]

Eleven more years were to roll before the Church was subverted. They
were years of Wolsey's supremacy; he alone stood between the Church
and its subjection. It was owing, wrote Campeggio, in 1528, to Wolsey's
vigilance and solicitude that the Holy See retained its rank and
dignity.[674] His ruin would drag down the Church, and the fact was
known to Anne Boleyn and her faction, to Campeggio and Clement VII.,
as well as to Henry VIII.[675] "These Lords intend," wrote Du Bellay,
on the eve of Wolsey's fall, "after he is dead or ruined, to impeach
the State of the Church, and take all its goods; which it is hardly
needful for me to write in cipher, for they proclaim it openly. I
expect they will do fine miracles."[676] A few days later he says, "I
expect the priests will never have the great seal again; and that in
this Parliament they will have terrible alarms. I think Dr. Stephen
(Gardiner) will have a good deal to do with the management of affairs,
_especially if he will abandon his order_."[677] At Easter, 1529,
Lutheran books were circulating in Henry's Court, advocating the (p. 238)
confiscation of ecclesiastical property and the restoration of his
Church to its primitive simplicity. Campeggio warned the King against them
and maintained that it had been determined by councils and theologians
that the Church justly held her temporalties. Henry retorted that
according to the Lutherans "those decisions were arrived at by
ecclesiastics and now it was necessary for the laity to interpose".[678]
In his last interview with Henry, Campeggio "alluded to this Parliament,
which is about to be holden, and I earnestly pressed upon him the
liberty of the Church. He certainly seemed to me very well disposed to
exert his power to the utmost."[679] "Down with the Church" was going
to be the Parliament cry. Whether Henry would really "exert his power"
to maintain her liberties remained to be seen, but there never was a
flimsier theory than that the divorce of Catherine was the sole cause
of the break with Rome. The centrifugal forces were quite independent
of the divorce; its historical importance lies in the fact that it
alienated from Rome the only power in England which might have kept
them in check. So long as Wolsey and the clerical statesmen, with whom
he surrounded the King, remained supreme, the Church was comparatively
safe. But Wolsey depended entirely on Henry's support; when that was
withdrawn, Church and Cardinal fell