So far as Henry can be said at this time to have had a Prime Minister, that title belongs to Fox, his Lord Privy Seal and Bishop of Winchester.

Fox had been even more active than Warham in politics, and more closely linked with the personal fortunes of the two Tudor kings.
He had shared the exile of Henry of Richmond; the treaty of Etaples, the Intercursus Magnus, the marriage of Henry's elder daughter to James IV., and the betrothal of his younger to Charles, were largely the work of his hands.

Malicious gossip described him as willing to consent to his own father's death to serve the turn of his king, (p.

049) and a better founded belief ascribed to his wit the invention of "Morton's fork".[90] He was Chancellor of Cambridge in 1500, as Warham was of Oxford, but won more enduring fame by founding the college of Corpus Christi in the university over which the Archbishop presided.
He had baptised Henry VIII.

and advocated his marriage to Catherine; and to him the King extended the largest share in his confidence.
Badoer, the Venetian ambassador, called him "alter rex,"[91] and Carroz, the Spaniard, said Henry trusted him most; but Henry was not blind to the failings of his most intimate councillors, and he warned Carroz that the Bishop of Winchester was, as his name implied, a fox indeed.[92] A third prelate, Ruthal of Durham, divided with Fox the chief business of State; and these clerical advisers were supposed to be eager to guide Henry's footsteps in the paths of peace, and counteract the more adventurous tendencies of their lay colleagues.
[Footnote 89: _L.