itation for heresy at last brought the danger home. "I intend," he
wrote with his peculiar medley of humor and pathos, to "make merry with
my parishioners this Christmas, for all the sorrow, lest perchance I may
never return to them again." But he was saved throughout by the steady
protection of the court. Wolsey upheld him against the threats of the
Bishop of Ely; Henry made him his own chaplain; and the King's
interposition at this critical moment forced Latimer's judges to content
themselves with a few vague words of submission.

What really sheltered the reforming movement was Wolsey's indifference
to all but political matters. In spite of the foundation of Cardinal
College in which he was now engaged, and of the suppression of some
lesser monasteries for its endowment, the men of the New Learning looked
on him as really devoid of any interest in the revival of letters or in
their hopes of a general enlightenment. He took hardly more heed of the
new Lutheranism. His mind had no religious turn, and the quarrel of
faiths was with him simply one factor in the political game which he was
carrying on and which at this moment became more complex and absorbing
than ever. The victory of Pavia had ruined that system of balance which
Henry VII, and, in his earlier days, Henry VIII, had striven to
preserve. But the ruin had not been to England's profit, but to the
profit of its ally. While the Emperor stood supreme in Europe, Henry had
won nothing from the war, and it was plain that Charles meant him to win
nothing. He set aside all projects of a joint invasion; he broke his
pledge to wed Mary Tudor and married a princess of Portugal; he pressed
for a peace with France which would give him Burgundy. It was time for
Henry and his minister to change their course. They resolved to withdraw
from all active part in the rivalry of the two powers.

In June, 1525, a treaty was secretly concluded with France. But Henry
remained on fair terms with the Emperor; and though England joined the
Holy League for the deliverance of Italy from the Spaniards which was
formed between France, the Pope, and the lesser Italian states on the
release of Francis in the spring of 1526 by virtue of a treaty which he
at once repudiated, she took no part in the lingering war which went on
across the Alps. Charles was too prudent to resent Henry's alliance with
his foes, and from this moment the country remained virtually at peace.
No longer spurred by the i