still left in
his ministers' hands.

[Footnote 85: _L. and P._, vol. ii., p. 1461.]

[Footnote 86: _Sp. Cal._, ii., 19.]

[Footnote 87: _Ibid._, ii., 44, 45.]

[Footnote 88: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 11.]

With the exception of Empson and Dudley, Henry made little or no change
in the council his father bequeathed him. Official precedence appertained
to his Chancellor, Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury. Like most of
Henry VII.'s prelates, he received his preferment in the Church as a
reward for services to the State. Much of the diplomatic work of the
previous reign had passed through his hands; he helped to arrange the
marriage of Arthur and Catherine, and was employed in the vain attempt
to obtain Margaret of Savoy as a bride for Henry VII. As Archbishop he
crowned and married Henry VIII., and as Chancellor he delivered
orations at the opening of the young King's first three Parliaments.[89]
They are said to have given general satisfaction, but apart from them,
Warham, for some unknown reason, took little part in political
business. So far as Henry can be said at this time to have had a Prime
Minister, that title belongs to Fox, his Lord Privy Seal and Bishop of
Winchester. Fox had been even more active than Warham in politics, and
more closely linked with the personal fortunes of the two Tudor kings.
He had shared the exile of Henry of Richmond; the treaty of Etaples,
the Intercursus Magnus, the marriage of Henry's elder daughter to
James IV., and the betrothal of his younger to Charles, were largely
the work of his hands. Malicious gossip described him as willing to
consent to his own father's death to serve the turn of his king, (p. 049)
and a better founded belief ascribed to his wit the invention of
"Morton's fork".[90] He was Chancellor of Cambridge in 1500, as Warham
was of Oxford, but won more enduring fame by founding the college of
Corpus Christi in the university over which the Archbishop presided.
He had baptised Henry VIII. and advocated his marriage to Catherine;
and to him the King extended the largest share in his confidence.
Badoer, the Venetian ambassador, called him "alter rex,"[91] and
Carroz, the Spaniard, said Henry trusted him most; but Henry was not
blind to the failings of his most intimate councillors, and he warned
Carroz that the Bishop of Winchester was, as his name implied, a fox
indeed.[92] A third prelate, Ruthal