[Footnote 652: See, besides the documents cited, Busch, _Der Sturz des Cardinals Wolsey_ (Hist. Taschenbuch, VI., ix., 39-114).] The loss of their spiritual jurisdiction in England was part of the price paid by the Popes for their temporal possessions in Italy. The papal domains were either too great or too small. If the Pope was to rely on his temporal power, it should have been extensive enough to protect him from the dictation and resentment of secular princes; and from this point of view there was no little justification for the aims of Julius II. Had he succeeded in driving the barbarians across the Alps or into the sea, he and his successors might in safety have judged the world, and the breach with Henry might never have taken place. If the Pope was to rely on his spiritual weapons, there was no need of temporal states at all. In their existing extent and position, they were simply the heel of Achilles, the vulnerable spot, through which secular foes might wound the Vicar of Christ. France threatened him from the north and Spain from the south; he was ever between the upper and the nether mill-stone. Italy was the cockpit of Europe in the sixteenth century, and the eyes of the Popes were perpetually bent on the worldly fray, seeking to save or extend their dominions. Through the Pope's temporal power, France and Spain exerted their (p. 229) pressure. He could only defend himself by playing off one against the other, and in this game his spiritual powers were his only effective pieces. More and more the spiritual authority, with which he was entrusted, was made to serve political ends. Temporal princes were branded as "sons of iniquity and children of perdition," not because their beliefs or their morals were worse than other men's, but because they stood in the way of the family ambitions of various popes. Their frequent use and abuse brought ecclesiastical censures into public contempt, and princes soon ceased to be frightened with false fires. James IV., when excommunicated, said he would appeal to Prester John, and that he would side with any council against the Pope, even if it contained only three bishops.[653] The Vicar of Christ was lost in the petty Italian prince. _Corruptio optimi pessima_. The lower dragged the higher nature down. If the Papal Court was distinguished from the courts of other Italian sovereigns, it was not by exceptional purity. "In this Court as in others," wrote Silvester de Giglis from Rome, "nothing can be effected without gifts."[654] The election of Leo X. was said to be free from bribery; a cardinal himself was amazed, and described the event as _Phoenix et rara avis_.[655] If poison was not a frequent weapon at Rome, popes and cardinals at least believed it to be. Alexander VI. was said to have been poisoned; one cardinal was accused of poisoning his fellow-cardinal, Bainbridge; and others were