Norfolk was fifty-seven years old when Cromwell came into power. He was a Catholic and against the New Faith. He had received in his younger days a thorough military and diplomatic training, and in 1531 was characterized by the Venetian ambassador, Falieri, as ‘prudent, liberal, affable, and astute; associating with everybody ... and desirous of greater elevation.’ This is a very flattering description of this crafty and ambitious statesman. The chief traits that characterized him were a cringing subservience to the will of the King, and a bitter hatred of any rival to his influence with Henry; a hatred which first directed itself against Wolsey, for whose downfall he laboured incessantly, and later against Cromwell, whose opponent he was during the decade of the former’s greatness. He was the equal of neither of these two as a statesman; but his utter lack of honour and consistency, and his willingness to break promises in order to please the King, rendered him an invaluable servant of the Crown at a period when one startling change followed on the heels of another. He threw himself heart and soul into the interests of his niece when Henry’s love for her was increasing; and yet when the royal passion waned, and Anne was accused in 1536, he was not ashamed to preside at her trial and sentence her to death[176]. The other important person at the Court was Stephen Gardiner, who in 1531 became Bishop of Winchester. Ten years Norfolk’s junior, he was introduced into political and diplomatic life by the Duke, and spent a large part of his early life as Wolsey’s servant and ambassador. He did not cherish any lasting friendship for the Cardinal, however, and he seems to have been an adherent of the Boleyn faction at Wolsey’s fall; we find Anne writing to him when the struggle between the two parties was at its hottest, to thank him for his ‘wylling and faythefull mynde[177].’ Still he took more or less a middle course on the divorce question, and pleaded warmly, though vainly, for the restitution of Wolsey’s colleges. But when the Cardinal’s fate was settled he certainly expected that his old master’s favour with the King would be transferred to himself, and when he was disappointed in this by Cromwell’s stepping in, he developed a hatred for him which he never abandoned. He was less active than Norfolk in his opposition to Rome, and though he lacked the Duke’s subserviency, he was fully as able a diplomat. Neither of the two men could have played the rôle of Cromwell: the scope of their talents was more limited; they were merely exceedingly able politicians, but as such they were by no means to be despised. When, however, they united to procure their rival’s ruin it was difficult to resist them[178].