, is ruled by brutal laws, and to
play the round game of politics with single-handed honesty would be to
lose at every turn. Henry was born into an inheritance of blood and
blackmail. Corruption has its vested interests. It is useless to attempt
to stem the recurrent tide of corruption by sprinkling the waves with holy
water.

Then religion was a part of men's daily lives, but the principles of
Christianity were set at naught at the first bidding of expediency.

Men murdered to live--the axe and the sword were the final Court of
Appeal. Nor does the old order change appreciably in the course of a few
hundred years. In international politics, as in public life, when
self-interest steps in, Christianity goes to the wall.

To-day we grind our axe with a difference. A more subtle process of
dealing with our rivals obtains. To-day the pen is mightier than the
sword, the stylograph is more deadly than the stiletto. The bravo still
plies his trade. He no longer takes life, but character. To intrigue, to
combine against those outside the ring is often the swiftest way to
fortune. By such combination do weaker particles make themselves strong.
To "play the game" is necessary to progress. The world was not made for
poets and idealists. To quote an anonymous modern writer:

"'Act well your part, there all the honour lies';
Stoop to expediency and honour dies.
Many there are that in the race for fame,
Lose the great cause to win the little game,
Who pandering to the town's decadent taste,
Barter the precious pearl for gawdy paste,
And leave upon the virgin page of Time
The venom'd trail of iridescent slime."

Henry's eyes soon opened. His character, like his body, underwent a
gradual process of expansion.

_His Pastimes_

Soon the lighter side of kingship was not disdained. One authority wrote
in 1515: "He is a youngling, cares for nothing but girls and hunting." He
was an inveterate gambler, and turned the sport of hunting into a
martyrdom, rising at four or five in the morning, and hunting till nine or
ten at night. Another contemporary writes: "He devotes himself to
accomplishments and amusements day and night, is intent on nothing else,
and leaves business to Wolsey, who rules everything."

As a sportsman, Henry was the "_beau ideal_" of his people. In the lists
he especially distinguished himself, "in supernatural feats, changing his
horses, and making them fly or rather leap, to the delight and ec