;[413] and his ignorance may explain
his inability to give a more satisfactory reason for Henry's conduct
than these tentative and far-fetched suggestions. But after the
publication of Henry's State papers, it is not easy to arrive at any
more definite conclusion. The only motive Wolsey alleges, besides (p. 149)
the _ex post facto_ excuses of Francis's conduct, is the recovery of
Henry's rights to the crown of France; and if this were the real
object, it reduces both King and Cardinal to the level of political
charlatans. To conquer France was a madcap scheme, when Henry himself
was admitting the impossibility of raising 30,000 foot or 10,000
horse, without hired contingents from Charles's domains;[414] when,
according to Giustinian, it would have been hard to levy 100
men-at-arms or 1000 light cavalry in the whole island;[415] when the
only respectable military force was the archers, already an obsolete
arm. Invading hosts could never be victualled for more than three
months, or stand a winter campaign; English troops were ploughmen by
profession and soldiers only by chance; Henry VII.'s treasure was
exhausted, and efforts to raise money for fitful and futile inroads
nearly produced a revolt. Henry VIII. himself was writing that to
provide for these inroads would prevent him keeping an army in
Ireland; and Wolsey was declaring that for the same reason English
interests in Scotland must take care of themselves, that border
warfare must be confined to the strictest defensive, and that a
"cheap" deputy must be found for Ireland, who would rule it, like
Kildare, without English aid.[416] It is usual to lay the folly of the
pretence to the crown of France at Henry's door. But it is a curious
fact that when Wolsey was gone, and Henry was his own prime minister,
this spirited foreign policy took a very subordinate place, and Henry
turned his attention to the cultivation of his own garden instead of
seeking to annex his neighbour's. It is possible that he was (p. 150)
better employed in wasting his people's blood and treasure in the
futile devastation of France, than in placing his heel on the Church
and sending Fisher and More to the scaffold; but his attempts to
reduce Ireland to order, and to unite England and Scotland, violent
though his methods may have been, were at least more sane than the
quest for the crown of France, or even for the possession of
Normandy.[417]

[Footnote 412: _Sp. Cal._, i