"Sheep," he said, "be become so great devourers and so wild that they eat up and swallow down the very men themselves. They consume, destroy, and devour whole fields, houses, and cities." More saw the evil, but he did not see that the best remedy lay in the establishment of manufactures, to give employment in towns to those who lost it in the country. He wished to enforce by law the reversion of all the new pasturage into arable land. 11. =More and Henry VIII.=--Henry VIII. was intolerant of those who resisted his will, but he was strangely tolerant of those who privately contradicted his opinions. He took pleasure in the society of intelligent and witty men, and he urged More to take office under him. More refused for a long time, but in =1518=--the year of the league of universal peace--believing that Henry was now a convert to his ideas, he consented, and became Sir Thomas More and a Privy Councillor. Henry was so pleased with his conversation that he tried to keep him always with him, and it was only by occasionally pretending to be dull that More obtained leave to visit his home. 12. =The Contest for the Empire. 1519.=--In January =1519= the Emperor Maximilian died. His grandson Charles was now possessed of more extensive lands than any other European sovereign. He ruled in Spain, in Austria, in Naples and Sicily, in the Netherlands, and in the County of Burgundy, usually known as Franche Comté. Between him and Francis I. a struggle was inevitable. The chances were apparently, on the whole, on the side of Charles. His dominions, indeed, were scattered, and devoid of the strength given by national feeling, whilst the smaller dominions of Francis were compact and united by a strong national bond. In character, however, Charles had the superiority. He was cool and wary, whilst Francis was impetuous and uncalculating. Both sovereigns were now candidates for the Empire. The seven electors who had it in their gift were open to bribery. Charles bribed highest, and being chosen became the Emperor Charles V. 13. =The Field of the Cloth of Gold. 1520.=--Wolsey tried hard to keep the peace. In =1520= Henry met Francis on the border of the territory of Calais, and the magnificence of the display on both sides gave to the scene the name of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. In the same year Henry had interviews with Charles. Peace was for a time maintained, because both Charles and Francis were still too much occupied at home to quarrel, but it could hardly be maintained long. [Illustration: The embarkation of Henry VIII. from Dover, 1520: from the original painting at Hampton Court.]