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Thomas Wolsey

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Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, (c. March 1471–1475 – November 28 or November 29, 1530), born in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, was an English statesman and a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.

When Henry VIII became king in 1509, Wolsey's affairs prospered. His political star was in the ascendant, and he soon became the controlling figure in all matters of state. The highest position he attained was Lord Chancellor and Cardinal in 1515, becoming Henry VIII’s first minister, enjoying great freedom and often depicted as alter rex (another king). He built himself a palace (Hampton Court), which would later be occupied by kings.

Early life

He was the son of Robert Wolsey of Ipswich (1438–96) and his wife Joan. His father is reported by various later sources as a butcher but this is not certain. Sources indicate that Robert Wolsey died at Battle of Bosworth Field and was a significant casualty. Robert may have been a respected and wealthy cloth merchant, and the butcher story invented either to exaggerate or demean Wolsey. He attended Ipswich School and Magdalen College School before studying theology at Magdalen College, Oxford. On March 10, 1498, he was ordained a priest in Marlborough and became a personal chaplain, first to John Cardinal Morton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and then to the governor of Calais where he met Henry VII.

Wolsey's talents were recognised by important men such as Sir Richard Nanfan, who then recommended Wolsey to King Henry VII. It was to Wolsey’s advantage that Henry VII distrusted the nobility and deliberately sought to favour those from more humble backgrounds for positions of prominence. Henry VII appointed Wolsey Royal Chaplain. In this position, Wolsey was secretary to Bishop Fox, who recognized Wolsey's innate ability and dedication and appreciated his industry and willingness to take on tedious tasks. This brought him to the new king’s attention after the death of Henry VII in 1509.

Character

Wolsey loved to display his wealth, although it is generally accepted that, as the King's principal servant, such things were necessary to present a good image to foreign diplomats and kings. He lived in royal splendour in his palace at Hampton Court. There is a theory that his long-term ambition was to become pope, although much evidence discredits this. (However, the arguments of both A.F. Pollard and G.R. Elton favouring this theory should be noted.) The idea that he aligned English foreign policy to that of the Papacy does not explain why he was often involved in wars in continental Europe, even if they were not on behalf of the Papacy.

Rise to power

Thomas Wolsey’s remarkable rise to power from humble origins can be attributed to his high level of intelligence and organisation, his extremely industrious nature, his driving ambition for power, and the rapport he was able to achieve with the King. His rise coincided with the ascension of the new monarch Henry VIII, whose character, policies and diplomatic mindset were completely different from those of his father, Henry VII.

Foreign policy

Henry VII had been a calculating and administrative financier with a very passive outlook in foreign policy, feeling that a war would only wreck national finances. He held the nobility in low esteem, taxing much of their wealth and property and very infrequently bestowing titles; as a result, he bequeathed his son a stable economy.

By contrast with his father, Henry VIII was actively interested in foreign policy, and had few inhibitions about involving the country in expensive wars. He sought to unite the nobility behind him in an invasion of France in the hope of gaining the French crown.

The King's attitudes

Another factor in Wolsey's rise was that Henry, much as he admired his father’s efficient government, was not particularly interested in the details of governing. Under the tight personal monarchy of Henry VII, Wolsey could not have hoped to obtain so much trust and responsibility. Henry VII oversaw nearly all aspects of government, particularly financial ones in which the King took personal supervision under a method known as "household government". Henry VIII, as a boy, had not expected to become king, had little political and governmental tutoring prior to ascending to the throne, and, acknowledging his own inexperience in the field of economy and domestic affairs, was much contented to have someone like Wolsey handle the fundamentals for him.

In 1509, Henry VIII appointed Wolsey to the post of Almoner, a position that gave him a seat on the council, providing an opportunity to raise his profile and to establish a rapport with Henry. Wolsey earned Henry's trust through his integrity and talent at getting the job done. He opted to carry out the tasks shunned by others and was always willing to overstep the boundaries of his job as almoner, dabbling in both domestic and foreign policy and making a good impression on the King’s counsellors and the King himself.

Wolsey also pleased Henry because of his similar personality. Both men were extroverted and ostentatious, inclined to lavish displays of wealth and power.

Other counsellors

The primary counsellors that Henry inherited from his father, Bishop Fox and William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, were cautious and conservative, advising the King to be a careful administrator like his father. Henry soon began re-stocking his Privy Council with individuals more sympathetic to his views and inclinations. Until 1511 Wolsey was adamantly anti-war; however, when the King expressed his enthusiasm for an invasion of France, Wolsey, despite his moral and economic reservations, was able to adapt to the King's mindset and exploit the opportunity. He pragmatically changed his own views, even giving persuasive speeches to the Privy Council in favour of war. Warham and Fox, who failed to share the King’s enthusiasm for the French war, fell from power and Wolsey was able to step into their shoes. In 1515, under mounting pressure directed by Wolsey, Warham resigned as Lord Chancellor, and Henry appointed Wolsey to replace him.

Despite having won the favour of the King, Wolsey’s ascendancy would certainly have been compromised had he not taken care of those within the Privy Council who held grudges against him. Wolsey asserted himself, letting all know of his intentions and overruling all objections.

Those nobles who did pose a threat to the stability of Wolsey’s position, such as the Dukes of Norfolk and Buckingham, he ignored, eventually neutralizing their resistance. In the case of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, Wolsey attempted to win his favour instead, by his actions after the duke secretly married Henry’s sister Mary (the now-widowed queen of France), much to the King’s displeasure. Wolsey advised the King not to execute the newly-weds, but to embrace them. With Suffolk indebted to Wolsey, the cardinal had another powerful ally.

The Church

Wolsey's rise to a position of great secular power was accompanied by increased responsibilities in the Church. He became Canon of Windsor, Berkshire in 1511, the same year in which he became a member of the Privy Council. In 1514 he was made Bishop of Lincoln, and then Archbishop of York. Pope Leo X made him a cardinal in 1515, with the Titulus S. Caeciliae. As tribute to the success of his campaign in France and subsequent peace negotiations, Wolsey was further rewarded by the church: in 1523 Wolsey was made Prince-Bishop of Durham.

Foreign policy

A complex network of constantly changing alliances dominated Europe in the 16th century. It was a period of intense hostility and ruthless power struggle between nations. Where Henry VII had steered clear of foreign conflicts, Henry VIII sought to boost the minimal influence of England on the European scene. Despite the inexperience of the King and his Lord Chancellor, and their lack of clear objectives, they succeeded in making England a desirable ally to be sought after by the two greatest powers in Europe, Spain and France, and making England a significant power in her own right. Even the annual French pension was significantly increased.

War with France

The war against France in 1512–14 was the most significant opportunity for Wolsey to demonstrate his talents in the foreign policy arena. A convenient justification for going to war came in 1511 in the form of a plea for help from Pope Julius II, who was beginning to feel threatened by France. England formed an alliance with Ferdinand V of Spain, and Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor—theoretically a very strong coalition.

The first campaign against France was not a success, partly due to the unreliability of the alliance with Ferdinand. Wolsey learned from the mistakes of the campaign, however and, in 1513, still with papal support, launched a joint attack on France, successfully capturing two French cities and causing the French to retreat. Wolsey's ability to keep a large number of troops supplied and equipped for the duration of the war was a major factor in its success. Wolsey also had a key role in negotiating the Anglo-French treaty of 1514, which secured a temporary peace between the two nations. Under this treaty, the French king, Louis XII would marry Henry’s young sister, Mary. In addition, England was able to keep the captured city of Tournai and to secure an increase in the annual pension paid by France.

Meanwhile, a turnover of rulers on the continent of Europe threatened to diminish England’s influence. Peace with France in 1514 had been a true achievement for Wolsey and the King. With Henry’s sister Mary married to the French King, Louis XII, a lasting alliance seemed assured. Only less than three month later, however, Louis died. He was replaced by the young, ambitious Francis I, who had no intention of continuing an alliance with England and who became a significant rival to Henry VIII, stirring up tensions.

Mary had secured a promise from Henry that if Louis died, she could marry whomever she pleased. On Louis' death, she married the Duke of Suffolk, preventing another marriage alliance. With great anxiety, Wolsey proposed an alliance with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire against France.

Papal Legate

The death of King Ferdinand of Spain, Henry's father-in-law, and England's closest ally, was a further blow. He was replaced by Charles V, who immediately proposed peace with France. On the death of Emperor Maximilian in 1519, Charles was elected in his stead; thus, English power was substantially limited on the continent.

Wolsey, however, managed to assert English influence through another means. In 1517, Pope Leo X sought peace in Europe to form a crusade against the Ottoman Empire. In 1518, Wolsey was made Papal Legate in England, enabling him to work for the pope’s desire for peace by organising the Treaty of London. The Treaty of London (1518) showed Wolsey as the arbiter of Europe, organising a massive peace summit involving twenty nations. This put England at the forefront of European diplomacy and drew her out of isolation, making her a desirable ally. This is well illustrated by the Anglo-French treaty signed two days afterwards.

Ironically, it was partly this peace treaty which caused conflict between France and Spain. In 1519, when Charles ascended to the throne of the Holy Roman Emperor, Francis, King of France, was infuriated. He had invested enormous sums in bribing the electorate to select him as emperor, and thus, he used the Treaty of London as a justification for the Habsburg-Valois conflict. Wolsey appeared to act as mediator between the two powers, both of whom were vying for England’s support.

Field of the Cloth of Gold

Another of his diplomatic triumphs was the Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520). He assiduously organised every detail of this grandiose meeting between the French king, Francis, and Henry VIII, accompanied by some 5000 followers. Though it seemed to open the door for peaceful negotiations with France, if that was the direction the King wished to go, it was also a chance for a lavish display of English wealth and power before the rest of Europe. With both France and Spain vying for England’s allegiance, Wolsey could choose the ally which better suited his policies. Wolsey chose Charles mainly because England's economy would suffer from the loss of the lucrative cloth trade industry between England and the Netherlands had France been chosen instead.

Alliance with Spain

Henry VIII had closer links with Charles than with Francis, being married to Charles’ aunt. Since the King had yet to produce a male heir, a marriage between Henry’s daughter, Mary, and Charles would ensure the security and influence of England after Henry’s death. This was also in keeping with his duty to Pope Leo X, who was anti-French; the alliance had complete papal support.

The Treaty of London (1518) is often regarded as Wolsey’s finest moment, but its half-hearted aspirations for peace were abandoned within a year. Wolsey ensured the failure of the treaty by allying with Charles in 1520 in the conflict against France, ignoring the Anglo-French treaty of 1520. Wolsey's relationship with Rome was also ambivalent. Despite his loyalties to the papacy, Wolsey was strictly Henry’s servant. Though the Treaty of London was an elaboration on Pope Leo's ambitions for European peace, it was seen in Rome as a vain attempt by England to assert her influence over Europe and steal some papal thunder. Furthermore, Wolsey’s peace initiatives prevented a crusade to the Holy Land, which was the catalyst for the pope’s desire for European peace.

Lorenzo Cardinal Campeggio, who represented the pope at the Treaty of London, was kept waiting for many months in Calais before being allowed to cross the Channel and join the festivities in London; thereby, Wolsey was asserting his independence of Rome. An alternative hypothesis is that Campeggio was kept waiting until Wolsey received his legacy, thus asserting Wolsey's attachment to Rome. However, Campeggio was a powerful Church figure in 1529, and his resentment of Wolsey was instrumental in the refusal of Henry's request for the annulment of his marriage to Queen Catherine. The fact that the Pope was a captive of Charles V, Queen Catherine's nephew, was, however, the major cause of Wolsey's failure to gain the annulment.

During the 1522–23 wars, Henry’s overambition resulted in an invasion that was not as well organised as the 1513–14 invasion had been. All England’s hopes rested on possibility of a disgraced French noble, Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, leading a revolt that would distract the French from the English invasion in August 1523.

The revolt failed. Charles V, who had promised to come to England’s aid, stayed out due to a lack of funds. The situation was further exacerbated by bad weather, which proved crucial to the English defeat. This costly disaster resulted in Parliament having to raise additional taxes to cover the expenses. Parliament continued to interfere with Wolsey’s overseas ambitions. After the disastrous campaigns of 1522–23, there was little enthusiasm for war. England’s losses in Europe were outweighing her gains, and distrust and criticism of Wolsey increased.

Though the English gain of the wars of 1522–23 was minimal, their contribution certainly aided Charles in his defeat of the French, particularly in 1525 at the Battle of Pavia. However, in 1525, when Charles won a decisive battle at Pavia and captured the French king, Francis I, a realistic opportunity arose for Henry to seize the French crown. Parliament, however, refused to raise taxes. This led to Wolsey devising the Amicable Grant, which was met with even more hostility, and ultimately led to his downfall.

Charles became tired of his fruitless alliance with England and the “Great Enterprise” crumbled. After his success at Pavia, Charles had no further need for England as an ally and quickly discarded her. By 1525, England was just as isolated as she had been in 1515 and had achieved very little.

In 1525, after Charles had abandoned England as an ally, Wolsey felt forced to negotiate with France. His feeble attempt to make the best of a bad situation failed to attract the French, who by-passed Wolsey to make peace with Charles. Wolsey’s lack of a clear objective in his foreign policy is evident in his pointless and fruitless switching of allegiances between Spain and France.

He also underestimated the devastating effects of making an enemy of the Holy Roman Empire. Although there was no actual war between England and Charles V, the wool trade suffered heavily. England’s principal customers were either from the provinces of Charles’ empire or those surrounded by his territory. When Charles ceased trade with England, there was a huge reduction in income from the wool trade, and tax revenue declined, affecting the entire nation.

The closeness with Rome can be seen in the formulation of the League of Cognac in 1526. Though England was not a part of it, the League was organized in part by Wolsey with papal support. Wolsey’s plan was that the League of Cognac, composed of an alliance between France and some Italian states, would challenge Charles’ League of Cambrai and rescue Pope Clement VII, who had been held captive by Charles since the sack of Rome. This initiative was not merely a gesture of allegiance to Rome, but fostered Henry’s desire for an annulment from Catherine of Aragon, a desire that was beginning to dominate foreign policy.

The final blow came in 1529, when the French made peace with Charles, shattering Wolsey’s ambitions for the League of Cognac. Meanwhile, the French continued to honour the "Auld Alliance" with Scotland, continuing to stir up hostility much closer to England. With peace between France and Charles, there was no one to free the pope from Charles’ supremacy, and he would be unable to grant Henry an annulment from Charles’ aunt, Catherine. Since 1527, Wolsey’s foreign policy had been dominated by his attempts to secure an annulment for his master, and, by 1529, he had failed.

Wolsey was not a diplomat at heart; in his attempts to please some, he offended many others.

Wolsey's downfall

Despite his many enemies, Cardinal Wolsey held Henry VIII's confidence until Henry decided to seek an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. Henry's marriage to Catherine had produced no sons who survived childhood, leading to the possibility of a power struggle after his death. (The Wars of the Roses were still within living memory.) His daughter, Mary, was considered unable to hold the country together and continue the Tudor dynasty, since England had not until then had a reigning queen, except arguably for Empress Matilda who fought and lost a civil war to try to keep the throne. Henry VIII became convinced that Catherine's inability to have a male heir was due to his marrying the widow of Arthur, Prince of Wales. Arthur was his elder brother, causing Henry to think the marriage was incestuous. Henry further believed that the dispensation for his marriage to Catherine from the Pope was invalid because it was based on the presumption that Catherine was still a virgin on her first husband's death. Henry claimed this was not true, and thus, the papal permission and the ensuing marriage were invalid. The most likely motivation for the annulment was Henry's determination to have a son and heir. The situation became critical when his mistress, Anne Boleyn, fell pregnant. Catherine insisted that she had been a virgin when she married King Henry. Because Queen Catherine was opposed to the annulment and a return to her previous status as Dowager Princess of Wales, the annulment request became a matter for international diplomacy, with Catherine's nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, threatening the Pope if his aunt's marriage to Henry was annulled. Pope Clement VII was presented with a problem: he could either anger Charles or else anger Henry. He delayed announcing a decision for as long as possible; this angered Henry and Anne Boleyn, who took out their anger on Wolsey. Wolsey's fall from grace was sudden and complete. He was stripped of his government office and property, including his magnificently expanded residence of York Place, which Henry chose to replace the Palace of Westminster as his own main London residence. However, Wolsey was permitted to remain Archbishop of York. He travelled to Yorkshire for the first time in his career, and at Cawood in North Yorkshire, he was accused of treason and ordered to London by the Earl of Northumberland. In great distress, he set out for the capital with his personal chaplain Edmund Bonner. Wolsey fell ill and died on the way, at Leicester on November 29 1530 around the age of 55. "If I had served my God", the cardinal said remorsefully, "as diligently as I did my king, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs.

In keeping with his practice of erecting magnificent buildings, Wolsey had designed a grand tomb for himself, but he was buried in Leicester Abbey (now Abbey Park) without a monument. Henry VIII considered using the impressive black sarcophagus for himself, but Lord Nelson now lies in it, within the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Domestic achievements

For his fourteen years of chancellorship, Cardinal Wolsey had more power than any other man in English history, excepting monarchs. As long as he was in the King’s favour, Wolsey had the freedom to reform England as he saw fit, and had his hand in nearly every aspect of its ruling. For much of the time, Henry VIII had complete confidence in him, and as Henry's interests inclined more towards foreign policy, he was willing to give Wolsey a free hand in reforming the management of domestic affairs, for which Wolsey had grand plans. Superficially his reforms involved carrying out the King’s wishes and enforcing his principle of fair justice for all, no doubt influenced by the Christian ethos he embraced as a man of the Church. Nevertheless, there were always impediments to the complete realisation of his reforms, whether it was through his own shortcomings or by the action of those who resented Wolsey’s influence over Henry.

Taxation

An example of Wolsey combining obligation to the King and his own sense of moral duty is Wolsey’s devising, with the treasurer of the Chamber, John Heron, of the "Subsidy". This revolutionary form of tax was based upon accurate valuations of the taxpayer’s wealth, where one shilling was taken per pound from the income. This tax, the foundation of today’s income tax, while still employing the fixed tax of 15ths and 10ths which had meant that those who earned very little money had to pay almost as much in tax as the wealthy. With the new income tax the poorer members of society paid much less.

This more efficient form of taxation enabled Wolsey to raise enough money for the King’s foreign expeditions, bringing in over £300,000. Wolsey was also able to raise considerable amounts of capital through other means, such as through "benevolences" and enforced donations from the nobility, which raised £200,000 in 1522.

Justice

As a legal administrator Wolsey had a sense of natural justice and was concerned with providing justice for all and thwarting attempts to pervert justice. He reinvented the equity court, where the verdict was decided by the judge on the principle of "fairness". As an alternative to the Common Law courts, Wolsey re-established the position of the prerogative courts of the Star Chamber and the Court of Chancery. The system in both courts concentrated on simple, inexpensive cases, and promised impartial justice. He also established the Court of Requests for the poor, where no fees were required. Wolsey’s legal reforms were popular, and overflow courts were required to attend to all the cases. Many powerful individuals who had felt themselves invincible under the law found themselves convicted; for example, in 1515, the Earl of Northumberland was sent to Fleet Prison and in 1516 Lord Abergavenny was accused of illegal retaining.

Wolsey also used his courts to tackle national controversies, such as the pressing issue of enclosures. The countryside had been thrown into discord over the entrepreneurial actions of landlords in enclosing areas of land and converting from arable farming to pastoral farming, requiring fewer workers. Enclosures were seen as directly linked to rural unemployment and depopulation, vagrancy, food shortages and, accordingly, inflation.

The Tudors valued stability, and this mass urban migration represented a serious crisis. Wolsey conducted national enquires in 1517, 1518 and 1527 into the presence of enclosures. In the course of his administration he used the court of Chancery to prosecute 264 landowners, including peers, bishops, knights, religious heads, and Oxford colleges.

Wolsey used the Star Chamber to enforce his 1518 policy of “Just Price”, which attempted to regulate the price of meat in London and other major cities. Those who were found to be charging excessive amounts were prosecuted by the Chamber. After the bad harvest of 1527, Wolsey took the initiative of buying up surplus grain and selling it off cheaply to the needy. This act of generosity greatly eased disorder and became common practice after a disappointing harvest.

This Christian philosophy of communal righteousness was a product of Wolsey’s position as papal legate for the church in England. He took his job seriously and made marginal efforts to improve the reputation of the Church. For example, throughout the anti-clerical mood of the Parliament of 1515, he defended the Church, and refused to permit the re-signing of the law which diminished the “Benefit of Clergy”, in the wake of the murder of Richard Hunne by his clergymen jailers. Wolsey was forced to kneel before Henry and assure him that the “Benefit” would be no threat to the King's authority.

Church reforms

Although it would be dificult to find a better example of abuses in the Church than the Cardinal himself, Wolsey appeared to make some steps towards reform. In 1524 and 1527 he used his powers as papal legate to dissolve 30 decayed monasteries where corruption had run rife, including abbeys in Ipswich and Oxford. However, he then used the income to glorify himself by founding a grammar school in Ipswich and Cardinal College in Oxford. The college in Oxford was renamed King's College after Wolsey's fall. Today it is known as Christ Church. In 1528, he began to limit the benefit of clergy, and, in the same year, stood up to Henry by disapproving of his choice of a woman of dubious virtue for the position of Abbess of Wilton.

A common trend throughout Wolsey’s ventures was the inability to realize his reforms and make a lasting impact, perhaps because of the enormous personal responsibility he carried. Wolsey’s principal preoccupation throughout his fourteen years as Lord Chancellor was maintaining power. This meant both reducing the influence of others over the King and refusing to impart lesser responsibilities to others. This philosophy led him to become overwhelmed by the day-to-day problems of running the country.

Relationships

Wolsey’s position in power relied solely on maintaining good relations with Henry. He grew increasingly suspicious of the minions, particularly after infiltrating one of his own men into the group, and attempted many times to disperse them from court, giving them jobs which took them to the Continent and far from the King. After the failure of the Amicable Grant, the minions began to undermine him once again. Consequently Wolsey devised a grand plan of administrative reforms, incorporating the infamous Eltham Ordinances of 1526. This reduced the members of the Privy Council from 12 to 6, removing troublemakers such as William Compton. As soon as Wolsey’s influence had been secured he dropped the plan of reforms.

This pattern was repeated with many of Wolsey’s other initiatives, particularly his quest to abolish enclosure. Despite spending a significant time and effort in investigating the state of the countryside and prosecuting numerous offenders, Wolsey freely surrendered his policy during the parliament of 1523, in order to ensure that Parliament would pass his proposed taxes for Henry’s war in France. Enclosures continued to be a problem for many years to follow.

One of Wolsey’s greatest impediments was his lack of popularity amongst the nobles at court and in Parliament. Their hatred partly stemmed from Wolsey’s excessive demands for money in the form of the Subsidy or through Benevolences. They also resented the Act of Resumption (1515), by which many nobles were forced to return lands which the King had given to them as a gift. Many nobles resented his rise to power, whilst others simply disliked his monopolization of the court and his concealing of information from the Privy Council. By 1525, there was unanimous hostility and rejection to the forced benevolence of the Amicable Grant.

Wolsey had never attempted to achieve a rapport with the nobility. When mass riots broke out in East Anglia, under the supervision of the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk (sworn enemies of Wolsey) Henry was quick to denounce the Amicable Grant, and began to lose faith in his chief minister. Wolsey ultimately failed to achieve the primary objective of his domestic policy, which was to deliver what the King wanted. Despite his talent for administration and organization, there were many instances where Wolsey basically overreached himself. Most people in Tudor England knew no better than Wolsey, failing to see that enclosure was not the cause of inflation. During the relatively peaceful period which England had been enjoying since the War of the Roses, the population of the nation had increased. With increased demand for food and no additional supply, the price increased. Landowners were forced to enclose land and convert to pastoral farming, which brought in more profit. Wolsey’s quest against enclosure was fruitless in terms of restoring the stability of the economy.

Legal reforms

The same can be said for Wolsey’s legal reforms. By making justice accessible to all and encouraging more people bring their cases to court, the system was ultimately abused. The courts became overloaded with incoherent, tenuous cases, which would have been far too expensive to have rambled on in the Common Law courts. Wolsey ultimately became disillusioned, and ordered all minor cases out of the Star Chamber in 1528. The result of this venture was further resentment from the nobles and gentry, who had suffered at the impartial hand of Wolsey, not to mention the lawyers, who regarded Wolsey as ruining their profit.

Failures with the church

Wolsey simultaneously attempted to exert his influence over the Church in England. As Cardinal and, from 1524, lifetime papal legate, Wolsey was continually vying for control over others in the Church. His principal rival was Wareham, the Archbishop of Canterbury who made it more difficult for Wolsey to follow through with his plans for reform. Despite making promises to reform the bishoprics of England and Ireland, and (in 1519) encouraging monasteries to embark on a program of reform, he did nothing to bring about these changes. Moreover, he refused to promote others to instigate the reforms for fear of losing his personal influence.

Many historians see Wolsey’s handling of the Church as his greatest failure. Wolsey epitomized all that was corrupt and inefficient about the Church in that era. Wolsey is often seen as a hypocrite, condemning the debauchery of corrupt clergymen, yet himself partaking in the crimes of pluralism, absenteeism (he was archbishop of York, yet only visited the city in 1529), simony (even when appointed, bishops and abbots could not take up their posts unless they had been “confirmed” by Wolsey, at a price), ostentatious display of wealth, sexual relations, nepotism, and the ordination of minors (the latter three illustrated through the premature rise to power of his own illegitimate son).

Wolsey effectively used his position in the church for his own ends, awarding bishoprics to those he sought to keep loyal to the crown, as illustrated by the appointment of Cardinal Campeggio to the see of Salisbury in 1524, as a means of securing Campeggio’s role as papal curia for England. This is an example of Wolsey extorting the money from these bishoprics, which were bequeathed to foreigners, without their knowing it. Wolsey's depravity made it easier for reformists to condemn the Church and win the public over to the Lutheran ideology. Being Papal Legate for England, Wolsey had a duty to uphold the moral values which the pope promoted, but he was seen as a poor figurehead for their faith.

Wolsey’s greatest fault in supervising the Church was his belief in absolute supremacy. As papal legate he considered himself to be the uncontested head of the Church in England, and he sought to consolidate this power by reducing the number of bishops and populating the remaining bishoprics with bishops loyal to him. His dictatorial attitude caused cataclysmic problems once he was removed from power, leaving the Church in England without the flawed leader upon which it had become so dependent.

Wolsey was criticized, particularly by his successor Thomas More, for failing to stamp out Lutheran heresy during the 1520s. Despite threatening heretics with reproof and forcing them to recant, Wolsey did not resort to prison sentences and execution. Consequently, Lutheran ideology spread around the country, paving the way for Reformation. Although, Wolsey certainly did not wish the Catholic Church in England to be destroyed, his misplaced belief in his own power and supremacy made this more likely.

Wolsey's family

Wolsey had two children by his mistress, Joan Larke (born circa 1490) of Yarmouth, Norfolk. These were a son, Thomas Wynter Wolsey (born circa 1528) and a daughter, Dorothy (born circa 1512), both of whom lived to adulthood. The son was sent to live with a family in Willsden and was tutored in his early years by Maurice Birchinshaw. Thomas married and had children. Dorothy was adopted by John Clansey, and was in due course placed in Shaftsbury Nunnery, which had a fine reputation as a 'finishing school'. After the later dissolution of the monasteries (under Thomas Cromwell) she received a pension.

Fictional portrayals

References

Further reading

  • Cavendish, George. The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey. Cavendish was gentleman usher to Thomas Wolsey.
  • Ferguson, Charles W. Naked to Mine Enemies: The Life of Cardinal Wolsey (2 volumes). Boston: Little, Brown, 1958.
  • Gwyn, Peter. The King's Cardinal: The Rise and fall of Thomas Wolsey. London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1990. ISBN 0712621903.
  • Pollard, A. F. Wolsey. London; New York [etc.]: Longmans, Green and Co., 1929.
  • Wilson, Derek. In the Lion's Court: Power, Ambition, and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002. ISBN 0312286961.

External links

  • Wolsey Gate—All that is left today of Wolsey's planned college in Ipswich, ThomasWolsey.com — before Wolsey was removed from power, he planned to make his home town of Ipswich a seat of learning equal to both Oxford and Cambridge. He started building a great college, but all that remains today is Wolsey's Gate, which can still be seen in College Street today.

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