For the falling out of Christian princes seemed to the Turk to afford an excellent opportunity for the faithful to come by his own.

After an heroic defence by the knights of St.John, Rhodes, the bulwark of Christendom, had surrendered to Selim.

Belgrade, the strongest citadel in Eastern Europe, followed.

In August, 1526, the King and the flower of Hungarian nobility perished at the battle of Mohacz; and the internecine strife of Christians seemed doomed to be sated only by their common subjugation to the Turk.
* * * * * Henry and Wolsey began to pay the price of their policy at home as well as abroad.

War was no less costly for being ineffective, and it necessitated demands on the purses of Englishmen, to which they had long been unused.