Wolsey's predominance. The King was still in the full vigour of
manhood; he had not reached his fortieth year, and his physical graces
were the marvel of those who saw him for the first time. Falier, the
new Venetian ambassador, who arrived in England in 1529, is as (p. 240)
rapturous over the King's personal attractions as Giustinian or
Pasqualigo had been. "In this Eighth Henry," he writes, "God has
combined such corporeal and intellectual beauty as not merely to
surprise but astound all men.... His face is angelic (nine years
before a Frenchman had called it "feminine"), rather than handsome;
his head imperial and bold; and he wears a beard, contrary to the
English custom. Who would not be amazed, when contemplating such
singular beauty of person, coupled with such bold address, adapting
itself with the greatest ease to every manly exercise?"[681] But
Henry's physique was no longer proof against every ailment; frequent
mention is made about this time of headaches[682] which incapacitated
him from business, and it was not long before there appeared on his
leg the fistula which racked him with pain till the end of his life,
and eventually caused his death.

[Footnote 681: _Ven. Cal._, iv., 184, 185, 293.]

[Footnote 682: _L. and P._, iv., 4546. Henry had
had small-pox in February, 1514 (_ibid._, i.,
4831), without any serious consequences, but apart
from that he had had no great illness.]

The divorce and the insuperable obstacles, which he discovered in
attaining the end he thought easy at first, did more to harden Henry's
temper than any bodily ills. He became a really serious man, and
developed that extraordinary power of self-control which stood him in
good stead in his later years. Naturally a man of violent passions, he
could never have steered clear of the dangers that beset him without
unusual capacity for curbing his temper, concealing his intentions,
and keeping his own counsel. Ministers might flatter themselves that
they could read his mind and calculate his actions, but it is quite
certain that henceforth no minister read so clearly his master's (p. 241)
mind as the master did his minister's. "Three may keep counsel," said
the King in 1530,[683] "if two be away; and if I thought that my cap
knew my counsel, I would cast it into the fire and burn it." "Never,"
comments a modern writer,[684] "had the King