England won nothing save military glory by these campaigns, for the invasion of France was at once abandoned and that of Scotland not even undertaken.
[Sidenote: Wolsey, c.

1475-1530] The gratification of the national vanity redounded the profit not only of Henry but of his minister, {280} Thomas Wolsey.

A poor man, like the other tools of the Tudor despot, he rose rapidly in church and state partly by solid gifts of statesmanship, partly by baser arts.

By May, 1515, Erasmus described him as all-powerful with the king and as bearing the main burden of public affairs on his shoulders, and fifteen years later Luther spoke of him as "the demigod of England, or rather of Europe." His position at home he owed to his ability to curry favor with the king by shouldering the odium of unpopular acts.

[Sidenote: May, 1521] When the Duke of Buckingham was executed for the crime of standing next in succession to the throne, Wolsey was blamed; many people thought, as it was put in a pun attributed to Charles V, that "it was a pity so noble a _buck_ should have been slain by such a hound." Wolsey lost the support of the nobles by the pride that delighted to humble them, and of the commons by the avarice that accumulated a corrupt fortune.