|
|
Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey |
|
The rise of Wolsey
 | Thomas Wolsey (1470/1-1530) was the son of an Ipswich butcher and cattle grazier; Thomas graduated from Oxford University at the age of only fifteen. He was ordained priest in 1498 and became a protégé of Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester and a leading minister to Henry VII. | ||||
| Wolsey played a key part in organizing the successful French campaign of 1513; Fox was eager to hand over the responsibilities of government service; and - most importantly - Henry VIII liked Wolsey. Like Henry, Wolsey was cheerful, extroverted and fond of life's pleasures. Wolsey was extremely hardworking, and readily took the detailed business of administration out of Henry's hands. | ||||
| Henry promoted Wolsey first to the bishoprics of Lincoln and
Tournai , then to the Archbishopric of York (1514) finally making
him Lord Chancellor (December 1515). He had already been made a
Cardinal by the Pope in September 1515.
|
||||
|
Wolsey had his own court and its extravagance, combined with his own assertive and dominant personality, aroused the resentment of English nobles, who thought him their social inferior. |
|
Although Henry generally left detailed administration to Wolsey while he spent the time hunting and partying, Henry could and did intervene on some occasions to overrule or amend his minister's plans. |
Wolsey's domestic policy
| Wolsey was no administrative reformer. He did increase the business done by Chancery and expanded the the activities of Star Chamber. Wolsey also gave a new form of recourse to appeals from the poor in civil cases - a jurisdiction that became the Court of Requests. | |
| Henry VIII's foreign adventures and extravagant life-style required increased revenues, but Wolsey was unable either to increase ordinary revenue significantly or to coax it from parliament. | |
| Parliament was initially generous but Hunne's Case (1515) poisoned relations between Wolsey and parliament. | |
| Richard Hunne was a merchant tailor - a respectable London
citizen. On the death of his child he refused to pay a mortuary fee
to his parish (a standard charge to cover the costs of religious
burial.) When cited by the spiritual courts, Hunne counter-sued in
the secular courts. Hunne was then arrested for heresy and
imprisoned in the Bishop of London's prison, where soon afterwards he was found
hanged. A London jury returned a verdict of murder and indicted the Bishop of London's chancellor (William Horsey) for complicity. Horsey was released for lack of evidence but popular anti-clerical feeling increased and Parliament took up the case. Thomas Wolsey (as the representative of the English clergy) was obliged to kneel in submission before Parliament.
|
|
The Parliament of 1523 was called immediately after Wolsey had raised about £350,000 in forced loans, and this naturally made its members disinclined to vote further heavy taxes. |
|
Wolsey responded by attempts to raise the (misnamed) Amicable Grant of 1525 - a levy of one-sixth the value of movables and income. Resistance was so widespread that Henry prudently decided to drop the demands. |
|
In 1518 Wolsey was made papal legate (in 1524 the pope granted him this office for life.) As legate, he outranked the Archbishop of Canterbury. He energetically exercised control over the English church. Wolsey dissolved a number of smaller monasteries in order to obtain the funds needed to endow Cardinal College, Oxford (which later became Christ Church.) Wolsey was concerned to increase the educational level of priests to counter the spreading Lutheran heresy, but he himself embodied many of the clerical faults - simony, nepotism, pluralism - that most showed the need for reform. |
Wolsey's foreign policy
| Wolsey was an early advocate of preserving European peace by instituting an international court that could arbitrate disputes, but the court never materialized. |
| Wolsey did manage to persuade all the major European powers to
agree to the
Treaty of
London (October 1518.) The states all agreed to preserve perpetual peace;
(war between France and Charles V recommenced in 1521). |
|
|
|
Wolsey negotiated with both the great rival powers - France under Francis I (1515-47) and the scattered territories of Charles V (including much land in central Europe, the Netherlands, Spain, and parts of Italy), hoping if he could not preserve peace at least to ensure that England did well from war. | ||
|
Egged on by Charles V, Henry VIII attacked France in 1522-23. He tried to take advantage of
the rebellion of Charles de Bourbon against Francis I, but the
rebellion's collapse forced the English army to withdraw.
|
|
In 1527, Hapsburg troops sacked Rome (6 May 1527) and gained control over Pope Clement VII (who had allied with France in the League of Cognac.) Alarmed by Charles V's power, Henry shifted his support to France, and Wolsey tried in vain to restore peace in Europe. |
|
Wolsey was equally unsuccessful in obtaining any gains for England in the Peace of Cambrai (August 1529) which suspended the war between France and the Hapsburgs. |
|
Wolsey's failures in foreign policy indirectly contributed to his fall from power. Henry desperately wanted Wolsey to obtain from the pope a divorce from Catherine of Aragon. But Pope Clement VII was entirely under the thumb of his captor, Charles V - Catherine's nephew. Wolsey could find no way to cajole Clement into granting the divorce. |
| Wolsey's unpopularity amongst the English nobility also meant that when Henry VIII's favor was withdrawn, no voice was raised in his support. |
| Thomas Wolsey was arrested for treason in Yorkshire (4 November 1530), and died at St. Mary's Abbey, Leicester on his journey south (24 November 1530.) |
