5: See various entries in Privy Purse
Expenses, _L. and P._, v., 747-62.]

[Footnote 686: _L. and P._, iv., 4477, 4488, 4507,
4509.]

These incidents, of more than a year before the Cardinal's fall, (p. 244)
illustrate the change in the respective positions of monarch and
minister. There was no doubt now which was the master; there was no
king but one. Henry was already taking, as Du Bellay said, "the
management of everything".[687] Wolsey himself knew that he had lost
the King's confidence. He began to talk of retirement. He told Du
Bellay, in or before August, 1528, that when he had established a firm
amity between France and England, extinguished the hatred between the
two nations, reformed the laws and customs of England, and settled the
succession, he would retire and serve God to the end of his days.[688]
The Frenchman thought this was merely to represent as voluntary a loss
of power which he saw would soon be inevitable; but the conversation
is a striking illustration of the difference between Henry and Wolsey,
and helps to explain why Wolsey accomplished so little that lasted,
while Henry accomplished so much. The Cardinal seems to have been
entirely devoid of that keen perception of the distinction between
what was, and what was not, practicable, which was Henry's saving
characteristic. In the evening of his days, after sixteen years of
almost unlimited power, he was speaking of plans, which might have
taxed the energies of a life-time, as preliminaries to a speedy
withdrawal from the cares of State. He had enjoyed an unequalled
opportunity of effecting these reforms, but what were the results of
his administration? The real greatness and splendour of Henry's reign
are said to have departed with Wolsey's fall.[689] The gilt and the
tinsel were indeed stripped off, but the permanent results of (p. 245)
Henry's reign were due to its later course. Had he died when Wolsey
fell, what would have been his place in history? A brilliant figure,
no doubt, who might have been thought capable of much, had he not
failed to achieve anything. He had made wars from which England
derived no visible profit; not an acre of territory had been acquired;
the wealth, amassed by Henry VII., had been squandered, and Henry
VIII., in 1529, was reduced to searching for gold mines in
England.[690] The loss of his subjects' blood and treasure had been
followed by the loss of