Cal._, ii., 201. A Venetian
reports that the English were so enraged that they
would have killed Carroz had it not been for Henry
(_Ven. Cal._, ii., 248), and Carroz was actually
placed in confinement.]

[Footnote 173: _L. and P._, i., 5718; _Ven. Cal._,
ii., 464.]

Henry had struck back with a vengeance. His blow shivered to fragments
the airy castles which Maximilian and Ferdinand were busy constructing.
Their plans for reviving the empire of Charlemagne, creating a new
kingdom in Italy, inducing Louis to cede Milan and Genoa and assist in
the conquest of Venice, disappeared like empty dreams. The younger
Ferdinand found no provision in Italy; he was compelled to retain his
Austrian inheritance, and thus to impair the power of the future
Charles V.; while the children's grandparents were left sadly
reflecting on means of defence against the Kings of England and
France. The blot on the triumph was Henry's desertion of Sforza,[174]
who, having gratefully acknowledged that to Henry he owed his
restoration of Milan,[175] was now left to the uncovenanted mercies
of Louis. But neither the credit nor discredit is due mainly to (p. 077)
Henry. He had learnt much, but his powers were not yet developed
enough to make him a match for the craft and guile of his rivals. The
consciousness of the fact made him rely more and more upon Wolsey, who
could easily beat both Maximilian and Ferdinand at their own game. He
was not more deceitful than they, but in grasp of detail, in boldness
and assiduity, he was vastly superior. While Ferdinand hawked, and
Maximilian hunted the chamois, Wolsey worked often for twelve hours
together at the cares of the State. Possibly, too, his clerical
profession and the cardinalate which he was soon to hold gave him an
advantage which they did not possess; for, whenever he wanted to obtain
credence for a more than usually monstrous perversion of truth, he
swore "as became a cardinal and on the honour of the cardinalate".[176]
His services were richly rewarded; besides livings, prebends,
deaneries and the Chancellorship of Cambridge University, he received
the Bishoprics of Lincoln and of Tournay, the Archbishopric of York,
and finally, in 1515, Cardinalate. This dignity he had already, in May
of the previous year, sent Polydore Vergil to claim from the Pope;
Vergil's mission was unknown t