Note (back) — Chapter IX

The divorce and the insuperable obstacles, which he discovered in attaining the end he thought easy at first, did more to harden Henry's temper than any bodily ills. He became a really serious man, and developed that extraordinary power of self-control which stood him in good stead in his later years. Naturally a man of violent passions, he could never have steered clear of the dangers that beset him without unusual capacity for curbing his temper, concealing his intentions, and keeping his own counsel. Ministers might flatter themselves that they could read his mind and calculate his actions, but it is quite certain that henceforth no minister read so clearly his master's mind as the master did his minister's. "Three may keep counsel," said the King in 1530,[683] "if two be away; and if I thought that my cap knew my counsel, I would cast it into the fire and burn it." "Never," comments a modern writer,[684] "had the King spoken a truer word, or described himself more accurately. Few would have thought that, under so careless and splendid an exterior—the very ideal of bluff, open-hearted good-humour and frankness—there lay a watchful and secret eye, that marked what was going on, without appearing to mark it; kept its own counsel until it was time to strike, and then struck, as suddenly and remorselessly as a beast of prey. It was strange to witness so much subtlety, combined with so much strength."