rth time of asking.[297] In 1515 it was the custom of
ambassadors to dine with Wolsey before presentation at Court, but four
years later they were never served until the viands had been removed
from the Cardinal's table.[298] A Venetian, describing Wolsey's (p. 112)
embassy to France in 1527, relates that his "attendants served cap in
hand, and, when bringing the dishes, knelt before him in the act of
presenting them. Those who waited on the Most Christian King, kept
their caps on their heads, dispensing with such exaggerated
ceremonies."[299]

[Footnote 292: _Ven. Cal._, iii., 56.]

[Footnote 293: _Ibid._, iii., 50.]

[Footnote 294: _Ibid._, vol. iii., p. 29.]

[Footnote 295: _Ibid._, iii., 298.]

[Footnote 296: _L. and P._, ii., 3733.]

[Footnote 297: Giustinian, _Desp._, App. ii., 309.]

[Footnote 298: Giustinian, _Desp._, App. ii., 309.]

[Footnote 299: _Ven. Cal._, iii., p. 84.]

Pretenders to royal honours seldom acquire the grace of genuine
royalty, and the Cardinal pursued with vindictive ferocity those who
offended his sensitive dignity. In 1515, Polydore Vergil said, in
writing to his friend, Cardinal Hadrian, that Wolsey was so tyrannical
towards all men that his influence could not last, and that all
England abused him.[300] The letter was copied by Wolsey's secretary,
Vergil was sent to the Tower,[301] and only released after many months
at the repeated intercession of Leo X. His correspondent, Cardinal
Hadrian, was visited with Wolsey's undying hatred. A pretext for his
ruin was found in his alleged complicity in a plot to poison the Pope;
the charge was trivial, and Leo forgave him.[302] Not so Wolsey, who
procured Hadrian's deprivation of the Bishopric of Bath and Wells,
appropriated the see for himself, and in 1518 kept Campeggio, the
Pope's legate, chafing at Calais until he could bring with him the
papal confirmation of these measures.[303] Venice had the temerity to
intercede with Leo on Hadrian's behalf; Wolsey thereupon overwhelmed
Giustinian with "rabid and insolent language"; ordered him not to (p. 113)
put anything in his despatches without his consent; and revoked the
privileges of Venetian merchants in England.[304] In these outbursts
of fury, he paid little respect to the sacrosanct character of
ambassadors. He heard that the papa