by Will Durant
CHAPTER XXIII
Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey
1509–29
I. A PROMISING KING: 1509-II
NO one, beholding the youth who mounted the throne of England in 1509, would have foreseen that he was to be both the hero and the villain of the most dramatic reign in English history. Still a lad of eighteen, his fine complexion and regular features made him almost girlishly attractive; but his athletic figure and prowess soon canceled any appearance of femininity. Foreign ambassadors vied with native eulogists in praising his auburn hair, his golden beard, his “extremely fine calf.” “He is extremely fond of tennis,” reported Giustiniani to the Venetian Senate; “it is the prettiest thing in the world to see him play, his fair skin glowing through a shirt of finest texture.”1 In archery and wrestling he equaled the best in his kingdom; at the hunt he never seemed to tire; two days a week he gave to jousts—and there only the Duke of Suffolk could match him. But he was also an accomplished musician, “sang and played all kinds of instruments with rare talent” (wrote the papal nuncio), and composed two Masses, which are still preserved. He loved dancing and masquerades, pageantry and fine dress. He liked to drape himself in ermine or purple robes, and the law gave him alone the right to wear purple, or gold brocade. He ate with gusto, and sometimes prolonged state dinners to seven hours, but in the first twenty years of his reign his vanity curbed his appetite. Everybody liked him, and marveled at his genial ease of manners and access, his humor, tolerance, and clemency. His accession was hailed as the dawn of a golden age.
The intellectual classes rejoiced too, for in those halcyon days Henry aspired to be a scholar as well as an athlete, a musician, and a king. Originally destined for an ecclesiastical career, he became something of a theologian, and could quote Scripture to any purpose. He had good taste in art, collected with discrimination, and wisely chose Holbein to immortalize his paunch. He took an active part in works of engineering, shipbuilding, fortification, and artillery. Sir Thomas More said of him that he “has more learning than any English monarch ever possessed before him” 2—no high praise. “What may we not expect,” More continued, “from a king who has been nourished by philosophy and the nine Muses?” 3 Mountjoy wrote ecstatically to Erasmus, then in Rome:
What may you not promise yourself from a prince with whose extraordinary talent and almost divine character you are well acquainted? But when you know what a hero he now shows himself, how wisely he behaves, what a lover he is of justice and goodness, what affection he bears to the learned, I venture to swear that you will need no wings to make you fly to behold this new and auspicious star. Oh, my Erasmus, if you could see how all the world here is rejoicing in the possession of 50 great a prince, how his life is all their desire, you would not contain your tears for joy. The heavens laugh, the earth exults.4
Erasmus came, and for a moment shared the delirium. “Heretofore,” he wrote, “the heart of learning was among such as professed religion. Now, while these for the most part give themselves up to the belly, luxury, and money,* the love of learning is gone from them to secular princes, the court, and the nobility.... . The King admits not only such men as More to his court, but he invites them—forces them—to watch all that he does, to share his duties and his pleasures. He prefers the companionship of men like More to that of silly youths or girls or the rich.” 5 More was one of the King’s Council, Linacre was the King’s physician, Colet was the King’s preacher at St. Paul’s.
In the year of Henry’s accession Colet, inheriting his father’s fortune, used much of it to establish St. Paul’s School. Some 150 boys were chosen to study, there, classical literature and Christian theology and ethics. Colet violated tradition by staffing the school with lay teachers; it was the first non-clerical school in Europe. The “Trojans,” who at Oxford inveighed against the teaching of the classics on the ground that it led to religious doubt, opposed Colet’s program, but the King overruled them and gave Colet full encouragement. Though Colet was himself orthodox and a model of piety, his enemies charged him with heresy. Archbishop Warham silenced them, and Henry concurred. When Colet saw Henry bent on war with France, he publicly condemned the policy, and declared, like Erasmus, that an unjust peace was to be preferred to the justest war. Even with the King sitting in the congregation Colet denounced war as flying in the face of the precepts of Christ. Henry privately begged him not to disrupt the morale of the army, but when the King was urged to depose Colet he answered: “Let everyone have his own doctor .... this man is the doctor for me.” 6 Colet continued to take Christianity seriously. To Erasmus he wrote (1517) in the spirit of Thomas à Kempis:
Ah, Erasmus, of books of knowledge there is no end; but there is nothing better for this short term of ours than that we should live a pure and holy life, and daily do our best to be cleansed and enlightened... by the ardent love and imitation of Jesus. Wherefore it is my most earnest wish that, leaving all indirect courses, we may proceed by a short method to the Truth. Farewell.7
In 1518 he prepared his own simple tomb, with only Johannes Coletus inscribed on it. A year later he was buried in it, and many felt that a saint had passed away.
II. WOLSEY
Henry, who was to become the incarnation of Machiavelli’s Prince, was as yet an innocent novice in international politics. He recognized his need for guidance, and sampled the men around him. More was brilliant, but only thirty-one, and inclined to sanctity. Thomas Wolsey was a mere three years older, and was a priest, but his whole turn was for statesmanship, and religion was for him a part of politics. Born at Ipswich, “of low extraction and despicable blood” (so the proud Guicciardini described him),8 Thomas had covered the baccalaureate course at Oxford by the age of fifteen; at twenty-three he was bursar of Magdalen College, and showed his quality by applying adequate funds, beyond his authority, for the completion of that hall’s most majestic tower. He knew how to get along. Displaying a flair for management and negotiation, he rose through a succession of chaplainships to serve Henry VII in that capacity and in diplomacy. Henry VIII, on accession, made him almoner—director of charities. Soon the priest was a member of the Privy Council, and shocked Archbishop Warham by advocating a military alliance with Spain against France. Louis XII was invading Italy, and might again make the papacy a dependency of France; in any case France must not become too strong. Henry yielded in this matter to Wolsey and his own father-in-law, Ferdinand of Spain; he himself was at this time inclined to peace. “I content myself with my own,” he told Giustiniani; “I wish to command only my own subjects; but on the other hand I do not choose that anyone shall have it in his power to command me”;9 this almost sums up Henry’s political career. He had inherited the claim of the English kings to the crown of France, but he knew that this was an empty pretense. The war petered out quickly in the Battle of the Spurs (1513). Wolsey arranged the peace, and persuaded Louis XII to marry Henry’s sister Mary. Leo X, pleased with being rescued, made Wolsey Archbishop of York (1514) and Cardinal (1515); Henry, triumphant, made him Chancellor (1515). The King prided himself on having protected the papacy; and when a later pope refused him a marriage easement he deemed it gross ingratitude.
The first five years of Wolsey’s chancellorship were among the most successful in the record of English diplomacy. His aim was to organize the peace of Europe by using England as a makeweight to preserve a balance of power between the Holy Roman Empire and France; presumably it also entered into his purview that he would thus become the arbiter of Europe, and that peace on the Continent would favor England’s vital trade with the Netherlands. As a first step, he negotiated an alliance between France and England (1518), and betrothed Henry’s two-year-old daughter Mary (later queen) to the seven-month-old son of Francis I. Wolsey’s taste for lavish entertainment revealed itself when French emissaries came to London to sign the agreements; he feted them in his Westminster palace with a dinner “the like of which,” reported Giustiniani, “was never given by Cleopatra or Caligula, the whole
banqueting hall being decorated with huge vases of gold and silver.”10 But the worldly Cardinal could be forgiven; he was playing for high stakes, and he won. He insisted that the alliance should be open to Emperor Maximilian I, King Charles I of Spain, and Pope Leo X; they were invited to join; they accepted; and Erasmus, More, and Colet thrilled with the hope that an era of peace had dawned for all Western Christendom. Even Wolsey’s enemies congratulated him. He took the opportunity to bribe11 English agents in Rome to secure his appointment as papal legate a latere in Britain; the phrase meant “on the side,” confidential, and was the highest designation of a papal emissary. Wolsey was now supreme head of the English Church, and—with strategic obeisances to Henry—ruler of England.
The peace was clouded a year later by the rivalry of Francis I and Charles I for the Imperial throne; even Henry thought of flinging his beret into the ring, but he had no Fugger. The winner, as now Charles V, briefly visited England (May 1520), paid his respects to his aunt Catherine of Aragon, Henry’s Queen, and offered to marry Princess Mary (already betrothed to the Dauphin) if England would promise to support Charles in any future conflict with France; so unnatural is peace. Wolsey refused, but accepted a pension of 7,000 ducats from the Emperor, and drew from him a pledge to help him in becoming pope.
The brilliant Cardinal achieved his most spectacular triumph in the meeting of the French and English sovereigns on the Field of the Cloth of Gold (June 1520). Here, in an open space between Guiñes and Ardres near Calais, medieval art and chivalry displayed themselves in sunset magnificence. Four thousand English noblemen, chosen and placed by the Cardinal and dressed in the silks, flounces, and lace of late medieval costume, accompanied Henry as the young red-bearded King rode on a white palfrey to meet Francis I; and not last or least came Wolsey himself, clad in crimson satin robes rivaling the splendor of the Kings. An impromptu palace had been built to receive their Majesties, their ladies, and their staffs; a pavilion covered with gold-threaded cloth and hung with costly tapestries shaded the conference and the feasts; a fountain ran wine; and space was cleared for a royal tournament. The political and marital alliance of the two nations was confirmed. The happy monarchs jousted, even wrestled; and Francis risked the peace of Europe by throwing the English King. With characteristic French grace he repaired his faux pas by going, early one morning, unarmed and with a few unarmed attendants, to visit Henry in the English camp. It was a gesture of friendly trust which Henry understood. The monarchs exchanged precious gifts and solemn vows.
In truth neither could trust the other, for it is a lesson of history that men lie most when they govern states. From seventeen days of festivities with Francis, Henry went to three days of conference with Charles at Calais (July 1520). There King and Emperor, chaperoned by Wolsey, swore eternal friendship, and agreed to proceed no further with their plans to marry into the royal family of France. These separate alliances were a more precarious basis for European peace than the multilateral entente that Wolsey had arranged before Maximilian’s death, but it still left England in the position of mediator and, in effect, arbiter—a position far loftier than any that could be based on English wealth or power. Henry was satisfied. To reward his Chancellor he ordered the monks of St. Albans to elect Wolsey as their abbot and dower him with their net revenue, for “my Lord Cardinal has sustained many charges in this his voyage.” The monks obeyed, and Wolsey’s income neared his needs.
He was, on a grander scale than most of us, a fluid compound of virtues and faults. “He is very handsome,” wrote Giustiniani, “extremely eloquent, of vast ability, and indefatigable.”12 His morals were imperfect. Twice he slipped into illegitimate parentage; these were peccadilloes readily overlooked in that lusty age; but, if we may believe a bishop, the Cardinal suffered from the “pox.”13 He accepted what might or might not be called bribeslarge gifts of money from both Francis and Charles; he kept them bidding against each other with the pensions and benefices that they offered him; these were courtesies of the time; and the expensive Cardinal, who felt that his policies were serving all Europe, felt that all Europe should serve him. Beyond doubt he loved money and luxury, pomp and power. A large part of his income went to maintain an establishment whose surface extravagance may have been a tool of diplomacy, designed to give foreign ambassadors an exaggerated notion of English resources. Henry paid Wolsey no salary, so that the Chancellor had to live and entertain on his ecclesiastical revenues and his pensions from abroad. Even so we may marvel that he should have required all the income that came to him as holder of two rectories, six prebends, one provostship, as Abbot of St. Albans, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Archbishop of York, administrator of the diocese of Winchester, and a partner of the absentee Italian bishops of Worcester and Salisbury.14 He disposed of nearly all the major ecclesiastical and political patronage of the realm, and presumably each appointment yielded him a gratuity. A Catholic historian has estimated that Wolsey at his zenith received a third of all the ecclesiastical revenues of England.15 He was the richest and most powerful subject in the nation; “seven times more powerful than the pope,” thought Giustiniani;16 he is, said Erasmus, “the second king.” Only one step more remained to be taken—the papacy. Twice Wolsey tried for it, but in that game the wily Charles, ignoring promises, outplayed him.
The Cardinal believed that ceremony is the cement of power; force can gain power, but only public habituation can cheaply and peaceably sustain it; and people judge a man’s altitude by the ceremony that hedges him in. So in his public and official appearances Wolsey dressed in the formal splendor that seemed to him advisable in the supreme representative of both pope and king. Red hat of a cardinal, red gloves, robes of scarlet or crimson taffeta, shoes of silver or gilt inlaid with pearls and precious stones—here were Innocent III, Benjamin Disraeli, and Beau Brummel all in one. He was the first clergyman in England who wore silk.17 When he said Mass (which was seldom) he had bishops and abbots as his acolytes; and on some occasions dukes and earls poured out the water with which he washed his consecrating hands. He allowed his attendants to kneel in waiting upon him at table. Five hundred persons, many of high lineage, served him in his office and his home.18 Hampton Court that he built as his residence was so luxurious that he presented it to the King (1525) to avert the evil eye of royal jealousy.
Sometimes, however, he forgot that Henry was king. “On my first arrival in England,” Giustiniani wrote to the Venetian Senate, “the Cardinal used to say to me, ‘His Majesty will do so and so.’ Subsequently, by degrees, he forgot himself, and commenced saying, ‘We shall do so and so.’ At present he... says, ? shall do so and so.’ “19 And again the ambassador wrote: “If it were necessary to neglect either King or Cardinal, it would be better to pass over the King; the Cardinal might resent precedence conceded to the King.”20 Peers and diplomats seldom obtained audience with the Chancellor until their third request. With each passing year the Cardinal ruled more and more openly as a dictator; he called Parliament only once during his ascendancy; he paid little attention to constitutional forms; he met opposition with resentment and criticism with rebuke. The historian Polydore Vergil wrote that these methods would bring Wolsey’s fall; Vergil was sent to the Tower; and only repeated intercession by Leo X secured his release. Opposition grew.
Perhaps those whom Wolsey superseded or disciplined secured the ear of history, and transmitted his sins unabsolved. But no one questioned his ability, or his assiduous devotion to his many tasks. “He transacts as much business,” Giustiniani told the proud Venetian Senate, “as that which occupies all the magistracies, offices, and councils of Venice, both civil and criminal; and all state affairs are likewise managed by him, let their nature be what they may.” 21 He was loved by the poor and hated by the powerful for his impartial administration of justice; almost beyond any precedent in English history after Alfred, he opened his court to all who complained of oppression, and he fearlessly punished the guilty, however exalted.22 He was generous to scholars and artists, a
nd began a religious reform by replacing several monasteries with colleges. He was on the way to a stimulating improvement of English education when all the enemies he had made in the haste of his labors and the myopia of his pride conspired with a royal romance to engineer his fall.
III. WOLSEY AND THE CHURCH
He recognized and largely exemplified the abuses that still survived in the ecclesiastical life of England: absentee bishops, worldly clergymen, idle monks, and priests snared into parentage. The state, which had so often called for a reform of the Church, was now part cause of the evils, for the bishops were appointed by the kings. Some bishops, like Morton and Warham and Fisher, were men of high character and caliber; many others were too absorbed in the comforts of prelacy to train their clergy in spiritual fitness as well as financial assiduity. The sexual morality of the curates was probably better than in Germany, but among the 8,000 parishes of England there were inevitably cases of sacerdotal concubinage, adultery, drunkenness, and crime—enough to make Archbishop Morton say (1486) that “the scandal of their lives imperiled the stability of their order.” 23 Richard Foxe, toward 1519, informed Wolsey that the clergy in the diocese of Winchester were “so depraved by license and corruption” that he despaired of any reformation in his lifetime.24 The parish priests, suspecting that their promotion depended on their collections, were more than ever exacting of tithes; some took a tenth, each year, of the peasant’s chickens, eggs, milk, cheese, and fruit, even of all wages paid to his help; and any man whose will left no legacy to the Church ran high risk of being denied Christian burial, with prospective results too horrible to contemplate. In short the clergy, to finance their services, taxed almost as sedulously as the modern state. By 1500 the Church owned, on a conservative Catholic estimate, about a fifth of all property in England.25 The nobility, here as in Germany, envied this ecclesiastical wealth, and itched to recover lands and revenues alienated to God by their pious or fearful ancestors.