a tradition to Morton by Francis Bacon; but the story is told in greater detail of Foxe by Erasmus, who says he had it from Sir Thomas More. It is in keeping with the somewhat malicious saying about Foxe, reported by William Tyndale, that he would sacrifice his father to save his king. The accession of Henry VIII only increased Foxe's power, the personnel of his ministry remaining unaltered. The Venetian ambassador called Foxe "alter rex" and the Spanish ambassador Carroz said that Henry trusted him more than any other adviser, although he also reports Henry's warning that the Bishop of Winchester was, as his name implied, "a Foxe indeed." He was the chief of the ecclesiastical statesmen of Morton's school, believed in frequent parliaments, and opposed the spirited foreign policy which laymen like Surrey are supposed to have advocated. His colleagues were William Warham and Ruthal, but Warham and Foxe differed on the question of Henry's marriage, Foxe advising the completion of the match with Catherine of Aragon while Warham expressed doubts as to its canonical validity. They also differed over the prerogatives of Canterbury with regard to probate and other questions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Thomas Wolsey's rapid rise in 1511 put an end to Foxe's influence. The pacific policy of the first two years of Henry VIII's reign was succeeded by a more aggressive foreign policy directed mainly against France; and Foxe complained that no one dared do anything in opposition to Wolsey's wishes. Foxe resigned the privy seal because of Wolsey's ill-advised attempt to drive King Francis I of France out of Milan by financing an expedition led by Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1516. Cuthbert Tunstall protested, Wolsey took Warham's place as chancellor, and Foxe was succeeded by Ruthal, who, said the Venetian ambassador, "sang treble to Wolsey's bass." Yet he warmly congratulated Wolsey two years later when warlike adventures were abandoned at the peace of London. But in 1522, when war was again declared, he emphatically refused to bear any part of the responsibility, and in 1523 he opposed in convocation the financial demands which met with a more strenuous resistance in the House of Commons. Foxe now devoted himself to his long-neglected episcopal duties. He expressed himself as being as anxious for the reformation of the clergy as Simeon the Righteous for the coming of the Messiah; but was too old to accomplish