Being admitted to Henry's parties of pleasure, he took the lead in every jovial conversation, and promoted all that frolic and entertainment which he found suitable to the age and inclination of the young monarch.
Neither his own years, which were near forty, nor his character of a clergyman, were any restraint upon him, or engaged him to check, by any useless severity, the gayety in which Henry, who had small propension to debauchery, passed his careless hours.

During the intervals of amusement, he introduced business, and insinuated those maxims of conduct which he was desirous his master should adopt.

He observed to him that while he intrusted his affairs into the hands of his father's counsellors, he had the advantage indeed of employing men of wisdom and experience, but men who owed not their promotion to his favor, and who scarcely thought themselves accountable to him for the exercise of their authority: that by the factions, and cabals, and jealousies which had long prevailed among them, they more obstructed the advancement of his affairs, than they promoted it by the knowledge which age and practice had conferred upon them: that while he thought proper to pass his time in those pleasures to which his age and royal fortune invited him, and in those studies which would in time enable him to sway the sceptre with absolute authority, his best system of government would be, to intrust his authority into the hands of some one person who was the creature of his will, and who could entertain no view but that of promoting his service: and that if this minister had also the same relish for pleasure with himself, and the same taste for science, he could more easily, at intervals, account to him for his whole conduct, and introduce his master gradually into the knowledge of public business; and thus, without tedious constraint or application, initiate him in the science of government.[*] * Cavendish, p.12.Stowe, p.

499.
Henry entered into all the views of Wolsey; and finding no one so capable of executing this plan of administration as the person who proposed it, he soon advanced his favorite, from being the companion of his pleasures, to be a member of his council; and from being a member of his council, to be his sole and absolute minister.

By this rapid advancement and uncontrolled authority, the character and genius of Wolsey had full opportunity to display itself.