From 1513 to 1529, Thomas Wolsey, who became Archbishop of York in 1514, and Cardinal in 1515, was the minister who guided the policy of Henry VIII., so far as that head-strong and absolute monarch could be guided at all. "England was going through a crisis, politically, socially, and intellectually, when Wolsey undertook the management of affairs. ... We must regret that he put foreign policy in the first place, and reserved his constructive measures for domestic affairs. ... Yet even here we may doubt if the measures of the English Reformation would have been possible if Wolsey's mind had not inspired the king and the nation with a heightened consciousness of England's power and dignity. Wolsey's diplomacy at least tore away all illusions about Pope and Emperor, and the opinion of Europe, and taught Henry VIII. the measure of his own strength. It was impossible that Wolsey's powerful hand should not leave its impression upon everything which it touched. If Henry VIII. inherited a strong monarchy, Wolsey made the basis of monarchical power still stronger. ... Wolsey saw in the royal power the only possible means of holding England together and guiding it through the dangers of impending change. ... Wolsey was in no sense a constitutional minister, nor did he pay much heed to constitutional forms. Parliament was only summoned once during the time that he was in office, and then he tried to browbeat Parliament and set aside its privileges. In his view the only function of Parliament was to grant money for the king's needs. The king should say how much he needed, and Parliament ought only to advise how this sum might be most conveniently raised. ... He was unwise in his attempt to force the king's will upon Parliament as an unchangeable law of its action. Henry VIII. looked and learned from Wolsey's failure, and when he took the management of Parliament into his own hands he showed himself a consummate master of that craft. ... He was so skilful that Parliament at last gave him even the power over the purse, and Henry, without raising a murmur, imposed taxes which Wolsey would not have dared to suggest. ... Where Wolsey would have made the Crown independent of Parliament, Henry VIII. reduced Parliament to be a willing instrument of the royal will. ... Henry ... clothed his despotism with the appearance of paternal solicitude. He made the people think that he lived for them, and that their interests were his, whereas Wolsey endeavoured to convince the people that the king alone could guard their interests, and that their only course was to put entire confidence in him. Henry saw that men were easier to cajole than to convince. ... In spite of the disadvantage of a royal education, Henry was a more thorough Englishman than Wolsey, though Wolsey sprang from the people.