and world-renowned favor in which he stood with the king. 'The king
really loves you,' said I. 'Yes,' replied he, with his quiet, sad
smile, 'yes, the king truly loves me. But that would not for one
moment hinder him from giving my head for a valuable diamond, a
beautiful woman, or a hand's breadth of land in France.' [Footnote:
Leti, vol. i, p 194.] He was right, and for a beautiful woman, the
head of this sage had to fall, of whom the most Christian emperor
and king, Charles V., said: ' Had I been the master of such a
servant, of whose ability and greatness we have had so much
experience for many years; had I possessed an adviser so wise and
earnest as Thomas More was, I would rather have lost the best city
of my realm, than so worthy a servant and counsellor.' [Footnote:
Tytler, p. 354.]

"No, Jane, be that your first and most sacred rule, never to trust
the king, and never reckon on the duration of his affection and the
manifestations of his favor. For, in the perfidy of his heart, it
often pleases him to load with tokens of his favor those whose
destruction he has already resolved upon, to adorn and decorate with
orders and jewels to-day those whom to-morrow he is going to put to
death. It flatters his self-complacency, like the lion, to play a
little with the puppy he is about to devour. Thus did he with
Cromwell, for many years his counsellor and friend, who had
committed no other crime than that of having first exhibited to the
king the portrait of the ugly Anne of Cleves, whom Holbein had
turned into a beauty. But the king took good care not to be angry
with Cromwell, or to reproach him for it. Much more--in recognition
of his great services, he raised him to the earldom of Essex,
decorated him with the Order of the Garter and appointed him lord
chamberlain; and then, when Cromwell felt perfectly secure and