Protestantism in England From the Times of Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

and Parliament must submit to have their
prerogatives, laws, and jurisdiction circumscribed
and regulated by the cardinal, as the representative
of God's Vicar in England. Those causes which
were excluded from his jurisdiction as Legate-a-
Latere, came under his cognizance as Chancellor of
the Kingdom, so that Wolsey really governed both
Church and State. He was virtually king, and his
own famous phrase, Ego et Rex meus -- "I and my
king" -- was not less in accordance with fact than it
was with the idiom of the language in which it was
expressed.
Of the grandeurs of his palace, the
sumptuousness of his table, the number of his daily
guests, and the multitude of his servants, it is
needless to speak. The list of his domestics was
upwards of 500, and some of the nobles of England
did not account it beneath them to be enrolled in
the number. When he moved out of doors he wore
a dress of crimson velvet and silk; his shoes
glittered with jewels; the goodliest priests of the
realm marched before him, carrying silver crosses,
while his pomp was swelled by a retinue of
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