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Wolsey, master of diplomatic divagations; back, more especially, to that other Cromwell, whose manual of statecraft, according to his enemy, Cardinal Pole, was The Prince of Machiavelli. In Thomas Cromwell's letters diplomacy is revealed in its tortuousness, hardness, and relentlessness. “Let us take a moderate example and an extreme personal case.

In October 1537 Cromwell wrote to Sir Thomas Wyatt directing him to sound the Emperor concerning the mediation which Henry VIII had proffered between Charles V and Francis I:

'… Your parte shal be nowe like a good oratour, both to set furthe the princely nature and inclynacion of his highnes with all dexterite, and soo to observe Themperours answers to the said overture and to the rest of the pointes in the same letteres expressed, as you may thereby fishe the botom of his stomake, and advertise his Majeste hee he standeth disposed towardes him, and to the contynuance of thamytie betwene them. … You must in your conference with themperour take occasion to speake of all those matiers, and soo frankely to speake of them as you may feale the depenes of his harte wherein you shall doo good service. … Gentle Maister Wiat nowe use all your wisedome rather to trye out howe themperour is disposed towardes the kinges highnes, thenne to presse him anything to agre to the overture of mediacion if he woll not as gentilly embrace it as it is made freendly unto him. For to be plain with you thother parte declare him in wordes towardes his Majeste to make ale faire wether, and in his

a politic and peaceful, but watchful and suspicious king, was putting an end to the long reign of violence. It required the brain of an Italian'—a Polydore Vergil.—Gairdner, Early Chroniclers, 306. For diplomacy during the reign, see Calendar of State Papers: Venice, i, and Spain, i. Useful extracts from original authorities are given in Pollard, The Reign of Henry VII from Contemporary Sources (1913, 1914), i. and iii. 'No English statesman', it is claimed for Henry in his foreign policy, 'achieved so much at so small a cost'.—Ibid., i. li. See also Wilhelm Busch, England under the Tudors, i. (transl. 1895), chh. i and iv.