failure awaited him. His diplomacy
sought to bring fresh pressure on the Pope and to provide a fresh check
on the Emperor by a closer alliance with France. But Francis was anxious
to recover his children who had remained as hostages for his return; he
was weary of the long struggle, and hopeless of aid from his Italian
allies. At this crisis of his fate therefore Wolsey saw himself deceived
and outwitted by the conclusion of peace between France and the Emperor
in a new treaty at Cambray. Not only was his French policy no longer
possible, but a reconciliation with Charles was absolutely needful, and
such a reconciliation could only be brought about by Wolsey's fall. In
October, on the very day that the Cardinal took his place with a haughty
countenance and all his former pomp in the court of chancery an
indictment was preferred against him by the King's attorney for
receiving bulls from Rome in violation of the Statute of Provisors.

A few days later he was deprived of the seals. Wolsey was prostrated by
the blow. In a series of abject appeals he offered to give up everything
that he possessed if the King would but cease from his displeasure. "His
face," wrote the French ambassador, "is dwindled to half its natural
size. In truth his misery is such that his enemies, Englishmen as they
are, cannot help pitying him." For the moment Henry seemed contented
with his disgrace. A thousand boats full of Londoners covered the Thames
to see the Cardinal's barge pass to the Tower, but he was permitted to
retire to Esher.

Although judgment of forfeiture and imprisonment was given against him
in the king's bench at the close of October, in the following February
he received a pardon on surrender of his vast possessions to the crown
and was permitted to withdraw to his diocese of York, the one dignity he
had been suffered to retain.

Not less significant was the attitude of the New Learning. On Wolsey's
fall the seals had been offered to Warham, and it was probably at his
counsel that they were finally given to Sir Thomas More. The
Chancellor's dream, if we may judge it from the acts of his brief
ministry, seems to have been that of carrying out the religious
reformation which had been demanded by Colet and Erasmus while checking
the spirit of revolt against the unity of the Church. His severities
against the Protestants, exaggerated as they have been by polemic
rancor, remain the one stain on a memory that knows no other. But it