its
wealth," adding that there was no occasion for him to write this in cipher,
for it was everywhere openly spoken of.[171]

Movements, nevertheless, which are pregnant with vital change, are slow in
assuming their essential direction, even after the stir has commenced.
Circumstances do not immediately open themselves; the point of vision
alters gradually; and fragments of old opinions, and prepossessions, and
prejudices remain interfused with the new, even in the clearest minds, and
cannot at a moment be shaken off. Only the unwise change suddenly; and we
can never too often remind ourselves, when we see men stepping forward with
uncertainty and hesitation over a road, where to us, we know the actual
future, all seems so plain, that the road looked different to the actors
themselves, who were beset with imaginations of the past, and to whom the
gloom of the future appeared thronged with phantoms of possible
contingencies. The hasty expectations of the noble lords were checked by
Henry's prudence; and though parties were rapidly arranging themselves,
there was still confusion. The city, though disinclined to the pope and the
church, continued to retain an inclination for the emperor; and the pope
had friends among Wolsey's enemies, who, by his overthrow, were pressed
forward into prominence, and divided the victory with the reformers. The
presence of Sir Thomas More in the council was a guarantee that no
exaggerated measures against the church would be permitted so long as he
held the seals; and Henry, perhaps, was anxious to leave room for
conciliation, which he hoped that the pope would desire as much as himself,
so soon as the meeting of parliament had convinced him that the mutinous
disposition of the nation had not been overstated by his own and Wolsey's
letters.

The impression conceived two years before of the hostile relations between
the pope and Charles had not yet been wholly effaced; and even as late as
September, 1529, after the closing of the legates' court, in the very heat
of the public irritation, there were persons who believed that when Clement
met his imperial captor face to face, and the interview had taken place
which had been arranged for the ensuing January, his eyes would be opened,
and that he would fall back upon England.[172] At the same time, the
incongruities in the constitution of the council became so early apparent,
that their agreement was thought impossible, and Wolsey's return to po