The age in which Wolsey lived was immoral in the sense in which all periods are immoral, when the old landmarks are disappearing and there is no certainty about the future. Morality in individuals and in states alike requires an orderly life, a perception of limits, a pursuit of definite ends. When order is shattered, when limits are removed, when all things seem possible, then political morality disappears. In such a condition was Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The old ideas, on which the mediæval conception of Christendom depended, were passing away. No one any longer regarded Christendom as one great commonwealth, presided over by Pope and Emperor, who were the guardians of international law and arbiters of international relations. The Empire had long ceased to exercise any control, because it was destitute of strength. The Papacy, after vainly endeavouring to unite Europe round the old cry of a crusade against the Turk, had discovered that there was no European power on which it could rely for support. The old ideas were gone, the old tribunals were powerless, the old bonds of European union were dissolved. The first result of this decay in the mediæval state-system of Europe was the emergence of vague plans of a universal monarchy. The Empire and the Papacy had harmonised with the feudal conception of a regulative supremacy over vassals who were free to act within the limits of their obligations to their superior lord. When the old superiors were no longer recognised, the idea of a supremacy still remained; but there was no other basis possible for that supremacy than a basis of universal sovereignty. It was long before any state was sufficiently powerful to venture on such a claim; but the end of the fifteenth century saw France and Spain united into powerful kingdoms. In France, the policy of Louis XI. succeeded in reducing the great feudatories, and established the power of the monarchy as the bond of union between provinces which were conscious of like interests. In Spain, the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella united a warlike people who swept away the remains of the Moorish kingdom. Germany, though nominally it recognised one ruler, had sacrificed its national kingship to the futile claims of the Empire. The emperor had great pretensions, but was himself powerless, and the German princes steadily refused to lend him help to give reality to his high-sounding claims. Unconsciously to themselves, the rulers of France and Spain were preparing to attempt the extension of their power over the rest of Europe.