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

by Gwyn, Peter

  It looks as if Wolsey made one more bid to tempt Francis. On 26 October 1515 the French ambassador officially informed Henry of his master’s great victory at Marignano over the Swiss. Henry was not especially delighted, and even managed to get into a quarrel about how many Swiss had been slain on the battlefield, suggesting that the ambassador had greatly exaggerated the numbers and declaring anyway that the Swiss troops were as nothing compared with the German. It was a typical combative performance, and Wolsey, when presented with the news, behaved in an equally typical way. He was delighted to hear of Francis’s victory – hardly a truthful statement, but then neither was his denial of any warlike preparations by England. Partly, it depended on one’s interpretation of the phrase. There was indeed very little physical preparation by England, but by late October Pace was already on his way to Switzerland with offers of money and military help to whoever might oppose the French. Nevertheless, in a private interview shortly afterwards Wolsey tried to revive the French interest in negotiations. There was no prince whom Henry loved more than the king of France, and indeed these two princes were so alike in their great abilities and virtues that they really ought to love one another. And after the soft soap, the hard talk: the ambassador should remind his master ‘that the time is no longer such as it used to be’, which vague as it was, may have been a hint that following his great successes opposition to Francis was mounting and therefore he would increasingly need English support. Less vague was Wolsey’s statement on Scotland. If Francis would recall Albany, the English would not insist on Margaret, Henry VIII’s sister, being the effective guardian of her children, though they would want her to retain the courtesy title and be allowed unrestricted access to them. If Albany was not recalled, then Henry was determined to aid his sister, and to that end had recently made a treaty with Ferdinand who had agreed to support England in any war with Scotland, in return for England’s support in Guienne. Wolsey ended the interview by once more turning on the charm. Henry’s affection for Francis was again stressed, and if only the French king would treat him a little better, then of course Henry would not make any treaty with the king of Aragon, or any other person hostile to Francis.107 Unfortunately for Wolsey, by early November the dying Ferdinand was not much of a threat, but then this had been Wolsey’s great difficulty throughout 1515: he had very little to threaten Francis with. He was to spend the next two years trying to rectify this.

  If this point is understood, a lot that has so far been inexplicable makes sense. Why did Wolsey allow himself to become entangled with the completely untrustworthy Maximilian and the not so trustworthy Swiss? Why, when the untrustworthiness and incompetence of these allies had been made patently clear in the débâcle before Milan, were Henry’s hopes of success apparently so quickly revived? Why, though he and Wolsey had shown a little displeasure at what had taken place there, were they willing to go on encouraging Maximilian to greater efforts? And it must be stressed that neither was taken in by Maximilian’s customary consummate performance. The constant wearing of the garter and the flattery, as when he praised the style of Henry’s Latin and French secretaries, made not the slightest difference to their extremely cold-eyed view.108 In June 1516 Wolsey informed Pace that Henry quite agreed with his unfavourable assessment of the emperor, but this only meant that Pace must use him accordingly.109 Shortly afterwards Wolsey was advising him to play Maximilian along, and then in July he wrote to say that though the Council thought the emperor’s conduct strange, ‘it was necessary to use policy therein and dissemble for a time.’110 Maximilian’s offer of the Imperial title made no impression on Henry: ‘We think they mean nothing … touching the vicary general of the Empire, which we set little by.’111 Neither Henry nor Wolsey ever set much store by Maximilian, but the point was that if pressure was to be brought to bear on Francis, they had to make use of what was available, and Maximilian just happened to be one of the few people who was.

  This same need to make the best of what was available explains Wolsey’s desperate efforts to build up some kind of anti-French league in the summer of 1516, despite the overwhelming difficulties which the creation of such a league presented: in essence Maximilian’s untrustworthiness and the regents’ opposition. The regents’ treaty with Francis at Noyon in August 1516 was a severe blow to Wolsey, but was not sufficient to put him off completely. He argued, quite correctly, that it was in many ways unfavourable to Charles. The loss of Navarre; the surrender of his claim to Artois; the recognition of Francis’s claim to Naples, which was to be admitted as the young French princess’s dowry despite the fact that the prospective husband was already the de facto ruler of that kingdom; the disparity of ages between Charles who was seventeen and the Princess Louise who was less than a year old – all these things, Wolsey believed, made it most unlikely that Noyon would hold.112 But in order to make sure that it did not, he was prepared, as we have seen, to risk paying for Maximilian’s ‘descent’ into the Low Countries to remove the pro-French regents. When he hit on this plan Wolsey knew there was a possibility that Maximilian might deceive him, but he had been prepared to take a risk because any alliance, however fudged or improbable, was better than none. Without one he had no bargaining counters, and it was these that he was desperately seeking.

  Here we have the explanation for Wolsey’s rejection of the sound advice of the ambassadors that the chasing after such an alliance should be given up because it was unobtainable on any reasonable terms. Instead, the ambassadors were instructed to go on working for it, even if this meant giving up the crucial clause concerning the English financial demands on France. Moreover, continuing to work for an alliance meant in the end coming to terms with the very people England had spent so much time and money trying to remove – Charles’s regents, Chièvres and Sauvage. As it happened, by the early summer of 1517 this was not such a bitter pill to swallow because by then Wolsey found himself with some kind of hold over them. Now their main concern was to get Charles to Spain in order to establish his rule there; they needed money and naval assistance, and England could provide both. The result was that in the July they sent over to England a most splendid embassy, headed by the young James de Luxemburg, son of the governor-general of Flanders, son-in-law of Chièvres and a close friend of Charles himself. Giustinian reported back to Venice that never did ambassadors receive such honours, and he and his secretary have left behind detailed descriptions of all the ceremonials and amusements, which included the ‘supernatural feats’ of Henry VIII in ‘changing his horses and making them fly rather than leap, to the delight and ecstasy of everybody’.113 Present at these ceremonials was the recently arrived French ambassador, and there seems little doubt that they were put on as much to impress him as to please the young James de Luxemburg. It was two months later, on 19 September, that Pace, still out in Switzerland, commented that since the league had been formed, one of the main purposes of which was supposedly to provide money for a Swiss army, ‘no man has had any mind to this thing that should be concluded with the Swiss’.114 One has some sympathy with Pace. For almost two years he had had the thankless task of keeping the Swiss in play, despite the machinations of Maximilian, the French and the rival Swiss factions. His efforts were not entirely in vain, for he had, at least, helped to provide England’s aggressive posture with some credibility – and in the process had secured for himself the office of royal secretary. What, however, he seems never to have realized – and the same goes for most of his fellow diplomats – is what Wolsey’s policy was all about, that was somehow to get the French to sit round a table and agree to favourable terms. And no sooner had Charles’s ambassadors left than this process began.

  In presenting this explanation of Wolsey’s foreign policy from 1515 to the autumn of 1517 the intention is not to reverse completely the earlier picture of failure. There were failures during this period. Wolsey had not wanted the attack on Milan to fail. The Treaty of Noyon had been a blow and Maximilian’s acceptance of it an even greater one. It had also b
een a setback that Maximilian had been unable or unwilling to remove the regents and that he had to wait over five months for Charles’s confirmation of the treaty originally signed in London in October 1516. There had in one sense been one damned failure after another. However, when Wolsey’s intentions are understood, the failures do not appear quite so stupid or pointless. The policy had always been risky, but the risks had from the first been calculated, and the disasters on the way allowed for. And in the end the prize was won – the Treaty of London of October 1518.

  Just a few more comments and qualifications are required. One of the points that emerges from this analysis is not that Henry and Wolsey differed in their warlike intentions, but that during this period neither was warlike. In support of this view there is the curious fact, already mentioned, that despite all Wolsey’s moves against France there was never any official break between the two countries and, as a consequence, the French pension continued to be paid.115 Perhaps of even more significance was the enormous restraint shown by England in her relations with Scotland, and, since the banning of the duke of Albany from Scotland was to be one of the important English gains in the Treaty of London, it is now necessary to look in some detail at the part Scottish affairs played in the lead up to it.116 When, after James IV’s death at Flodden, Margaret, Henry VIII’s sister, had become regent to her not yet two year old son, James V, the English had assumed that they would have a dominant say in the affairs of Scotland. It did not turn out that way. Factional struggles amongst the Scottish nobility led to the demand that Margaret be replaced by John Stuart duke of Albany. As James’s cousin and heir-presumptive, Albany had some claim to the post, but from the English point of view he was unacceptable. He had been born and brought up in France, and furthermore he had so distinguished himself in the service of the French Crown that he had been created lord high admiral. It is not therefore surprising that the English, in their negotiations with Louis XII in 1514, had insisted that Albany be prevented from going to Scotland, and Louis had felt compelled to agree. Francis I had no such inhibitions. Indeed, it would obviously be to his immediate advantage to be able to threaten England with a Scottish attack led by his ‘client’ Albany, if by any chance Henry took it into his head to invade France while he was away in Northern Italy. Thus in the spring of 1515 Albany was allowed to leave France. He arrived in Scotland on 18 May, and by September, Margaret was in exile in England. If ever there was an excuse for England to invade Scotland this was it, but all that happened were some inconclusive and intermittent negotiations. In April 1516 a Scottish delegation accompanied by the French ambassador to Scotland arrived in London, to be followed about ten days later by Margaret, who until then had lingered in the North. She was given a royal welcome by her brother, but this did not prevent a six month truce, to last until the end of November, being arranged with the Scottish delegation.

  Despite frequent border raids on both sides, this truce was extended until the end of January 1517, by which time a major agreement had been reached which involved, amongst other things, Margaret’s return to Scotland. She was to be given all the honour due to her rank, her jewels and personal belongings were to be returned and her lawful revenues guaranteed, but she was to have no effective power. It appears, therefore, to have been a face-saving operation as far as the English were concerned, with Albany the real winner. The arrangement had also extended the truce until the end of November 1517, by which time Albany had felt secure enough to return to France, having left behind him a regency council. At Rouen in August he negotiated a treaty whereby, if England invaded Scotland, France would not only provide aid but would invade England. The treaty also contained an unsatisfactory marriage alliance: Francis’s promise of his younger daughter for James V, but only if she was not required by one of the two Habsburg princes, Charles or Ferdinand; if she was, James would have to make do with the hope that Francis would father another daughter. The Scots had hoped for rather more favourable treatment, and it looks as if the French were dragging their feet, anxious not to allow Scottish affairs to stand in the way of their negotiations with England, which were just beginning. Furthermore, Albany managed to negotiate yet another extension of the truce with England – this time for two years, until the end of November 1519. Meanwhile, Scotland itself in the autumn of 1517 was in more turmoil than ever. In September the rivalries on the regency council came to a head after the murder of Seigneur de la Bastie, the man Albany had left behind in charge of the Scottish Marches. The murder had been carried out by a faction led by the Hume family which was favourable to Margaret. Lord David and John Hume, together with William Cockburn, were declared traitors by the Scottish parliament, but escaped over the border. The Scottish parliament asked for their return, but with no success. All the same, Henry showed no real inclination to further Margaret’s complaints about her treatment at the hands of Albany’s supporters, which since her return to Scotland in June had been frequent and shrill. The Scottish parliament had no more success with Albany when they requested his immediate return to Scotland. When he heard of this, Henry made a lot of noise, even threatening war with France if Albany should be allowed to return, but it is significant that Stephen Poncher, the bishop of Paris, who was leading the negotiations with Henry at this time, was of the view that England would not break them off over this issue. It is perhaps equally significant that Albany did not return.

  This summary of Anglo-Scottish relations, brief as it is, may suffice to make the point that despite a lot of diplomatic noise and many border raids, neither England nor France was prepared to allow Scottish affairs to get in the way of their real intentions. England in particular had showed a good deal of restraint. The natural expectation that Flodden would lead to a greater say in Scottish affairs had had to be suppressed, while Henry had had to endure the public humiliation of his sister’s plight. Yet none of this had been allowed to prevent constant negotiations with Scotland, which always led to yet another extension of the truce. Why was England so patient? It was because an invasion of Scotland would almost certainly have led to war with France, and war with France was what she did not want.

  But what of all the English talk of war with France? It has been shown already that such talk was not confined to Henry. Indeed, it has been argued that late in 1515 and early 1516 an invasion of France was official English policy. After the spring of 1516 the talk was less open, but the alliance worked for by Wolsey throughout the remainder of that year and during the first half of the next did contain elaborate details concerning the number of men and ships that each of the confederates would provide, and Giustinian even reported the names of the generals who would command the invading forces. It is true that these armies would only be raised if France was to invade territory belonging to a confederate, or inflict ‘grave damage’, but such conditions were sufficiently vague to allow the possibility of an attack on France if one was desired. Moreover, it was Wolsey who had been anxious to add to the reasons for going to war any failure by the French to pay any money that they rightfully owed to England.

  The contradiction between all the talk of war and invasion and the view that the English had no intention of going to war is more apparent than real. Talk is one thing; doing is quite another. In the late autumn of 1515 England had to talk of war, and indeed she had to continue to talk of war, for otherwise her policy possessed no credibility. It has not been sufficiently grasped that England was asking her allies to take on the all-conquering French. It is true that both Maximilian and the Swiss had reasons of their own for wanting to do this, and that they were going to receive English money for doing it. But in one sense they were merely doing England’s dirty work. What was to happen if they were badly beaten? What guarantee was there that England would pay? What guarantee was there that England would not desert them just whenever it suited – which was, indeed, what she intended to do? It was no good talking of a great alliance against the French, indeed posing as the leader of such an alliance, if no convincing reasons w
ere produced for pursuing such a line. For England to say that she was worried about Milan was just not good enough. The obvious reason, the most convincing, was the one that she gave: she was prepared to lead a French alliance because her king wished to recover his rights in France.117 To that end she was prepared to put an army in the field, admittedly not today, perhaps not tomorrow or even the day after; but offer to do it some day she had to. In other words, talk of an English invasion of France was a diplomatic smoke screen intended to deceive her allies. It should not deceive historians.

  One consequence of this analysis is that it suggests that Wolsey was not very interested in the ‘balance of power’. The occupation of the duchy of Milan gave France great territorial gains as well as great strategic and, though less easy to compute, great economic advantages. Of course it was not a new phenomenon in 1515. Ever since France’s first invasion of Italy in 1494 the duchy had frequently been in French occupation. That occupation had not been welcomed by the other European powers and, indeed, a great deal of money and effort had been expended, in particular by the papacy and by Ferdinand, to get the French out. England had not participated in this, and for an obvious reason. Milan affected no vital English interest, and a French occupation was arguably of some benefit as it kept French armies well away from areas such as Calais and the Low Countries that did concern England. Wolsey’s view of the matter was no different from his predecessors’. Of course, he could and did make diplomatic noises. He could also point out to Maximilian, or to the pope, or to the Venetians, the great dangers to them of the French occupation. However, concerning the more theoretical threat that might result from any change in the balance of power, not even diplomatic noises were heard. And during all the negotiations that took place with the French during 1515 the issue of the French invasion of Northern Italy was never raised by the English, and when they did come to terms with France in 1518 the French were left in occupation of Milan. The evidence seems clear. England did not mind France having the duchy. What she wanted was for her to have obtained England’s permission first.118