and the alternative was seen to be absolute between a union with Rome or a forfeiture of Catholic orthodoxy, prove after all that he was wiser than in the immediate event he seemed to be; that if his policy had succeeded, and if, strengthened by success, he had introduced into the Church those reforms which he had promised and desired,[1] he would have satisfied the substantial wishes of the majority of the nation.
Like other men of genius, Wolsey also combined practical sagacity with an unmeasured power of hoping. As difficulties gathered round him, he encountered them with the increasing magnificence of his schemes; and after thirty years' experience of public life, he was as sanguine as a boy. Armed with this little lever of the divorce, he saw himself, in imagination, the rebuilder of the Catholic faith and the deliverer of Europe. The King being remarried, and the succession settled, he would purge the Church of England, and convert the monasteries into intellectual garrisons of pious and learned men, occupying the land from end to end. The feuds with France should cease for ever, and, united in a holy cause, the two countries should restore the Papacy, put down the German heresies, depose the Emperor, and establish in his place some faithful servant of the Church. Then Europe once more at peace, the hordes of the Crescent, which were threatening to settle
- ↑ The fullest account of Wolsey's intentions on Church reform will be found in a letter addressed to him by Fox, the old blind Bishop of Winchester, in 1528. The letter is printed in Strype's Memorials Eccles., vol. i. Appendix 10.
