In Cardinal Wolsey, the king, Henry the VIII, found an adviser who was essentially a transition minister, holding a middle place between an English statesman and a Catholic of the old order. Under Wolsey's influence, Henry made war with Louis of France in the pope's quarrel, entered the polemic lists with Luther and persecuted the English Protestants.

Fish's famous pamphlet shows the spirit that was seething. He spoke of what he had seen and knew. The monks, he tells the king, 'be they that have made a hundred thousand idle, dissolute women in your realm.' But Wolsey could interfere with neither bishops nor monks without a special dispensation from the pope. A new trouble arose for the nation in the desire of Henry to divorce Catherine of Aragon, who had been his deceased brother's wife, was six years older than himself and was an obstacle to the establishment of the kingdom. Her sons were dead, and she was beyond the period when more children could be expected. Though descent in the female line was not formally denied, no queen regent had ever, in fact, sat upon the throne; nor was the claim distinctly admitted, or the claim of the House of York would have been unquestionable. It was, therefore, with no little anxiety that the council of Henry VIII perceived his male children, on whom their hopes were centred, either born dead, or dying within a few days of birth.