by a recommendatory letter under Henry's own hand, and Wolsey, knowing the power of gold over the conclave, had taken care not to leave that mighty engine unemployed, his hopes were destined to undergo a second disappointment. This was owing principally to his reliance upon the Emperor, who never intended that he should be Pope, though he had settled an annual pension upon him, and at different times treated him with the utmost complaisance and distinction.*

In 1521, in an assembly of prelates and clergy held at York-House, the doctrines of Luther were condemned: forty-two of his errors were enumerated; and Wolsey, after publishing the papal bull against Luther, ordered all persons, under pain of excommunication, to bring in such books of that heretic as were then in their hands. Notwithstanding this however it appears, from an article of his impeachment, that he was no persecutor; for he was accused of having, by his remissness, permitted Lutheranism to gain ground.

His pride and ostentation, together with his unbounded power, raised him many powerful enemies, especially among the nobility, whom he affected to treat with arrogance and contempt. This behaviour was openly resented by Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, the only courtier who ventured to oppose him. Him therefore Wolsey resolved to sacrifice, apprehending that his discontent might otherwise eventually produce some effect upon the King. Buckingham was one of the greatest subjects of the king

* He frequently stiled him, in his letters, "Our most dear and special friend."

dom, extremely beloved by the people, and as Hereditary High-Constable of England in possession of a post, which empowered him to control the actions even of his sovereign. This office was

abolished at his death, and was perhaps one chief cause of hastening that event; for Henry had frequently expressed his jealousy of it's authority. The ceremonial, indeed, observed by him at the coronation had been exceedingly disgustful to this arbitrary prince. It was customary for the Constable to receive a sword from the king, which he held in his hand pronouncing aloud, "With this sword I will defend thee against all thine enemies, if thou governest according to law; and with this sword I and the people of England will depose thee, if thou breakest thy coronation-oath." The Duke having imprudently asserted in private company, that if the king should die without issue, he would claim the as the descendent of Anne of Gloucester, grand-daughter to Edward III., in which case he would punish Wolsey according to his demerits; the Cardinal by his spies discovered that he corresponded with one Hopkins, a monk and pretended prophet, who had given him hopes of succeeding to the throne. This indiscretion combined with the nature of his office, and his public disapprobation of Wolsey, to revive Henry's suspicions. Wolsey having collected materials for an impeachment, and deprived the duke of his two principal friends (the Earl of Northumberland his father-in-law, whom on a slight pretext he had committed to the Tower, and the Earl of Surrey his son-in-law, whom he had sent governor to Ireland) caused him to be arrested, and accused of high-treason. Of this he was convicted

by a thin and partial house of peers, and speedily paid the forfeit with his head. Thenceforth his priestly adversary lost his little remaining credit with the people of England, who openly libelled him for this act of tyrannic cruelty. The Emperor also, upon hearing of the Duke's death, exclaimed, "that the butcher's dog had worried the fairest hart in England."

At this period, Charles and Francis having made Henry the umpire of their long-protracted quarrel, he empowered the Cardinal, as his representative, to treat with the plenipotentiaries of the contending princes at Calais. The conferences were opened on the fourth of August; but Wolsey countenanced imperial demands of such an extravagant description, that the French ministers rejected them: upon which the English minister paid a visit to Charles at Bruges,* and being received with all the honours due to royalty, in his master's name, concluded with him an offensive alliance. Henry engaged to invade France the following summer with 40,000 men, and betrothed to the Emperor the Princess Mary, his only child: an arrangement not only contrary to the true interests of the kingdom, but having a tendency likewise to render it eventually dependent upon that Monarch, by consigning to him the heiress of the English War was, accordingly, declared against France in 1522. But this shameful treaty proved ultimately one cause of the Cardinal's disgrace: for in order to maintain the incidental charges of the

crown.

"He was saluted at the entering into the town of a merry fellow which said, Salve rex regis tui atque regni sui, Hail both king of thy king, and also of his realm."" (Tindal's Works, p. 370.)

war, the King by his favourite's advice exacted a general loan from his subjects, amounting to onetenth of the effects of the laity, and one-fourth of those of the clergy. This, says Rapin, excited general clamours against the Cardinal throughout the kingdom; but, on the tax being more gently levied than had been originally intended, the storm for awhile blew over, though another circumstance occasioned some fruitless complaints against him.

Among other branches of erudition, he founded the first Greek Professorship at Oxford: but not thinking that a sufficient mark of his esteem, in 1525 he determined to build a college, and to furnish it with copies of all the manuscripts in the Vatican, as a lasting monument of his gratitude to the seminary in which he had received his education; and having obtained the royal assent, he laid the first stone of the magnificent structure, then called Cardinal, but now Christ's College,† Oxford, with a super

He had previously, in 1519, founded at the same university a public lecture in rhetoric and humanity, and endowed both these establishments with considerable stipends. Four or five years afterward, Robert Wakefield opened a public lecture for the learned languages at Cambridge, on the suggestion of Henry VIII.; and there also Robert Barnes prior of the Augustines, assisted by his pupil Thomas Parnell, elucidated Plautus, Terence, and Cicero, within the precincts of his own monastery; while Erasmus, the fourth Lady Margaret's Professor, expounded to the students at large the Grammar of Chrysoloras.

† Or Christ-Church. On the gate-house at the entrance into the college, he set his own arms above the King's. At this, says Fuller, "Henry took just offence. This was no verbal, but a real Ego et Rex meus, excusable by no plea in manners or grammar, except only by (that which is rather fault, than figure)

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scription in honour of the founder: erecting at the same time a grammar-school at Ipswich, the place of his nativity, to qualify young scholars for admittance to it. But in the prosecution of these schemes, he struck upon a dangerous rock; for having raised his college on the scite of a dissolved priory, bestowed upon him by the King for that purpose, he farther procured authority to suppress several monasteries in different parts of the kingdom, with a view of providing funds to support his new society. The Pope's bulls indeed, which were transmitted to confirm these grants, had frequently lent their sanction to much heavier offences: nevertheless, his seizing upon the revenues of religious houses was regarded as sacrilege; and the King for the first time openly approving the popular discontent, several satires were published against him. It does not appear, however, that he thought it worth his while to inquire after any of the authors: though Skelton, the poet-laureat,

a harsh downright Hysterosis: but to humble the Cardinal's pride, some afterward set up on a window a painted mastiff-dog gnawing the spate-bone of a shoulder of mutton, to mind the Cardinal of his extraction, being the son of a butcher; it being utterly improbable, as somé have fancied, that that picture was placed there by the Cardinal's own appointment, to be to him a monitor of humility." (Church-History.)

Wolsey founded also lectures at Oxford in theology, civil law, physic, philosophy, and mathematics; all "swallowed up (as Dr. Fiddes observes) in the ruins of that great man, and in the devastation which after his fall was made of things appropriated to pious uses. Whence it appears that, whatever salaries he paid these lecturers, yet he never settled any estate upon the lectureships by deed; which perhaps was observed by Arch-. bishop Laud, who happily by such a deed preserved his Arabic lecture from falling a sacrifice." (Life of Wolsey.)