the emperor Charles V, but he was "cardinal legate," having
control of the Catholic Church throughout England; and it
was said of him that in all European affairs he was "seven
times more powerful than the Pope."

In England Luther's protest seemed at first to find no echo. King Henry
VIII was, both on political and on religious grounds, firm on the papal
side. England and Rome were drawn to a close alliance by the identity of
their political position. Each was hard pressed between the same great
powers; Rome had to hold its own between the masters of Southern and the
masters of Northern Italy, as England had to hold her own between the
rulers of France and of the Netherlands. From the outset of his reign to
the actual break with Clement VII the policy of Henry is always at one
with that of the papacy. Nor were the King's religious tendencies
hostile to it. He was a trained theologian and proud of his theological
knowledge, but to the end his convictions remained firmly on the side of
the doctrines which Luther denied. In 1521, therefore, he entered the
lists against Luther with an "Assertion of the Seven Sacraments," for
which he was rewarded by Leo with the title of "Defender of the Faith."
The insolent abuse of the reformer's answer called More and Fisher into
the field.

The influence of the "New Learning" was now strong at the English court.
Colet and Grocyn were among its foremost preachers; Linacre was Henry's
physician; More was a privy councillor; Pace was one of the secretaries
of state; Tunstall was master of the rolls. And as yet the New Learning,
though scared by Luther's intemperate language, had steadily backed him
in his struggle. Erasmus pleaded for him with the Emperor. Ulrich von
Hutten attacked the friars in satires and invectives as violent as his
own. But the temper of the Renaissance was even more antagonistic to the
temper of Luther than that of Rome itself.

From the golden dream of a new age wrought peaceably and purely by the
slow progress of intelligence, the growth of letters, the development of
human virtue, the reformer of Wittenberg turned away with horror. He had
little or no sympathy with the new cult. He despised reason as heartily
as any papal dogmatist could despise it. He hated the very thought of
toleration or comprehension. He had been driven by a moral and
intellectual compulsion to declare the Roman system a false one, but it
was only to replace it by anothe