The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (Pimlico) (100 page)

⁴¹³
Ibid, pp.95-6; 376-7; J.M. Fletcher, p.54.

⁴¹⁴
CWE
, 6, pp.251-2. For his appointment, the details of which remain obscure, see Fowler, pp.87-9; Mitchell, pp.154-6.

⁴¹⁵
Vives is not well treated in English, but see Emden,
Oxford 1540
, pp.594-6; R.P. Adams, pp.220 ff; Mitchell, p.7 passim, for his Oxford career.

⁴¹⁶
The advice came from John Clerk in Nov. 1525; see
LP
, iv, 1777. For Wolsey’s efforts to secure European scholars see
LP
, iv, 2149, 2158, 2222, 5224.

⁴¹⁷
For Clement and Lupset at Oxford see McConica,
Collegiate University
, pp.67-8, 337-8.

⁴¹⁸
For these efforts see
LP
, iv, 2149, 2158, 2181, 2240, 2272, 2296; Ven. Cal., iii, 1187. (p.515).

⁴¹⁹
Statutes of Oxford
, ii, p.127.

⁴²⁰
Ibid, pp.71-2.

⁴²¹
Sophistory, logic or dialectics, and philosophy.

⁴²²
Statutes of Oxford
, ii, p.127.

⁴²³
Erasmus,
Colloquies
, pp.xxix-xxx, 314, 623-37; Sturge, pp.121-7.

⁴²⁴
CWM
, 8, p.179; see also More’s passionate plea to Erasmus in Dec. 1526 for Erasmus to continue his fight against Luther following rumours that he had lost his nerve.

⁴²⁵
LP
, iv, 2121.

⁴²⁶
LP
, iv, 995.

⁴²⁷
Statutes of Oxford
, ii, p.132.

⁴²⁸
CWE
, 6, p.372; Thomas More,
Latin Epigrams
, pp.124-5. In it More calls the New Testament ‘the law of Christ, which has ever been your [Wolsey’s] preoccupation. That law provides you with the skill by means of which you are enabled to render decisions in the face of the Mocker, for, to the amazement of people, you resolve intricate differences in such a way that even the loser cannot complain.’

⁴²⁹
J.M. Fletcher, pp.47 ff., 179 ff.

⁴³⁰
‘ingeniosa subtilitate’.

⁴³¹
PRO SP 1/52/fos.157-8 (
LP
, iv, 5019).

⁴³²
LP
, iv, 5019.

⁴³³
LP
, ii, 3655; ii, app.38.

⁴³⁴
Cavendish, p.103 for the relic; ibid pp.130, 162, 182 for the hair-shirt.

⁴³⁵
Ibid, pp.22-3; cf. ibid, pp.58-9 for Wolsey working from 4 am. until 4 pm. without a break, while all the time his chaplain was waiting to say mass, which he did immediately after the letters to the king had been despatched.

⁴³⁶
Cf. M.J. Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’ pp.33 ff. for the view that despite his patronage of humanists, including Erasmus, even Warham’s intellectual and theological interests were essentialy conservative. See also Headley.

⁴³⁷
From his
Paraclesis
; see
inter alia
Olin, pp.96-8.

⁴³⁸
CWM
, 6, p.337.

⁴³⁹
CWE
, 3, p.293; Surtz,
John Fisher
, pp.114 ff.

⁴⁴⁰
CWM
, 6, pp.331-44.

⁴⁴¹
Inter alia
Dickens,
English Reformation
, p.9; Lander,
Government and Community
, pp.132-3.

⁴⁴²
Foxe, iv, pp.184, 186.

⁴⁴³
Duggan, pp.12-4; see also Dickens,
English Reformation
, p.9.

⁴⁴⁴
The statutes against heresy are conveniently printed in
CWM
, 9, pp.249-60; prohibitions against translations of the Bible into English, and against their possession, unless licensed by a bishop in A.W.Pollard, pp.79-81. See also Thomson,
Later Lollards
, pp.220 ff.

⁴⁴⁵
Foxe, v, app 6 for the list of books found and number; also
CWM
, 8, p.1173. On the general subject of English translations A.W. Pollard is still essential.

⁴⁴⁶
The confession printed in A.W. Pollard, pp.155-9.

⁴⁴⁷
On the English Bible and the Reformation by such a believer see Dickens,
English Reformation
, pp.70 ff., 129 ff., 189 ff.

⁴⁴⁸
CWM
, 9, p.13.

⁴⁴⁹
Fowler, pp.51-2, quoting from the statutes. For Fisher at Cambridge see Rackham, pp.91, 109; Mayor, pp.313, 315, 335, 376.

⁴⁵⁰
Statutes of Oxford
, ii, p.127.

⁴⁵¹
Ibid, p.69.

⁴⁵²
Owst.

⁴⁵³
Quoted in Surtz,
Works and Days
, p.56.

⁴⁵⁴
Mayor, pp.313-5.

⁴⁵⁵
Statutes of Oxford
, ii, pp.78-81.

⁴⁵⁶
The rumour that he personally preached 40 sermons a year is sadly unfounded. Indeed, he seems not to have preached any.

⁴⁵⁷
Lupton, p.294.

⁴⁵⁸
Ibid, p.299.

⁴⁵⁹
Ibid, p.300.

⁴⁶⁰
‘He foynes and he frygges;/Spareth neither mayde ne wyfe.’ From ‘Why come ye nat to Court’ (Skelton, p.284); and for guidance in interpreting all Skelton’s criticism of Wolsey’s moral failings see Walker, pp.124-53.

⁴⁶¹
LP
, iv, 6075.

⁴⁶²
LP
, iv, 6075, art.38 with its reference to ‘one Lark’s daughter which woman the said lord cardinal kept, and had with her two children’.

ON 29 MAY 1522 FRANCIS I RECEIVED HENRY VIII
’
S FORMAL DECLARATION OF
war and for the next three years these two kings, who only two years before had celebrated their ‘perpetual friendship’ on the Field of Cloth of Gold, were to do battle with one another. Superficially it might look as if the Hundred Years War had been revived with an English king, once again in partnership with his Burgundian allies, asserting his ancient claim to the throne of France. For Henry the play-acting was over: he could now discard the always rather uncomfortable character of
Rex Pacificus
which his cardinal had tried to coach him in, and resume his more natural role as ‘the flower and glory of all knighthood’. In doing so he would not only be following in the footsteps of his great ancestor and namesake, Henry v, but also reviving the ancient claims of the kings of England to the throne of France.
¹

Such a view of Henry’s mood in the spring and summer of 1522 has something to be said for it. It was hardly possible for there to be a war with France without playing the old tunes; and perhaps it was impossible for a king of England not to be somewhat stirred by them. In the September of that year Sir Thomas More reported to Wolsey a conversation with Henry during the course of which the king had declared ‘that he trusted in God to be there [in France]’, and to be ‘governor himself’, and that the French should ‘make way for him as King Richard did for his father’.
²
It might seem quite a bellicose remark, but perhaps in the circumstance of an existing war with France not exceptionally so. It had been prompted by a report from Surrey, then in command of an expeditionary force in France, that the French Council were thinking of ‘retiring’ Francis and appointing a governor; and to contemplate acceptance of the throne as the gift of a committee is not evidence of excessive machismo; even his ‘unheroic’ father had had to win the English crown on Bosworth Field. More’s hope, that if Henry’s becoming governor of France should ‘be good for his grace and for this realm that then it may prove so, and else in the stead thereof I pray God send his grace one honourable and profitable peace’,
³
may be evidence of the kind of restraints that a Christian humanist laboured under as a royal councillor. But, as his literary battles with the French poet, Germain de Brie, indicate, More could be as anti-French as any other Englishman, and both his and Henry’s comments on this occasion reflect the degree of ambiguity that always lay behind the Great Enterprise.

That there was ambiguity should come as no surprise. Enough has already been explained about Wolsey’s approach to foreign policy to suggest that there was nothing very chivalric about it – not, at least, if that meant a lot of charging about on white horses. Henry may have been rather more fond of equestrian pursuits, but
as his approach to the campaign of 1523 will show, he was in military matters extremely cautious. Moreover, the argument to date has been that in matters of substance there was no conflict between master and servant, which in the present context would suggest that Wolsey was not about to spend his time restraining a monarch concerned only to win honour on the battlefields of France. Of course, Henry’s honour was always a major concern, but, as we have already seen, this was a fairly flexible notion, able to incorporate a number of contradictory activities, such as seeking peace or waging war. Furthermore, it will greatly help to understand the ambiguities of English foreign policy in the three years that elapsed between the signing of the Treaties of Windsor and Bishop’s Waltham with the emperor in July 1522 and the signing of the Treaty of the More with the French in August 1525 if the reasons for the Imperial alliance are firmly borne in mind. Powerless to prevent conflict between Habsburg and Valois, Henry and Wolsey had been forced either to opt out of European affairs or to make a choice between the contending royal houses. As the first course of action was virtually unthinkable, because so detrimental to Henry’s honour, a choice had to be made. In the end it was the Imperial alliance that appeared to have more to offer, on the assumption that Charles was likely to be more compliant than Francis. As events were to prove, the assumption was wrong, for despite the care that Wolsey had taken to draw up an agreement that would be binding upon him, the emperor was to find it remarkably easy to escape. But the central purpose of the Imperial alliance had never been the conquest of France; indeed, not until the emperor’s resounding victory over the French at Pavia in early 1525 was the conquest of France discussed – and then, it will be argued, not very seriously. Instead, the intention was to use any military success that might result from the war to establish a European order dominated by Henry and his leading councillor. It was, in other words, very much the same policy as before, except that this time circumstances had dictated that England’s partner should be not, as in 1514 and 1518, a king of France but rather a Holy Roman Emperor and king of Aragon and Castile, Charles v. All the same, it remains the case that from Wolsey’s return from Calais in November 1521 until at least the spring of 1524, English foreign policy did have a consistency of purpose unlike what had gone before, and indeed what was to follow; the reason for this was the Great Enterprise. War with France was what all England’s efforts were directed towards and to that end in March 1522 commissioners had been sent to every county in order to establish the extent of her ability to conduct it.