either black or white, Wolsey's was
indeed a contradiction. Charges of a personal character have been brought
against the great prelate, which need not here be referred to, unless it
be to say that if they were true, by so much the less he was a priest, by
so much more he was a man.

_His Ambition_

There is no doubt that the Cardinal made several attempts to become
Pope--but this enterprise was doomed to failure, although in it he was
supported warmly by the King. To gain this end much bribery was needed,
"especially to the younger men who are generally the most needy," as the
Cardinal said. Wolsey was a sufficiently accomplished social diplomatist
to conciliate the young, for their term of office begins to-morrow, and
gold is the key of consciences. He was hated and feared, flattered,
cajoled and brow-beaten where possible. But as a source of income he was
ever held in high regard by the Pope.

His own annual income from bribes--royal and otherwise--was indeed
stupendous, though these were received with the knowledge of the King.

So great was the power Wolsey attained to that Fox said of him: "We have
to deal with the Cardinal, who is not Cardinal but King." He wrote of
himself, "_Ego et rex meus_," and had the initials, "T. W." and the
Cardinal's hat stamped on the King's coins. These were among the charges
brought against him in his fall.

To his ambitions there was no limit. For the spoils of office he had "an
unbounded stomach." As an instance of his pretensions it is recorded that
during the festivities of the Emperor's visit to England in 1520, "Wolsey
alone sat down to dinner with the royal party, while peers, like the Dukes
of Suffolk and Buckingham, performed menial offices for the Cardinal, as
well as for Emperor, King and Queen."

When he met Charles at Bruges in 1521 "he treated the Emperor of Spain as
an equal. He did not dismount from his mule, but merely doffed his cap,
and embraced as a brother the temporal head of Christendom."

"He never granted audience either to English peers or foreign ambassadors"
(says Guistinian) "until the third or fourth time of asking." Small wonder
that he incurred the hatred of the nobility and the jealousy of the King.
During his embassy to France in 1527, it is said that "his attendants
served cap in hand, and when bringing the dishes knelt before him in the
act of presenting them. Those who waited on the Most Christian King, kept
their caps on their heads, di