. Henry VII. sat too insecurely on
his throne to venture on a resolute reform, even if his feelings had
inclined him towards it, which they did not. Morton durst not resolutely
grapple with the evil. He rebuked and remonstrated; but punishment would
have caused a public scandal. He would not invite the inspection of the
laity into a disease which, without their assistance, he had not the
strength to encounter; and his incipient reformation died away
ineffectually in words. The church, to outward appearance, stood more
securely than ever. The obnoxious statutes of the Plantagenets were in
abeyance, their very existence, as it seemed, was forgotten; and Thomas a
Becket never desired more absolute independence for the ecclesiastical
order than Archbishop Warham found established when he succeeded to the
primacy. He, too, ventured to repeat the experiment of his predecessor. In
1511 he attempted a second visitation of the monasteries, and again
exhorted a reform; but his efforts were even slighter than Morton's, and in
their results equally without fruit. The maintenance of his order in its
political supremacy was of greater moment to him than its moral purity: a
decent veil was cast over the clerical infirmities, and their vices were
forgotten as soon as they ceased to be proclaimed.[95] Henry VIII., a mere
boy on his accession, was borne away with the prevailing stream; and
trained from his childhood by theologians, he entered upon his reign
saturated with theological prepossessions. The intensity of his nature
recognising no half measures, he was prepared to make them the law of his
life; and so zealous was he, that it seemed as if the church had found in
him a new Alfred or a Charlemagne. Unfortunately for the church,
institutions may be restored in theory; but theory, be it never so perfect,
will not give them back their life; and Henry discovered, at length, that
the church of the sixteenth century as little resembled the church of the
eleventh, as Leo X. resembled Hildebrand, or Warham resembled St. Anselm.

If, however, there were no longer saints among the clergy, there could
still arise among them a remarkable man; and in Cardinal Wolsey the king
found an adviser who was able to retain him longer than would otherwise
have been possible in the course which he had entered upon; who, holding a
middle place between an English statesman and a catholic of the old order,
was essentially a transition minister; and who was q