The victory was great, but, like many victories, it was fatal to the conquerors. It filled them with the vanity of power; they forgot their duties in their privileges, and when, a century later, the conflict recommenced, the altering issue proved the altering nature of the conditions under which it was fought. The nation was ready for sweeping remedies. The people felt little loyalty to the pope. The clergy pursued their course to its end. They sank steadily into that condition which is inevitable from the constitution of human nature, among men without faith, wealthy, powerful, and luxuriously fed, yet condemned to celibacy and cut off from the common duties and common pleasures of ordinary life. Many priests spent their time in hawking or hunting, in lounging at taverns, in the dissolute enjoyment of the world. If, however, there were no longer saints among the clergy, there could still arise among them a remarkable man. In Cardinal Wolsey the king found an adviser who was essentially a transition minister, holding a middle place between an English statesman and a Catholic of the old order. Under Wolsey's influence, Henry made war with Louis of France in the pope's quarrel, entered the polemic lists with Luther, and persecuted the English Protestants. Yet Wolsey could not blind himself to the true condition of the church, before which lay the alternative of ruin or amendment. Therefore he familiarised Henry with sense that a reformation was inevitable. Dreaming that it could be effected from within, by the church itself inspired with a wiser spirit, he himself fell the first victim of a convulsion which he had assisted to create, and which he attempted too late to stay. Wolsey talked of reformation, but delayed its coming. The monasteries grew worse and worse. Favoured parish clergy held as many as eight benefices. Bishops accumulated sees, and, unable to attend to all, attended to none. Wolsey himself, the church reformer (so little did he really know what a reformation means), was at once Archbishop of York, Bishop of Winchester and of Durham, and Abbot of St. Albans. Under such circumstances, we need not be surprised to find the clergy sunk low in the respect of the English people.