and I doubt not good
example shall ensue to see them learn the new law of the Star Chamber,
which, God willing, they shall have indifferently administered (p. 120)
to them, according to their deserts."[326]

[Footnote 325: _Ibid._, ii., 3973.]

[Footnote 326: _L. and P._, ii., App. No. 38; for
the Star Chamber see Scofield, _Star Chamber_,
1902, and Leadam, _Select Cases_ (Selden Soc.,
1904).]

Wolsey's "new law of the Star Chamber," his stern enforcement of the
statutes against livery and maintenance, and his spasmodic attempt to
redress the evils of enclosures,[327] probably contributed as much as
his arrogance and ostentation to the ill-favour in which he stood with
the nobility and landed gentry. From the beginning there were frequent
rumours of plots to depose him, and his enemies abroad often talked of
the universal hatred which he inspired in England. The classes which
benefited by his justice complained bitterly of the impositions
required to support his spirited foreign policy. Clerics who regarded
him as a bulwark on the one hand against heresy, and, on the other,
against the extreme view which Henry held from the first of his
authority over the Church, were alienated by the despotism Wolsey
wielded by means of his legatine powers. Even the mild and aged Warham
felt his lash, and was threatened with _Praemunire_ for having wounded
Wolsey's legatine authority by calling a council at Lambeth.[328]
Peers, spiritual no less than temporal, regarded him as "the great
tyrant". Parliament he feared and distrusted; he had urged the speedy
dissolution of that of 1515; only one sat during the fourteen years of
his supremacy, and with that the Cardinal quarrelled. He possessed no
hold over the nation, but only over the King, in whom alone he put his
trust.

[Footnote 327: _L. and P._, App. No. 53; _cf._
Leadam, _Domesday of Enclosures_ (Royal Hist.
Soc.).]

[Footnote 328: _Ibid._, iii., 77, 98; _cf._ ii.,
3973; iii. 1142.]

For the time he seemed secure enough. No one could touch a hair (p. 121)
of his head so long as he was shielded by Henry's power, and Henry
seemed to have given over his royal authority to Wolsey's hands with a
blind and undoubting confidence. "The King," said one, in 1515, "is a
youngling, cares for