No one speaks up for him. His old allies, Bishop Bonner, Thomas Wriothesley, and Richard Rich, are rapidly changing sides and seeking new friends. Of course they follow the royal favor before their loyalty to him. Thomas Wriothesley is Edward Seymour’s newest recruit, while Bonner, the persecuting bishop of London, keeps to his diocese and does not dare to come to court. Even the new Spanish ambassador is no friend of Gardiner—he can see that the papist cause is in decline. Richard Rich, with his eye on a new patron, follows John Dudley like a puppy. Only Thomas Howard will still speak to the isolated bishop, but Howard is out of favor himself, his son blamed for the troubles among the English army at Boulogne, and Mary Howard disgraced by her outrageous snub to the Seymours.

Stephen Gardiner’s fall is as rapid as a sinner going down to hell. Within a day he is banned from the private royal rooms, forced to stand with the common petitioners in the presence chamber, then, the day after, the guards at the main door are told to exclude him and he can only ride into the yard but not stable his horse. The pitiful thing is that he does not go. He thinks that he will be returned to power if he can just get into Henry’s presence. He thinks an explanation or an apology will save him. He looks back on years of service and loyalty and thinks that the king will not turn against such an old friend. He has forgotten that once the king locks someone out, that person is lost, sometimes arrested, often killed. He failed to observe that the only person ever to recover from the king’s hatred is me. He does not know what I had to do. He does not know the price I paid. Nobody will ever know. I don’t acknowledge it to myself.

Gardiner does all he can. He offers to return the disputed lands, and he dawdles around the stable gates, trying to look as if he is just arriving or just leaving, still the welcome visitor that he was before. He sends in apologies by anyone who will take a message for him. He gets hold of everyone who walks through and tells them there has been a mistake, that he is the king’s greatest friend and loyal servant, that nothing has changed, and will they speak of him to the king?