him as a prisoner to his rolling chair.
The king was, therefore, very naturally gloomy and dejected, and
hurled the lightnings of his wrath on all those who enjoyed the
melancholy prerogative of being in his presence. His pains, instead
of softening his disposition, seemed only to heighten still more his
natural ferocity; and often might he heard through the palace of
Whitehall the king's angry growl, and his loud, thundering
invectives, which no longer spared any one, nor showed respect for
any rank or dignity.
Earl Douglas, Gardiner, and Wriothesley very well knew how to take
advantage of this wrathful humor of the king for their purposes, and
to afford the cruel monarch, tortured with pain, one satisfaction at
least--the satisfaction of making others suffer also.
Never had there been seen in England so many burnt at the stake as
in those days of the king's sickness; never had the prisons been so
crowded; never had so much blood flowed as King Henry now caused to
be shed. [Footnote: During the king's reign, and at the instigation
of the clergy, twenty-eight hundred persons were burnt and executed,
because they would not recognize the religious institutions
established by the king as the only right and true ones.--Leti, vol.
i, p. 34.] But all this did not yet suffice to appease the blood-
thirstiness of the king, and his friends and counsellors, and his
priests.
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