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

by Gwyn, Peter

  290LP, iv, 2083, 2277, 2412. The new abbot was called Robert Selby.

  291Inter alia Fountains, pp.252 ff. My belief is that Elton’s interpretation of this election and subsequent events there (Elton, JEH, 7) is seriously misleading but space has not allowed me to develop my criticisms.

  292LP, iv, 3878 for Haltenprice; LP, iii, 3171, 3189, 3193 for St Bartholomew’s.

  293LP, iv, app.230.

  294Butley Priory, pp.55-7.

  295 Ibid, p.8.

  296Registrum Thomas Wolsey, pp.xix ff.

  297 Knowles, BIHR, xxxi for the best account of this.

  298LP, iv, 4197.

  299LP, iv, 4408.

  300LP, iv, 4477 an undated letter of Henry’s to Anne Boleyn.

  301LP, iv, 4477.

  302St. P, i, p.314 (LP, iv, 4488), a letter to Wolsey in which Henry’s displeasure at his decison to go ahead with the election of Dame Isabel is reported to him.

  303LP, iv, 4488.

  304LP, iv, 4950.

  305 So presented in D.R.Starkey, Henry VIII, pp.97-8, but not by that other great believer in faction, Ives, for whose views see Anne Boleyn, pp.121-2.

  306 These have to be surmised from the replies to them; see LP, iv, 4488, 4507.

  307LP, iv, 4950 (St. P, i, p.314, n.1 for a full transcript).

  308LP, iv, 4477, this Henry’s report to Anne.

  309 Fiddes, Collections, p.174 (LP, iv, 4507).

  310 Richard Fox, pp.150-1 (LP, iv, 3815).

  311 Knowles, Religious Orders, ii, p.252, but I confess to having had great difficulty in finding any very satisfactory secondary reading on this subject, and I just hope that my treatment is not misleading.

  312 KCA DR c/R7/fo.100v.

  313 Chester, Hyde, King’s Langley, Peterborough, Spalding, Tywardreth, Vale Royal and Wenlock.

  314 Lewes and Oseney.

  315 For Birchenshawe see Burne. For Edmund Kirton see Peterborough Monastery. Birchenshawe’s most important addition to his abbey was the west front and south west porch, Kirton’s the ‘New Building’ at the east end.

  316LP, vii, 854.

  317Lancashire and Cheshire Cases in Star Chamber, p.74.

  318VCH, Cheshire, iii, p.143.

  319LP, ii, 2692.

  320LP, iv, 546 [19], 1278.

  321 The concubine being Mistress Lark; see A.F. Pollard, p.306, though in fact very little is known about her.

  322LP, iv, 6075. For a discussion of the allegation see p.137 above.

  323VCH, Cheshire, iii, pp.140-2.

  324Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln, xxxvii, pp.76-83.

  325Peterborough Monastery, p.ix, n.2.

  326LP, iv, 2391, Longland to Wolsey, 11 Aug. 1526.

  327LP, iv, 4047, 4279.

  328LP, iv, 2378.

  329LP, iv, 2378, 2391.

  330LP, iv, 2378.

  331LP, iv, 3175.

  332VCH, Hertford, iv, p.409 – and with Pace’s deaneries when he went mad.

  333LP, iv, 4047.

  334 PRO SP l/39/fo.58 (LP, iv, 2391).

  335LP, iv, 3478, 4708. John Stonywell was prior of Tynemouth until 1526, when he became abbot of Pershore and Thomas Gardiner was prior by 1528. Which of these was the man who may have been intended for Spalding is not certain.

  336LP, iv, 4796.

  337Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln, , xxxvii, p.98.

  338 PRO SP l/50/fo.90 (LP, iv, 4708): ‘The prior will on no condition resign, yet all lawful ways has been attempted’.

  339VCH, Lincoln, ii, p.124.

  340LP, iv, 2394 Romsey’s letter to Wolsey 12 Aug. [1526]. It is the only source for this episode, although episcopal injunctions of 1522 suggest that all was not well with the house; see Liber Monasterii de Hyda, p.lxiii. For Fox’s possible worries about Hyde see p.272 above.

  341Monasticon diocesis Exonienses, pp.45-6.

  342 Ibid, pp.45-7; for the allegation of drunkenness see Baskerville, pp.55-6.

  343 Romsey had been abbot of Hyde since 1509, Collins prior of Tywardreth since 1507.

  344 For this episode see Knowles, ‘Last abbot of Wigmore’; also Froude, pp.363-7.

  345LP, xii [1], 742 [1].

  346LP, xii [1], 742 [2, 3].

  347LP, iv, 5121.

  348LP, iv, 5898.

  349LP, iv, 5898 ‘I have been with the abbot of Wigmore and showed him your gracious mind towards him, … but now, as he trusts to a great change, and specially the extinction of your authority, he refuses the offer.’ Phillipps to Wolsey, 31 Aug. 1529.

  350 Dunstable is in Beds, King’s Langley in Herts.

  351 Mentioned in Longland’s letter to Wolsey; for which see PRO SP l/48/fo.86 (LP, iv, 4315).

  352LP, iv, 4315.

  353 Of course, he may just have died. He is known to have been in the Oxford convent in 1497, so he was well into middle-age by the late 1520s; for the biographical details see Emden, Oxford, 1540.

  354 PRO SP l/48/fo.86 (LP, iv, 4315).

  355 Vergil, p.259.

  356Inter alia Elton, Reform and Reformation, p.90: ‘money and the assertion of personal power constituted the cardinal’s overriding concern’, this in connection with his legatine rule.

  357 A.F. Pollard, pp.198-200.

  358 Harper-Bill, JEH, 29, p.14. Sede vacante visitations were those carried out by archbishops where an episcopal vacancy occurred in their province.

  359 PRO SP 1/32/fo.268 (LP, iv, 964).

  360 William More, p.4.

  361 Ibid, pp.221, 238, 254, 263, 278.

  362Registrum Thome Wolsey, pp.189-91. It is rather typical of Henry that the college was still having to pay, even though it was Wolsey’s exercise of his legatine authority which provided the excuse for his disgrace.

  363LP, iv, 6075, art.25.

  364 William More, 207-8.

  365Registrum Thome Wolsey, p.190.

  366 Kirby, p.296.

  367LP, iv, 964.

  368 Harper-Bill, JEH, pp.6-8. The bull, Quanta in Dei Ecclesia, was granted in 1487 and reissued in 1490.

  369 By my reckoning Cardinal Ottobuono’s visitations during his legation of 1265-8 were the last but this may well prove to be wrong. In 1459, Francesco Coppini, bishop of Terni, was appointed legate a latere to England with powers ‘to visit the whole of the said realm and reform abuses’, but he does not seem to have actually done this (Constance Heal, pp.149-50).

  370 It is to be hoped that someone with a greater knowledge of continental practice will be able to solve this problem. Meanwhile, I would like to thank Professor C.R. Cheney for his kind assistance. The major source in English on this subject is Lunt, Financial Relations to 1327, pp.532-70; Financial Relations, 1327-1534, pp.621-92.

  371 The impression is gained from the respect with which John Islip, abbot of Westminster from 1500 to 1532, was held and the active role that he played in government, and for the lack of any surviving adverse comment; but see Knowles, Religious Orders, iii, pp.96-9 for a slightly jaundiced account of Islip’s life. For the visitation, see WAM, Register 2, fos.129-130v. No visitation articles or injunctions have survived. I am grateful to N.H. MacMichael for making the Abbey archives available.

  372 Rymer, xiii, p.739-40 from the 1521 amplification but quoting from the earlier commission.

  373 Longland; and for Warham’s pleasure see LAO Register 26, fo.206, quoted extensively in Bowker, Henrician Reformation, pp.11-12.

  374 Taken from Bowker, Henrician Reformation, p.11.

  375 Richard Fox, pp.114-17 (LP, iii, 1122).

  376 Wilson, pp.359-64; Knowles, Religious Orders, iii, p.83, n.3.

  377 Wilson, p.360.

  378 See p.331 above.

  379 William More; Knowles, Religious Orders, iii, pp.108-26.

  380LP, ix, 653; Knowles, Religious Orders, pp.342-5.

  381 See p.273 above

  382Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich, pp.227-8; VCH, Suffolk, ii, p.147, which is the most detailed account of Wolsey’s suppressions to date.

 
; 383 Rymer, xiv, pp.23-5, 11 Sept. 1524.

  384 It was worth over £300 a year, and of the 30 houses suppressed none was worth that, only two were over £200, one of which being St Frideswide, Oxford, for which special papal provision was made. For a complete list see Knowles, Religious Orders, iii, p.470.

  385 Graham, pp.125-45, where the injunctions and ‘counsels’ are printed; also Knowles, Religious Orders, iii, pp.82-3. For the prior’s answers to the complaint brought against him see LP, iv, 954.

  386 At the same time, the house was placed directly under papal jurisdiction and subject only to the visitation of the papal collector in London.

  387 Worcester priory obtained a copy in 1520 (William More, p.108), and presumably they were issued to all Benedictine houses.

  388LP, vii, 1066.

  389 Birchenshawe at Chester; Kirton at Peterborough; Butler at Vale Royal (VCH, Cheshire, iii, p.162); and probably Gosenell at Wenlock.

  390 Admittedly Wolsey had visitorial powers from 1518, but 1524 is probably a fairer starting date. Only by then had the new constitutions for the religious orders been drawn up and published, his legatine powers been granted him for life and, following the compositions with the bishops, his legatine machinery established and it was not until 1525 that an important number of legatine visitations took place.

  391Registrum Sancti Pauli, pp.xiv ff. 416 ff.

  392 Pantin (ed.), English Black Monks, pp.124-36; VCH, Wilts., iii, p.225.

  393 I have found the following especially useful: Duggan, Gleason; Oakley; O’Malley.

  394 Harper-Bill, JEH, 29.

  395 M.J. Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’, pp.42-94.

  396 Ibid, pp.95-147.

  397 Brock, pp.27, 309-15; see also p.46 above.

  398 Jedin, i, pp.117-38.

  399 The theme of Ozment, Reformation in the Cities.

  400 Thus Scarisbrick in Reformation, p.47: ‘Erasmus … has received more attention from historians than he did from his contemporaries.’

  401 See pp.36-7.

  402 S.J. Lander, ‘Diocese of Chichester’, pp.14 ff. for his conservatism.

  403 Richard Fox, p.115 (LP, iii, 1122); the translation from Taunton, p.63.

  404 See p.45.

  405 Stanier, pp.1-63.

  406Statutes of the Colleges of Oxford, ii, pp.24-5, 34-5.

  407 At Cambridge there was Jesus College founded by Bishop Alcock in 1496, and Christ’s in 1506 and St. John’s College founded in 1516 by Lady Margaret Beaufort and John Fisher; at Oxford Brasenose College founded by Bishop Smith and Sir Richard Sutton in 1509, and Corpus Christi founded in 1517 by Bishop Fox.

  408 Best expressed in a letter to the Italian humanist Paulo Bombace in July 1518; see CWE, 6, pp.61-2; see also ibid, 3, pp.86-7, 94-5; 5, pp.392-3, 411; 6, pp.62-3, 356-8, 364-5, 377-80, 387, 405.

  409 Ibid, 6, pp.366-7 Erasmus to Wolsey 18 May [1519].

  410 Fowler, pp.87-9; McConica, Collegiate University, pp.336-9 which sadly appeared too late for me to make best use of it. The problem is that they get muddled up with Fox’s lectureships at Corpus Christi, where the lectures probably took place, and Wolsey’s subsequent public lectureships attached to Cardinal College.

  411CWE, 6, p.215 (LP, ii, app.56).

  412 Mitchell, p.90.

  413 Ibid, pp.95-6; 376-7; J.M. Fletcher, p.54.

  414CWE, 6, pp.251-2. For his appointment, the details of which remain obscure, see Fowler, pp.87-9; Mitchell, pp.154-6.

  415 Vives is not well treated in English, but see Emden, Oxford 1540, pp.594-6; R.P. Adams, pp.220 ff; Mitchell, p.7 passim, for his Oxford career.

  416 The advice came from John Clerk in Nov. 1525; see LP, iv, 1777. For Wolsey’s efforts to secure European scholars see LP, iv, 2149, 2158, 2222, 5224.

  417 For Clement and Lupset at Oxford see McConica, Collegiate University, pp.67-8, 337-8.

  418 For these efforts see LP, iv, 2149, 2158, 2181, 2240, 2272, 2296; Ven. Cal., iii, 1187. (p.515).

  419Statutes of Oxford, ii, p.127.

  420 Ibid, pp.71-2.

  421 Sophistory, logic or dialectics, and philosophy.

  422Statutes of Oxford, ii, p.127.

  423 Erasmus, Colloquies, pp.xxix-xxx, 314, 623-37; Sturge, pp.121-7.

  424CWM, 8, p.179; see also More’s passionate plea to Erasmus in Dec. 1526 for Erasmus to continue his fight against Luther following rumours that he had lost his nerve.

  425LP, iv, 2121.

  426LP, iv, 995.

  427Statutes of Oxford, ii, p.132.

  428CWE, 6, p.372; Thomas More, Latin Epigrams, pp.124-5. In it More calls the New Testament ‘the law of Christ, which has ever been your [Wolsey’s] preoccupation. That law provides you with the skill by means of which you are enabled to render decisions in the face of the Mocker, for, to the amazement of people, you resolve intricate differences in such a way that even the loser cannot complain.’

  429 J.M. Fletcher, pp.47 ff., 179 ff.

  430 ‘ingeniosa subtilitate’.

  431 PRO SP 1/52/fos.157-8 (LP, iv, 5019).

  432LP, iv, 5019.

  433LP, ii, 3655; ii, app.38.

  434 Cavendish, p.103 for the relic; ibid pp.130, 162, 182 for the hair-shirt.

  435 Ibid, pp.22-3; cf. ibid, pp.58-9 for Wolsey working from 4 am. until 4 pm. without a break, while all the time his chaplain was waiting to say mass, which he did immediately after the letters to the king had been despatched.

  436 Cf. M.J. Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’ pp.33 ff. for the view that despite his patronage of humanists, including Erasmus, even Warham’s intellectual and theological interests were essentialy conservative. See also Headley.

  437 From his Paraclesis; see inter alia Olin, pp.96-8.

  438CWM, 6, p.337.

  439CWE, 3, p.293; Surtz, John Fisher, pp.114 ff.

  440CWM, 6, pp.331-44.

  441Inter alia Dickens, English Reformation, p.9; Lander, Government and Community, pp.132-3.

  442 Foxe, iv, pp.184, 186.

  443 Duggan, pp.12-4; see also Dickens, English Reformation, p.9.

  444 The statutes against heresy are conveniently printed in CWM, 9, pp.249-60; prohibitions against translations of the Bible into English, and against their possession, unless licensed by a bishop in A.W.Pollard, pp.79-81. See also Thomson, Later Lollards, pp.220 ff.

  445 Foxe, v, app 6 for the list of books found and number; also CWM, 8, p.1173. On the general subject of English translations A.W. Pollard is still essential.

  446 The confession printed in A.W. Pollard, pp.155-9.

  447 On the English Bible and the Reformation by such a believer see Dickens, English Reformation, pp.70 ff., 129 ff., 189 ff.

  448CWM, 9, p.13.

  449 Fowler, pp.51-2, quoting from the statutes. For Fisher at Cambridge see Rackham, pp.91, 109; Mayor, pp.313, 315, 335, 376.

  450Statutes of Oxford, ii, p.127.

  451 Ibid, p.69.

  452 Owst.

  453 Quoted in Surtz, Works and Days, p.56.

  454 Mayor, pp.313-5.

  455Statutes of Oxford, ii, pp.78-81.

  456 The rumour that he personally preached 40 sermons a year is sadly unfounded. Indeed, he seems not to have preached any.

  457 Lupton, p.294.

  458 Ibid, p.299.

  459 Ibid, p.300.

  460 ‘He foynes and he frygges;/Spareth neither mayde ne wyfe.’ From ‘Why come ye nat to Court’ (Skelton, p.284); and for guidance in interpreting all Skelton’s criticism of Wolsey’s moral failings see Walker, pp.124-53.

  461LP, iv, 6075.

  462LP, iv, 6075, art.38 with its reference to ‘one Lark’s daughter which woman the said lord cardinal kept, and had with her two children’.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE GREAT ENTERPRISE

  ON 29 MAY 1522 FRANCIS I RECEIVED HENRY VIII’S FORMAL DECLARATION OF war and for the next three years these two kings, who only two years before had celebrated their ‘perpetual friendship’ on the Field of Cloth of Gold, were to do
battle with one another. Superficially it might look as if the Hundred Years War had been revived with an English king, once again in partnership with his Burgundian allies, asserting his ancient claim to the throne of France. For Henry the play-acting was over: he could now discard the always rather uncomfortable character of Rex Pacificus which his cardinal had tried to coach him in, and resume his more natural role as ‘the flower and glory of all knighthood’. In doing so he would not only be following in the footsteps of his great ancestor and namesake, Henry v, but also reviving the ancient claims of the kings of England to the throne of France.1