It is plain that the men of the New Learning looked forward, not to a reform of doctrine but to a reform of life, not to a revolution which should sweep away the older superstitions which they despised but to a regeneration of spiritual feeling before which these superstitions would inevitably fade away.

Colet was soon charged with heresy by the Bishop of London.

Warham however protected him, and Henry to whom the Dean was denounced bade him go boldly on.

"Let every man have his own doctor," said the young king after a long interview, "but this man is the doctor for me!" [Sidenote: Henry's Temper] But for the success of the new reform, a reform which could only be wrought out by the tranquil spread of knowledge and the gradual enlightenment of the human conscience, the one thing needful was peace; and peace was already vanishing away.

Splendid as were the gifts with which Nature had endowed Henry the Eighth, there lay beneath them all a boundless selfishness.