the church itself
inspired with a wiser spirit, he himself fell the first victim of a
convulsion which he had assisted to create, and which he attempted too
late to stay.

Wolsey talked of reformation, but delayed its coming. The monasteries
grew worse and worse. Favoured parish clergy held as many as eight
benefices. Bishops accumulated sees, and, unable to attend to all,
attended to none. Wolsey himself, the church reformer (so little did he
really know what a reformation means), was at once Archbishop of York,
Bishop of Winchester and of Durham, and Abbot of St. Albans. Under such
circumstances, we need not be surprised to find the clergy sunk low in
the respect of the English people.

Fish's famous pamphlet shows the spirit that was seething. He spoke of
what he had seen and knew. The monks, he tells the king, "be they that
have made a hundred thousand idle dissolute women in your realm." But
Wolsey could interfere with neither bishops nor monks without a special
dispensation from the pope. A new trouble arose from the nation in the
desire of Henry to divorce Catherine of Aragon, who had been his
deceased brother's wife, was six years older than himself, and was an
obstacle to the establishment of the kingdom. Her sons were dead, and
she was beyond the period when more children could be expected. Though
descent in the female line was not formally denied, no queen regent had
ever, in fact, sat upon the throne; nor was the claim distinctly
admitted, or the claim of the House of York would have been
unquestionable. It was, therefore, with no little anxiety that the
council of Henry VIII. perceived his male children, on whom their hopes
were centred, either born dead, or dying one after another within a few
days of their birth.

The line of the Princess Mary was precarious, for her health was weak
from her childhood. If she lived, her accession would be a temptation to
insurrection; if she did not live, and the king had no other children, a
civil war was inevitable. The next heir in blood was James of Scotland,
and gravely as statesmen desired the union of the two countries, in the
existing mood of the people, the very stones in London streets, it was
said, would rise up against a king of Scotland who entered England as
sovereign.

So far were Henry and Catherine alike that both had imperious tempers,
and both were indomitably obstinate; but Henry was hot and impetuous,
Catherine cold and self-contained. She had be