Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

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HAMPTON COURT
place in European politics,and to her Church a definite
place among European Churches, Reformed, Catholic,
certainly not Protestant, and as little Ultramontane.
Andmore, he alone had the audacity, the foresight, and
the power which might have carried out such a scheme,
and have placed the English Church and State where he
willed. But against the almost superhuman strength of
one man, joined with the complication of Continental
changes in a period of fears within and fights without,
he could not stand; and with his fall passed the greatness
of his master's reign. He had said that men
should be careful how they put an idea into Henry's
head, for no man could take it out again; and More,
a servant no less loyal though less strong, had said
that strange things would happen when the lion knew
his strength. Both came to feel the truth of their
own statements.
The pathos of Wolsey's career is irresistibly connected
with Hampton Court. He sought out the
place and bought it, and built it, and made all ready
that it might be his home. Then his master coveted
it, and he gave it up, the most generous of offerings
that subject evermade to sovereign. The great house
he built remains as the perpetual memorial of his
greatness, and of how inextricably his career was bound
up with that of his king. We can think of Wolsey
at Hampton Court; yet, as we think, our thoughts
pass insensibly to Henry VIII.
The Calendars of State Papers for Henry's reign
contain many hundreds of references to the house