milian united the
Spanish kingdoms with Naples and the lordship over the Netherlands.

To this position between the two powers it would have lent new weight
and great splendour if the German princes could have been induced to
transfer to the King of England the peaceful dignity of a Roman-German
Emperor. He bestirred himself about this for a moment, but did not
feel it much when it was refused him.

But now since the empire too was added to the possessions in Spain,
Italy, and the Netherlands, and hence redoubled jealousy awakened in
King Francis I, which held out an immediate prospect of war, the old
question came up again before King Henry, which side England was to
take between them, and that in a more pressing form than ever. A
special complication arose from the fact that yet another person with
separate points of view now took part in the politics of the age.

In another point Henry VIII departed from his father's tactics and
habits; he no longer sat so regularly with his Privy Council and
deliberated with them. He had been persuaded that he would best secure
himself against prejudicial results from the discords that reigned
among them, by taking affairs more into his own hand. A young
ecclesiastic, his Almoner Thomas Wolsey, had then gained the greatest
influence over him; he had been introduced alike into business and
into intimacy with the King by Fox, Bishop of Winchester, who wished
to oppose a more youthful ability to his rivals in the Privy Council.
In both relations Wolsey was completely successful. It stood him in
good stead that another favourite, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk,
who had married Henry's sister (Louis XII's widow), and was the King's
comrade in knightly exercises and the external show of court-life, for
a long time remained in intimate friendship with him. Wolsey was
conversant with the scholastic philosophy, with Saint Thomas Aquinas;
but that did not hinder him from cooperating also in the revival of
classical studies, which were just coming into notice at Oxford: he
had a feeling for the efforts of Art which was then attaining a higher
estimation, and an inborn talent for architecture, to which we owe
some wonderful works.[81] The King too loved building; the present of
a skilfully cut jewel could delight him; and he sought honour in
defending the scholastic dogmas against Luther's views; in all this
Wolsey seconded and supported him, he combined state-business with
conversation. H