by Gwyn, Peter
The main thrust of his argument, both at the first Blackfriars conference and subsequently, was that the Act of 1512 was for the ‘public good’. It was therefore very much the concern of the Crown, who had a duty to ensure that the ‘public good’ was upheld, irrespective of whether the matter in question was ecclesiastical or secular; indeed, as regards the ‘public good’ there was no such distinction. And in arguing thus, Standish was drawing on that tradition of the civil law already referred to, that gave to the Crown control of the ‘ecclesiastical’ or external affairs of the Church as distinct from ‘spiritual’ or inward matters. He also argued that many papal decrees had not been observed in England, and that anyway their observance depended both on their formal acceptance by the Crown and on local custom. Since in England it had been the practice for all clergy, whether in major orders or not, to be ‘convented’ before the secular courts and only to be handed over to the ecclesiastical ones for sentencing, papal decrees to the contrary should have no effect. Standish also argued for a distinction between major and minor orders. If his earlier reasoning concerning the sovereignty of the ‘public good’ was correct, to do so was surely unnecessary – but as the Act of 1512 affected only those in minor orders, to emphasize the distinction was no doubt tempting.
The Church’s argument was that clerical exemption from secular jurisdiction derived from ‘divine law’, and to prove it they cited two texts: ‘Touch not the Lord’s anointed’ and ‘Honour thy Father’. The point of the first text is clear: as the Lord’s anointed, the clergy could not be arrested or tried. As regards the second, it was well understood that by ‘Father’ was implied the layman’s spiritual as well as natural father, and since it would be against all reason to suppose that a child could have jurisdiction over its father, so it was for a layman to have jurisdiction over a priest. Moreover, as ‘divine law’ was superior to all other kinds of law, its formal acceptance by a ruler was obviously not required, neither could local practice override it. But it was also argued that the ‘positive law’ of the Church did not require formal ‘acceptance’ by a ruler. Thus papal decrees forbidding secular interference in church affairs were to be obeyed, whether formally ‘received’ or not. In making their case the church spokesmen had gone well beyond the particular issues raised by the Act of 1512, for the whole thrust of their argument was to show that ‘divine law’ prohibited the subjection of the clergy to any form of secular jurisdiction, and that therefore existing English practice was quite wrong. If it persisted, ecclesiastical censures would follow. It was aggressive stuff, but then the Church was in aggressive mood.87
It is not entirely clear what the outcome of the first Blackfriars conference was. Neither is it possible to date precisely the events which followed it, although their sequence seems clear enough. Shortly after it had ended, the Commons requested that the abbot of Winchcombe should publicly renounce the views he had expressed in his St Paul’s Cross sermon. The request was, however, refused, and when Standish continued to publicize his views in a series of lectures, he was summoned before convocation to answer a number of questions in what turned out to be the first steps in proceedings against him for heresy. On the central issues Standish stuck to his guns but, fearing the consequences, he appealed to the king, as indeed did the Church. A second Blackfriars conference was called, probably some time in November. Both sides repeated and developed their arguments, Standish getting full support from John Veysey, a doctor of civil law and dean of the Chapel Royal who, even before the second conference began, had informed the king ‘that the conventing of clerks before the temporal judges, as had always been the custom in the realm of England, might well stand with the law of God, and with the liberties of the Holy Church’.88 But, of course, the new development which had to be thrashed out was the validity of convocation’s moves against Standish. On this issue the Church suffered a real setback, for the judges declared that here convocation was guilty of praemunire, presumably for their partial reliance, in putting forward their case, on papal decrees which had not received the royal assent. Furthermore, they went on to argue that the Church had no role to play in parliament: the bishops were present in the House of Lords only by reason of their temporal possessions, and therefore the king was perfectly at liberty not to summon them.89 In other words, they were there on sufferance and had no say in the government of the country except that graciously allowed them by the Crown. It is not known what the bishops’ reaction to this broadside was, but a detailed defence against the praemunire charge has survived.90 Amongst other things, the point was made that it was the duty of the Church to investigate possible cases of heresy, and it was thought quite unreasonable for parliament to be able to criticize the Church with impunity, while convocation could make no criticism of the laity without the threat of a praemunire charge.
What was now at issue was the very role of the Church in English society. It was high time that the king intervened directly. A further conference was called, this time at Baynard’s Castle, with Henry himself presiding and with everybody who was anybody being present – including Wolsey. Indeed, it was Wolsey who opened the proceedings by kneeling before Henry and declaring that
to his knowledge none of the clergy had ever meant to do anything in derogation of the king’s prerogative, and for his own part he owed his whole advancement solely to our lord the king; wherefore he said he would assent to nothing that would tend to annul or derogate from his royal authority for all the world. Nevertheless, to all the clergy this matter of conventing of clerks before the temporal judges seems contrary to the laws of God and the liberties of the Holy Church, the which he himself and all the prelates of Holy Church are bound by their oath to maintain according to their power.91
Wolsey then requested that Henry should allow the matter to be decided at Rome, to which Henry replied that he thought the Church’s case had been fully answered by Dr Standish and others. This was too much for Richard Fox, who angrily retorted, ‘Sir, I warrant you Dr Standish will not abide by his opinion [but] at his peril’, whereupon Standish asked his famous question, ‘What should one poor friar do alone against the bishops and clergy of England?’92 After a pause for tempers to cool, Warham formally presented the Church’s case, reminding Henry that many holy fathers had resisted attempts by the Crown to limit ‘benefit of clergy’ and some had even suffered martyrdom in this cause – a reference, as everyone there would have known, to his predecessor, Thomas Becket.93 His case was answered by Chief Justice Fineux, who pointed out that since the practice of ‘conventing’ clergy had long been accepted by the English Church, this presupposed that for all this time it had never been considered contrary to the laws of God. Turning to the problem that had led to the Act of 1512 – the widespread feeling that handing clerics over to the ecclesiastical courts for sentencing was tantamount to letting them off – he argued that ecclesiastical law made no provision for cases of felony – which Warham denied – and that therefore there was no point in handing over clerics who had committed felonies to a court which was in no position to sentence them. To this Warham made no reply.94
At this point Henry gave his judgment:
By the ordinance and sufferance of God, we are king of England, and kings of England in time past have never had any superior but God only. Wherefore know you well that we will maintain the right of our Crown and of our temporal jurisdiction as well in this point as in all others, in as ample a wise as any of our progenitors have done before us. And as to our decrees, we are well informed that you yourselves of the Spirituality do expressly contrary to the words of many of them, as has been well shown to you by some of our spiritual Counsel: nevertheless, you interpret your decrees at your pleasure. Wherefore, consent to your desire more than our progenitors have done in time past we will not.95
All that remained was for Warham to make a last despairing plea for the whole matter to be decided at Rome, but all he received for his pains was a royal silence.
The crisis of 1515 was largel
y a political one, the culmination of a conflict between Crown and Church which had originated in the second half of Henry VII’s reign when he and his leading lay councillors had determined to assert greater control over the Church, and in particular to win back concessions granted to it by the Yorkist kings. These moves the Church determined to resist, though there may also have been at this time within the Church a more aggressive spirit abroad, associated with a greater interest in reform. The conflict was about spheres of activity within society, rather than about theology and religious observance, but this does not mean that the conflict was not serious; three conferences within the course of one year is evidence that it was. What has puzzled historians and has led them to underestimate the seriousness of the situation, is that apparently very little resulted from these conferences. Actually more came of them than has usually been realized, even if on the face of it their result was a stalemate: the Act of 1512 limiting benefit of clergy was not renewed but, on the other hand, the clerical demand for the end of the practice of ‘conventing’ was not met. But in reality the Church had suffered a defeat, even if the extent of that defeat was to be partially obscured by Wolsey’s political skill.
To understand the nature of the defeat, a return must be made to Henry VIII’s attitude towards the Church. It has been said of him that ‘if there is any single thread to his theological evolution it is his anticlericalism’.96 The only quarrel with this statement must be with the word ‘evolution’. The claims that Henry made for supremacy over the English Church in the 1530s, even his view that ‘all spiritual things, by reason whereof may arise bodily trouble and inquietation, be necessarily included in a prince’s power’, and that as a result God had assigned to the prince power over the Church’s ‘person, acts and deeds’97 – all this was implicit in the stance that he took in 1515. His declaration that ‘kings of England … have never had any superior but God only’ could hardly have been clearer. The English Church was subordinate to the Crown and had only a delegated authority; if what the Church was doing was not conducive to the ‘public good’, the Crown had a duty to intervene. This is what Standish and Veysey had argued, and to their argument Henry had given his full assent. Henry VIII was determined to be master of his Church. The instrument of his mastery was to be Thomas Wolsey.
Evidence of Wolsey’s direct participation in the two causes célèbres is extremely meagre. There is the letter which Fitzjames may have written to him asking for his aid in protecting Horsey from the bias of a London jury.98 There is also the summary of the speech which he made while kneeling before Henry at Baynard’s Castle.99 That is about it, and one is thus forced back on conjecture. It does seem inconceivable that a man as close to Henry as Wolsey was in 1515, a man whom Henry was pushing for cardinal and was just about to make lord chancellor, could have been ignorant of Henry’s views on the Church. Indeed, the assumption must be that Henry and his chief minister had discussed the two affairs in some detail, and that each knew beforehand what the other was going to say at Baynard’s Castle. Both, of course, would also have been well aware of the strength of clerical feeling. The fact that the only copy of the Church’s defence to a possible charge of praemunire for questioning Standish on a suspicion of heresy is in the hand of Brian Tuke, at the time Wolsey’s secretary, is not evidence of Wolsey’s whole-hearted support for the clerical party, but only that he had detailed knowledge of their position, for whatever his personal views he would have needed to have such information.100 And at this point it is important to stress, especially in view of the emphasis which has been placed on Henry’s determination to exert his ‘superiority’ over the Church, that the main purpose of the conference at Baynard’s Castle was to put an end to a dangerous dispute. Although Henry had no intention of conceding anything to the Church on the principles at stake, equally there was no intention of widening the divisions – and in practice the offending bill was dropped. Wolsey’s role in all this was to act as mediator – his favourite role, and one that he was supremely good at. Hence his kneeling and his recognition of the king’s prerogative, but hence also his statement that ‘conventing of clerks’ was ‘contrary to the laws of God’. His was a conciliatory speech, quite unlike Warham’s with its talk of martyrdom, and quite unlike his former patron Fox’s interjection concerning Standish, which must have raised the temperature a good deal. Wolsey’s immediate tactics seem clear enough: he wanted to ‘cool’ the situation.
But what of Wolsey’s long-term aims? Or, to put it another way, was he entirely neutral in the conflict, or, if, as seems likely, he was not, which side did he favour? Wolsey was, of course, a cleric, indeed a bishop, and by the end of the affair a cardinal. In his speech at Baynard’s Castle he pointed out that as bishop he had sworn to maintain the ‘laws of God and the liberties of the Holy Church’. He also requested, as Warham did, that the matter might be determined at Rome. But by far and away the major ingredient in Wolsey’s rise was his personal relationship with Henry VIII. This being so, it seems unlikely – though bearing in mind the precedent of Henry II and Thomas Becket, not impossible – that in a conflict between Church and state he would side wholeheartedly with the Church.
Furthermore, not all churchmen opposed the Crown’s case for ‘superiority’ – Standish and Veysey to name but two. Standish, being a Franciscan, was a rather special case, but Veysey’s career seems to have been very typical of the careerist cleric. About ten years Wolsey’s senior, he too had gone to Magdalen College, Oxford, but unlike Wolsey, he had studied civil law, becoming a doctor in 1495. He had then embarked upon a successful ecclesiastical career, including spells as vicar-general in two different dioceses. He accumulated innumerable benefices and canonries, and by 1515 was dean of Exeter as well as of the Chapel Royal and of St George’s, Windsor. Perhaps royal favour did influence his judgment at the second Blackfriars conference, but then most successful ecclesiastical careers depended to some extent on royal favour. If Veysey could side with the Crown, no doubt a number of other leading clerics could do so as well, but how many is not known. One of the many surprising incidents in 1515 had been Fox’s outburst against Standish. As has been shown, there was no more devoted servant of the Crown than Richard Fox – almost the quintessential clerical politician.101 Furthermore, he was no friend to Warham, having spent most of the previous ten years in dispute with him. In particular, he and a number of other suffragan bishops had strongly resisted Warham’s attempt to extend the jurisdictional privileges of the see of Canterbury, in the process hindering both the Church’s efforts at reform and its resistance to secular interference.102 Yet at Baynard’s Castle Fox had, most unusually, lost his temper, and made it very clear that he stood with Warham and against the king. Notwithstanding that Fox was on the point of retiring from politics and had been increasingly preoccupied with his diocese, his opposition is nevertheless an indication of how high feeling was running in some church circles at least. It is also a reminder of the problems facing the historian in trying to define the relationship between Crown and Church at any given time.
Most historians have emphasized the conformity of the early Tudor episcopacy with the royal will.103 This has been misleading and has, for instance, obscured the importance of the Standish affair. Of course, almost by definition leading clerics were also leading servants of the Crown, which needed the Church’s support just as the Church needed the Crown’s. Despite the papacy and its claims to temporal supremacy, much of the time there was no conflict. Insofar as there was the potential for it, it was one that people had learnt to live with. Henry could claim that he had no superior but God and yet consider himself a very loyal son of the pope. Wolsey could be both a prince of the Church and yet the king’s chief minister. Neither appears to have suffered overmuch from schizophrenia. That said, there was always likely to be conflict between a confident monarchy determined to exert its authority to the full and the entrenched vested interest that was the Church.
So, whose side was Wolsey on? The answer must
be – the Crown’s. Time and again one comes back to the point that Henry made Wolsey what he was, that their relationship was a personal one, that Wolsey’s own ambitions were subsumed in Henry’s, and – what will appear more clearly in the following chapters – that it was the desire to make royal government fairer and more effective that was the main driving force behind Wolsey’s life’s work. At the same time he was a cleric who took his religious duties seriously. He was also a consummate politician – hence the stand he took in 1515. As archbishop of York, even as cardinal, Wolsey was not master of the English Church. To be in a position to override Canterbury, he required to be legate a latere. Already in 1515 he and Henry were working on that,104 but until he could obtain such a commission there was no point in unnecessarily antagonizing Warham and his supporters, and indeed it was never Wolsey’s policy to antagonize anybody unnecessarily. Much of his performance at Baynard’s Castle had been directed towards the bishops rather than towards Henry, who needed no reassurance that Wolsey was not his enemy. The bishops, and Warham in particular, did, and thus his appearance of supporting Warham’s efforts to get the issues raised by the Standish ‘affair’ settled at Rome. Wolsey did approach the pope, not, however, to get his views on the principles at stake, but to ask for a bull prohibiting anyone being admitted to minor orders unless he at the same time became subdeacon, that is, took holy orders. This Leo granted, though not without pointing out that the proposal was not in accordance with the laws of the Church.105 It was a skilful move by Wolsey. It saved the Church’s face by obviating the need for it to endure any secular limitation of ‘benefit’. At the same time it removed the Crown’s main objection to benefit, that it applied as much to people who had not the slightest intention of pursuing a career in the Church as to genuine clerics. That it seems not to have been very effective might suggest that it was a purely tactical move by Wolsey to dampen things down, but against this is the fact that towards the end of the 1520s Wolsey returned to the problem. In 1528 he secured a bull giving him authority greatly to simplify the machinery whereby a ‘criminous clerk’ could be degraded from both major and minor orders, and thus handed over to the secular courts for sentencing.106 The bull is indicative of Wolsey’s not always acknowledged determination to solve a problem once identified. More relevantly it suggests that he did not share Warham’s and the clerical party’s resistance to all innovations, however beneficial, that might infringe in any way upon the Church’s liberties.