Meantime in January, 1537, Michael Throgmorton had fulfilled his promise and returned to England[518]. If Henry had once thought that Pole’s servant would put his loyalty to the Crown before his faithfulness to his master[519], he must have been convinced of his mistake by this time; but Throgmorton was saved from punishment for the present by Henry’s temporary failure to subdue the Pilgrimage of Grace, and anxiety lest fresh hostility should be aroused abroad; and was soon sent back to carry to his master a final warning to desist from attacking the Royal Supremacy[520]. From this errand Throgmorton did not return; it would have been the act of a madman to do so, considering the way in which events were moving. Instead, he wrote two long and conciliatory letters to Cromwell, one from Rome on February 15, the other from Liège on August 20[521]. In the first he attempted to appease the anger of the King, which had been aroused by Pole’s acceptance of the Cardinalate. In the second he insisted that Pole had always done his utmost for the advancement of the King’s honour and good name, except in matters which concerned the unity of the Church. Furthermore he pointed out that though Henry had treated him as a rebel and put a price upon his head, the Cardinal had shown great forbearance in not leaving his book against the King in the hands of the Pope, who would infallibly have published it, and in refusing the exercise of certain censures which had been prepared against Henry in Rome. Throgmorton added, moreover, that the Pope had just called Pole back to Italy to take part in the General Council appointed for the following November, at which it was inevitable that strong measures would be taken against England. He assured Cromwell that if the King desired to avoid this danger it would be indispensable for him to become reconciled to Pole, on whose attitude at the Council so much depended. Throgmorton appears to have supplemented this letter with a verbal suggestion that a conference should be arranged between the King’s chaplain Dr. Wilson and the Cardinal, before the latter’s departure for Rome, in the hope that some final agreement might be reached. He promised to use his own efforts to induce Pole to do his part, and seized the opportunity to excuse himself for not returning to England, by observing in this connexion that he could best further the King’s interests by tarrying with his master. At first the plan which Throgmorton proposed seems to have found acceptance with Henry. A favourable reply was drawn up by Cromwell, and Dr. Wilson and his companion, Dr. Nicholas Heath, received instructions preparatory to a conference with Pole[522]. But though Henry, discouraged as he was by his failures to kill or capture the Cardinal, appears to have been momentarily persuaded that Throgmorton’s suggestion was feasible, his minister from the first was strongly opposed to it. The first draft of the reply to the letter of Pole’s servant bears every evidence of having been written under compulsion, and Cromwell must have succeeded, before it was actually sent, in persuading the King that a mission which was to meet the Cardinal on his own ground could only result in failure, and that the sole thing to do was openly to menace Pole and his family with assassination. Such at least seems the most probable explanation of the fact that Wilson and Heath never started on their errand, and of the singularly abusive and malevolent letter with which Cromwell finally replied to that of Throgmorton[523]. The last hope of reconciliation with the Cardinal had vanished; not he alone, but also his aged mother and brother in England, had been threatened with destruction. Another obstacle to Henry’s despotism was to be annihilated, as every attempt to surmount it had failed.