The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (Pimlico) (12 page)

¹⁰²
Gunn, ‘French wars’, pp.36-7; Scarisbrick,
Henry VIII
, pp.22-3.

¹⁰³
LP
, i, 1656.

¹⁰⁴
I have not thought it helpful to provide detailed references to my very general treatment of foreign policy in this chapter, but it is based upon a detailed study of the calendared documents.

¹⁰⁵
For a typical view see Elton,
Reform and Reformation
, p.39: ‘The 1513 expedition, spectacularly mounted and much dreaded by the French, turned into a futile sideshow with almost no effect upon the war.… The knight of Christendom came as near to being a figure of fun as ever he was to do in his long reign.’

¹⁰⁶
Rawdon Brown, ii, p.313 (
LP
, iii, 402) for Giustinian’s assessment that Henry
VIII
was ‘very rich indeed’.

¹⁰⁷
One of the few historians in recent years to reject the myth has been L.B. Smith, whose extended essay on the king’s character in his
Henry VIII
deserves more recognition; in this context see ibid, pp.39-49; also Bernard,
War, Taxation and Rebellion
, pp.40-5.

¹⁰⁸
See pp.205 ff.

¹⁰⁹
LP
,
IV
, 4206.

¹¹⁰
Cromwell’s ‘Remembrances at my next going to the court’ are especially instructive in this respect; and they, for instance, make it clear that it was Henry who decided the fate of More and Fisher; for which see
LP
, viii, 892.

¹¹¹
Roper, pp.20-1 and Cavendish, p.179.

¹¹²
Cavendish, p.179 – Wolsey’s advice to Sir William Kingston if he ever became a royal councillor. More’s advice to Cromwell on becoming a councillor was the more ambiguous: ‘ever tell him what he ought to do, but never what he is able to do … For if a lion knew his own strength, hard were it for any man to rule him.’ (Roper, pp.56-7).

¹¹³
The difficulties in any kind of ‘psycho-history’ hardly need spelling out – but they will not prevent speculation, and as long as the limitations are borne in mind, it is good that they do not. Here, I am following L.B. Smith, pp.63-6.

¹¹⁴
Skelton, p.291, ll.492-4.

¹¹⁵
See Walker, pp.139-43.

¹¹⁶
Lydgate, bk 2, ll.239-40.

¹¹⁷
Skelton, p.293, ll.574-8.

¹¹⁸
Ibid, p.293, ll.585.

¹¹⁹
A large, and not uncontroversial, subject but see
inter alia
Aston, Duncan and Evans, p.50; McConica,
Collegiate University
, pp.666-89; McConica, ‘Scholars and commoners’.

¹²⁰
See R. G. Davies.

¹²¹
Storey, ‘Gentleman-bureaucrats’.

¹²²
See R. G. Davies, p.55.

¹²³
Aston, T.H., p.30; Aston, Duncan and Evans, pp.80-1, where it is suggested that, contrary to what has been normally held, in all but the really top jobs ‘theologians’ were doing increasingly well during the fifteenth century; R. G. Davies, p.55; Storey,
BP
, 16 (2nd edn., 1972), pp.13-17.

¹²⁴
J.R Lander, p.120.

¹²⁵
By my calculation the six were Walkelin, William Giffard, Henry of Blois, Aymer de Valence, Henry Beaufort and Peter Courtenay – this out of twenty-two.

¹²⁶
It was C.S.L. Davies who first impressed upon me the relevance of Morton’s career to a study of Wolsey, for which I am extremely grateful. Unfortunately there is no adequate study of Morton’s political career, though see C.S.L. Davies,
EHR
,
CII
(1987) for his vital contribution to the accession of Henry
VII
; and for his churchmanship, see Harper-Bill,
JEH
, 29.

¹²⁷
I do not mean to imply that there has been none – and, for instance, Robert Cecil has received more criticism than his father, William – but I do believe that the general perception is that Wolsey’s ostentation was
sui generis
, and that is a mistake.

¹²⁸
See p.xv.

¹²⁹
King’s Works
, pp.300-6.

¹³⁰
King’s Works
, pp.126-35.

¹³¹
LP
, iv, 1708.

¹³²
LP
, iv, 3105, p.1407.

¹³³
The Hampton/Richmond exchange remains something of a mystery, but see
King’s Works
, p.127.

¹³⁴
Cavendish, p.187.

¹³⁵
Cavendish, p.21. I have found it impossible to reconstruct in any detail the workings of Wolsey’s household, but see
LP
, iv, 2972, 3216, 4623, 6185 for various lists, mainly to do with tax assessments. They indicate that it certainly numbered over four hundred, so Cavendish’s figure is not so far out.

¹³⁶
A fifteenth-century churchman’s comment that ‘though he was poor,
the which made a man to be reputed no great wisdom
, yet he would do such service as he could’, may be of some relevance. The italics are mine.

¹³⁷
Heal,
Of Prelates and Princes
, pp.39-40; Hembry, ‘Episcopal palaces’ – the archbishop of Canterbury had a choice of twenty-one residences, and Winchester fifteen.

¹³⁸
M.J. Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’, pp.9-12.

¹³⁹
Stoyel,
Archaeologia Cantiana
, c (1984), p.261, but the figure derives from William Lambarde’s
A Perambulation of Kent
(1576).

¹⁴⁰
M.J. Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’, pp.39-40.

¹⁴¹
Stoyel, p.261.

¹⁴²
Ridley,
Thomas Cranmer
, pp.137-40. For Henry’s exchanges with noblemen see Miller,
English Nobility
, pp.217-19.

¹⁴³
Cavendish, p.25.

¹⁴⁴
Cavendish, p.28.

¹⁴⁵
Ibid.

¹⁴⁶
See pp.569-70.

¹⁴⁷
See pp.571-2.

¹⁴⁸
See 165 ff.

¹⁴⁹
CWE
, 2, pp.147-8.

¹⁵⁰
More,
Latin Epigrams
, p.138.

¹⁵¹
Cavendish, pp.15-17; Hall, p.583; Vergil, p.231.

¹⁵²
CWE
, 3, p.233 (
LP
, ii, 1552).

¹⁵³
CWE
, 3, p.312 (
LP
, ii, 2941 – but wrongly dated).

¹⁵⁴
CWE
, 3, p.233 (
LP
, ii, 1552).

ON 10 SEPTEMBER 1515 POPE LEO X CREATED WOLSEY CARDINAL.
¹
THIS
decision had nothing to do with religion and all to do with Francis
I
’s invasion of Northern Italy, which had started the previous month and which, not unnaturally, Leo viewed with great alarm. English support was now of great importance to him and thus he was willing, at last, to give way to the systematic pressure for Wolsey’s elevation that had been applied by the English court for well over a year.
²
As recently as April, when the new French king’s intentions were not entirely clear, Leo had declared that it would be quite impossible to create Wolsey cardinal without at the same time satisfying Francis’s and Maximilian’s desire for the creation of their own cardinals, and that this would require some time to sort out.
³
Four months later, and only three days before Francis’s great victory at Marignano, this argument was forgotten and Wolsey was created cardinal on his own.

The pope’s motives need to be fully understood. For instance, far from wanting to further his own interests in England at the expense of the Crown, the opposite is true. Many of the concessions he granted, including the bestowal of legatine powers on Wolsey, actually involved him in financial loss and some diminution of papal involvement in the affairs of the English Church – but this was the price he was prepared to pay for English diplomatic and, if possible, military support.
⁴
More importantly, he was not primarily interested in pleasing Wolsey, but Henry. To please Wolsey some more private and particular favour would have been the obvious course, something that the king might not have been aware of, and that therefore would not make him suspicious of his councillor’s advice. To make Wolsey cardinal was the most public act possible, involving, amongst other things, a day of high ceremonial in London. And it certainly did please the king. As he explained to Leo, he esteemed the distinction bestowed upon a subject for whom he had the greatest affection as if it had been bestowed upon himself.
⁵
But in stressing that the creation of an English cardinal brought honour to the English, Henry was not telling the whole story. There were more practical reasons – not to do with the ambitions of his leading councillor but with his own relations with the English Church. These were more complicated than has sometimes been presented. Two
causes célèbres
, both concerned with the position of the Church in England and both of them occurring even while pressure was being put on the pope to create Wolsey cardinal, will provide some insight not only into Henry’s attitudes, but also Wolsey’s. One
involved a certain Richard Hunne, the other Henry Standish.
⁶

Before discussing these incidents a word of warning is necessary. Although at the time the Standish affair was felt to be much more important, by and large it is Richard Hunne who has captured the historical headlines. This is not surprising. The Standish affair, though it had its exciting moments, failed to produce any dead bodies and had no obvious hero or villain. The Hunne affair, in contrast, has all the classic ingredients: a dead body, a number of villains, including a stagey gaoler, and a popular hero in Richard Hunne, the upright citizen of London doing battle with the church establishment. And not only was Hunne upright, but he also took a critical view of the Roman Catholic Church, thereby becoming one of John Foxe’s martyrs.
⁷
All this has led to the significance of the Hunne affair being exaggerated: on close inspection it appears to be merely one more example of tension between the laity and clergy in the early sixteenth century, albeit a tension which was not as great as it had been. It is also a misleading example, because it suggests that the danger to the Church came primarily from below – in this instance from the citizens of London – whereas the real danger came from above and in particular from Henry
VIII
himself.