232 HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 



affairs of state that had relation to Rome. He was 

 a man of great learning, wisdom, and dexterity in 

 business of state ; and having not long after ascended 

 to the degree of cardinal, paid the king large tribute 

 of his gratitude, in diligent and judicious advertise 

 ment of the occurrents of Italy. Nevertheless, in 

 the end of his time, he was partaker of the conspiracy 

 which Cardinal Alphonso Petrucci and some other 

 cardinals had plotted against the life of Pope Leo. 

 And this offence, in itself so heinous, was yet in him 

 aggravated by the motive thereof, which was not 

 malice or discontent, but an aspiring mind to the 

 papacy. And in this height of impiety there wanted 

 not an intermixture of levity and folly ; for that, as 

 was generally believed, he was animated to expect 

 the papacy by a fatal mockery, the prediction of a 

 soothsayer, which was, &quot; That one should succeed 

 &quot; Pope Leo whose name should be Adrian, an aged 

 &quot; man of mean birth, and of great learning and wis- 

 &quot; dom.&quot; By which character and figure he took 

 himself to be described, though it were fulfilled of 

 Adrian the Fleming, son of a Dutch brewer, Cardinal 

 of Tortosa, and preceptor unto Charles the Fifth ; 

 the same that, not changing his Christian name, was 

 afterwards called Adrian the Sixth. 



But these things happened in the year following, 

 which was the fifth of this king. But in the end of 

 the fourth year the king had called again his parlia 

 ment, not, as it seemeth, for any particular occasion 

 of state : but the former parliament being ended 

 somewhat suddenly, in regard of the preparation for 



