The foundation of Cardinal College failed to reconcile to him the scholars of the New Learning; their poet, Skelton, was among his bitterest assailants.

The Protestants, goaded by the persecution of this very year, hated him with a deadly hatred.

His French alliances, his declaration of war with the Emperor, hindered the trade with Flanders and secured the hostility of the merchant class.

The country at large, galled with murrain and famine and panic-struck by an outbreak of the sweating sickness which carried off two thousand in London alone, laid all its suffering at the door of the Cardinal.

And now that Henry's mood itself became uncertain Wolsey knew his hour was come.