Thomas Wolsey

“ That had, in fact, been treated already by Chettle in August, 1601, and by Chettle, Munday, Drayton, and Smith in November, 1601, in two plays for the Admiral’s men.” There can be little doubt that that is the reason why, in the Cromwell play, the public is asked to “pardon if we omit all Wolsaye’s life.” But it evidently is the reason, too, why “all Wolsaye’s life” is omitted from Sir Thomas More. Nothing surely is more remarkable than the absolute absence of everything that concerns Cardinal Wolsey from our play. ”

“ In his straits one of his officials came to his aid, and showed his tact and management in affairs of business. Thomas Cromwell, the son of a London citizen, spent an adventurous youth in business on the Continent, and settled in London as a small attorney and a money-lender. Wolsey had found out his ability, and employed him to manage the dissolution of the monasteries, and transact the business connected with the foundation of his colleges. No doubt this gave him opportunities of spreading his own business, and making himself useful friends. ”

“ In the first half of the sixteenth century, hatred of France meant friendship with Spain, and from the first years of the reign of Henry VIII. one encounters at every turn evidences of the devotion of the common people to the Imperial cause. Wolsey’s policy of peace with France had won him almost as many enemies among the lower classes as his reputation as originator of oppressive financial measures. Cromwell had determined not to make the same mistake that his predecessor had, but he was foolish enough to err on the opposite side. ”

“ There was a stormy debate on this motion; but Sir Thomas More at length made peace, and it was passed. Thus Wolsey, on the whole, had contrived to obtain something resembling his original proposal, but the payments were spread over a period of four years. After this Wolsey, at the prorogation of Parliament, could afford to thank the Commons on the king's behalf, and assure them that "his Grace would in such wise employ their loving contribution as should be for the defence of his realm and of his subjects, and the persecution and pressing of his enemy." ”

“ and in some hour of future reflection you may probably find the fitness of Wolsey's despairing penitence—"had I served my God as faithful as I have served my king, he would not thus have forsaken me in my old age." ”

“ Now while Sir Thomas More was chancellor of the duchy, the see of Rome chanced to be void, which was cause of much trouble. For Cardinal Wolsey, a man very ambitious, and desirous (as good hope and likelihood he had) to aspire to that dignity, perceiving himself of his expectation disappointed, by means of the Emperor Charles so highly commending one Cardinal Adrian, sometime his schoolmaster, to the cardinals of Rome in the time of their election for his virtue and worthiness that thereupon he was chosen pope ”

“ Cromwell had entered the King’s service in 1530 with training and talents which rendered him far more competent to undertake the domestic administration of the country than to guide its foreign affairs. His acquaintance with different trades, his legal ability, and his experience in the suppression of the smaller monasteries for Wolsey’s purposes were of inestimable value to him throughout his ministry in dealing with problems at home. ”

“ He then desired of Wolsey leave to go to London, which was granted, and he departed immediately with Ralph Sadler, his clerk.
No one knew better than Cromwell that the best place for [67] him to ‘make or marre’ the Cardinal’s fortunes and his own, was in the Parliament which was to meet November 3 (two days later) , and, ‘being in London, he devised with himself to be one of the burgesses [148] .’ He sat as a member from Taunton, as the records of Parliament attest [149] , but there are very contradictory reports about the way in which he obtained his seat. ”

“ The English residents at foreign Courts were not men of mark or position. John Stile at the Court of Ferdinand, and Thomas Spinelly in Flanders seem to have been merchants carrying on their own business. With Maximilian was a more important man, Sir Richard Wingfield, a Suffolk knight, who was too self-satisfied and too dull-witted to understand Wolsey's schemes. For special work special agents had to be sent, who went unwillingly to a thankless and laborious task. ”

“ The Monarchy at last realized its power, and the work for which Wolsey had paved the way was carried out with a terrible thoroughness. The one great institution which could still offer resistance to the royal will was struck down. The Church became a mere instrument of the central despotism. The people learned their helplessness in rebellions easily suppressed and avenged with ruthless severity. A reign of terror, organized with consummate and merciless skill, held England panic-stricken at Henry's feet. The noblest heads rolled from the block. Virtue and learning could not save Thomas More ”

“ The mutineers seem to have been encouraged by a knowledge of Wolsey's unpopularity at home; for the special confidence shown in ‘Mr. Almoner’ was very distasteful to the old nobility. A letter of 7 Aug. 1512 from Lord Darcy at Berwick shows that some important intelligence from spies at Berwick was communicated to Wolsey alone of all the council; and in September, when Thomas Howard, first earl of Surrey (afterwards Duke of Norfolk) [q. v.] , had retired from court under a cloud, Wolsey ventured to suggest to Bishop Foxe that he might as well be kept out of it henceforth altogether. ”

“ His foundation consisted of a dean, sixty canons, six professors, forty petty canons, twelve chaplains, twelve clerks, and sixteen choristers; and he proposed to fill it with men of his own choice, who would find there a fitting sphere for their energies.
Wolsey was a man well adapted to hold the balance between the old and the new learning. He had been trained in the theology of the schools, and was a student of St. Thomas Aquinas; but he had learned by the training of life to understand the new ideas ”

“ Twenty-two small convents, with less than six inmates apiece, were suppressed and their revenues applied to defray these enterprises. It was remarked afterwards that Wolsey's Legatine autocracy had paved the way for Henry's assumption of the Supreme Headship; and that a precedent had been given in dissolving the small monasteries for the pillage and spoliation that speedily followed by Act of Parliament. On the other side, if reformation was necessary, Wolsey's dealing can scarcely be judged inhumane; his hand would have been lighter than Thomas Cromwell's ”

“ Claim of Thomas Cavendish.
When there are only two claimants upon any property, if the pretensions of one can be shown to be groundless, those of the other seem to be established as a necessary consequence. But here we have a third party. Beside Sir William and his elder brother George, a claimant has been found in a Thomas Cavendish. In the account of Wolsey given in the Athenæ [33] , Wood calls the author by this name: and Dodd, a Catholic divine, who published a Church History of England in 3 vols. ”

“ In those days boys grew into young men much earlier than they do now, and set about earning their living, and even getting married, at an age when to-day they would probably just be leaving a public school. So we are not surprised at hearing that when Thomas was only fourteen he was sent by cardinal Morton to Canterbury Hall, Oxford, a college which afterwards became part of Christ Church, founded by Wolsey. The elder More was a poor man, and Thomas was not his only child ”

“ Among whom, as we shall see below, was the eldest son of the Earl of Northumberland. This was according to a practice much more ancient than the time of Wolsey; agreeably to which, young men of the most exalted rank resided in the families of distinguished ecclesiastics, under the denomination of pages, but more probably for the purposes of education than of service. In this way Sir Thomas More was brought up under Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury; of whom he has given a very interesting character in his Utopia. From Fiddes’s Appendix to the Life of Wolsey, p. ”

“ He was a great refiner of sensual pleasures, had a passion for magnificence and display, and a real genius for court entertainments. He could eat and drink with the gayest courtiers, sing merry songs, and join in the dance. He was blunt and frank in his manners; but these only concealed craft and cunning. "It is art to conceal art," and Wolsey was a master of all the tricks of dissimulation. He rose rapidly after he had once gained the heart of the king. He became successively dean of York, papal legate, cardinal, bishop of Lincoln, archbishop of York, and lord chancellor. ”

“ Whilst the great looked on all this grandeur in obsequious but resentful silence, the people settled it in their own minds that the wonderful power of the priest over the fiery nature of the monarch was the effect of sorcery. But Wolsey was no mean or ordinary man. His talents and his consummate address were what influenced the king, who was proud of the magnificence which was at once his creation and his representative; and Wolsey had a grasp, an expanse, and an elevation in his ambition, which had something sublime in them. ”

“ First and foremost, as the guiding spirit of the whole, as the mighty artificer of that pageant on which, however gaudy in its particulars the fates of Europe were supposed to depend, and the earnest eyes of Europe were certainly fixed—comes Wolsey.—Gorgeously habited himself, and the burnished gold of his saddle cloth only partially relieved by the more sombre crimson velvet; nay, his very shoes gleaming with brilliants, and himself withal so lofty in bearing, of so noble a presence, that this very magnificence seemed but a natural appendage, Wolsey took his lofty way from monarch to monarch ”

“ As the inn-keeper went on with his story of how one and another had been arrested and tortured, Sir Miles reflected with bitterness that his late master, the Cardinal, whose memory he revered, had first planted this seed. Wolsey had never ceased to teach other men, and, to the last, inculcate in his own acts, the doctrine that men only held their property at the will of the king, and that if he chose to recall it, he had a perfect right to do so. ”

“ In ‘Why come ye not to court?’ (in the same metre as ‘Colyn Cloute’) he turned upon Wolsey the full force of his invective, and denounced the cardinal's luxurious life, insatiate ambition, and insolence of bearing. The confused and fantastic ‘boke’ called ‘Speake Parrot’ (in Chaucer's seven-line stanza) is also largely aimed at Wolsey. ‘Bo-ho doth bark well, but Hough-ho he ruleth the ring,’ is the burden of the poem—Bo-ho being the king, and Hough-ho Wolsey. According to popular tradition, Wolsey retaliated by sending Skelton more than once to prison. ”

“ He loved it as an artist loves his art, for he found in it a complete satisfaction for his nature. All that was best, and all that was worst, in Wolsey sprang from this exceptional attitude towards statecraft, which he practised with enthusiasm, not in the spirit of cold calculation. The world is accustomed to statesmen who clothe the results of calculation in the language of enthusiasm; Wolsey's language was practical and direct, his passionate aspirations were restrained within his own bosom. ”

“ The foul evil take all them that hath thus taken you from us; we pray God that a very vengeance may light upon them." Thus they ran crying after him through the town of Cawood, they loved him so well. After this moving farewell Wolsey rode through the {202} gathering darkness to Pomfret, where he was lodged in the abbey. Thence he proceeded through Doncaster to Sheffield Park, where he was kindly received by the Earl of Shrewsbury, whose guest he was for eighteen days. ”

“ In the contemplation of Wolsey in his fallen condition, we are so much affected by his humility, his candour, and his sorrow, that we forget his former haughtiness and his crimes. He never accuses his sovereign of injustice; he breaks out in no passion against him; he acknowledges that he was the creature of his favour; and that all he had, rank and fortune, were his to take away, as he had given them. His tears for so great a reverse, for such a stripping down of fame and honour, are natural ”

“ It is wonderful to reflect that this one brain should have controlled the secular and ecclesiastical destinies of Christendom.
To reform the Church would seem to have been an almost superhuman undertaking, but to a man of Wolsey’s greatness obstacles are [Pg 38] only incentives to energy. He was “eager to cleanse the Church from the accumulated evil effects of centuries of human passions.” A great man is stronger than a system, while he lives; but the system often outlives the man. Wolsey lived in a time whose very atmosphere was charged with intrigue. ”

“ Like a wise minister, Wolsey did not neglect to entertain the King and keep his mind on trivial things. Hampton Court had become the scene of unrestrained gaiety. Music was always played on these occasions, and the King frequently took part in the revels, dancing, masquerading and singing, accompanying himself on the harpsichord or lute.
The description in Cavendish’s “Life of Wolsey” of the famous feast given by the Cardinal to the French ambassadors gives a graphic account of his prodigal splendour. ”