or Wolsey's pensions had given him access to the king,
and "by his witty demeanour he grew continually in the King's favour." But
the favour had been won by more than "witty demeanour." In a private
interview with Henry Cromwell boldly advised him to cut the knot of the
divorce by the simple exercise of his own supremacy. The advice struck the
key-note of the later policy by which the daring counsellor was to change
the whole face of Church and State; but Henry still clung to the hopes
held out by the new ministers who had followed Wolsey, and shrank perhaps
as yet from the bare absolutism to which Cromwell called him. The advice
at any rate was concealed; and, though high in the king's favour, his new
servant waited patiently the progress of events.

[Sidenote: The Howards]

The first result of Wolsey's fall was a marked change in the system of
administration. Both the Tudor kings had carried on their government
mainly through the agency of great ecclesiastics. Archbishop Morton and
Bishop Fox had been successively ministers of Henry the Seventh. Wolsey
had been the minister of Henry the Eighth. But with the ruin of the
Cardinal the rule of the churchmen ceased. The seals were given to Sir
Thomas More. The real direction of affairs lay in the hands of two great
nobles, of the Duke of Suffolk who was President of the Council, and of
the Lord Treasurer, Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk. From this hour to
the close of the age of the Tudors the Howards were to play a prominent
part in English history. They had originally sprung from the circle of
lawyers who rose to wealth and honour through their employment by the
Crown. Their earliest known ancestor was a judge under Edward the First;
and his descendants remained wealthy landowners in the eastern counties
till early in the fifteenth century they were suddenly raised to
distinction by the marriage of Sir Robert Howard with a wife who became
heiress of the houses of Arundel and Norfolk, the Fitz-Alans and the
Mowbrays. John Howard, the issue of this marriage, was a prominent Yorkist
and stood high in the favour of the Yorkist kings. He was one of the
councillors of Edward the Fourth, and received from Richard the Third the
old dignities of the house of Mowbray, the office of Earl Marshal and the
Dukedom of Norfolk. But he had hardly risen to greatness when he fell
fighting by Richard's side at Bosworth Field. His son was taken prisoner
in the same battle and remained f