h the Emperor. What urged him to this however
was not the Emperor's interest in itself, but the support which the
party hostile to him in Scotland received from the French. Moreover he
did not trouble himself to bring about a decisive result between the
two great powers: he was content with the conquest of Boulogne. He had
reverted to his father's policy and resolved not to let himself be
drawn over by any of his neighbours to their own interests, but to use
their rivalry for his own profit and security.[137]

And he was able to do yet more than his father to increase England's
power of defence against the one or the other. We hear of fifty places
on the coast which he fortified, not without the help of foreign
master-workmen: the two great harbours of Dover and Calais he put into
good condition and filled them with serviceable ships. For a long time
past he had been building the first vessels of a large size (such as
the Harry and Mary Rose) which then did service in the wars.[138] It
may be that the property of the monasteries was partly squandered and
ought to have been better husbanded: a great part of their revenues
however was applied to this purpose, and conferred much benefit on the
country so far as its own peculiar interests were concerned.

The characteristic of his government consists in the mixture of
spiritual and temporal interests, the union of violence with fostering
care. The family enmities, which Henry VII had to contend with, are
combined with the religious under Henry VIII, for instance in the
Suffolk family: as William Stanley under the father, so Fisher and
More under the son, perished because they threw doubt on the grounds
for the established right, and still more because they challenged that
right itself. It raised a cry of horror when it was seen how under
Henry VIII Papists and Protestants were bound together and drawn to
the place of execution together, since they had both broken the laws.
Who would not have been sensible of this? Who would not have felt
himself distressed and threatened? Yet at the opening of the Session
of 1542, after the Chancellor had stated in detail the King's services
(who had taken his place on the throne), Lords and Commons rose and
bowed to the sovereign in token of their acknowledgment and gratitude.
In the Session of 1545 he himself once more took up the word. In
fatherly language he exhorted both the religious parties to peace; a
feeling pervaded the assembly