For the time being, in fact, the interests of the King and of the lay middle classes coincided, both in secular and ecclesiastical affairs. Commercial classes are generally averse from war, at least from war waged within their own borders, from which they can extract no profit. They had every inducement to support Henry's Government against the only alternative, anarchy. In ecclesiastical politics they, as well as the King, had their grievances against the Church. Both thought the clergy too rich, and that ecclesiastical revenues could be put to better uses in secular hands. Community of interests produced harmony of action; and a century and a half was to pass before Parliament again met so often, or sat so long, as it did during the latter half of Henry's reign. From 1509 to 1515 there had been on an average a parliamentary session once a year,[723] and in February, 1512, Warham, as Lord Chancellor, had in opening the session discoursed on the (p. 258) necessity of frequent Parliaments.[724] Then there supervened the ecclesiastical despotism of Wolsey, who tried, like Charles I., to rule without Parliament, and with the same fatal result to himself; but, from Wolsey's fall till Henry's death, there was seldom a year without a parliamentary session. Tyrants have often gone about to break Parliaments, and in the end Parliaments have generally broken them. Henry was not of the number; he never went about to break Parliament. He found it far too useful, and he used it. He would have been as reluctant to break Parliament as Ulysses the bow which he alone could bend. [Footnote 723: The first Parliament of the reign met in January, 1510, the second in February, 1512. It had a second session, November-December of the same year (_L. and P._, i., 3502). A third Parliament met for its first session on 23rd January, 1514, for its second on 5th February, 1515, and for its third on 12th November, 1515 (_ibid._, i., 5616, 5725, ii., 1130). It was this last of which Wolsey urged "the more speedy dissolution"; then for fourteen years there was only one Parliament, that of 1523. These dates illustrate the antagonism between Wolsey and Parliament and show how natural it was that Wolsey should fall in 1529, and that his fall should coincide with the revival of Parliament.]