The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (Pimlico) (99 page)

³³⁷
Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln
, , xxxvii, p.98.

³³⁸
PRO SP l/50/fo.90 (
LP
, iv, 4708): ‘The prior will on no condition resign, yet all lawful ways has been attempted’.

³³⁹
VCH, Lincoln
, ii, p.124.

³⁴⁰
LP
, iv, 2394 Romsey’s letter to Wolsey 12 Aug. [1526]. It is the only source for this episode, although episcopal injunctions of 1522 suggest that all was not well with the house; see
Liber Monasterii de Hyda
, p.lxiii. For Fox’s possible worries about Hyde see p.272 above.

³⁴¹
Monasticon diocesis Exonienses
, pp.45-6.

³⁴²
Ibid, pp.45-7; for the allegation of drunkenness see Baskerville, pp.55-6.

³⁴³
Romsey had been abbot of Hyde since 1509, Collins prior of Tywardreth since 1507.

³⁴⁴
For this episode see Knowles, ‘Last abbot of Wigmore’; also Froude, pp.363-7.

³⁴⁵
LP
, xii [1], 742 [1].

³⁴⁶
LP
, xii [1], 742 [2, 3].

³⁴⁷
LP
, iv, 5121.

³⁴⁸
LP
, iv, 5898.

³⁴⁹
LP
, iv, 5898 ‘I have been with the abbot of Wigmore and showed him your gracious mind towards him, … but now, as he trusts to a great change, and specially the extinction of your authority, he refuses the offer.’ Phillipps to Wolsey, 31 Aug. 1529.

³⁵⁰
Dunstable is in Beds, King’s Langley in Herts.

³⁵¹
Mentioned in Longland’s letter to Wolsey; for which see PRO SP l/48/fo.86 (
LP
, iv, 4315).

³⁵²
LP
, iv, 4315.

³⁵³
Of course, he may just have died. He is known to have been in the Oxford convent in 1497, so he was well into middle-age by the late 1520s; for the biographical details see Emden,
Oxford, 1540
.

³⁵⁴
PRO SP l/48/fo.86 (
LP
, iv, 4315).

³⁵⁵
Vergil, p.259.

³⁵⁶
Inter alia
Elton,
Reform and Reformation
, p.90: ‘money and the assertion of personal power constituted the cardinal’s overriding concern’, this in connection with his legatine rule.

³⁵⁷
A.F. Pollard, pp.198-200.

³⁵⁸
Harper-Bill,
JEH
, 29, p.14.
Sede vacante
visitations were those carried out by archbishops where an episcopal vacancy occurred in their province.

³⁵⁹
PRO SP 1/32/fo.268 (
LP
, iv, 964).

³⁶⁰
William More, p.4.

³⁶¹
Ibid, pp.221, 238, 254, 263, 278.

³⁶²
Registrum Thome Wolsey
, pp.189-91. It is rather typical of Henry that the college was still having to pay, even though it was Wolsey’s exercise of his legatine authority which provided the excuse for his disgrace.

³⁶³
LP
, iv, 6075, art.25.

³⁶⁴
William More, 207-8.

³⁶⁵
Registrum Thome Wolsey
, p.190.

³⁶⁶
Kirby, p.296.

³⁶⁷
LP
, iv, 964.

³⁶⁸
Harper-Bill,
JEH
, pp.6-8. The bull,
Quanta in Dei Ecclesia
, was granted in 1487 and reissued in 1490.

³⁶⁹
By my reckoning Cardinal Ottobuono’s visitations during his legation of 1265-8 were the last but this may well prove to be wrong. In 1459, Francesco Coppini, bishop of Terni, was appointed legate
a latere
to England with powers ‘to visit the whole of the said realm and reform abuses’, but he does not seem to have actually done this (Constance Heal, pp.149-50).

³⁷⁰
It is to be hoped that someone with a greater knowledge of continental practice will be able to solve this problem. Meanwhile, I would like to thank Professor C.R. Cheney for his kind assistance. The major source in English on this subject is Lunt,
Financial Relations to 1327
, pp.532-70;
Financial Relations, 1327-1534
, pp.621-92.

³⁷¹
The impression is gained from the respect with which John Islip, abbot of Westminster from 1500 to 1532, was held and the active role that he played in government, and for the lack of any surviving adverse comment; but see Knowles,
Religious Orders
, iii, pp.96-9 for a slightly jaundiced account of Islip’s life. For the visitation, see WAM, Register 2, fos.129-130v. No visitation articles or injunctions have survived. I am grateful to N.H. MacMichael for making the Abbey archives available.

³⁷²
Rymer, xiii, p.739-40 from the 1521 amplification but quoting from the earlier commission.

³⁷³
Longland; and for Warham’s pleasure see LAO Register 26, fo.206, quoted extensively in Bowker,
Henrician Reformation
, pp.11-12.

³⁷⁴
Taken from Bowker,
Henrician Reformation
, p.11.

³⁷⁵
Richard Fox, pp.114-17 (
LP
, iii, 1122).

³⁷⁶
Wilson, pp.359-64; Knowles,
Religious Orders
, iii, p.83, n.3.

³⁷⁷
Wilson, p.360.

³⁷⁸
See p.331 above.

³⁷⁹
William More; Knowles,
Religious Orders
, iii, pp.108-26.

³⁸⁰
LP
, ix, 653; Knowles,
Religious Orders
, pp.342-5.

³⁸¹
See p.273 above

³⁸²
Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich
, pp.227-8;
VCH, Suffolk
, ii, p.147, which is the most detailed account of Wolsey’s suppressions to date.

³⁸³
Rymer, xiv, pp.23-5, 11 Sept. 1524.

³⁸⁴
It was worth over £300 a year, and of the 30 houses suppressed none was worth that, only two were over £200, one of which being St Frideswide, Oxford, for which special papal provision was made. For a complete list see Knowles,
Religious Orders
, iii, p.470.

³⁸⁵
Graham, pp.125-45, where the injunctions and ‘counsels’ are printed; also Knowles,
Religious Orders
, iii, pp.82-3. For the prior’s answers to the complaint brought against him see
LP
, iv, 954.

³⁸⁶
At the same time, the house was placed directly under papal jurisdiction and subject only to the visitation of the papal collector in London.

³⁸⁷
Worcester priory obtained a copy in 1520 (William More, p.108), and presumably they were issued to all Benedictine houses.

³⁸⁸
LP
, vii, 1066.

³⁸⁹
Birchenshawe at Chester; Kirton at Peterborough; Butler at Vale Royal (
VCH, Cheshire
, iii, p.162); and probably Gosenell at Wenlock.

³⁹⁰
Admittedly Wolsey had visitorial powers from 1518, but 1524 is probably a fairer starting date. Only by then had the new constitutions for the religious orders been drawn up and published, his legatine powers been granted him for life and, following the compositions with the bishops, his legatine machinery established and it was not until 1525 that an important number of legatine visitations took place.

³⁹¹
Registrum Sancti Pauli
, pp.xiv ff. 416 ff.

³⁹²
Pantin (ed.),
English Black Monks
, pp.124-36;
VCH, Wilts
., iii, p.225.

³⁹³
I have found the following especially useful: Duggan, Gleason; Oakley; O’Malley.

³⁹⁴
Harper-Bill,
JEH
, 29.

³⁹⁵
M.J. Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’, pp.42-94.

³⁹⁶
Ibid, pp.95-147.

³⁹⁷
Brock, pp.27, 309-15; see also p.46 above.

³⁹⁸
Jedin, i, pp.117-38.

³⁹⁹
The theme of Ozment,
Reformation in the Cities
.

⁴⁰⁰
Thus Scarisbrick in
Reformation
, p.47: ‘Erasmus … has received more attention from historians than he did from his contemporaries.’

⁴⁰¹
See pp.36-7.

⁴⁰²
S.J. Lander, ‘Diocese of Chichester’, pp.14 ff. for his conservatism.

⁴⁰³
Richard Fox, p.115 (
LP
, iii, 1122); the translation from Taunton, p.63.

⁴⁰⁴
See p.45.

⁴⁰⁵
Stanier, pp.1-63.

⁴⁰⁶
Statutes of the Colleges of Oxford
, ii, pp.24-5, 34-5.

⁴⁰⁷
At Cambridge there was Jesus College founded by Bishop Alcock in 1496, and Christ’s in 1506 and St. John’s College founded in 1516 by Lady Margaret Beaufort and John Fisher; at Oxford Brasenose College founded by Bishop Smith and Sir Richard Sutton in 1509, and Corpus Christi founded in 1517 by Bishop Fox.

⁴⁰⁸
Best expressed in a letter to the Italian humanist Paulo Bombace in July 1518; see
CWE
, 6, pp.61-2; see also ibid, 3, pp.86-7, 94-5; 5, pp.392-3, 411; 6, pp.62-3, 356-8, 364-5, 377-80, 387, 405.

⁴⁰⁹
Ibid, 6, pp.366-7 Erasmus to Wolsey 18 May [1519].

⁴¹⁰
Fowler, pp.87-9; McConica,
Collegiate University
, pp.336-9 which sadly appeared too late for me to make best use of it. The problem is that they get muddled up with Fox’s lectureships at Corpus Christi, where the lectures probably took place, and Wolsey’s subsequent public lectureships attached to Cardinal College.

⁴¹¹
CWE, 6
, p.215 (
LP
, ii, app.56).

⁴¹²
Mitchell, p.90.