THE EIGHTH DUKE OF BEAUFORT 



Wolsey was a great statesman. The idea of the 

 great cardinal as a greedy, proud, overbearing, sel- 

 fish Churchman of low birth and rude manners, has 

 gone the way of many other historical legends, and 

 we are able to see him as his contemporaries, Henry 

 VHI. and Charles Somerset, saw him — a great, 

 wise, if not always infallible statesman. Somerset 

 was well able to judge of Wolsey's foreign policy, 

 for no one had had more experience than he. 



It is as difficult as it is probably unnecessary to 

 thread our path through the mazes of lies, decep- 

 tions and pretences that did duty for diplomatic 

 negotiations during the reign of Henry VII. and his 

 son. But we may imagine that in the end the power, 

 inclinations and personal weaknesses of monarchs 

 and statesmen — which last counted for so much in 

 those days — were pretty accurately known to all con- 

 cerned. Be this as it may, Henry VIII. employed 

 Lord Herbert, and the latter commanded the rear- 

 guard of that curious host of soldiers, priests and 

 jesters that Henry VIII. led into France. He was 

 certainly present at the battle of Torouanne (15 13) 

 and at the siege of Tournay. Shortly after this 

 (1514), Herbert was created Earl of Worcester 

 and returned to his old trade of diplomacy. Pos- 

 sibly the Earl was less successful in treating with 

 that old fox the Emperor Maximilian than he had 

 been in former missions, for he seems not to have 

 seen through the Emperor's falsehoods. It is 

 certain that Maximilian's manner had a great and 



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