his administration? The real greatness and splendour of Henry's reign are said to have departed with Wolsey's fall.[689] The gilt and the tinsel were indeed stripped off, but the permanent results of (p. 245) Henry's reign were due to its later course. Had he died when Wolsey fell, what would have been his place in history? A brilliant figure, no doubt, who might have been thought capable of much, had he not failed to achieve anything. He had made wars from which England derived no visible profit; not an acre of territory had been acquired; the wealth, amassed by Henry VII., had been squandered, and Henry VIII., in 1529, was reduced to searching for gold mines in England.[690] The loss of his subjects' blood and treasure had been followed by the loss of their affections. The exuberant loyalty of 1509 had been turned into the wintry discontent of 1527. England had been raised to a high place in the councils of Europe by 1521, but her fall was quite as rapid, and in 1525 she counted for less than she had done in 1513. At home the results were equally barren; the English hold on Ireland was said, in 1528, to be weaker than it had been since the conquest;[691] and the English statute-book between 1509 and 1529 may be searched in vain for an act of importance, while the statute-book between 1529 and 1547 contains a list of acts which have never been equalled for their supreme importance in the subsequent history of England. [Footnote 687: _L. and P._, iv., 5983; _cf._ iv., 3992, where Henry has an interview (March, 1528) with a Scots ambassador and tells no one about it.] [Footnote 688: _Ibid._, iv., 4649.] [Footnote 689: Brewer, _Ibid._, iv., Introd., p. dcxxii.] [Footnote 690: _L. and P._, iv., 5209. One Hochstetter was imported from Germany in connection with "the gold mines that the King was seeking for" (Du Bellay to Montmorenci, 25th January, 1529).] [Footnote 691: _Ibid._, iv., 4933.]