and P._, iii., 1252, 1646, 1675.] [Footnote 417: The policy of abstention was often urged at the council-table and opposed by Wolsey, who, according to More, used to repeat the fable of the men who hid in caves to keep out of the rain which was to make all whom it wetted fools, hoping thereby to have the rule over the fools (_L.

and P._, vii., 1114; More, _English Works_, p.

1434).
It had cost England, says More, many a fair penny.] Yet if these were not Wolsey's aims, what were his motives?
The essential thing for England was the maintenance of a fairly even balance between Francis and Charles; and if Wolsey thought that would best be secured by throwing the whole of England's weight into the Emperor's scale, he must have strangely misread the political situation.

He could not foresee, it may be said, the French debacle.
If so, it was from no lack of omens.

Even supposing he was ignorant, or unable to estimate the effects, of the moral corruption of Francis, the peculations of his mother Louise of Savoy, the hatred of the war, universal among the French lower classes, there were definite warnings from more careful observers.[418] As early as 1517 there were bitter complaints in France of the _gabelle_ and other taxes, and a Cordelier denounced the French King as worse than Nero.[419] In 1519 an (p.