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

by Gwyn, Peter

  Thus, if there was some selection, it was not entirely determined by the desire to secure a conviction. Neither does it appear that the trial itself was conducted unfairly, given that the strong presumption at the time was that anyone accused of high treason was likely to be guilty. This may offend modern sensibility, but should not prejudice one’s treatment of a particular case. And it should be said that in 1534 a jury of noblemen sitting in the same court under which Buckingham had been tried was to find William Lord Dacre not guilty of treason. Though Fineux’s advice was available to Buckingham as to others in the court, he had no defence lawyer. Neither was he given any prior information about the charge. This was standard practice. He does, however, appear to have been allowed to cross-examine some of the witnesses testifying against him. If so, this was a departure from the norm, and one much in his favour.22 The likelihood is that Buckingham’s fellow peers were convinced by the evidence presented that he was guilty. Of course, it is just possible that that evidence was a complete fabrication, but if Henry and Wolsey were prepared to go to such lengths, they could have done so at any time – which brings us back again to the question of why they waited until April 1521 to make a move. If we can accept that it was only in the few months before this date that the Crown had any idea that Buckingham had been ‘imagining’ treason, then the question is solved.

  Unfortunately it is impossible to be certain about this. The bulk of the evidence against the duke was provided by three members of his household: Robert Gilbert, his chancellor, John Dellacourt, his chaplain and confessor, and Charles Knivet, the relative and estate official already referred to. Edward Hall believed that it was Gilbert who talked first.23 He certainly had plenty of opportunity to do so, for he was often sent by Buckingham to discuss his master’s business with Wolsey, as he was at the end of November 1520.24 However, there appears to have been no obvious reason for Gilbert to turn against his employer. He had been with Buckingham for about twenty years, and enjoyed a position of great responsibility and remuneration. On the other hand, Buckingham was extremely difficult to work for. Many of his officials were dismissed, challenged in the law courts, arbitrarily put in prison, or had their lands seized. Some no doubt deserved their fate, but it is doubtful whether this would have been true of John Russell whom Buckingham turned on in 1508. He had been Buckingham’s secretary for seven years, and his subsequent successful career in royal service – he became in 1525 secretary to the Princess Mary and a member of her Council of the Welsh Marches – hardly suggests disloyalty or corruption. Yet Buckingham accused him of embezzling over £3,000, and when he had the temerity to defend himself against the charge the duke seized his estates. Given this precedent, it is not inconceivable that, though Gilbert had no particular grievance, by 1520 he was so fed up with such a difficult master that he was prepared to tell all. The same may have been true of Dellacourt.25 Knivet, on the other hand, had an obvious motive. Some time in 1520 – Vergil says just before Buckingham’s departure for the Field of Cloth of Gold in very early July, though it may have been a little earlier26 – he was dismissed from his post as surveyor of the duke’s lands in Kent. As a result, he may have begun hinting to royal officials that he had information that would be of interest.

  There is one other candidate for the role of first informer, one Margaret Gedding, former nurse to Buckingham’s children and lady-in-waiting to his wife, Eleanor. The evidence is frustratingly slight, but it is known that by 26 November 1520 Buckingham was worried about what Gedding may have told Wolsey, and that whatever it was, Knivet was involved.27 Some information about the government’s handling of Knivet survives in the form of a letter to Wolsey from an unknown correspondent, and, perhaps even more irritatingly, undated, has survived. The letter is of great interest. It suggests very strongly something that has been so far only implied: that the information about the duke’s treasonable activities came to Wolsey, rather than Wolsey going in search of it. The letter begins: ‘Please it your grace to be remembered as touching the matter that I showed unto your grace at the More of Charles Knivet, wherein you advertised and commanded me that I should handle it further the best I could to bring it to light and better knowledge.’ There is no suggestion in this, or in the rest of the letter, that Wolsey thought the matter of the utmost urgency or importance, but merely that it should be followed up – and after all someone in Wolsey’s position would have learnt to be sceptical of the many rumours and innuendoes that came his way, especially when, as in his case, the source was so biased. The letter makes it clear that the correspondent had not yet obtained any very concrete information, but only that he suspected the likelihood of ‘some great matter … or else is Charles a marvellous, simple, insolent body’. What also emerges is that Buckingham’s other dismissed servants had already made Wolsey aware of the general dissatisfaction with the government, and his reaction to this earlier information is instructive. Far from wishing to arrest Buckingham, Wolsey had gone out of his way to warn him not to indulge in foolish talk: he did not mind so much what the duke said about himself, but ‘he should take heed how that he did use himself towards the King’s highness’. Meanwhile, Wolsey’s correspondent chose to give him a brief lesson in the art of extracting information from those unwilling to give it by telling him how Henry VII would have dealt with such a task – ‘circumspectly, and with convenient diligence, for inveighing, and yet not disclose it to the party nor otherwise by a great space after, but keep it to himself, and always grope further, having ever good wait and espial to the party’. There is in all this the slight feeling of someone trying to teach his grandmother how to suck eggs, but perhaps only if the usual picture of the Machiavellian Wolsey is strongly adhered to.28

  Whoever came forward first, one thing is clear: by the end of 1520 Buckingham’s household was a very leaky vessel indeed, and it could only have been a matter of time before the Crown would have to take the leaks seriously. No wonder, then, that when Buckingham requested permission in November to go to Wales with three or four hundred men he was turned down. There was probably nothing untoward about the request: the duke was extremely unpopular with his Welsh tenants and he was probably wise to fear for his safety if he visited them. But, of course, by this time the Crown had good grounds for being highly suspicious, even if all the details of the case against the duke had not yet been assembled. The refusal is, thus, not evidence of a general distrust of him, but of a particular distrust arising out of information only recently received.29 Nevertheless, the question remains: how eager was the Crown to make use of that information to destroy Buckingham? The fact that the information was not looked for suggests that it was not especially welcomed. Such a view is supported not only by Wolsey’s warning to Buckingham not to make critical remarks about Henry: there is evidence of similar warnings, some from Henry himself.30 The prosecution of Sir William Bulmer in 1519 for wearing Buckingham’s livery in the royal presence, referred to earlier, may have been just such an occasion.31 No direct moves were made against Buckingham in this instance, just as none had been made against any of the noblemen, including Buckingham, involved in the rumoured ‘conspiracy’ of 1518. On the face of it, therefore, it does not look as if either Henry or Wolsey was anxious to destroy him, which is not to say that they trusted him. Indeed, it has to be remembered that the duke’s relations with the Crown had never been good, and this inevitably affected his relations with Wolsey.

  Despite the advantage of his father’s attempt to topple Richard III and despite being for some time a royal ward, Buckingham had obviously been viewed with some suspicion by Henry VII. Given the pretext of two not very serious offences, Buckingham’s mother’s marriage and his own entry into his estates when not yet of age, both without royal licence, Henry imposed heavy enough fines to affect the duke’s financial position for some years.32 No wonder, then, that the duke was given to making rude remarks about him. He was not, however, alone in this – indeed, on the accession of Henry VIII it was rather the thing to do. But
as it turned out Buckingham’s relationship with the new king was not much better. Although he was immediately admitted to the Council, he was never a frequent attender. In 1509 his first attempt to secure the confirmation of his, as he saw it, hereditary office of great constable of England came to nothing, Henry only allowing him to exercise it for the day of his coronation.33 In May 1510 he had become involved in a quarrel with Henry concerning the honour of his youngest sister who, although married, was being courted by one of the king’s favourites, Sir William Compton, probably on the king’s behalf.34 During the following year the duke’s brother, the earl of Wiltshire, initially a close companion of the king much involved in the heavy round of jousting and revelling with which the new reign began, appears to have fallen from favour, though the reason for this is not clear.35 In 1514 Buckingham failed to obtain any serious reduction of his debt to the Crown. Earlier he had been relieved of the need to meet a bond for £400, but nearly £4,000 of the £7,000 debt remained, and this he had to continue to pay off in annual instalments of 500 marks.36 Too much should not be made of this. The payment was not chickenfeed, but for someone who was spending about £1,000 a year on rebuilding his chief residence at Thornbury, and could in 1519 spend £1,500 on entertaining the king at Penshurst it was hardly crippling.37 Rather it must have been, like so much else in Buckingham’s relationship with the Crown, extremely irritating, all the more so if he considered that there had been little justification for the debt in the first place.

  Irritating also must have been his failure once again, during 1514, to have his right to the office of great constable confirmed. This second attempt, involving lengthy legal proceedings before the royal Council, was much more serious than the first. Buckingham claimed that the office was hereditary, being vested in three estates that had been in the Staffords’ possession for almost a hundred years; or rather two estates, for the third was now held by the Crown. This, of course, weakened his case in law. Of more political consequence was the fact that all three estates formed part of the Bohun inheritance. Ever since Henry IV’s marriage to one of the Bohun heiresses, this inheritance had caused difficulties between the Stafford family and successive kings of England. The other heiress had married Thomas Woodstock duke of Gloucester, and their daughter and heir had married first the 3rd and second the 5th earl of Stafford, Buckingham’s great-great-grandfather. Thus, the emphasis placed on the Bohun inheritance recalled one strand of the Stafford family’s claim to the throne; and if one strand, why not the other, which in a Tudor context was probably the more serious? Buckingham’s grandfather had married a Margaret Beaufort, not the mother of Henry VII, but her cousin. Given the two strands, Buckingham’s claim to the throne was no worse than Henry VIII’s, and though it is possible to exaggerate the Tudor neurosis about potential rivals, the fact that Buckingham’s claim to the great constableship also emphasized his royal connection probably did not greatly please the king. However, of greater concern was Henry’s determination not to allow any one family to establish an hereditary claim to such a prestigious office. It is interesting, given the suspicion that Tudor judges never went against the interests of the Crown, that in this case they did not entirely take Henry’s view. They found that Buckingham did have a legitimate claim to the office, though at the same time declaring that the Crown had an equal right not to make use of his services. It was a compromise almost designed to cause the maximum irritation to Buckingham. In effect he had won the case, but was to be denied the fruits of victory. This can only have confirmed his probably mistaken view that the Tudors were determined to treat him unfairly.38

  The most surprising thing about Buckingham’s attempt to become hereditary great constable is that he made it at all. It is true that Tudor noblemen and gentry were second to none in prosecuting any legal claim, but to do so in a matter which so closely concerned the Crown indicated a great lack of tact and political sensitivity. So too, admittedly in a matter of less importance, did his refusal to take part in a joust, this probably in 1517.39 It may be that the excuses he gave were valid. He was out of practice, and anyway he had vowed that he would never again run against the king, which in the circumstances was rather convenient because he had been asked to do just that. However, if Henry would allow him to take part on his side, he was willing to overlook his own lack of preparation – which suggests that it had only ever been an excuse. And despite the compliment implied in this concession, his answer did amount to a refusal, and one that strengthens the impression that his strenuous efforts to obtain the office of great constable also suggest: that he wanted, even expected, his relationship with Henry to be conducted on his own terms. If this impression is correct, it explains why the relationship was never good. Henry was not a man to stand on ceremony. He had great charm and an easy manner with those about him; the famous episode in More’s garden at Chelsea in which the bluff King Hal was to be seen walking up and down with his arm around his royal servant and friend is evidence of this.40 No ceremony, but as More, and indeed Wolsey, knew all to well, he never forgot that he was king, and had no intention of putting up with other people’s conditions if he could possibly help it.

  For a nobleman of his high rank and wealth, Buckingham was not often at court. His visit to Henry’s makeshift court at Abingdon in the spring of 1518 has already been discussed: there were obviously some worries about him at that time, but nevertheless he went away with royal gifts of a ‘goodly courser, a rich gown, a like jacket, doublet, and hose’.41 Two years previously he had also been present at court, and apparently in good favour with the king. In fact he turned up on most occasions when he ought to have done or when he had particular reason for doing so, but no more than that. He was present in October 1518 for the signing of the Treaty of London,42 which, if he did suffer from francophobia, he cannot have enjoyed any more than his attendance at the Field of Cloth of Gold. More to his taste may have been the expedition to France in 1513, though by all accounts he did not play a very distinguished part.43 It is important to get the balance right. Apart from the episode concerning Buckingham’s sister in 1510, there appears to have been no open quarrel between the king and premier senior duke, no obvious animosity, no deliberate slights; only a certain wariness, a certain unease, a refusal by Henry to take Buckingham into his confidence, and an unwillingness on Buckingham’s part to try very hard to obtain that confidence. That part of Buckingham at any rate did wish to play a role commensurate with his wealth and standing seems clear. Why otherwise would he have wished to become great constable? Why otherwise would he have complained that his services to the Crown were not well rewarded, while all the royal favours went to mere ‘boys’?44 But the point is that the other half of Buckingham was not prepared to perform the services without which there would be no rewards.

  The suggestion being made here is that Buckingham was not excluded from power and influence by a king with an ingrained hostility towards all noblemen, particularly those with a claim to the throne. All the indications are that Henry VIII got on very well with his nobility, and was prepared to make extensive use of those who were willing and able to do him service. Two who did possess these qualifications were the 2nd and 3rd dukes of Norfolk. Both held major offices of state, both were given crucial military commands, and were in every respect indispensable servants of the Crown. Yet, as is well known, their family had been the most loyal supporters of the Yorkist regime, the 2nd duke’s father dying on the field of Bosworth, fighting for Richard III. If an excuse was needed not to make use of the family, there was none better. Nor did it matter if a nobleman possessed a claim to the throne. One of Henry’s great favourites throughout the 1520s was Henry Courtenay earl of Devon, who in 1525 he created marquess of Exeter. Yet Courtenay was a grandson of Edward IV. It was not who you were by birth that mattered to Henry, though he preferred it if you were well bred, but what your attitude to him was.45 This was something that Buckingham never made up his mind about. He was obviously a proud man with something of a temper. When
asked in April 1521 by Francis I what the duke was like, the English ambassador to France replied that he was ‘a high-minded man that were in a rage’, which Francis, with no doubt some eye to the situation, said squared with his own assessment of him as a man ‘so full of choler that there was nothing could content him’.46 In addition, Buckingham was determined to play an imposing role on whatever stage he appeared; hence that lavish expenditure on his entertainment of the court at Penshurst in 1519, and his even more lavish expenditure on himself and his retinue at the Field of Cloth of Gold. But of real service – of, for instance, regular attendance at Council meetings47 – there was very little, and it does not appear to have been Henry who deliberately prevented him from performing it. The impression is rather of a man too proud to involve himself in the real business of government because to do so would mean working with, and even under, people – amongst whom he included Wolsey, and came perhaps to include Henry himself – when what he wanted was to be on top. At the very least he seems to have thought that the Tudors owed him something, and when they failed to meet his expectations he turned in upon himself, concentrating his energies on overhauling his estates and rebuilding Thornbury Castle in the finest manner possible.48 There were no rivals, only monks who could foretell the future and fuel his dreams of what might be if Henry VIII was no longer king of England.