The field of action which Wolsey deliberately chose was that of foreign policy, and his weapons were diplomacy. The Englishmen of his time were like the Englishmen of to-day, and had little sympathy with his objects. Those who reaped the benefits of his policy gave him no thanks for it, nor did they recognise what they owed to him. Those who exulted in the course taken by the English Reformation regarded Wolsey as its bitterest foe, and never stopped to think that Wolsey trained the hands and brains which directed it; that Wolsey inspired England with the proud feeling of independence which nerved her to brave the public opinion of Europe; that Wolsey impressed Europe with such a sense of England's greatness that she was allowed to go her own way, menaced but unassailed. The spirit which animated the England of the sixteenth century was due in no small degree to the splendour of Wolsey's successes, and to the way in which he stamped upon men's imagination a belief in England's greatness. If it is the characteristic of a patriot to believe that nothing is beyond the power of his country to achieve, then Wolsey was the most devoted patriot whom England ever produced. When Wolsey came to power England was an upstart trying to claim for herself a decent position in the august society of European states. It was Wolsey's cleverness that set her in a place far above that which she had any right to expect. For this purpose Wolsey schemed and intrigued; when one plan failed he was always ready with another. It mattered little what was the immediate object which he had in hand; it mattered much that in pursuing it he should so act as to increase the credit of England, and create a belief in England's power. Diplomacy can reckon few abler practitioners than was Wolsey. There is little that is directly ennobling in the contemplation of such a career. It may be doubted if the career of any practical statesman can be a really ennobling study if we have all its activity recorded in detail. At the best it tells us of much which seems disingenuous if not dishonest--much in which nobility of aim or the complexity of affairs has to be urged in extenuation of shifty words and ambiguous actions.