The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (Pimlico)
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All in all, the evidence is overwhelming that Henry and Wolsey set out to create an impression, not only at home but throughout Europe. Whether it was as warrior or peacemaker did not matter very much. Both involved a deliberate use of ceremonial and courtly entertainments for propaganda purposes. In all these the nobility’s presence was vital, even if it meant that they had to take part in the dancing and ‘disguising’ along with the more traditional jousting and tourneying. And it should be said that by and large Henry and Wolsey were indeed impressive. Many foreign observers reported favourably. One such, Francesco Chieregato, writing to Isabella d’Este in July 1517, described in great detail the entertainment offered to the Archduke Charles’s ambassadors. At their first meeting with Henry were present
the Queens [Catherine or Aragon and Mary dowager queen of France and subsequently duchess of Suffolk] the dukes, the marquess, and all other barons all arranged in cloth of gold with chains around their necks; everything glistened with gold. They were banqueted daily until Tuesday week, first by the cardinal, then by the lord mayor of London, and by various noblemen in succession.
One day there was a solemn mass, on another ‘a most stately joust … at which all the princes and barons of the kingdom were present’, followed by a supper which appears to have lasted for seven hours. In conclusion Chieregato declared that ‘the wealth and civilization of the world are here; and those who call the English barbarians appear to me to render themselves such’.94 There is just the suspicion that the whole thing had gone to his head, perhaps literally as well as metaphorically; but then, of course, it was meant to.
Whether or not there was an element of calculation in all this, it is certainly true that Henry VIII seems to have been at ease in the company of his nobility – and why not? Something has already been said about the young Henry; his outstanding gifts, his great charm and imposing physical presence.95 Although it was his elder brother who had been christened Arthur, it was Henry who really deserved the name, for he it was who determined to make his court into a second Camelot where knightly pursuits and, in keeping with the new fashions, Renaissance pastimes such as masquing and music-making, flourished. Or to put it more prosaically, Henry VIII, unlike his father, had been brought up at court, and, since the death of his elder brother in 1502, had expected to succeed to the throne without having to fight for it. The precise nature of Henry VII’s rule has been much debated. The notion of the ‘New Monarchy’ has rather gone out of fashion, and with it the belief that Henry VII set out deliberately to remove the stranglehold which the nobility had supposedly secured during the travails of the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, the fact that, having spent most of his formative years in precarious exile in Brittany, he had not had the typical upbringing and training for someone of his high social status; that he had had to to obtain the throne on a battlefield in which many of the nobility were on the other side, including such as the Howards; that for most of his reign he had faced the possibility of foreign intervention on behalf of rivals, however spurious, to his throne – none of this can have helped to foster good relations with the ruling classes. One must not exaggerate. There were lots of noblemen at Henry VII’s court, many of whom played an active part in his government; but he was reluctant to create new peers (only nine new creations in almost twenty-four years), he was not generous with rewards, and his determination to extract every financial advantage from the royal prerogative was not to their advantage. Above all, there was his extensive use of bonds and recognizances, so that by the end of his reign about four-fifths of the nobility were under some kind of financial obligation to the Crown, in many cases for no very good reason.
Undoubtedly, the son’s style, reflecting both the different circumstances of his accession and his different personality, was not like the father’s. His earliest companions had been taken from such noble families as the Bourchiers, Howards, Nevilles and Staffords, and, as has been stressed already, he loved to participate in the pursuits that such families enjoyed.96 Amongst his closest personal friends during the 1520s were Henry Courtenay, created marquess of Exeter in 1525, and Thomas Grey marquess of Dorset, and they, as gentlemen of the privy chamber, were in constant attendance on him.97 And Henry was quite happy to create new noblemen. Someone whom he raised from a mere esquire in 1509 to a dukedom in 1514 was another close friend, Charles Brandon. Thomas Howard earl of Surrey was a hardly a close friend, if only because he was nearly fifty years older than the king, but he too in 1514 became a duke, though restored to a title that his father had previously held. Along with the three dukes Henry created during Wolsey’s time – the third being his illegitimate son, who became duke of Richmond in 1525 – he also created five new earls, one marquess, four viscounts and four barons. His father only managed three earls, two of whom were restorations, and the other was a foreigner who appears to have died, with his title, in less than a year. As for the elevation of those not previously connected with the nobility, the number seems on close inspection to dwindle to two or three, of whom the best example is Giles Daubeney, created Lord Daubeney in 1486, leaving only two ‘new creations’ for the remaining twenty-two years of his reign.98
One way and another, there is good reason to believe that during the 1510s and 1520s the nobility would have been well satisfied with their king, and with his leading councillor. And even if they did not especially like Wolsey – though there is precious little evidence that they did not – so far no reason has been discovered to suppose that they found his presence in any way inimical to their interests, or that it prevented them from playing that leading role both at court and in the localities to which their high rank entitled them. However, for such a conclusion to carry conviction there are two aspects of Henry VIII’s government that need further consideration: his relationship with his Council and courtiers, and the way in which royal patronage was bestowed. Both matters were of some concern to the nobility. It was all very well to adorn the court, to take part in the king’s pastimes, even to perform a key military role, but if real power was denied the nobility and if, for instance, Wolsey had managed to gain complete control both over the advice that reached the king and the favours that he bestowed, then indeed they may have had a genuine grievance against ‘the butcher’s cur’.
But before these important matters are looked at, it is necessary to make the point that however anxious Wolsey may have been to get on with the nobility, and more generally with the ruling classes – and the distinction between the nobility and leading gentry was fairly artificial – both as lord chancellor and a leading royal councillor, he was bound to have to do things that would not be popular with them. Most obviously, the duke of Buckingham would not have welcomed having his head chopped off, and may well have blamed Wolsey for this unfortunate occurrence! And it was after Sir William Bulmer had been hauled up before the Council in Star Chamber in 1519 that the duke was alleged to have contemplated Henry’s assassination. As we saw in chapter 4, a number of noblemen, among them the earl of Northumberland and Lord Bergavenny, were brought before Star Chamber. Others, such as the earl of Derby, had to appear there at the instigation of those who felt maltreated by them.99 None of them would have been especially delighted at having to put in an appearance, particularly when the verdicts went against them. ‘Indifferent justice’ did mean what the words suggest, that both high and low would be treated impartially. The high-born of any period have a tendency to believe that decisions should go in their favour; and the fact that, contrary to normal practice, noblemen were made to answer on oath in Star Chamber, may also not have endeared its presiding royal councillor to them.100 And outside Star Chamber Wolsey may have ruffled the amour propre of a section of society unaccustomed to being thwarted in other ways. It has been suggested that they would have strongly resented the prosecutions for illegal enclosure that some, including the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, found themselves caught up in.101 It is a suggestion that should be treated with some caution. Most of the ruling classes were not
directly involved in enclosure, and insofar as they were royal councillors they almost certainly supported any moves to do something about a practice that was considered by many to be harmful to the common weal.102 Still, at the very least, to have to appear or to be represented in court would have caused inconvenience and expense. What also may have depleted the nobility’s resources was Wolsey’s decision to transfer from local commissioners to a committee of leading royal councillors, headed by himself, the responsibility for assessing them for tax purposes.103
What none of this shows, though, is any undifferentiated animosity or personal spite by Wolsey against the ruling class. If they offended against the law or did things detrimental to the common weal, then it was his job to bring them to book, just as it was his task to criticize them if, as sometimes happened, they failed to carry out the king’s instructions. And that they appreciated this is indicated, for instance, by the fact that, despite his appearance in Star Chamber in 1516 the 5th earl of Northumberland was prepared to entrust his eldest son to Wolsey’s care. Historians have been too quick to assume an arrogance or lack of tact, when all Wolsey was doing was trying to ensure that the king’s policy was being carried out in the best possible way. Thus, in August 1524 he was prepared to tell the duke of Norfolk off, but only because his failure to carry out instructions was endangering the king’s policy towards Scotland.104 Moreover, it is quite wrong to see Wolsey as somehow pitted against the rest. When in May 1525 the request for an Amicable Grant led to serious unrest, Henry was warned to keep an eye on the Lords Bergavenny and Henry Stafford, respectively the duke of Buckingham’s son-in-law and son, on the grounds, presumably, that they might be tempted to avenge the duke’s fall; but the warning came not from Wolsey but from none other than the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk.105 Similarly, the suggestion that a ‘good watch’ should be kept, probably in 1518, on at least six leading noblemen, including the dukes of Buckingham and Suffolk, came from the king himself.106 It was always true that the greatest threat to any king was likely to come from the ranks of the nobility, and as Henry’s leading councillor it was one of Wolsey’s tasks to protect him; but it was a task that he shared with his fellow councillors, not excluding those of noble rank.
And it is worth stressing the participation of his fellow councillors, not only in matters of treason but in anything concerning the interests of the nobility. Admittedly, when he was asked to intervene in the private affairs of, in the one instance, the Grey family, and the other, the De Vere and Howard families, Wolsey seems to have acted alone, but the point about both these matters was that they were private. When matters came before him as lord chancellor, whether in Chancery itself or in Star Chamber, he never acted alone. Thus, as we have seen, when in 1518 Wolsey had arbitrated in the case between the duke of Buckingham and his tenants in the lordship of Brecon and Hay, his fellow arbitrators had been the duke of Norfolk, the earl of Surrey and Lord Bergavenny.107 Those deputed to arbitrate in 1527 in a dispute between the marquess of Dorset and Lord Hastings were Wolsey himself, the 3rd duke of Norfolk, Thomas Boleyn, by that time Viscount Rochford, the two chief justices, the chief baron of the exchequer, the bishop of Bath, John Clerk, Sir Humphrey Coningsby and Sir Thomas More.108 A year later Boleyn himself was in dispute with a leading member of Henry’s household, Sir Henry Wyatt, and both men promised Wolsey to abide by the decision of the two chief justices and chief baron of the Exchequer.109 Thus, unless one assumes that everyone else in and around Henry’s court were mere yes-men, the simple truth is that Wolsey was never in a position to have done the nobility down, even if he had wanted to. And on the really big occasions, as when in 1516 Northumberland had submitted, or in 1519 when Sir William Bulmer had admitted his fault in wearing the duke of Buckingham’s livery in the royal presence, then not only were Wolsey’s fellow councillors present, but so also was the king himself.
In Wolsey’s time, it is possible to identify a handful of what might be labelled, if a little anachronistically, opposition peers, or at least peers whose faces somehow did not fit. Obviously Buckingham was one. So also was the earl of Northumberland, who never obtained the high office and position in the North of England that his rank and family name entitled him to.110 Another Northern nobleman who obviously felt that he had been wrongly overlooked was Lord Darcy. His does seem to have been a rather difficult personality, made worse by his disappointment, but the reason why he was overlooked may have been that he lacked the local power and influence to perform the role that the Crown was looking for in that area. What is interesting about Darcy is that at an early stage he claimed Wolsey as a friend, and still failed to obtain what he wanted.111 Probably he exaggerated – or is this an example of the Machiavellian Wolsey discarding friends when they ceased to be of use? There is no way of knowing, though a similar claim for his relationship with Richard Fox was rejected earlier in this book. When in 1529 Henry was looking for information to use against Wolsey, Darcy saw his opportunity to draw up an indictment of Wolsey’s administration of the North. We shall return to this in chapter 7, but if he thought that on Wolsey’s downfall his time had come, he was to be disappointed yet again, and in 1537 he was beheaded for his part in the Pilgrimage of Grace. At the very least, therefore, one can say that Wolsey was not the only reason for his failure to get on with the Tudor regime.
Someone who was constantly in trouble, whether with his tenants, with rival familiies such as the Butlers of Warrington or with officials of the duchy of Lancaster, was the 2nd earl of Derby; and he was also, it will be remembered, on Henry’s list of noblemen to be watched in 1518. In many ways he does exhibit those characteristics that made the enforcement of ‘indifferent justice’ with regard to the nobility and leading gentry so difficult: in particular, a willingness to use his enormous influence in Lancashire and Cheshire purely for his own advantage.112 That he found himself in trouble with the Crown, and with Wolsey, is not surprising – and not at all to Wolsey’s discredit. How they got on at a personal level is not known, but on his death in 1521 the earl bequeathed ‘to my lord cardinal’s grace a gold ring with a point of a diamond set in the same, and £20 in gold, beseeching his grace to be good to mine executors and favourable for the confirmation of my Chantry, beadhouse and free school’113 – obviously something of an insurance policy, but all the same, would Derby have bothered to remember someone he hated or despised?
Unfortunately, even less is known of Wolsey’s relationship with George Neville Lord Bergavenny, though Wolsey would have often sat in council with him, as well as having to mete out various punishments, even in 1521 having him imprisoned; and it is precisely these contacts, and the ambiguities inherent in them, that are so intriguing. No nobleman was more in trouble with the first two Tudors than Bergavenny, usually for illegal retaining. In 1516 he was again charged with this offence, though what seems to have been behind the charge was a long-standing quarrel with the Guildford family, Bergavenny’s chief rivals for power in the county of Kent.114 The two half-brothers, Sir Henry and Sir Edward Guildford, pursued very successful careers in and around the royal household, and had the great advantage, unlike Bergavenny, of a father who had risen with the 2nd duke of Buckingham for Henry Tudor in 1485 and thereafter dedicated his life to him. However, if Bergavenny’s troubles in 1516 are ascribed to a conspiracy by a Tudor monarch and the Guildfords to do him down, it would have to be pointed out that his two brothers, Sir Edward and Sir Thomas Neville, were as much in favour with Henry VIII as the Guildfords were. Neither is it at all clear that Bergavenny suffered any serious consequences from his brushes with Star Chamber and King’s Bench in 1516. In 1521 he was in trouble again, on this occasion ‘from a small concealment proceeding from negligence’:115 or in other words for failing to report to the Crown the treasonable words spoken to him by his father-in-law, the duke of Buckingham.
This time, for a brief period at any rate, the consequences were substantial. They included a recognizance of 10,000 marks, the payment of which appears to have en
tailed the possibility of losing his chief residence, the manor of Birling in Kent. He also had to surrender the office of lord warden of the Cinque Ports to none other than Sir Edward Guildford.116 However, from these dire punishments Bergavenny did recover. In March 1522 he received a general pardon, and by the end of that year, though he had to find a large number of people to stand as surety for him, he was released from his recognizance. At the same time the threat of losing Birling was partially lifted, though as late as 1530 he was still having to pay out for its full recovery.117 In 1523 he contributed a retinue to Suffolk’s abortive expedition to France.118 There continued, however, to be some suspicion of him – sufficient, as we have seen, to prompt two of his fellow noblemen to warn Henry to keep an eye on him. Nevertheless, in June of that year he was sufficiently in favour to join in the ceremonies centring on the elevation to the peerage of the king’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy.119 And in all these ups and downs at no point was Bergavenny dropped from the commissions of the peace for the three counties he was most associated with, Kent, Surrey and Sussex. Even more surprising, he was one of the peers who most frequently attended royal Council meetings, continuing to do so even after 1521.120