toleration and Christian
comprehension Christendom stood on the verge of a religious strife which
was to rend it for ever in pieces. While he aimed sarcasm after sarcasm at
king-worship the new despotism of the Monarchy was being organised into a
vast and all-embracing system by the genius of Thomas Wolsey. Wolsey was
the son of a wealthy townsman of Ipswich whose ability had raised him into
notice at the close of the preceding reign, and who had been taken by
Bishop Fox into the service of the Crown. The activity which he showed in
organizing and equipping the royal army for the campaign of 1513 won for
him a foremost place in the confidence of Henry the Eighth. The young king
lavished dignities on him with a profusion that marked the completeness of
his trust. From the post of royal almoner he was advanced in 1513 to the
see of Tournay. At the opening of 1514 he became bishop of Lincoln; at its
close he was translated to the archbishoprick of York. In 1515 Henry
procured from Rome his elevation to the office of cardinal and raised him
to the post of chancellor. So quick a rise stirred envy in the men about
him; and his rivals noted bitterly the songs, the dances, and carousals
which had won, as they believed, the favour of the king. But sensuous and
worldly as was Wolsey's temper, his powers lifted him high above the level
of a court favourite. His noble bearing, his varied ability, his enormous
capacity for toil, the natural breadth and grandeur of his mind, marked
him naturally out as the minister of a king who showed throughout his
reign a keen eye for greatness in the men about him.

[Sidenote: Wolsey's policy]

Wolsey's mind was European rather than English; it dwelt little on home
affairs but turned almost exclusively to the general politics of the
European powers and of England as one of them. Whatever might be Henry's
disappointment in the issue of his French campaigns the young king might
dwell with justifiable pride on the general result of his foreign policy.
If his direct gains from the Holy League had been little, he had at any
rate won security on the side of France. The loss of Navarre and of the
Milanese left Lewis a far less dangerous neighbour than he had seemed at
Henry's accession, while the appearance of the Swiss soldiery during the
war of the League destroyed the military supremacy which France had
enjoyed from the days of Charles the Eighth. But if the war had freed
England from the fear of F