Thomas Cardinal Wolsey

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Thomas Cardinal Wolsey
Portrait
Born	CIR 1473 Ipswich, Suffolk, England
Died	November 29, 1530 Leicester, Leicestershire, England
Occupation	Government
Spouse	Joan Larke
Parents	Robert Wolsey
Children	Thomas Wynter Wolsey

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

Contents 1 Life 1.1 Early life 1.2 Summit of his career 1.3 Wolsey's family 1.4 Wolsey's fall 2 Historical view of Thomas Wolsey's career 2.1 Rise to power 2.2 Wolsey’s Foreign Policy 1515-1529 2.3 Achievements 3 Fictional Portrayals 4 Trivia 5 Biographies 6 Life

[edit] Life

[edit] Early life

He was the son of Robert Wolsey of Ipswich (1438 – 1496) and Joan, a prostitute [1]. His father is reported by various later sources as a butcher but this is not certain. He went to Ipswich School^{[citation needed]} and then headed to the Magdalen College School. In 1498 he was ordained a priest in Marlborough and became a personal chaplain, first to John, Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, and then to the governor of Calais where he met Henry VII. In due course he became Henry's personal chaplain before being appointed the Dean of Lincoln.

[edit] Summit of his career

When Henry VIII became king in 1509, Wolsey's affairs prospered. He became Canon of Windsor, Berkshire in 1511, the same year in which he became a member of the Privy Council. His political star was in the ascendant, and he soon became the controlling figure in all matters of state. 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. Caecilae. In 1520 he organised the Field of the Cloth of Gold (near Calais) to try and make peace with France. In 1523, he was made Prince-Bishop of Durham. Wolsey loved display and 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, which he gave, unwillingly, to Henry VIII in 1528. There is a theory that his long-term ambition was to become Pope, although much evidence discredits this. 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. There is also the fact that he never attempted to build up support in the Papal Curia, which was necessary to obtain the Papal Tiara.

Around 1525, Wolsey used his powers as papal legate to dissolve abbeys in Oxford and Ipswich to establish his own university colleges. The college in Oxford was originally named Cardinal College, but was renamed King's College after his fall. Today it is known as Christ Church.

[edit] Wolsey's family

He produced a family with Joan Larke (born circa 1490) of Yarmouth, Norfolk. The marriage produced a son, Thomas Wynter Wolsey (born circa 1528) and a daughter, Dorothy (born circa 1530) who lived to adulthood. Thomas married and produced children, though no known record remains of Dorothy.

[edit] Wolsey's fall

Cardinal Wolsey used his great abilities as a statesman and administrator mainly in managing England's foreign affairs for Henry VIII. Despite his many enemies he held Henry VIII's confidence until Henry decided to seek a church annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry his mistress, Anne Boleyn.

The reason for the annulment request was complex; his marriage to Catherine had produced no sons that survived childhood, leading to threats of a power struggle after his death. His daughter, Mary, was, at the time, considered unable to hold the country together and continue the Tudor dynasty (England had not until then had a reigning queen, except arguably for Empress Matilda). Henry VIII became convinced that their inability to have a male heir that survived childhood was due to his marrying Catherine, who was the widow of Arthur, Prince of Wales. Arthur was his elder brother, causing Henry VIII to consider the marriage contrary to Biblical rules. Henry VIII further believed that the formal permission for his marriage to Catherine received originally 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 that was not the case, and thus, the papal permission and the ensuing marriage were invalid.

Catherine disputed the fact and insisted that she had been a virgin when she married King Henry. The fact was that he had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn and believed a second marriage would provide a much desired male heir. However, 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. Wolsey, aware of the diplomatic complexities and facing a physical threat to his own life should he grant the annulment himself, the case being that the Pope was reluctant to grant the annulment, was slow in arranging the request. This delay angered the king and made Wolsey an enemy of Anne Boleyn and her friends at court.

Wolsey's fall was sudden and complete. He was stripped in 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 Cawood in North Yorkshire to become popular among the villagers as he had become disrespected and not trusted. But shortly afterward, he was accused of rape 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 around the age of 55. "If I had served God", the cardinal said remorsefully, "as diligently as I did the 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 lost it, just as he had lost Hampton Court. Wolsey was buried in Leicester Abbey (now Abbey Park) without any monument at all, and Henry VIII considered using the impressive black sarcophagus for himself, but Lord Nelson now lies in it, in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral.

[edit] Historical view of Thomas Wolsey's career

Wolsey is unpopular among some historians for his ambitious quest for power. However, no historian can deny Thomas Wolsey’s remarkable rise to power from humble origins, his high level of intelligence and organization, or his extremely industrious nature, fueled by a driving ambition for power. His rise coincided with the ascension of the new monarch Henry VIII, who brought policies and a diplomatic mindset that were completely different from those of his father, Henry VII.

[edit] Rise to power

Wolsey's rise to power can be seen in two stages. 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 (second king).

The first crucial stepping stone in Wolsey’s ascent was in 1509, when he first came to the attention of the new king and was appointed to the post of Almoner. This not only gave him the opportunity to create a rapport with Henry and show off his intellect, but also gave him a seat on the council, beginning his political career. Wolsey had reached this position through sheer intelligence and intuition, by getting his name known in intellectual circles, resulting in his talents being singled out and recognized 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. Being the son of a lowly Ipswich butcher may have helped Wolsey obtain the appointment of Royal Chaplain. In this position, Wolsey was secretary to Bishop Fox, who recognizing 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.

Another crucial aspect of Wolsey’s ascent was the character of Henry VIII. Henry VII had been a calculating and administrative financier with a very passive outlook in foreign policy, feeling that a war would only wreck the national finances. He held the nobility in low esteem, taxing much of their wealth and property and very infrequently bestowing titles. Henry VIII, by contrast, did not want his reign to be hindered by displeasing the nobility, who essentially controlled Parliament and would be the deciding factor in whether he could fulfil his quest for war with France.

As well as inheriting a stable economy, Henry VIII inherited his father’s counsellors, who were cautious and conservative, advising the king to be an administrator like his father. In his quest for popularity, Henry VIII re-stocked his council with like-minded, war-mongering individuals, so that he could unite the nobility behind him in an invasion of France in the hope of gaining the French crown, emulating his idols Henry V and the legendary King Arthur, among others.

For the early years of his reign, his counsellors were Bishop Fox and William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, and they tried to persuade Henry to spend more time at court and less time on his leisure activities (which included playing tennis, jousting, composing songs and sonnets, and flirting with the ladies of the court.

The King’s Almoner, Thomas Wolsey, urged otherwise. The more the bishops scolded Henry to apply himself, the more Wolsey encouraged him, which delighted Henry and increased his affection for Wolsey, who was put in high favour and given greater responsibility. Until 1511 Wolsey was adamantly anti-war; however, when he realised Henry's preference was for chivalric glory and war, he pragmatically changed his own views, even giving persuasive speeches to the council in favour of war. When the time came for Henry’s annual clearing out of the council, Wolsey was exempted. Under the tight personal monarchy of Henry VII, Wolsey could not have been 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’.

Wolsey's rise could be attributed to a king who, much as he admired his father’s efficient government, was distracted by the upholding of the majesty and glory of his position in English culture, revelling in the follies of war and women, leaving Wolsey to his own devices. 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.

The trust Henry placed in Wolsey could be attributed to Wolsey’s 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 legal affairs, and in foreign policy, making a good impression on the king’s counsellors and the king himself. When the king expressed his enthusiasm for an invasion of France, Wolsey, whilst his moral and economic reservations, was able to adapt to the king's mindset and exploit the opportunity. When Warham and Fox failed to share the king’s enthusiasm and fell from power, Wolsey was able to fill their place. Henry VIII was known for filling his court with men not only of like mind but also of similar build and presence. Wolsey was a gross, corpulent fellow with a physique Henry would later emulate. Both men were greedy, extrovert and ostentatious, and revelled in lavish displays of their wealth and power.

Wolsey exploited Henry’s ambitions for war, which were a reflection of the political situation in Europe in the early 16th century. Victory in the English campaign against France would ensure his rise. As a man of the church, a justification for going to war would be a plea for help from the Pope, which came in 1511 from Pope Julius II, who was beginning to feel threatened by France. This allowed England to form an alliance with Ferdinand II of Aragon, and Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, giving England strong theoretical support. Without this climate of hostility against France, a war supported by strong allies would have been impossible. The war against France in 1512-13 was the most significant opportunity for Wolsey to show off his talent for organization and military strategy.

Although the first campaign against France was not a success, partly due to an unreliable alliance with Ferdinand, Wolsey learned from the mistakes of the campaign and, in 1513, still with papal support, launched a joint attack on France, successfully capturing two French cities and causing the French to retreat. This result pleased Henry, who acquired some prestige from it. Wolsey's ability to keep such a large number of troops supplied and equipped for the duration of the war was a major factor. Wolsey also had a key role in negotiating the face-saving Anglo-French treaty of 1514 that secured a temporary peace between the two nations. Under this treaty, the French king, Louis XII would marry Henry’s young sister, Mary. It established England as the victor of this conquest,and allowed Henry to keep the captured city of Tournai and receive a hefty pension from France.

Wolsey was rewarded with additional responsibilities and numerous bishoprics, including the primacy of York in 1514. As tribute to the success of his campaign in France and subsequent peace negotiations, Wolsey was further rewarded by the church, and, in 1515, he became Cardinal Wolsey. He was appointed as Lord Chancellor in the same year, consolidating his power.

Despite having won the favour of the king, Wolsey’s ascendancy to chancellor would certainly have been compromised had he not taken care of those within the council who held grudges against him. Wolsey asserted himself in the council, letting all know of his intentions and overruling all objections. Under the amounting pressure directed from Wolsey, Warham resigned as chancellor in 1515, leaving the gap open for Wolsey to fill.

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 (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. Wolsey had become so rich and powerful in his own right that he hardly needed to be employed in the king’s services. The chancellorship was a means of securing Wolsey’s loyalty to the king first, and the church second.

[edit] Wolsey’s Foreign Policy 1515-1529

A complex network of constantly changing alliances dominated Europe in the 16th century. It was a period of intense hostility between nations, each continually enforcing her sovereignty and supremacy over others in the ruthless power struggle that was foreign policy. Prior to Henry VIII’s accession, England had steered clear of foreign conflicts, and Henry VII was wholly satisfied with his annual pension from France.

Henry VIII broke free from his father’s scepticism and 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, specific aims, they succeeded in making England a desirable ally to be sought after by the two pioneers of European diplomacy, France and Spain, and making England a significant power in her own right. Even the annual French pension was significantly increased. Wolsey, for all his ambition and organization, lacked the crucial skills of diplomacy, yet he understood that, when there was peace between France and Spain, England became isolated, and it was pointless for her to ally with one of the two, as she was considered unneeded.

It was beneficial for England that there be continual conflict between the other two major powers. Between 1515 and 1517, England was very much isolated because of the peaceful relations between France and Spain. Wolsey had to assert English influence through another means, and he chose peace. The Treaty of London (1518) showed Wolsey as the arbiter of Europe, organizing 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 the desired 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.

Another of his diplomatic triumphs was the Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520). He assiduously organized 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 best 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.

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 have ensured the security and influence of England after Henry’s death. This was also in keeping with his duty to the pope, who was strictly anti-French; the alliance had complete papal support. Wolsey’s foreign policy was influenced by the pope, perhaps reflecting his papal ambitions. In 1517, Pope Leo X sought for peace in Europe to form a crusade against Turkey. In 1518, Wolsey was made Papal Legate in England, enabling him to pander to the pope’s desires for peace by organizing the Treaty of London.

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 turnover of rulers in Europe was timed so as 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, the prospect of perpetual peace was open. When, only a year later, Louis died, he was replaced by the young, ambitious, war-mongering Francis I, who had no intention of continuing an alliance with England and became a significant rival to Henry VIII, stirring up tensions. Mary 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.

The death of King Ferdinand of Spain, England’s closest ally and father-in-law of Henry VIII, was a further blow. He was replaced by Charles V, who immediately proposed peace with France and was soon followed by his grandfather, Maximilian, the Holy Roman Emperor. By 1517, England was diplomatically isolated, and Wolsey’s policies seemed to have failed. During the 1522-1523 wars, Henry’s overambition resulted in an invasion that was not as well organized as the 1513-1514 invasion had been. All England’s hopes rested on possibility of the 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 of the affair due to a lack of funds. The situation was further exacerbated by bad weather, a feature that was 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 1522-1523, there was little enthusiasm for war. England’s losses in Europe were outweighing her gains, and distrust and criticism of Wolsey's actions increased.

However, in 1525, when Charles won a decisive battle at Pavia and captured the French king, a realistic opportunity arose for Henry to seize power of the French crown. Parliament, however, refused to raise any more money by taxation. This led to Wolsey devising the Amicable Grant, which was met with even more hostility, and ultimately led to his downfall. With no money there was no invasion of France. Charles became tired of his fruitless alliance with England and the “Great Enterprise” crumbled.

The final blow came in 1529, when the French made peace with Charles, shattering Wolsey’s ambitions for the League of Cognac. With peace between France and Charles, there was no one to free the pope of 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.

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 endorsed the rejection of the treaty by allying with Charles in 1520 in the conflict against France, snubbing the Anglo-French treaty of 1520. 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 clear objectives in foreign policy is evident in his pointless and fruitless switching of allegiances between France and Charles.

He also underestimated the devastating effects of making an enemy of the most powerful empire in Europe. Although no war was fought 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.

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. 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. Wolsey was not a diplomat at heart. In his attempts to please those who mattered, he had offended many others. It was not surprising that the French, in 1529, deceived Wolsey by making peace with Charles, dissolving the League of Cognac as well as Wolsey's hopes for a papal annulment. Meanwhile, the French continued to honour the "Auld Alliance" with Scotland, continuing to stir up hostility much closer to England.

Wolsey' 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 the pope’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 of the pope’s thunder. Furthermore, Wolsey’s initiative for peace prevented the combined crusade in Turkey, which was the catalyst for the pope’s desire for European peace.

Cardinal Campeggio, the papal envoy, 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. Wolsey was asserting his independence of Rome. Campeggio was still around in 1529, and even more powerful. His resentment was instrumental in the refusal of an annulment, Wolsey's most significant failure.

[edit] 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 the king’s interests inclined more towards foreign policy, 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 was bound to, as a man of the church. Nevertheless, there were always impediments to the complete realization of his reforms, whether it was through his own shortcomings or by the action of those who resented Wolsey’s influence over the king.

A good example of Wolsey’s combining of obligations to the king and the 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 of the taxpayer. This tax, the foundation of today’s income tax, replaced the fixed tax of 15ths and 10ths. The fixed tax meant that those who earned very little money had to pay almost as much in tax as the wealthy. With an 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’, enforced donations from the nobility, which, in 1522, raised £200,000.

As a legal administrator Wolsey had a sense of natural justice and was concerned with opening up 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 reestablished the position of the prerogative courts of the Star Chamber and the Court of Chancery, which he was able to monopolize. The system in both courts concentrated on simple, inexpensive cases, and promised impartial justice. Wolsey 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 were 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 to the end, and refused to permit the re-signing of the law which diminished the “Benefit of the Clergy”, in the wake of the murder of Richard Hunne by his clergymen jailers. Wolsey was forced to kneel before the king and assure him that the “Benefit” would be no threat to his authority.

Moreover, Wolsey was aware of the ongoing corruption in the Catholic Church and he took certain steps to reform it. In 1524 and 1527 he dissolved 30 decayed monasteries where corruption had run rife, and used the income to found a grammar school in Ipswich and Cardinal’s College in Oxford, thus giving something back to the communities which had nurtured him. 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. Wolsey had honest concern for the reputation of the Church, but did not pursue his reforms to their completion.

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 with the day-to-day problems of running a country.

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 dispel them from court, giving them jobs which took them to Europe 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 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, or through the Act of Resumption (1515), where many nobles were forced to give back lands which the king had given to them as a gift, and partly from personal resentment of his rise to power. Many simply disliked his monopolization of the court and his concealing of information from the 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 grant, and began to lose faith in his chief minister. Wolsey ultimately failed 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 simply 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 Tudor England had been enjoying since the War of the Roses, the population of the nation had increased. With increased demand and no additional supply, the price of food 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.

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 with delivering justice for all, and, in 1528, ordered all minor cases out of the Star Chamber. The result of this venture was further resentment from the nobles and gentry, who had suffered at the impartial hand of Wolsey, and also the lawyers, who regarded Wolsey as stealing their business. The influence of the commons was insignificant in comparison with those who detested Wolsey.

Wolsey simultaneously attempted to exert his influence over the church in England. As Cardinal and, from 1524, having lifetime legateship, Wolsey was continually vying for control over the church. His principal rival was Wareham, the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was more difficult for Wolsey to follow through his plans for church reform; he made few attempts to reform the church from within. Despite making promises to reform the bishoprics of England and Ireland, and, in 1519, encouraging monasteries to embark on a programme 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 heretical about the church prior to reformation. 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 never visited the city until 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,reflected through his administration of the state, 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 under his influence. His dictatorial attitude caused cataclysmic problems once he was removed from power, leaving the church was left without the leader it had been so dependent upon. The reformists would meet with very little opposition from the weakened body of the Catholic Church.

Wolsey was criticized, particularly by Thomas More, for failing to stamp out the threat of Lutheran heresy during the 1520s. Despite threatening heretics with reproof and forcing them to recant, Wolsey refused to resort to prison sentences and execution. Lutheran ideology spread around the country, paving the way for reformation. Wolsey certainly did not wish the church to be destroyed; yet his misplaced belief in his own power and supremacy made this inevitable.

The most common criticism of Wolsey’s domestic policy is that, considering he possessed more power than any other figure in British history, he actually achieved very little, especially when compared with his successor, Thomas Cromwell. Wolsey was the last of a generation of medieval administrators. His reformation of the legal system and introduction of the subsidy were revolutionary initiatives show that he was forward-thinking; both were adopted by later administrations.

[edit] Fictional Portrayals

Wolsey is the primary antagonist of William Shakespeare's Henry VIII, which depicts him (with some justification) as an arrogant power-grabber. He is a minor character in Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons, and was played in the two film versions of the play by Orson Welles (1966) and John Gielgud (1988), respectively. Anthony Quayle portrayed Wolsey in the film Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) - a performance for which Quayle earned an Academy Award nomination. This film portrays him somewhat more sympathetically than the aforementioned. He was also played by John Baskcomb in The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970). In the Showtime series The Tudors (2007), he is portrayed by Sam Neill.

[edit] Trivia

• One of the world's oldest textile manufacturers Wolsey, which was established in 1755, is named after Cardinal Wolsey - the connections being the location of the factory near his burial place at Leicester Abbey and a pun based on their products being largely based on wool.
• Some claim that the nursery rhymes "Old Mother Hubbard" and "Little Boy Blue" refer to Wolsey, although the truth of those claims is contested.
• Wolsey is still considered to be one of the most famed figures to come from his hometown of Ipswich, where the New Wolsey Theatre and Wolsey Gallery are named after him.

[edit] Biographies

• Naked to Mine Enemies: The Life of Cardinal Wolsey (2 volumes, ©1958) by Charles W. Ferguson
• The King's Cardinal: The Rise and fall of Thomas Wolsey, by Peter Gwyn, pub 1990
• The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, by George Cavendish (gentleman usher to Thomas Wolsey)
• In the Lion's Court: Power, Ambition, and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII, by Derek Wilson, New York, St. Martin's Press, 2001
• Wolsey, by A. F. Pollard, pub 1929

[edit] Life

Religious Posts
Preceded by William Smyth	Bishop of Lincoln 1514	Succeeded by William Atwater
Preceded by Christopher Bainbridge	Archbishop of York 1514–1530	Succeeded by Edward Lee
Preceded by Thomas Ruthall	Bishop of Durham 1523–1529	Succeeded by Cuthbert Tunstall
Preceded by Richard Fox	Bishop of Winchester 1529–1530	Succeeded by Stephen Gardiner
Political offices
Preceded by William Warham	Lord Chancellor 1515–1529	Succeeded by Sir Thomas More

Persondata
NAME	Wolsey, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Thomas Cardinal Wolsey
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Statesman and Cardinal
DATE OF BIRTH	1473
PLACE OF BIRTH	Ipswich, Suffolk, England
DATE OF DEATH	1530
PLACE OF DEATH	Leicester, Leicestershire, England