The Pope was not at all anxious to make an enemy of Henry. In the troubles created by Luther's preaching and writing, Henry, so late as 1521, had appeared as a true friend to the Pope by ordering the burning of all Luther's books. So the Pope sent great Churchmen to England to look into the matter of the marriage. There was much talk and many conferences, but in the end Henry must have realised, what he probably had deemed probable from the beginning, that the Pope would not reverse a former decision. He could not get his marriage declared to be illegal by the Church at Rome. He determined to act without that Church, to have the illegality pronounced by English bishops, whom he could trust to express such opinions as he should command them to utter, and to proceed in accordance with their views thus expressed. Catherine was divorced. He married Anne Boleyn. Once he had taken this step, he followed on the path to which it led, never looking back. The proud {48} Cardinal Wolsey fell from the king's favour, largely by reason of his pride and arrogant ostentation which had raised him up a number of enemies among the English nobles, but he was succeeded by another adviser, Thomas Cromwell, whose influence was even greater in determining the king to be the absolute master of England. Under Wolsey he had gone far in this direction. Parliament had power in its hands, because it had the power of granting subsidies for the king's wars and expenses. Wolsey had advised the king not to summon Parliament, but to extort contributions from his subjects instead. They did not give cheerfully, nor to the full extent of the sums demanded, but they gave grudgingly, in fear of punishment for some charge that would be brought against them if they did not. Under Cromwell's influence, the king did call his Parliament together; but by that time, with his growing power, he had succeeded in getting his own friends in a majority in that Parliament. And in order to put down any possible opposition in the Upper House, he did not hesitate to bring to the executioner's block some of the noblest and most venerable of the Peers. It was a reign of terror, with Henry as absolute despot.