The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (Pimlico)

by Gwyn, Peter

  Longland’s text from Genesis 18:18, where God informs Abraham that he intends to visit Sodom and Gomorrah to ‘see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against them which has come down to me’, was appropriate to the wider ends in view, if a little unfair to Westminster Abbey. After expounding on the monastic vows of poverty, charity and obedience, Longland exhorted the monks of Westminster to live by their vows them in order that there could be no outcry against them. He also made a more general call for church reform:

  Today the Churchy, whose former devotion has cooled, is injured. And is she not injured by herself? Certainly by herself. Our true predecessors, both monks and secular clergy, led a holy and hard life, we a much easier and softer one, we who have stained her pristine beauty and devotion with worldly desires.374

  It was up to the monastic orders and the church authorities to bring the Church back to her ‘pristine beauty’. He did not actually say, as Bishop Fox had written only a few days earlier,375 that this would best be achieved under Wolsey’s leadership as legate, but, given the occasion, the implication was surely there.

  Given this rousing start, what followed may seem a little disappointing. As we have already seen, the number of legatine visitations was not all that great. Moreover, as with Westminster, in most cases there is no reason to suppose that there was anything especially wrong with the places visited. The visitations were, therefore, in part at least, an assertion of Wolsey’s legatine authority, in the same way as his compositions with the bishops were – which is not to say that they were merely a formality.

  The only details we have are a set of injunctions dated 17 April 1525 in connection with a visitation of Worcester Priory, later revised because they were ‘frequently occasion of strife and controversy from ambiguous and obscure language’, and not, apparently, ratified by Wolsey until November 1526.376 Contrary to the generalization that has just been made, all was not entirely well at Worcester. Prior William More had been in dispute with his sub-prior, Neckham, and his cellarer, Fordham, and in the revised injunctions Wolsey’s usual legatine visitor, John Allen, sided with the prior, confirming their dismissal from office, as well as that of two ‘scholastics’.377 That he did so could be taken as evidence that the prior’s ‘gifts’ had taken effect.378 Moreover, it has to be said that the character of the prior which emerges from his journal is not that of a zealous reformer. Neither is it, however, that of a villain.379 William More liked his country pursuits and entertainments, and was at ease with the local gentry, but he also cared a great deal for the well-being of his priory. When in the 1530s – a time when the opportunities for settling scores were easily come by – the two dismissed monks, along with another who had been imprisoned by More for stealing, caused him considerable trouble, both the local gentry and most of the monks of Worcester supported their prior. Indeed, twenty-eight of them wrote to Cromwell saying that they had no wish to have Fordham back as cellarer, because not only was he ‘a troublesome person’, but he had also contracted ‘the pox’.380 As so often, there is not enough available detail for the rights and wrongs of what was going on at Worcester to be fully established, but the burden of the surviving evidence points to the conclusion that Allen had been right to back the prior in 1525. Moreover, even if Wolsey’s legatine injunctions in their final form were more lenient than they had been initially, they do show that considerable attention had been paid to the specific problems of the priory.

  If Allen’s visitation of Worcester Priory was typical of legatine visitations as a whole – and there is no reason to suppose that it was not – then it would be possible to argue that, though perhaps not strictly necessary, they did make some contribution to reform – perhaps even a rather specific one. It has already been stressed that, despite the troubles at Worcester, there is no reason to suppose that houses visited were specially in need of reform. What may be significant is their geographical location. If the London houses are excluded, there remain forty-nine that Allen visited. Of these, four were in the diocese of Lincoln, seven in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, nine in the diocese of Salisbury, and twenty-nine in the diocese of Worcester. It emerges from this that it was the dioceses which had foreign and absentee bishops that saw the greatest number of visitations, which is to say Salisbury and Worcester, and this suggests another reason for them – to compensate for their lack of close episcopal supervision. In other words, it was a sensible, if rather limited, use of Wolsey’s authority, and certainly neither as selfish nor as arbitrary as has sometimes been alleged.

  There remain one or two legatine visitations which were the result of particular circumstances. Longland’s request to Wolsey for help with the Cistercian, and therefore exempt, house of Thame, and the consequent visitation in 1526 of the abbot of Waverley acting as Wolsey’s legatine commissary, has already been mentioned.381 In the same year, there was a legatine visitation of the college of Stoke-by-Clare in Bishop Nix’s diocese of Norwich. Like everything in which Wolsey and Nix were brought into contact with, this episode provides a complicated and messy story, the rights and wrongs of which are impossible to unravel. It seems unlikely, though, that it brought Wolsey, as has been alleged, into conflict with Catherine of Aragon, patroness of the College; for his chief agent in the matter was Robert Shorton, not only her almoner but, as future events were to prove, her very devoted servant. Equally unlikely is the allegation that Wolsey intended to suppress the college, since he had no papal authority to suppress an institution of this wealth and size.382 True, he did not keep strictly to the conditions laid down in the only relevant papal bull that has survived,383 but even so Stoke-by-Clare would have represented a striking departure from the normal run of houses he suppressed.384 What appears to have been involved was a genuine effort by both Wolsey and Catherine to do something about the state of the college, whose statutes even Nix admitted in a letter to Wolsey, were in need of reform. Admittedly their efforts came to nothing; at least no new statutes resulted, although Shorton’s appointment as dean, which unfortunately cannot be precisely dated, may have been due to their efforts.

  The last legatine visitation to be looked at here is that of the Cluniac priory of Wenlock, Herefordshire, in September 1523; and for once quite a lot of documentation has survived.385 The difficulties in 1523 can be traced back to the election of Roland Gosenell as prior in 1521 – the first election since a bull of 1494 had given the priory the right to choose its own head.386 A party in the priory, with some outside support, had strongly opposed the choice of Gosenell. As a result he had appealed to Wolsey, who had supported his election, subject to the bishop of Hereford’s confirmation that it had been properly conducted. But opposition to Gosenell continued, and in 1523 he had again appealed to Wolsey – and hence the legatine visitation. The resulting injunctions, drawn up by Allen, who as usual had carried out the visitation, were designed to steer a middle path between Gosenell and his opponents. Like other heads who found themselves in conflict with their subordinates, Gosenell was ambitious; he had, for instance, secured for himself the use of the bishop’s mitre, thus putting himself in the top league of abbots and priors. And in furthering his ambition he may well have ignored the best interests of his house. At any rate, his contention that by placing on his mitre one of the priory’s holy relics, an ivory cross of St Milburg, along with other of the priory’s jewels, he would augment ‘the honour of God and the house’, was surely rather partial.

  At the same time, Allen’s injunctions leave no doubt that there was a good deal of slackness in the observance of regulations – perhaps the result of the very long rule of the previous prior – and there could therefore be something in Gosenell’s argument that the monks only objected to his rule because he was trying to tighten up. To assist this process Allen laid down that the necessary silences should be observed, that doors should be kept closed to prevent free access, that young boys should not be in and out of the monks’ dormitories and that there should be adequate provision made
for the teaching of the young monks. The playing of cards, chess, or marbles for money was forbidden and better singing in the chapel was called for. The monks were also advised to consult ‘the new legatine constitutions’; presumably he had in mind those issued for the Benedictine order in 1520,387 since they would have been most relevant to a Cluniac priory. And this suggests that they were readily available and that they were not, as is usually implied, mere window-dressing. But Allen also took the prior to task, exhorting him to be moderate in his criticisms of his fellow monks, in the manner of a father to his sons. He was also urged not to spend too much on hospitality, so as not to ‘incur the stigma of luxurious living’. It is not known precisely what transpired concerning the charges brought against Gosenell by his monks. Gosenell maintained that they had already been rejected by the bishop of Hereford, but this did not inhibit Allen from referring them to Wolsey for a decision, while in the meantime Gosenell was suspended from office. The decision must have gone in Gosenell’s favour, because he was formally restored to office in the following June. Whether this was because Wolsey genuinely believed that he was a good prior or just that the case against him could not be proved, is another matter. Certainly, within three years – that is, before Wolsey’s fall – Gosenell was no longer prior, and since he was to spend a considerable amount of time and effort in trying to get his office back, one must assume that he had not gone willingly. Indeed, when his successor and the sub-prior wrote to Cromwell in 1534 to ask him to put an end to these efforts, they pointed out that Gosenell had been ‘deposed’ both for bringing the house into debt and for his ‘execrable living’.388 On the other hand, as he was in receipt of a pension, this may suggest that they were writing rather loosely. But the important point here is that whatever the precise nature of his departure, it seems reasonable to surmise that but for the pressure brought upon him by virtue of Wolsey’s legatine authority, Gosenell would have continued his unpopular rule at Wenlock for much longer than he did.

  Wolsey is known to have intervened in twenty monastic elections, to have taken part in at least eight attempts to remove a monastic head – though on only four occasions were these efforts successful389 – and to have authorized 72 legatine visitations. By and large, his involvement would seem to have been beneficial. It is true that financial gain did accrue to him, but then most interventions by church authorities involved the payment of money. It is also true that some of his interventions had rather more to do with the assertion of his legatine authority than with the health of the institution concerned – but then he would have argued that such an assertion was a prerequisite for any real reform. It can hardly be stressed too often that the surviving evidence permits only the most cautious of conclusions, because so often the detail necessary to unravel the ins and outs of a particular episode is lacking. But whatever the qualifications, the overall impression is of Henry’s cardinal legate making a genuine attempt to further the best interests of the religious orders.

  But is it possible to go beyond this rather low-key, almost negative conclusion? To state that, by and large, Wolsey’s rule was beneficial hardly earns for him the title of reformer, or justifies the enormous powers acquired in order to bring about reform. Is it really the case, for instance, that out of the roughly 820 heads of religious houses in England, only eight deserved to be removed? Even bearing in mind all the legal difficulties in the way of removing anyone, it seems an almost derisory figure – or perhaps not? In answering such questions, so much depends on one’s assumptions. If the view is taken that the religious houses were indeed dens of iniquity, then of course the figure is worryingly low. If, on the other hand, one considers that, given the close scrutiny that the religious houses were submitted to, of a kind no institution could undergo without faults emerging, they come out of it reasonably well, then eight deliquent heads may seem about right. To suggest a modern parallel, there can be very few headmasters today about whom criticisms could not be made, and yet how many should be sacked and, more relevantly, how many are? Outstanding heads of anything are rare, and the temptation to expect the impossible is one that historians should resist. It is this, hopefully more realistic, view of the religious orders that is taken here. From this it follows that Wolsey’s efforts to remove nine heads in what was effectively under six years390 – for the legatine machinery was not really set up until the beginning of 1523 – reflect not a dereliction of duty but the very small number of obvious candidates for removal.

  What this small number also helps to confirm is an aspect of Wolsey’s use of his legatine authority which has underlain much of the interpretation so far. It never seems to have been Wolsey’s intention to intervene on a day-to-day basis in the running of the Church. As we have seen, the legatine powers had given him overall control of all aspects of the English Church, and the series of new constitutions and statutes that he had issued were his declaration of intent. This achieved, his role was to intervene only when it would be helpful to do so, which is to say usually only when he was requested to. For example, in 1519 it was at the request of the dean, John Colet, that he became involved in deciding what should be the proper function and rewards of the canons of St Paul’s.391 In 1523 he intervened in the affairs of Wenlock Priory only at the request of Prior Gosenell. In 1526 he intervened in the affairs of the Cistercian abbey of Thame only at the request of Bishop Longland, and it was that same bishop who in 1528 asked him to investigate the Dominican house of King’s Langley. On the other hand, Wolsey did nothing at all in 1527 when there was serious trouble at the Benedictine abbey of Malmesbury. Instead, the order’s machinery for coping with such emergencies was activated in the normal way by the then president of its chapter, John Islip, abbot of Westminster. The abbot of Gloucester was called upon to conduct a visitation of Malmesbury, with the result that at least six of the ‘rebels’ ended up excommunicated.392 Malmesbury was an exempt monastery and, given that it is the existence of such monasteries that has been used to justify Wolsey’s acquisition of legatine powers, it is reasonable to ask why in this case they were not used. The simple answer seems to be that nobody asked him to, and since the matter was adequately dealt with, there was no other reason for intervening.

  It is important to grasp just how cautious and circumscribed was Wolsey’s approach to the exercise of his legatine powers. Certainly he was sufficiently determined to take on Warham when, in the winter of 1518-19, the archbishop had attempted to challenge them, but he was far too skilful a politician to overplay his hand. If, as has been suggested here, he saw it as his task to provide leadership and a sense of overall direction, and in other ways to act as a long-stop or final court of appeal, then it becomes all the more urgent to tackle the question of his claim to be called a reformer. It is also high time to consider what was meant by reform in the early sixteenth century.393 The word is always a loaded one, and in attempting any final assessment of Wolsey’s achievement it is important to bear this in mind.

  Well before anyone in England had heard of Martin Luther, reform of the English Church was a matter for serious concern. It may be that John Morton’s concern was characterized by an aggressive assertion of his own rights as archbishop of Canterbury, but, if only as a byproduct of this, it also led him to to try to tackle the problem of the exempt monasteries.394 Warham shared Morton’s concern for the rights of Canterbury, but then a concern for one’s rights seems to be strongly implanted in all of us, and was very much part of the tradition of the English episcopacy. Not surprisingly, therefore, Warham’s assertion of his rights was strongly resisted by a group of his suffragans, led by Bishop Fox, a conflict that has been briefly touched upon at various stages in this book.395 Here the point to make is that it cannot have helped the process of reform, though it did not prevent all discussion of it. In 1510 convocation had set up a committee for reform, and out of this committee emerged three new canons. One gave powers to the bishops to suspend stipendiary chaplains who persistently failed to celebrate the services that they had b
een appointed to perform. Another attempted to tackle the problem of the sale of church offices, or, as it was called, simony. The third condemned the wearing of improper dress. One member of that committee was John Colet, and it was at the opening of the 1510 convocation that he made his celebrated indictment of the state of the English Church.396 Not nearly so well known is the very similar indictment made by John Taylor in the convocation of 1514 – and for the historian at any rate it is more interesting. Colet’s attack can be passed off as sui generis – the kind of thing one might expect from a great Christian ‘humanist’, but from no one else. Not so John Taylor’s, for he seems to fall very clearly into that category of careerist churchman that usually come in for criticism. But this did not prevent Taylor making a passionate plea for the Church to reform itself,397 which suggests that the demand for reform was fairly widespread, at least amongst the better educated clergy.

  The call for ‘reform’ was not confined to England, and nowhere did it surface more strongly than at the Fifth Lateran Council of 1512-17, where in session after session leading churchmen lamented the existing state of affairs, sometimes in apocalyptic terms.398 The picture of a sleepy and complacent Church caught unawares by the criticisms of a German friar will not do. Indeed, if anything, the self-condemnation of the Church in the years just prior to the Diet of Worms and Luther’s decision to reject the authority of the Catholic Church was over-strained, over-scrupulous and almost certainly exaggerated.399 It came in many varieties, not all of it of the Erasmian kind that in the past has, perhaps, tended to monopolize historians’ imaginations – but then Erasmus’s magic is very hard to resist. In more recent years the pendulum may have swung too far in the other direction,400 and the intention here is not to cast doubt on the importance of the Christian humanism so much associated with Erasmus, but to suggest that it should not be used as the only yardstick for judging a person’s concern for the well-being of the Church. In an earlier chapter it was argued that Bishop Fitzjames has always suffered in comparison with his recalcitrant dean, John Colet, because of his lack of interest in biblical scholarship, although he seems to have taken his episcopal duties extremely seriously.401 Robert Sherburne, bishop of Chichester from 1508 to 1536, venerated the saints, especially Thomas Becket and Richard of Chichester, believed devoutly in intercession for the souls of the dead and in the merits of ‘good works’. He was also opposed to a vernacular bible. None of these things should be allowed to obscure the fact that he was a very active diocesan bishop who worked extremely hard to improve the standards and efficiency of his clergy.402