A Protestant he never became.

He lived and died in communion with Rome, denounced by monks as a heretic, and by Lutherans as a time-server.

Paul III.

Would have made him a Cardinal if his means had sufficed for a Prince of the Church.

Standing between the two extremes, he saw better than any of his contemporaries the real proportions of things, and Froude's last words on the subject were that students would be most likely to understand the Reformation if they looked at it with the eyes of Erasmus.