The life and administration of Cardinal Wolsey

Book I

During the predominance of the papal authority, all the nations of Europe formed, in reality, but one general state, in which the civil and military institutions were subordinate to the ecclesiastical. The submission yielded to secular superiors was modified by the various tenure of feudal property. No laws existed which the whole community was equally boflipd to maintain, but such as issued from the apostolicJ^throne. By whatever names the provinces of Christendom were distinguished, empires, kingdoms, or republics, the people and their rulers alike acknowledged themselves subject to the pope. Royalty did homage to superstition ; nor was the crown itself allodial, but held of the tiara.

II.1 The means by which the papal power was upheld and exercised were as wonderful as tjie extent of its prerogatives. A portion of mankind assumed privileges above the rights of the common race ; and the humblest member of that class might aspire to supreme command. As inducements to submission, the priesthood promised, to all who would most slavishly obey their authority, rewards which the vicissitudes of life could not affect, and threatened with eternal penalties those who resisted or renounced their jurisdiction. Man surrendered his reason, and yielded a degree of implicit obedience to the pope, such as never existed under any other form of government. Thus the management of all concerns became intrusted to the officers of his holiness ; and, in the fulness of the ecclesiastical usurpation, the clergy may be described as constituting the governing mind of the political body. III. The long, bloody, and proscriptive wars between the royal families of York and Lancaster, reduced the ancient importance of England as a province of Christendom, and naturally gave a preponderance to military domination over an authority founded on opinion, at an era when the revival of philosophy was favourable to any diminution in the powers of the Roman theocracy. The restoration of peace and order was no doubt advantageous to the church ; and under Henry VII. the clergy began to put forth again their former pretensions ; but the people no longer regarded them with the veneration which they had once enjoyed. In the state, however, churchmen still attained the highest offices ; but they were generally looked upon as the members of an order, arrogant by the possession of exorbitant privileges, averse to the social interests of mankind, and their conduct, in consequence, was investigated with a jealous and inquisitorial eye.

IV. The civil wars also tended to diminish the personal influence and manorial jurisdiction of the barons. Proscripti^ms led to changes in the possession of domains. The feudal tenants, accustomed to look upon the hereditary lord of the manor as their natural and rightful superior, viewed his removal as oppression, and considered his successors as usurpers. The ancient ties of connexion between the chief and the vassal were generally relaxed, and in many instances entirely dissolved. The nobles were divided into two factions; and, as the princes of York or of Lancaster alternately prevailed, each faction was in its turn doomed to suffer the vengeance of its rival. They found it necessary also to be more around the king than when the succession was not disputed : — His friends to maintain his cause — the moderate to avoid suspicion— and his adversaries to watch opportunities to promote the designs of their own faction. The splendour of the court was thus augmented ; but the absence of the nobility from their castles weakened the whole structure of the feudal system which supported the oligarchy, and impaired for ever that formidable power which had resulted from a constant intercourse of affection and authority between the lords and their vassals. The reign of Henry VIII. was not only the most magnificent in the annals of England, but also that in which the king exercised the greatest latitude of prerogative, and in which the nobility possessed the least influence. It was later before the full extent of the good, ordained to spring from the evil of the disputed succession, manifested itself among the people.

V. Although the court presented a scene of gorgeous pageantries unknown in any former period, the personal animosities and fierce altercations of the civil wars had produced among the courtiers rude and obstreperous manners. They indulged in a rough plainness of address, almost as different from the ceremonious courtesy of chivalry as the easy politeness which has since succeeded. England never exhibited such superb spectacles of knighthood as in the reign of Henry VIII. ; but lists and tournaments were no longer regarded as courts of equity, nor the fortune of arms a more accurate criterion of guilt or of innocence than the verdict of civil tribunals. All the parade of chivalry was renewed ; but the spirit had departed with the circumstances which had called it forth. To profess the sentiments which it had anciently inspired was not indeed ridiculous ; but the vows and pageants which added a gallant dignity to un-

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lettered valour, ceased to be objects of serious concern, and were only imitated in exhibitions for the amusement of the king.

VI. The civil wars were not more favourable to the advancement of learning than to the authority of the nobility and the clergy. During the reign of Henry VI. polite literature had made some progress. His pacific disposition had led him to foster the arts which contribute to the pleasures of life ; but from the date of his dethronement they began to decline, and the universities ceased to recognise the muses. What was called philosophy consisted in the agitation of logical subtilties, founded commonly on mere verbal distinctions, which sharpened without informing the understanding. The general notion entertained of science was of something infinitely beyond ordinary uses. It was wrapt up in language almost as mysterious as the Egyptian hieroglyphics ; and nothing less was expected from it than a knowledge of future events, and the power of conferring wealth and immortality. In these vain pursuits many important facts, it is true, were ascertained ; but they were passed over unheeded and unvalued. Divinity was the only study that tended to advance the progress of the public mind ; and the art of printing favoured the prevalent bias of the age by multiplying the materials and excitements of controversy.

VII. Besides the civil wars, exterior events had b CARDINAL W0L8EY.

contributed to alter and expand the views of the English nation. The riches which Portugal had obtained by exploring the passage to India, inspired Spain with adventurous emulation ; and her enterprises were rewarded by the attainment of a new world. This great achievement roused throughout Christendom a similar spirit. Avarice overcame ambition in the councils of princes ; and sovereigns and subjects, alike eager to participate in the golden regions of the West, promoted the moral independence of man by cultivating the means of commerce. A new order was, in consequence, destined at this era to arise in society, by which, in time, the policy of nations, the motives of war, and the modes of rule, were to be radically changed. Hitherto the power of our kings had depended on their territorial possessions, and the influence of our nobles on the breadth and fertility of their estates ; but the mercantile order, by gradual accumulation, has since attained an ascendency in the realm equal to that of the clergy and nobility, and reduced to its subserviency the prerogatives of the crown itself. In the reign of Henry VIII. this class had, it is true, not assumed any recognisable form ; but the principles which, by subsequent development, induced all its importance, began to affect the undertakings and treaties of the government.

VIII. This state of the clergy and of the nobility, of manners, of learning, and of trade, afford-

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ed ample scope for the exercise of an ambitious, resolute, and ostentatious mind. The following narrative is an attempt to delineate a character indisputably of this description, and to exhibit a view of the events by which that character was governed in a period full of great emergencies, and fraught with changes affecting the interests of the whole human race, — a period which, like the present momentous age, may be regarded as one of those vast occasional eddies, in the mighty current of human affairs, by which homes and inheritances are overwhelmed and swept away ; but which, as the violence subsides, never fail to leave behind inestimable riches for the use and improvement of mankind.

IX. Thomas Wolsey was born at Ipswich in the month of March 1471. His father, though of mean condition, possessed some property. Persuaded of the apt and active genius of his son, he sent him early to school, and destined him for the service of the church. Wolsey, at the age of fifteen, was a student in Oxford, and obtained the degree of bachelor of arts, which procured him at the university the name of the boy bachelor. Few so young, with all the advantages of rank and affluence, attained in that age academical honours. His great progress in philosophy and other learning having early procured for him a fellowship in Magdalen College, he was also appointed master of the school, and intrusted with the education of the sons of the Marquis of Dorset. The proficiency which these young noblemen made under his tuition, and his own conversational accomplishments, displayed while passing the Christmas holidays with their father, so ingratiated him with the marquis, that he was rewarded with the rectory of Lymington in Somersetshire.

X. He was at this time burser of Magdalen College ; but having, without a sufficient warrant, applied the funds to complete the great tower of the buildings, he found himself obliged to resign. The tower is still one of the ornaments of Oxford, and may be regarded not only as a specimen of his taste in architecture, but as a monument of that forward spirit and intrepid disrespect of precedents which he so amply manifested in greater affairs.

XI. His disposition, frank and social, often led him to scenes and enjoyments unbecoming the grave regularity of the ecclesiastical profession. He had not resided long at Lymington before he was found concerned in the riots of a fair in the neighbourhood ; for which one of the justices of the peace subjected him to disgraceful punishment. Whether this was just or inconsiderate, it could not but serve to impair his respectability in the eyes of his parishioners. He therefore removed from Lymington, and was received as one of the domestic chaplains of Archbishop Dean. At the death of that prelate he went to Calais, where Sir John Nanfan, then treasurer, appointed him to

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manage the business of his office. In this situation, Wolsey conducted himself with so much discretion, that Sir John was induced to exert his influence to procure him promotion, and succeeded in procuring him to be nominated one of the chaplains to the king. XII. Wolsey, when he obtained this appointment, possessed many of those personal endowments which are often as effectual in advancing a young man as either virtue or talent. He spoke and acted with a- generous assurance ; and that superiority of deportment, which, in the glare of his full fortune, was felt so like arrogance, seemed then only calculated to acquire and secure respect. In the performance of his duty, he had frequent opportunities of improving the impression of his exterior accomplishments ; and his advancement accompanied the development of his talents. The abbot of the rich monastery of St Edmund appointed him to the rectory of Redgrave, in the diocese of Norwich : Fox, Bishop of Winchester, who at that time held the privy seal, and Sir Thomas Lovel, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, also distinguished him by their friendship. They thought that his uncommon capacity might be usefully employed in state affairs ; and accordingly, while the treaty of marriage was pending between the king and Margaret the Dowager of Savoy, they proposed him as a fit person to be sent to her father, the Emperor Maximilian, on that business. His majesty had not before particularly noticed

Wolsey ; but, after conversing with him, he was so satisfied with his qualifications, that he commanded him to be in readiness for the embassy.

XIII. The court was then at Richmond, from which Wolsey proceeded with his despatches to London, where he arrived about four o'clock in the afternoon. He had a boat waiting ; and in less than three hours was at Gravesend. With post-horses, he got next morning to Dover, reached Calais in the course of the forenoon, and arrived the same night at the imperial court. The emperor, informed that an extraordinary ambassador had come from England, immediately admitted him ; and the business being agreeable, was quickly concluded. Wolsey then returned, and reached Calais at the opening of the gates — found the passengers going on board the vessel that brought him from England — embarked — and about ten o'clock was landed at Dover. He reached Richmond the same night; and, after taking some repose, rose, and met the king as he came from his chamber to hear the morning service. His majesty, surprised at seeing him there, and supposing that he had not yet departed, rebuked him for neglecting the orders with which he was charged : " May it please your highness,'" said Wolsey, " I have been with the emperor, and executed my commission to the satisfaction, I trust, of your grace.'" He then knelt, and presented Maximilian's letters. Dissembling the admiration which he i'elt at such mi-

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precedented expedition, the king inquired if he had received no orders by a pursuivant who had been sent after him ? Wolsey answered, that he met the messenger as he returned ; but, having preconceived the purpose for which he was sent, he had presumed, of his own accord, to supply the defect in his credentials, for which he solicited his majesty's pardon'.0 Pleased with this foresight, and gratified with the result of the negotiation, the king readily forgave his temerity, and commanded him to attend the council in the afternoon. Wolsey, at the time appointed, reported the business of his mission with so much clearness and propriety that he received the applause of all present ; and, when the deanery of Lincoln soon after became vacant, it was bestowed on him by his majesty, who, from the period of that embassy, continued to treat him with particular favour.

XIV. It has been alleged that Bishop Fox, in order to counteract the power of the Earl of Surrey, who then monopolized almost the whole favour and patronage of the crown, was induced to avail himself of Wolsey's rising genius. Whatever were his motives, it may be inferred that the personal merits of Wolsey were beginning to awaken the envious apprehensions of that sordid race who ascribe the prosperity of others to any cause rather than to the efforts of ability, and to whom talents form a matter of offence.

XV. Wolsey had not long been dean of Lincoln when Henry VII. died, and was succeeded by his only surviving son, then in the eighteenth year of his age. The claims of the rival families of York and Lancaster were united in the person of Henry VIII. He also inherited from his father greater treasures than any English monarch had ever before enjoyed. Nor was he less distinguished by the gifts of nature than by those of fortune. His figure was eminently handsome ; his spirit courageous ; and his temper, though hot and arbitrary, was open and generous. During the life of his elder brother, Prince Arthur, he was intended for the church ; and to the effects of this design historians have ascribed his erudition, and the personal share which he took in the controversies of the Reformation. He delighted in magnificent spectacles, and was passionately fond of equestrian and athletic exercises — amusements to which the princes and nobles of England have ever been partial. At his accession he was calculated by his person and manners to attract the admiration and affections of the multitude ; and by his knowledge and capacity to obtain the esteem and indulgence of the discerning few. By the judicious advice of his grandmother, he selected for ministers those counsellors of his father who were the most respected for their caution and wisdom'/ And no money being required from the people, the affairs of the kingdom

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were managed with discretion and popularity. The state of Europe was also at this time auspicious to the prosperity of England.

XVI. The Emperor Maximilian, with a view to secure to his family Burgundy and the Netherlands, which he held only in right of his wife, courted the alliance of the young king. His advances were favourably received ; for it was thought that Henry VII. had not acted with his usual perspicacity by acquiescing in the cession of those opulent territories to a potentate already the greatest in Christendom ; and that their entire annexation to the dominions of Austria ought still to be resisted. Louis XII. of France .was at war with several of the Italian states, and was endeavouring to incorporate with his kingdom Bretaigne, which he had obtained by marriage with the heiress ; a marriage which Henry VII. was equally blamed for having suffered to take place without opposition. Ferdinand of ArrOgan, who, by marrying Isabella of Castile, and by expelling the Moors from Grenada, became sovereign of all Spain, had reasons no less powerful for maintaining an intimate alliance with England. His daughter, Katherine, was the queen of Henry VIII. The inducements which had led to this connexion were strengthened by uncertainties in his political relations with the French king, and by peculiar circumstances in the matrimonial condition of Kathcrine. She had been first married to her husband's elder brother. After his death, a questionable license had been obtained from the pope, and under it her second marriage was completed. James IV. of Scotland had married Henry's eldest sister. At the close of the late reign a slight coolness had, however, arisen between the courts of Edinburgh and London, occasioned by the preference which Scotland, according to ancient policy, gave to the views of France ; but no serious hostility was apprehended, and the congeniality between the characters of the two monarchs seemed likely to draw them into particular friendship.

XVII. No schism had yet, to any apparently dangerous extent, disturbed the concord of Christendom!1 Savonarola, who had ventured to attack the enormities of the papal administration of Alexander VI. was destroyed at Florence. By his death, the seeds of a reformation, similar to that which afterwards spread with such rapidity in Germany, were in Italy totally exterminated. The inhabitants of that branch of the Alps which stretches towards the Pyrenees had, indeed, separated themselves from the church of Rome ; but they were a simple people, and held little intercourse with the rest of Christendom. In Bohemia a few followers of John Huss and Jerome of Prague preserved rather than asserted their principles. In England, from the days of Wicklifte, many had disliked the

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Roman pretensions ; but they were in general of humble rank, unconnected, and only united in enmity against the ignorant and luxurious clergy.

XVIII. At this period Wolsey was in the thirty-eighth year of his age. Although a priest, he frequented the entertainments of the young courtiers, of which he partook with the gayety of secular freedom. One of his Oxford pupils had succeeded to the marquisate of Dorset, and was an intimate companion of the king. In his company Wolsey probably obtained opportunities of studying the temper and inclinations of his royal master, and of recommending himself to his favour by the knowledge of public affairs, which, in the midst of pleasure and dissipation, he dexterously took occasion to display. Riches and honours flowed upon him. In the first year of Henry he received a grant of lands and tenements in London, was admitted to the privy council, and appointed almoner. Soon after the king gave him the rectory of Torrington, made him canon of the collegiate church of Windsor, and registrar of the order of the Gaiter. Archbishop Bambridge appointed him to be a prebendary in the cathedral of York, (1512,) where he was soon advanced to the deanery. And the pope, informed of his increasing ascendency over the monarch, allowed him to hold benefices to the amount of two thousand n\erks annually, though consisting of more than three parochial churches, if a precedent for such a dispensation could be tfoffound in the records of England. But no particular office in the state was committed to his charge until after the French war, (in 1513,) of the origin and principal events of which it may not here be improper to give a brief relation.

XIX. The restless and turbulent Julius II., in the prosecution of his ambitious temporal designs, had involved himself in continual quarrels with several of the Italian states ; and by his imperious conduct had produced a rebellion even in the consistory itself. The cardinals who disapproved of his violence, and whom he had excommunicated^ called a council, which assembled at Tours under the protection of Louis XII. Theyjresolved that the sentence of excommunication against them was void ; and that a monitory message should be sent to the holy father, in the hope of inducing him to act with more moderation and justice. They also agreed that, in the event of their message being contemned, he should be called before a general council. Julius despised their admonition, and treated their message with contempt. They, in consequence, proceeded to give effect to their resolutions, and summoned him to appear at Pisa. Until this decisive step, Maximilian had sided with the schismatic cardinals ; but, as they had begun to manifest an undue predilection for the interests of France, he availed himself of it, to separate from the confederacy, and to join the pope.

XX. Julius, in the mean time, finding that the 8 force which Louis had sent into Italy, for the ostensible purpose of supporting the cause of the cardinals, but in reality to gain conquests for France, was making rapid progress, anxiously endeavoured to secure the assistance of England. For this purpose, as a mark of high favour, he sent to the king a golden rose, with the papal benediction, and a letter, filled with complaints against the unprincipled aggressions of the most Christian king. In this letter he employed every topic of persuasion that he thought likely to influence the young and ardent mind of Henry. He invoked him by the mercies of Christ, by the merits of his own famous ancestors, and by his duty to the church, to join in the league against the French and cardinals, offering the distinguished honour of declaring him the chief and protector.

XXI. Independently of the gratification which Henry received from the pope's letter, and the mark of distinction which accompanied it, ambition prompted him to seek an opportunity of signalizing himself. Bearing the title of King of France, he was desirous of asserting the rights which that title implied. Besides personal considerations, there were public and more solid reasons to justify war with France. — Louis heightened the dissension between the pope and the cardinals for his own particular advantage. It was suspected that his enmity to Julius arose from a wish to place a creature of his own in the apostolical chair, and therefore it was thought not. only pious, but also prudent policy for England to interfere, in order to prevent the violation of the church, and the aggrandisement of her ancient rival, by the acquisition of new territories in Italy. The English ministers accordingly (1512) decided on war. An embassy was sent to Louis, requiring him to desist from hostilities. He disregarded the request. A herald was then despatched in form, to declare the ancient claims of the English kings to the crown of France, and to demand restitution of Normandy, Guienne, Anjou, and Mayne, as the patrimonial inheritance of Henry. War ensued. The king resolved to invade France in person, in conjunction with Maximilian. The commissariat of the army destined for this great undertaking was committed to Wolsey. The office was certainly little consonant to his profession and former pursuits ; but it was the character of this singular man to be equally fit for every kind of business, and the duty was performed to the satisfaction both of the army and of the king.

XXII. The forces amounted to fourteen thousand men. Being joined by the imperialists, they proceeded to invest Tcrouennc in Artois, a town defended by a deep ditch, bulwarks, and heavy ordnance. The king soon arrived at the earn]), where the emperor, assuming the red cross of St George, in his capacity of a knight of the garter, received a hundred crowns a day as the soldier of

Henry. Terouennc was not at first so closely invested but that, on the side towards the river Lys, a way was left open by which succours might be thrown in. The French resolved to take advantage of this oversight. Accordingly, Louis, who lay at Amiens with about twenty thousand men, sent forward a large detachment of cavalry ; but before they had reached the scene, the allies had drawn their lines closer, and debarred all access to the town. The French abandoned their enterprise, and retreated. When they thought themselves out of danger, some among them, impatient of the heat, took off their helmets ; others dismounted from their horses, and the whole fell into a state of disorder that invited surprise. In this condition they were surrounded by a party sent in pursuit of them. Though they boasted of possessing many of the best warriors of France, the rout and confusion became irresistible. The Duke of Longueville, Bayard, Fayette, Clermont, and Bussy d'Ambois, were made prisoners in the pursuit. This singular encounter received the appropriate appellation of the battle of the Spurs. Teroucnne immediately surrendered, and the king, with the emperor as his vassal, made a triumphal entry on the 24th of August 1513. Maximilian then left the army, and Henry, having ordered the fortifications to be destroyed, laid siege to Tournay. Though that town was of no great extent, the peasantry, by flying to it for shelter, had increased the population to no less than eighty thousand souls. Famine soon followed ; a capitulation was inevitable; and the King of England was speedily admitted to the sovereignty. A new bishop had lately been nominated to the see, but not installed. Henry, conceiving that he had acquired by conquest a right to dispose of the bishoppric, gave it to Wolsey — a proceeding contrary to the rules of the church, and which afterwards occasioned much vexation and trouble to them both. XXIII. While the army lay before Terouenne, the lion of Scotland, in his herald's garb, arrived in the camp, and demanded an audience of the king. The purport of this ceremonious message was to obtain reparation for injuries alleged to have been suffered by the Scots, with a provisionary declaration of war, if satisfaction should be refused. Henry, justly considering that James was instigated to this measure by the French, who were anxious that war should be declared by Scotland, in order that the English army might be withdrawn from France, to defend the kingdom at home, returned a sharp and reproachful answer. ■• Now," said he to the herald, " we perceive the King of Scots, our brother-in-law, and your master, to be the same sort of person that we always took him to be. Notwithstanding his oath, his promise on the word of a king, and his own hand and seal, to his perpetual dishonour and infamy, he intends, in our absence, to invade our domi-

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nions, an enterprise which he durst not attempt were we there in person. But he has not degenerated from the qualities of his ancestors, who, for the most part, ever violated their promises, nor observed their contracts farther than pleased themselves; therefore tell your master, that he shall never be embraced in any league in which we are a confederate ; and also that, suspecting his intentions, and justly, as the deed now shows, we have left behind us one able to defend England against him and all his power. We have provided for this ; and he shall not find our realm so defenceless as he expects. Tell him that we are the very owner of Scotland, which he holds of us by homage ; and since, contrary to his bounden duty as our vassal, he presumes to rebel, we shall, at our return, with the help of God, drive him from the kingdom." The herald, astonished and abashed at this lofty and impassioned address, replied, " As the natural subject of King James, I am bound to deliver boldly whatever he commands; but the orders of others I cannot, nor dare I say to my sovereign. Your highness's letters may declare your pleasure, but I cannot repeat such expi'essions to my king." Henry, assenting to the propriety of the objection, ordered the herald to be entertained according to the usages of chivalry, and summoned a council to consider the message of the Scottish king, and the answer which it might be expedient to return. The result wa^, a letter, in effect the same as the verbal declaration ; and the herald, after receiving a liberal largess, left the camp, and proceeded, by the way of Flanders, to take his passage to Scotland. While he waited for a favourable wind, the fate of his master was consummated in the fatal battle of Flodden — an event which the Scottish nation have never ceased to deplore, in the finest strains of their poetry and music.