and P._, iii., 1.] [Footnote 335: _Ibid._, iii., 1453, 3377.] [Footnote 336: _Ven.

Cal._, ii., 1110.] For ten years Henry had reigned while first his council, and then Wolsey, governed.

Before another decade had passed, Henry was King and Government in one; and nobody in the kingdom counted for much but the King.

He stepped at once into Wolsey's place, became his own prime minister, and ruled with a vigour which was assuredly not less than the Cardinal's.

Such transformations are not the work of a moment, and Henry's would have been impossible, had he in previous years been so completely the slave of Vanity Fair, as most people thought.