The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (Pimlico)
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And whereas your Grace in your said letter showeth unto us many great reasons moving the same to put the exclusion of the words ‘proventus et emolumenta’ in the Emperor’s arbitrement, which thing was seen to your most honourable council expedient, albeit our advice in our letters of the xiith. of the last month was to the contrary, after we saw your Grace’s pleasure we endeavoured ourselves to our best to the accomplishment of the same.81
However, all too soon Tunstall was reporting that their best endeavours were getting nowhere,82 and in the end Charles confirmed the treaty only with the disputed clause left out83 – just as the ambassadors had always predicted. It is very hard to escape the conclusion the the men on the spot always got it right and Wolsey always got it wrong – unless, that is, Wolsey’s real intentions were not understood by them.
At this stage it may be helpful to recall that the ostensible aim of English foreign policy from 1515 to 1518 was to remove the French from Northern Italy. This was not achieved, for under the Treaty of London of October 1518 the duchy of Milan was left in French hands. The argument so far has been that the aim was never likely to have been achieved because no other European power shared it sufficiently to make a reliable ally. Furthermore, most of the people involved in the conduct of English policy quickly became aware of the improbability of its success – but not, apparently, Wolsey or Henry. It is very puzzling. Enough has been written to indicate that Wolsey was not a fool, and yet during these years he appears to have acted like one. This paradox has suggested to some a possible explanation for English failure at this time: her policy did not succeed because Wolsey was not fully committed to it, having been forced into an anti-French posture because of Henry’s intense rivalry with the new French king, whose nearness in age and similar accomplishments could only have fuelled the competitive spirit of someone who saw himself as the natural successor of the victor of Agincourt, Henry V. And as against the warrior king can be contrasted a Wolsey dedicated to peace. The resulting tension, so it has been argued, was not helpful to the smooth conduct of English foreign policy, and in particular it was responsible for much that went wrong in the period 1515-18.84
To see whether such a view can be sustained, it is necessary to return to the late autumn of 1515 when it appeared that the English intention was not only to drive the French out of Northern Italy, but also to recover Henry’s rights in France by means of an English invasion, led perhaps by Henry himself.85 During the following February both Pace and Wingfield were still referring to such a possibility,86 but early in March Pace had received instructions from Wolsey, asking for a delay to all invasion plans, mainly because there was no way in which England could be ready to invade from the north until August at the earliest. He, therefore, suggested that once Milan was taken, Maximilian and the Swiss should spend the early summer consolidating their position in Northern Italy rather than, as was originally intended, pressing on into south-east France.87 When by the end of March it became clear that Milan was not going to fall, at least for the foreseeable future, then it was Pace’s turn to ask for delay. And by 23 April he was having to explain that not only was any immediate Imperial-Swiss invasion of France no longer possible, but that even Wolsey’s revised date for an English invasion ‘must be set apart (after my judgment) unto such time as your grace shall have knowledge of the end of this business here’.88
What emerges from this, therefore, is not that in the spring of 1516 Wolsey was being ‘soft’ on war, but that circumstances had dictated some modification and delay to the very ambitious schemes for a joint invasion of France that, ostensibly at any rate, had been at the forefront of English plans. But what of the two pieces of evidence that appear to suggest that there was at any rate a difference of emphasis between Wolsey and Henry in this matter? In the same letter to Pace in which he had asked for a delay, Wolsey had made another, rather curious, request. Could Pace and Wingfield, with all the skill at their command, try and make it appear that the request for delay had not originated with the English, and could they instead persuade the emperor and the Swiss to ‘make an instance to you to be a mean unto the king that they proceed no further but only into the duchy of Milan’?89 This has been taken to mean that when Wolsey made this request to the English ambassadors Henry either did not know about it, or more probably did know, but was not convinced that it was necessary.90 If, however, Wolsey could persuade the emperor and the Swiss to ask for delay themselves, then Henry would have little option but to agree. And sure enough, Henry did agree, for in a draft letter to Pace dated sometime in April 1516 he wrote that he was ‘right well contented’ with the proposal that the Swiss should spend the summer establishing themselves in the Duchy of Milan, and that in the meantime better provision could be made for an invasion of France the following year.91 The second piece of evidence comes in a letter from Wolsey to Silvestro Gigli, bishop of Worcester, at this time the most trusted English representative at Rome, written on 22 May. In it he remarked that though Henry himself was committed to an invasion of France, all his councillors had dissuaded him from crossing the sea until his allies were equally ready, lest, as on other occasions, he should be left in the lurch.92
In the spring of 1516 Henry was bursting to go to war and was only with difficulty restrained by his more cautious and peace-loving councillors, of whom the most important was Thomas Wolsey: is that really the truth? The answer must be no. Something has already been said about the difficulties of interpreting the correspondence of foreign diplomats, and most of those difficulties apply to English diplomatic correspondence. What were Wolsey’s intentions when he wrote those letters to Pace and to the bishop of Worcester? The answer seems clear enough; he genuinely wanted delay. Why did he want delay? Because England had made no military preparations, and therefore could not take part in an invasion even if she wanted to. Other reasons, as Wolsey’s letter to Pace also made clear, were an inability to finance three armies – those of England, the emperor, and the Swiss – and a basic mistrust of Imperial and Swiss intentions.93 No English army, not enough money, and no trust, are any of these things reasons that could be made known to England’s allies? Would such information inspire confidence in English leadership? Wolsey was in an extremely difficult position. He had to delay, but he did not want the reasons for this to be known. The only solution was for Pace and Wingfield to try and manipulate a request for delay out of the allies, and for their own good reasons. Just how far Wolsey himself was manipulating the truth emerges if his letter to the bishop of Worcester is looked at in more detail.94
He began it by declaring that relations between Henry VIII and Charles had never been better, despite a little difficulty from some of Charles’s ministers who remained apprehensive about the French. The truth was that relations were not at all good, and that ‘some ministers’ were none other than the regents, Chièvres and Sauvage, whose pro-French policy was not at all to Wolsey’s liking. Wolsey then went on to stress England’s good relations with Maximilian, who treated the king of England like a son, and with the Swiss who would certainly not desert to the French. In fact, whether he treated Henry like a son or not, Maximilian had just destroyed the English plans by his flight from Milan. Realizing that praise of Maximilian at this juncture might seem a little strange, Wolsey even provided an excuse for his behaviour: it was all due to the knavery of the banker, Frescobaldi, who had failed to get the English money to Maximilian on time. Of course, the truth was that, whatever the inadequacies of the banker, the real ‘knave’ was Maximilian, as Wolsey knew perfectly well. And it was following his defence of Maximilian that Wolsey introduced the picture of the warlike Henry restrained by his cautious councillors; and by now his reasons for doing so should be clear. He was trying to persuade Leo X, via the bishop of Worcester, that England was still a power to be reckoned with, and that, whatever the temporary setbacks, the anti-French alliance, with England at its centre, still had credibility. True, England had not yet invaded France, but Henry had every intention of doin
g so whenever his councillors judged that the moment was right. Furthermore, when she did invade, Henry himself would lead so large an army across the Channel that the French would be defeated, whatever England’s allies chose to do. The implicit corollary of all this was that it would be very much in Leo X’s interests to side with the English.
In both these letters, to Pace and the bishop of Worcester, Wolsey was trying to get his ambassadors to put the best possible case for the apparent inadequacies of England’s anti-French manoeuvring. They are not evidence of any difference of opinion between Wolsey and Henry, and no such difference could provide the explanation for the failure of English policy. This is not to say that either man had really intended to invade France in 1516. Indeed, it seems most unlikely that either seriously entertained such a plan during the three and a half years under review, the main reason for saying this being that there is virtually no evidence for any large-scale military preparations. So what has to be explained is why there was so much talk of invasion, not only in early 1516, but during the next eighteen months.
To do this we must return to the autumn of 1515 to assess the precise circumstances that had to led to England getting involved in any kind of anti-French alliance. The fact was that Francis I had moved too quickly for everyone, had got into Italy by an unexpected route, on 14 September had won the great battle of Marignano before his enemies could co-ordinate their plans, and with the support of Venice had secured the effective mastery of Northern Italy. No wonder Leo X was anxious to come to terms with him. It is, of course, true that success creates its own problems; it not only concentrates the minds of existing enemies, but also creates new ones. Thus in September, when Wolsey first put out feelers for some plan to curb the French, he got a favourable response: Maximilian, Ferdinand, the duke of Milan, and the Swiss were all found to be eager for English support.95 Pace’s mission to the Swiss was the English answer to the response, and was in that sense well-timed. But if the English intention had seriously been to prevent French expansion in Northern Italy, the mission had been incredibly badly timed. Francis I had made no secret of his desire to recover Milan, and England had had all summer to try to prevent it. Why had she not joined the anti-French league from its inception? Why, indeed, not invade at an earlier date? The time for a successful invasion was when Francis and his army had been struggling to cross the Alps, not after he had won a great battle, and was in a position to turn his attention back to the North. But rather than doing anything very practical, Henry and Wolsey had spent much of their time loudly proclaiming that Francis would never cross the Alps because England would not allow him to. When they were not doing that they were busy negotiating with him – and, as it happens, it is those negotiations that provide the key to England’s foreign policy.
The message that England had spent the spring and summer trying to get across to Francis was that though she was anxious for his friendship, this would be impossible to achieve if Francis insisted on acting in an unfriendly manner. If he would not return all the jewels and plate owing to the dowager queen of France, Mary Tudor, if he insisted on sending the duke of Albany to Scotland in order to deprive Henry’s other sister, Margaret, of her rightful position as regent for her own son, James V, if he refused to provide English merchants with adequate compensation for acts of piracy committed by Frenchmen, if, above all, he refused to take Henry into his confidence – then no friendship was possible. On the other hand, if Francis would only show some sign of valuing her friendship, then England would remain his most faithful ally. One way of getting this message across was to make use of the Venetian ambassadors; hence all that boasting to Giustinian about not letting Francis invade Italy, and even threats that if it did take place Henry would invade France.96 And if the stick, as it were, could be most effectively wielded by the Venetians, the carrots could be delivered by English envoys to France. One such carrot was the prospect of returning Tournai to Francis.
The capture of Tournai had been the high point of Henry’s campaign in France in 1513, and in the following year its future had been very much at the centre of the peace negotiations.97 Obviously, the French were anxious to recover what would otherwise always be a symbol of defeat, and moreover, as a French enclave in the Low Countries, it had some strategic importance. On the English side, there was some reluctance to relinquish what had just been so splendidly won, but there were disadvantages in retaining Tournai, especially the cost of garrisoning it and rebuilding its fortifications. Thus its return to France was never non-negotiable. Instead it was seen as a useful bargaining counter, but one to be played only if great advantages accrued. In 1514 England had got more or less what she wanted from Louis XII without having to use it, and thus Tournai had been retained. On 1 January 1515 Francis had succeeded to the throne and he quickly brought up the subject of its return, offering to pay the costs England had incurred in winning it.98 The English response was not discouraging, but it was made clear that rather more than the costs would be required. Moreover, the English envoys in France strongly recommended that if Tournai was to be returned, it should not be made part of any renewal of the peace treaty between the two countries, because then people would think that England had had to relinquish it in order to secure the renewal. Instead the envoys suggested that a separate agreement should be made, to be kept secret until the two kings had met, when it would be announced as a gracious and entirely voluntary gesture of goodwill on Henry’s part.99 In other words, not only was it important to secure real gains from the surrender of Tournai, but it was equally important not to lose any face over it. The difficulty, however, was that Francis was unwilling to pay a sufficiently high price. Furthermore, if the carrot did not work, neither did the stick.
Wolsey’s problem was how to bring effective pressure to bear on Francis, a problem made much more difficult by Francis’s marriage alliance with Charles of Burgundy made in March 1515,100 and the generally pro-French policy of Charles’s regents which this alliance reflected. It meant not only that Wolsey could not expect any practical help from them, but, much more important – because he was not really thinking of going to war with France – it prevented him from using the threat of an English alliance with Charles to put pressure on Francis. Indeed, all the pressure that Wolsey was able to muster in the summer of 1515 was verbal, just those boasts made to the Venetian ambassador of what England would do if Francis ignored her. Unfortunately for Wolsey, Francis called his bluff. He was willing to continue the payment of the French pension that his predecessor, Louis XII, had agreed to. He was willing to entertain the possibility of a summit meeting with Henry, but only after he had returned from Italy.101 He was willing to make the occasional friendly noise. That, however, was all, and as Wolsey frequently pointed out to Giustinian, it was not enough.102
At this stage it is important to stress that Wolsey, and indeed Henry, had very much wanted to make favourable terms with Francis, and expended a great deal of effort towards that goal. As soon as the news of Louis XII’s death reached England, a high-powered delegation consisting of the duke of Suffolk, Nicholas West (shortly to become bishop of Ely), and Sir Richard Wingfield had been sent over to open negotiations. Suffolk and Wingfield remained until the middle of April. West stayed until the middle of May in order to witness Francis’s confirmation of a treaty signed in London on 5 April, by which the French, while agreeing to continue the pension, had refused to meet any other English demands.103 Thus, almost as soon as West had returned, Sir William Sidney was sent over to reopen negotiations with Francis, who was by now on his way to join his army for the invasion of Italy. Sidney crossed early in July, caught up with Francis at Lyons, but their meeting achieved nothing.104 Neither did the arrival in London in August of an envoy from Francis, who brought with him a formal announcement of Francis’s intentions to recover the duchy of Milan.105 This was hardly news to the English court, but coupled with the refusal of the envoy to discuss any of the disputed issues it represented a slap in the face for Henry who,
it will be remembered, had been saying that this would never happen without his permission. At this point Wolsey may have planned to send yet another envoy. Instructions have survived for Richard Wingfield, outlining in great detail the arguments he should put to Francis. Their dating is very uncertain, and it seems that they were never in the end presented to the French king. Nevertheless, they are indicative of the English determination to come to terms with him, and also of the great difficulties involved. Mention is made of all the contentious issues – the English merchants’ complaints, Mary’s dowry, Albany – but perhaps the most interesting section relates to Tournai. It was hoped that Francis would raise the matter himself, because he would undoubtedly have heard of the English plans to refortify the town and should have been worried by them. However, if he did not raise it, Wingfield, though only in a private capacity, was to do so himself. He was then to hint at the many inconveniences to France of the English plans, and to imply that this was the right moment, before the fortifications were up, for Francis to strike a bargain.106 In other words, Wingfield was to cast a fly in the hope that Francis would bite. In the event it looks as if Wingfield never made his cast, but it would have been only one amongst the many that Wolsey had made during the spring and summer of 1515, all to no avail.