But at the close of the year England was at last ready for action, and Wolsey's solemn decision that Francis was the aggressor was followed in November by a secret league which was concluded at Calais between the Pope, the Emperor, and Henry.
[Sidenote: Benevolences] The conquest of the Milanese by the imperial generals turned at this moment the balance of the war, and as the struggle went on the accession of Venice and the lesser Italian republics, of the king of Hungary and Ferdinand of Austria, to whom Charles had ceded his share in the hereditary duchy of their house, to the alliance for the recovery of Italy from the French, threatened ruin to the cause of Francis.

In real power however the two combatants were still fairly matched.

If she stood alone, France was rich and compact, while her opponents were scattered, distracted by warring aims, and all equally poor.

The wealth which had given Henry his weight in the counsels of Europe at the opening of his reign had been exhausted by his earlier wars, and Wolsey's economy had done nothing more than tide the crown through the past years of peace.

But now that Henry had promised to raise forty thousand men for the coming campaign the ordinary resources of the treasury were utterly insufficient.
With the instinct of despotism Wolsey shrank from reviving the tradition of the Parliament.