almoner; and upon the conviction of the corrupt and rapacious Empson received that minister's house, near the royal palace of Bridewell in Fleet-street, with several lands and tenements appertaining to the forfeited estate. In 1510, he was admitted PrivyCouncillor, and made Reporter of the proceedings in the Star-Chamber, Canon of Windsor, and Register of the Order of the Garter. Thus firmly seated, he soon convinced his episcopal patron that he had totally mistaken his character, by supplanting at once both him and his antagonist.

It may be necessary to trace the means, by which Wolsey gained the entire confidence of his master, and the total management of public affairs. "The young King, who had been kept under much restraint by his father, was now greatly disposed," says Cavendish, "to give a loose to pleasure, and to follow his princely appetite and desire. His old and faithful counsellors would, however, occasionally advise him to attend more to the public concerns of the nation, and to the duties of his regal character: but the almoner took upon him to discharge the King of the burthen of such weighty and troublesome business, putting him in comfort, that he should need not to spare any time of his pleasure for any business that should happen in the council, so long as he should be there; who having his Grace's authority, and by his. commandment, doubted not to see all things well and sufficiently perfected, making his Grace privy first of all such matters, before he would proceed to the accomplishment of the same, whose mind and pleasure he would follow to the uttermost: wherewith the king was wonderfully pleased.”.

In 1513, Wolsey gave such a striking proof of his

capacity for the management even of military business, that Henry from that time bestowed upon him his unlimited confidence. A war with France* having been resolved upon in council, his Majesty, determined to invade that kingdom in person, committed to Wolsey the care of providing the formidable armament employed upon the occasion; and Wolsey, though the task to him was new, and to any one must have been difficult, instantly undertook it, to show that he would not in any thing scruple to do his utmost in obeying his sovereign's commands. The extraordinary despatch with which he completed his preparations so greatly pleased the King, that he bestowed upon him the deanery of Hereford, and made him Chancellor of the Order of the Garter.

Henry reached Calais June 30, 1513, accompanied by the chief officers of his court, and by his favourite Wolsey. The principal part of his army had landed before him, and were laying siege to Terouenne, a town situated on the frontiers of Picardy. He now took upon himself the command; and within a short time the emperor Maximilian arrived in the English camp with a considerable reinforcement, assumed the cross of St. George, and accepted the daily pay of a hundred crowns. Soon afterward, the English fell in with a convoy of provisions and ammunition intended for the besieged; upon which a general engagement ensued, when the French were totally de

* Henry had been earnestly solicited by Julius II. to enter into this war against Louis XII., the Pope's avowed enemy: and Wolsey himself, it is shrewdly conjectured, advised it, with the view of recommending himself to the court of Rome; nor was the king averse from it, in consideration of the English claims upon the crown of France.

feated.* Terouenne surrendering in consequence of this victory, Henry delivered it up to Maximilian, who immediately ordered it's walls to be razed, that the dominions of his grandson (Charles of Austria) might be secured from it's future insults.

The English prince next laid siege to Tournay, which capitulated in a few days: and as the Bishop refused to take the oath of allegiance to him, he bestowed the see upon Wolsey, who held it five years, and on the restoration of the city obtained an annual pension in lieu of it from the French monarch.

Soon after the surrender of Tournay, Henry concluded a new treaty with the Emperor, which was ratified at Lisle. He then embarked for England, where he arrived in October after a short but splendid campaign; and in the following year (1514) promoted Wolsey first to the see of Lincoln, and, on the death of Cardinal Bainbridge, to the archbishopric of York.

About this period the Duke of Norfolk, finding the exchequer almost exhausted, was glad to resign his office of Treasurer, and retire from court. The Bishop of Winchester likewise, partly overcome by years and infirmities, and partly disgusted at Wolsey's ascendency, withdrew himself to the care of his diocese. The Duke of Suffolk also had taken offence, that the King by his favourite's persuasion had refused to pay a debt, which he had contracted during his abode in France; and thenceforward affected to live in privacy. These various incidents left Wolsey without a rival, and his power became absolute; though, when Fox previously to his retirement warned Henry, "not to suffer the servant to be greater *From the precipitation, with which the vanquished fled, this engagement was denominated 'The Battle of Spurs.'

than his master," that prince replied, "That he knew well how to retain all his subjects in obedience."

But it was a master-stroke of policy in Wolsey, while he secretly directed all the public councils, constantly to pretend an implicit subjection to the royal will; thus concealing from his sovereign, whose imperious temper would otherwise have ill brooked a director, the authority which he was daily gaining over him: and Henry, in nothing more violent than in his attachments while they lasted, thought he could never sufficiently reward a man so entirely devoted to his service. In consequence of this, Wolsey held at one time such a multitude of preferments, as no churchman beside himself had ever combined, He was even permitted to unite with the see of York the bishoprics of Durham and Winchester,* and the rich abbey of St. Alban's: and the Pope observing that in fact he governed the nation, with the view of engaging his interest in favour of the Vatican, in 1515 completed his exaltation by creating him Cardinal of St. Cecile beyond the Tiber.

The pageantry, which Wolsey assumed upon this new accession of dignity, is hardly to be parallelled. The splendor of his equipage, and the costliness of his apparel, exceeded all description. He caused his cardinal's hatt to be borne aloft by a person of rank; and, when he came to the king's chapel, he would not

* See a note extracted from Barnes' Works, p. 210. A. D. 1573, in Dr. Wordsworth's valuable Ecclesiastical Biography,' I. 341. The bishoprics of Bath, Worcester, and Hereford also were at this time held by foreigners living abroad, who received from the Cardinal an annual payment of money in lieu of their episcopal revenues.

+ See ib. 343, on the honours exacted to this hat, from Tindal's Works, A. D. 1572, and Fox's Acts.

suffer it to be laid any where except upon the altar. A priest, selected for his size and comeliness, carried before him a pillar of silver, upon the top of which was placed a cross; while another of equal staturē and beauty marched along, bearing the cross of York even in the diocese of Canterbury, contrary to the established arrangement between those rival metropolitans. The people indeed with a caustic sneer observed, they were now sensible, that one cross alone was not sufficient for the expiation of his offences. But Warham the Chancellor, and Archbishop of Canterbury, having frequently remonstrated against this affront without effect, chose rather to retire from public employment, than wage an unequal contest with the haughty favourite. He accordingly resigned the seals, which were immediately entrusted to Wolsey. Upon this new promotion, he added to his former parade four footmen with gilt pole-axes, a gentleman to carry the great seal before him, and an additional train of attendants who rode on horseback, while he himself was mounted upon a mule caparisoned with crimson velvet. In this state, he resorted every Sunday to the court at Greenwich from York-House, now Whitehall.

The Cardinal, while he was only almoner to the King, had rendered himself extremely unpopular by his sentences in the Star-Chamber, a most arbitrary and unconstitutional court, where without any respect to the justice of the cause he decided every thing in conformity to his master's wishes. But in his function of Chancellor he made full amends, by discharging his duty with as penetrating a judgement, and as enlarged a knowledge of law and equity, as any who have ever held that great office.

To increase his power however over the clergy, as