1. =The Papacy and the Renascence.=--The Renascence alone could not make the world better, and in many respects it made it worse. The respect which it paid to humanity, which was its leading characteristic, allied itself in More with a reverence for God, which led him to strive to mellow the religious teaching of the Middle Ages, by fitting it for the needs of the existing world. Too many threw off all religious restraints, and made it their first thought to seek their own enjoyment, or the triumphs of their own intellectual skill. Sensual delights were pursued with less brutal directness, but became more seductive and more truly debasing by the splendour and gracefulness of the life of which they formed a part. In Italy the Popes swam with the current. Alexander VI. (=1492-1503=) gave himself up to the most degrading vices. Julius II. (=1503-1513=) was a passionate warrior struggling for the extension of his temporal possessions. Leo X. (=1513-1521=) was a polished lover of art, perfectly indifferent to religious duty. "Let us enjoy the Papacy," he said when he was elected, "since God has given it to us." Amidst the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, the Popes became as other Italian princes, no better and no worse. Spiritual guidance was no longer to be expected of them. 2. =Wolsey and the Papacy.=--By Wolsey and his master the Papacy was respected as a venerable and useful institution, the centre of a religious organisation which they believed to be of divine origin, though when it came in conflict with their own projects they were quite ready to thwart it. In =1521= Leo X. died, and Wolsey, having some hopes of being himself elected, asked Charles V. to send troops to compel the cardinals to choose him, promising to pay the expenses of the armament. Charles, though, in the previous year, he had offered to support Wolsey's candidature at the next vacancy, now deserted him, and the new Pope was Adrian VI., who in =1523= was succeeded by Clement VII. (see p. 374). [Illustration: Portrait of William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1503-1532 showing the ordinary episcopal dress, with the mitre and archiepiscopal cross: from a painting belonging to Viscount Dillon, dated 1527.]