nothing but girls and hunting, and wastes his
father's patrimony."[329] "He gambled," reported Giustinian in 1519,
"with the French hostages, occasionally, it was said, to the amount of
six or eight thousand ducats a day."[330] In the following summer
Henry rose daily at four or five in the morning and hunted till nine
or ten at night; "he spares," said Pace, "no pains to convert the
sport of hunting into a martyrdom".[331] "He devotes himself," wrote
Chieregati, "to accomplishments and amusements day and night, is
intent on nothing else, and leaves business to Wolsey, who rules
everything."[332] Wolsey, it was remarked by Leo X., made Henry go
hither and thither, just as he liked,[333] and the King signed State
papers without knowing their contents. "Writing," admitted Henry, "is
to me somewhat tedious and painful."[334] When Wolsey thought it
essential that autograph letters in Henry's hand should be sent to
other crowned heads, he composed the letters and sent them to Henry to
copy out.[335] Could the most constitutional monarch have been more
dutiful? But constitutional monarchy was not then invented, and it is
not surprising that Giustinian, in 1519, found it impossible to (p. 122)
say much for Henry as a statesman. _Agere cum rege_, he said, _est
nihil agere_;[336] anything told to the King was either useless or was
communicated to Wolsey. Bishop West was sure that Henry would not take
the pains to look at his and Worcester's despatches; and there was a
widespread impression abroad and at home that the English King was a
negligible quantity in the domestic and foreign affairs of his own
kingdom.

[Footnote 329: _L. and P._, ii., 1105; _cf. ibid._,
ii., 215.]

[Footnote 330: Giustinian, _Desp._, App. ii., 309.]

[Footnote 331: _L. and P._, iii., 950; _cf._ iii.,
1160, where Fitzwilliam describes Henry as a
"master" in deer-hunting.]

[Footnote 332: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 788.]

[Footnote 333: _Sp. Cal._, ii., 281.]

[Footnote 334: _L. and P._, iii., 1.]

[Footnote 335: _Ibid._, iii., 1453, 3377.]

[Footnote 336: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 1110.]

For ten years Henry had reigned while first his council, and then
Wolsey, governed. Before another decade had passed, Henry was King and
Government in one; and nobo