"No statesman of such eminence ever died less lamented," is Dr. Brewer's remark on Wolsey's death. Indeed, the king had forgotten his old servant; his enemies rejoiced to be rid of a possible rival; the men whom he had trained in politics were busy in seeking their own advancement, which was not to be promoted by tears for a fallen minister; the people had never loved him, and were indifferent about one who was no longer powerful. In a time of universal uncertainty every one was speculating on the future, and saw that the future was not to be determined by Wolsey or by Wolsey's ideas. Not without reason has the story of Wolsey's fall passed into a parable of the heartlessness of the world.

For Wolsey lived for the world as few men have ever done; not for the larger world of intellectual thought or spiritual aspiration, but for the actual, immediate world of affairs. He limited himself to its problems, but within its limits he took a wider and juster view of the problems of his time than any English statesman has ever done. For politics in the largest sense, comprising all the relations of the nation at home and abroad, Wolsey had a capacity which amounted to genius, and it is doubtful if this can be said of any other Englishman. There have been many capable administrators, many excellent organisers, many who bravely faced the difficulties of their time, many who advocated particular reforms and achieved definite results. But Wolsey aimed at doing all these things together and more. Taking England as he found her, he aimed at developing all her latent possibilities, and leading Europe to follow in her train. In this project there was nothing chimerical or fantastic, for Wolsey's mind was eminently practical. Starting from the existing condition of affairs, he made England for a time the centre of European politics, and gave her an influence far higher than she could claim on material grounds. Moreover, his far-reaching schemes abroad did not interfere with strict attention to the details of England's interests. His foreign policy was to promote English trade, facilitate the union of Scotland, keep peace at small expense, prepare the way for internal re-organisation, and secure the right of dealing judiciously with ecclesiastical reform. Wolsey's plans all hung together. However absorbed he might be in a particular point it was only part of a great design, and he used each advantage which he gained as a means of strengthening England's position for some future undertaking. He had a clear view of the future as a whole; he knew not only what he wished to make of England but of Europe as well. He never worked at a question from one motive only; what failed for one purpose was made useful for another; his resources were not bounded by the immediate result. Politics to him was not a pursuit, it was a passion. He loved it as an artist loves his art, for he found in it a complete satisfaction for his nature. All that was best, and all that was worst, in Wolsey sprang from this exceptional attitude towards statecraft, which he practised with enthusiasm, not in the spirit of cold calculation. The world is accustomed to statesmen who clothe the results of calculation in the language of enthusiasm; Wolsey's language was practical and direct, his passionate aspirations were restrained within his own bosom.

Thus there is a largeness and distinction about Wolsey's aims, a far-reaching patriotism, and an admirable lucidity. He was indeed a political artist, who worked with a free hand and a certain touch. He was absorbed in his art as a painter over his picture, and he did not shrink as the full size of his canvas was gradually enrolled. He set himself to dominate Europe, and was fearless and self-contained. He gave himself entirely to his work, and in his eyes the nobility of his end justified any means. But he was sensitive, as all artists are, and could not work under cramped conditions. When he was restricted to the small matter of the divorce his hand lost its cunning. He was, though he knew it not, fitted to serve England, but not fitted to serve the English king. He had the aims of a national statesman, not of a royal servant.

Wolsey's misfortune was that his lot was cast on days when the career of a statesman was not distinct from that of a royal servant. He owed his introduction to politics solely to royal favour, and neither had nor could obtain any other warrant for his position. For good or evil England was identified with her king, and it was long before it could be otherwise. Certainly Wolsey had no wish that it should be otherwise, and his subservience to the royal will seems to us to be unworthy of his greatness. But Wolsey associated his political life with the king's goodwill, and Henry was to him a symbol of all that was best and most intelligent in England. His deviations from his own policy in obedience to the king were not more degrading or more inevitable than are the calculations of the modern statesman about the exact limits of the field of practical politics. A statesman has not only to form projects, he has to secure a force behind him which will enable him to give them effect. Each age recognises this fact, and acts accordingly. There is nothing more intrinsically base in Wolsey's subservience to the royal will than in the efforts of modern statesmen to bid against one another for an opportunity of carrying out what they think to be the will of the people. No politician has a complete command of his field of action; his high-mindedness and purity must be tested by the degree of compromise which consciously or unconsciously he makes between his love of power and his knowledge or his conscience. The utmost that can be demanded of him is that he should not, to keep his place, deliberately act contrary to what he believes to be wise or knows to be right.

In his general conduct of politics Wolsey was true to his principles, and though occasionally thwarted, he still pursued the same ends. The matter of the divorce was sprung upon him, and it would have been well for Wolsey's fame if he had retired rather than involve himself in the unworthy proceedings to which it led. But the temptation to all men to think themselves necessary in the sphere which they have made their own is a subtle one; and those who begin by hoping that they may minimise inevitable mischief, end by being dragged into the mire. To a statesman this temptation is great in proportion to the largeness of his ultimate aim. He resents that his schemes should be ruined by a temporary derangement of the perspective of affairs; he believes that his practised hand can easily solve a trumpery difficulty; the excellence of his intentions in the long-run justifies an occasional sacrifice on the shrine of present necessity. If he does some things amiss, after all he is not responsible for them; they are disagreeable incidents in his tenure of office.

So Wolsey regarded the divorce; and he is not greatly to be blamed for agreeing to promote it. He saw great national advantages in a divorce; he knew that it would be well for England if Henry VIII. left male issue; he did not like the political influence of Katharine; he saw that Henry was not likely to be happy in her society. It would have been difficult for him to find in the proposal itself a sufficient reason for withdrawing from politics even if he could have done so with safety. Not even Wolsey could foresee the king's obstinacy and tenacity of purpose, the depth of meanness to which he would sink, and to which he would drag all around him. Wolsey found himself powerless to resist, and the growing consciousness of moral turpitude practised to no purpose degraded him in his own eyes and robbed him of his strength. When once the divorce question was started Wolsey was pushed on to his ruin by a power of imperious wickedness which debased others without losing its own self-respect. The dictates of public opinion are, after all, not so very different from the commands of an absolute king. Both may destroy their victims, and go on their own way with heads erect.

So when we speak of the fall of Wolsey we mean more than his irrevocable loss of power. He had lost his inner strength, and no longer kept his hold upon affairs. He knew that he was sullied and unnerved; that he had sunk from the position of a leader to that of one who tremblingly follows and devises shifty plans that he may still exercise the semblance of his old authority. He knew that in his negotiations about the divorce he staked everything that he had gained, and that the result, whatever it was, would be disastrous to his great designs. If he had succeeded he would have degraded the Papacy; and when Henry had once learned how easy it was for him to get his own way, he would have used his knowledge to the full, and Wolsey would have been powerless to direct him. When Wolsey became the instrument of the king's selfwill, he hoped that a few disappointments would wear out his obstinacy; when he saw Henry's growing resoluteness and complete selfwill he knew that for himself the future was hopeless. Still he had not the magnanimity to resign himself to his disappointment. He clung to power when power had ceased to be useful for his plans. He clung to power, because the habits of office had become to him a second nature. He vainly strove to find satisfaction in the discharge of his episcopal duties; he vainly tried to content himself with the simple affairs of simple men. He had given himself entirely to the material world, and had estranged himself from the spiritual world, which was to him thin and unsubstantial to the last. He could not refrain from casting longing glances behind him, and his last days are pitiable. The words of the dying man are often quoted as showing the misery of those who trust in princes' favour. But they are not merely an echo of a far-off state of things which has passed by for ever. "To serve one's country" may have a loftier and more noble sound than "to serve one's king," but the meaning is not necessarily different. The thought in Wolsey's heart was this—"If I had served the spiritual interests of my country as I have striven to serve its material interests my conscience would be more at rest." For Wolsey was a true patriot, and had noble aims. Much as he might deaden his conscience, he did not extinguish it; and his last judgment of himself expressed the sad conviction that neither his patriotism nor the nobility of his aims had saved him from actions which he could not justify, and which his conscience loudly condemned.

We have called Wolsey a political artist: and this, which makes his career attractive, is the secret of his unpopularity. Wolsey's designs did not arise from the pressure of absolute necessity, and their meaning was not apparent to his contemporaries. Englishmen thought then, as they think now, that England should disregard foreign affairs and develop her own resources; or if foreign affairs are undertaken they demand the success of English arms, and claim to be repaid in current coin or palpable advantages. Wolsey believed that the establishment of England's power on the Continent was necessary for the increase of English trade, and was a preliminary for the wise solution of those questions which were most urgent in domestic politics. He was the last English statesman of the old school, which regarded England not as a separate nation, but as an integral part of Western Christendom. He did not look upon questions as being solely English questions: he did not aim merely at reforming English monasteries or asserting a new position for the English Church. But he thought that England was ripe for practically carrying out reforms which had long been talked of, and remedying abuses which had long been lamented; and he hoped that England in these respects would serve as a model to the rest of Europe. Only if England was in full accord with European sentiment, was powerful, and was respected, could this be done. Wolsey did not prefer foreign politics on their own account, but he found them to be the necessary preliminary for any lasting work on the lines which he contemplated. As regards Church matters he was strictly practical. He had no belief in reforming councils, or pragmatic sanctions, or Gallican liberties; he cared little for England's weapon of prÆmunire. He did not look upon the Pope as a powerful adversary who was to be held at arm's length; he regarded him as a man to be managed and converted into a useful ally. Wolsey was entirely Erastian. Power was to him the important thing in human affairs, and all power was the same; he believed much more in the divine right of Henry VIII. than in the divine right of Clement VII. merely because Henry's power seemed to him practically to be greater. However poetical Wolsey's main ideas might be, he had no illusions about the actual facts of politics.

The Englishmen of his own day did not appreciate Wolsey's aims, and supposed that his foreign policy was for the gratification of his own vanity, or was the result of a desire to gain the Papacy. No one understood him in his own time. He bore the burden of everything that was done, and all the causes of popular discontent were laid at his door. If the loyalty of Wolsey seems strange to our eyes, still more inexplicable is the loyalty of the English people, who could believe in Henry's good intentions, and could suppose that he was entirely ruled by Wolsey contrary to his own inclinations. Wolsey was universally hated; by the nobles as an upstart, by the people as a tyrant, by Churchmen as a dangerous reformer, by the Lutherans as a rank Papist. While he was in power he kept in restraint various elements of disorder; but he shared the fate of those who rule without identifying themselves with any party. When his power came to an end no minister could assume his place or pick up the threads which fell from his hands. It was left to Henry VIII., who had learned more from Wolsey than any one else, to direct England's fortunes on a lower level of endeavour. We may admire his clear head and his strong hand; we may even prefer the results of his solution to those which Wolsey would have wrought; but we must confess that personal motives held the chief place in his mind, and that considerations of the common weal came only in the second place. For Henry VIII. abandoned Wolsey's idea of a European settlement of ecclesiastical questions, and gradually undertook a national settlement on lines drawn solely with reference to his own desires and his own interest. In this simpler matter it was possible for him to enjoy some measure of success, and this was chiefly due to the preparation which Wolsey had made. For the work of a statesman is never entirely thrown away; if his own plans fail, he leaves the way open for others who may use his means for widely different ends.

Wolsey was the creator of the forces which worked the great change in England in the sixteenth century. He obtained for England a position in the esteem of Europe which he had meant to use for the direction of Europe generally. Henry used that position for the assertion of England's right to settle its own affairs for itself; and the position proved strong enough to ward off foreign interference, and to carry England safely through the first period of a dangerous crisis. It was because Wolsey had laid a sure foundation that England emerged from her separatist policy, isolated, it is true, but not excluded from European influence. Again, Wolsey exalted the royal power, because he believed that it alone could rise above the separate interests of classes, and could give a large expression to the national weal. Henry profited by Wolsey's labours to pursue exclusively his own interests, yet he learned enough to interweave them dexterously with some national interests in such a way that they could not practically be disentangled, and that he had sufficient adherents to put down opposition when it arose. Even the preliminary steps which Wolsey had taken were carefully followed. His scheme for the gradual conversion of monasteries into more useful institutions was revived, and men believed that it would be imitated: the very agents that he had trained for the work of turning monasteries into educational establishments were employed in sweeping the monastic revenues into the royal coffers. So it was with all other things. Henry learned Wolsey's methods, and popularised Wolsey's phrases. He clothed his own self-seeking with the dignity of Wolsey's designs; the hands were the hands of Henry, but the voice was an echo of the voice of Wolsey.

The new England that was created in the sixteenth century was strangely unlike that which Wolsey had dreamed of, yet none the less it was animated by his spirit. His ideal of England, influential in Europe through the mediatorial policy which her insular position allowed her to claim, prosperous at home through the influence which she obtained by her far-sighted wisdom and disinterestedness—this is Wolsey's permanent contribution to the history of English politics.