So poor however was the return that the Earl of Surrey, who was sent as general to Calais, could muster only a force of seventeen thousand men; and while Charles succeeded in driving the French from Milan, the English campaign dwindled into a mere raid upon Picardy, from which the army fell back, broken with want and disease.
[Sidenote: Wolsey and the Parliament] The Cardinal was driven to call the Estates together in April 1523; and the conduct of the Commons showed how little the new policy of the Monarchy had as yet done to change the temper of the nation or to break its loyalty to the tradition of constitutional freedom.

Wolsey needed the sum of eight hundred thousand pounds, and proposed to raise it by a property tax of twenty per cent.

Such a demand was unprecedented, but the Cardinal counted on his presence to bear down all opposition, and made the demand in person.

He was received with obstinate silence.

It was in vain that he called on member after member to answer; and his appeal to More, who had been elected to fill the chair of the House of Commons, was met by the Speaker's falling on his knees and representing his powerlessness to reply till he had received instructions from the House itself.