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

by Gwyn, Peter

  Private patrons moved fast in these matters, no doubt partly in an attempt to prevent royal interference. And normally the Crown, also, was no sluggard when it came to dispensing its own patronage. Why both Henry and Wolsey wanted a pause on this occasion was because of the exceptional number of offices that Compton’s death made available; but the rush for offices permitted no breathing space. Be that as it may, the point here is Henry’s active interest. He it was who requested Wolsey to draw up for him a complete list of Compton’s offices because it was he, Henry, who would be doing the giving.171 People he favoured would do well. Those he did not would be unlucky. In saying this it is important not to give the impression that the bestowing of his patronage was either too conscious or too whimsical. The notion of the ever bountiful king always ready to listen to the requests of his loyal subjects was a powerful one, and one that it was important to maintain. Everybody was to be allowed to ask, and lots did. In the scramble much would depend not only on who asked, but when, and with whose backing.

  One man whose backing would undoubtedly have been very useful was Wolsey’s, and, as Henry made quite explicit during this episode, he much appreciated Wolsey’s counsel.172 Consequently, many people on this occasion, and indeed throughout Wolsey’s period in high office, did ask him to intervene with the king on their behalf. What is not very clear is whether his interventions were decisive. One difficulty in trying to evaluate the evidence is that just because a person wrote to Wolsey did not mean that Wolsey would favour him. All that can be said for certain is that the people known to have written to him in 1528 did not do very well. Sir Thomas Denys, for instance, was very anxious to become under-treasurer. He had been for a time chamberlain of Wolsey’s household, and he had the support of Heneage, Wolsey’s former servant, who wrote to him on Denys’s behalf.173 Denys then wrote to Wolsey himself, amongst other things claiming that his legal training made him better qualified for the office than the previous three incumbents.174 He did not get the job. Another person who wrote was John Mordaunt. He had apparently approached Wolsey on the last occasion that the office had fallen vacant back in 1525. Earlier in 1528 he had asked Wolsey for the office of treasurer of the chamber, vacated by Sir Henry Wyatt, but it had gone to Brian Tuke.175 For the under-treasurership he was prepared to give 500 marks to Wolsey’s college at Oxford and £100 to the king, but even so it was not to be.176 One who wrote more than once for virtually any of Compton’s offices was Sir George Throckmorton.177 He had connections with Wolsey, including an uncle who was a master of Chancery, and he did receive something. But it was not very much, nor was it in the king’s gift, for what he received was the stewardship of the bishop of Worcester’s lands, an office, like that of Sarum, effectively in Wolsey’s gift because of an absentee foreign bishop.178 Giving this office to Throckmorton meant denying Sir William Kingston.179 It was Kingston who, it may be remembered, in 1525 had obtained the duchy office of steward of the south parts instead of More, and who, it has been said, largely on the evidence of a comment from the Venetian ambassador in 1519, was a ‘creature’ of Wolsey’s.180 It is therefore surprising to find him being denied patronage by the man who supposedly controlled his every move. In 1528 he did receive some of Compton’s offices, but probably the person who favoured him was the man in the best position to do so, the king himself.181

  Another of Wolsey’s so-called ‘creatures’, and someone whom he had favoured for the stewardship that Kingston had obtained in 1525, was Sir Richard Weston, and he it was who secured the main prize in 1528, the office of under-treasurer. Whether he was the person whom Wolsey had hoped to talk about with Henry and whose appointment was in his view the best, is not known.182 If so, it was probably not because he was one of Wolsey’s ‘creatures’, but because he happened to be an extremely experienced royal servant whose career had begun in Henry VII’s reign, at a time when Wolsey had no influence at all. In 1518 he had become master of the wards, in 1525 treasurer of Calais. There is nothing odd about his appointment, and certainly nothing to suggest that it was due to Wolsey’s special favour.

  The same can be said of all the people who shared in the distribution of Compton’s old offices.183 Almost all were closely connected with Henry and his household, whether they were aristocrats such as the marquess of Exeter,184 who happened also to be a leading member of the privy chamber, or merely a page of the wardrobe of the king’s beds, as Thomas Garton was.185 These, as was made clear earlier, were just the kind of people who were always in receipt of royal patronage, for the obvious reason that they were favoured by the king. Indeed, it was the obligation of the head of any household, as Cromwell’s complaints to Wolsey quoted earlier make clear, to favour the interests of its members. In this respect the only difference between the king’s household and anyone else’s was that it was considerably larger, while its head had considerably more to give.

  When in 1528 Sir John Russell informed Wolsey, his former master, that Henry had appointed him constable of Kenilworth Castle, this came as news to Wolsey.186 It had been Henry himself, or at least someone present with him at Tittenhanger, who had written to Richmond’s Council to secure offices for Strangeways and Seymour.187 It was Henry who had wished to appoint Sir Edward Baynton steward of Sarum and Sir Edward Ferrers sheriff of Warwickshire – unless, that is, Wolsey had ‘any further and more perfect knowledge of any other person or persons for the said room more convenient and expedient’.188 That Henry did not always get his way is not to be ascribed to the machinations of Wolsey, or indeed of anyone else. The exercise of royal patronage was extremely complex. There was an enormous demand for it, as the speed at which decisions were normally taken indicates. Compromises were inevitable, not least because other patrons would not always do what the king wanted. Chance also played a part, if only because one had to get one’s request in so quickly; absences from court could prove fatal. But the main argument here has been that on the whole Henry got his way.

  As against all this, it could be suggested that the distribution of patronage in the summer of 1528 and Henry’s apparently dominant role was unusual, and reflects only the particular circumstances of those months. It was a time when the king’s relationship with Wolsey was being subjected to various strains, largely as a result of the difficulties in obtaining Henry’s divorce. One symptom of these strains may have been the disagreement, which flared up at about the time of Compton’s death, between king and cardinal about the appointment of a new abbess of Wilton. ‘The matter of Wilton’ will be discussed in some detail in chapter 8,189 but, as will be shown, Wolsey’s handling of the election resulted in his receiving the most severe dressing down from his master, in the course of which he was accused of greatly abusing his legatine powers and corruptly furthering the interests of his newly founded colleges. Henry did not usually criticize Wolsey in this way, so that in this respect the times were out of joint, but, if the analysis of earlier episodes has been correct, not in the matter of the exercise of royal patronage. The evidence of what took place in the summer of 1528 merely confirms in rather more detail that it was Henry who played the leading role. Wolsey’s was to act as his patronage secretary, with the task not only of recommending, but of sorting out, smoothing over and generally introducing a little order into the rather messy way that the system operated – a system, it should be said, which worked on the assumption that the king had a never failing supply of favours to distribute when in fact the number was limited and their availability unpredictable. It was therefore extremely difficult to find rewards for everyone; hence the juggling acts that we have seen Wolsey having to perform.

  What has emerged so far is a Wolsey rather different from the one usually portrayed. He did not destroy the duke of Buckingham. He was not antagonistic to the interests of the nobility as a group, or, insofar as the evidence permits any judgement, to any particular nobleman. It was Wolsey’s job to ensure that the king’s government was carried out in the best possible way. This could sometimes lead him to be critical o
f what individual noblemen or leading gentry were doing, and even, on rare occasions, to initiate legal action. On the other hand, he was on many more occasions brought in by them to help sort out their affairs. Finally, he did not prevent them from having access to the king, at least as regards royal bounty and favour. But what of real political power and influence? The usual answer has been that this was denied the ruling classes. Indeed, ever since Polydore Vergil first presented it, the most accepted scenario has been one in which Wolsey conspired to prevent potential rivals from establishing any kind of relationship with the king, the most notable victim being Thomas Howard 3rd duke of Norfolk. Whether Norfolk was treated in this way is better left until his role in Wolsey’s downfall is discussed.190 Here we must consider the more general question of whether Wolsey did establish a monopoly over the advice that was offered to the king.

  Already the thrust of the evidence is that he did not. The nobility’s involvement in all aspects of government has been stressed, and the same went for leading gentry. From now on the distinction between the nobility and other leading groups within the political nation will become increasingly irrelevant. Those such as Compton, Boleyn before he was ennobled, the Guildfords, the Nevilles and the Wyatts were just as important, and in some cases just as wealthy, as many noblemen. In late medieval government it was the king’s councillors and his Council that provided the formal channel for advice, and the role of the councillor and the kind of response the king or prince should give to the advice offered him was at the heart of a large corpus of political writing. More’s Utopia, especially Book 1, is such a work. In the same year that it was published, 1516, Erasmus’s Education of a Christian Prince also appeared. Two years previously in Florence Machiavelli had finished perhaps the most famous, though by no means the most typical, of such works, The Prince, while in 1515 Claude Seyssel proffered to the new king of France, Francis I, the experience that he had garnered over many years as royal councillor in the form of his La Monarchie de France. All these books saw the problem of counsel as one of the keys to good government.

  By and large English historians have taken the view that in Wolsey’s time the king’s Council ceased to perform the advisory or more generally political role of earlier years, and this despite the fact that its judicial role had been greatly increased by him.191 This view cannot be sustained. Evidence that royal councillors, whether in Council or in a more informal way, were discussing all sorts of policy matters, and in particular helping in the formation and execution of foreign policy, can be discovered throughout the period of Wolsey’s chancellorship. In January 1516 the Venetian ambassador reported having a long audience with both Wolsey and Norfolk, during the course of which the latter was very forthcoming on the issues of the day.192 When in February of that year the French ambassador presented a letter from his master, Henry consulted with Norfolk and Suffolk,193 while in the October the Venetian ambassador reported a Council meeting at which Wolsey, the royal secretary and bishop of Durham Thomas Ruthal, the bishop of Norwich Richard Nix, Norfolk, Lovell and Marney were present.194 In January 1522 the Imperial ambassadors reported to Charles V that Wolsey had summoned them to a Council meeting at which four or five of the king’s most intimate councillors had been present. A few days later they were present at another Council meeting at which Wolsey had been able to make them some answers to the questions they had raised, but only on those points on which he knew the king’s mind; for the rest, he and his fellow councillors needed time to consult further with the king. On the following Friday, sitting with what the ambassadors described as the larger part of the Council, Wolsey reported the conclusions of their consultations – which unfortunately for the ambassadors were that there were certain difficulties!195 The following January the Imperial ambassadors had to wait until Henry had conferred with his Council before he could see them. And having seen them, he ordered that some of the Council, headed by Wolsey, should discuss the issues further.196 In June 1523 Wolsey wrote to Lord Dacre, at the time actively involved on the Northern border, that when Scottish affairs had been discussed in Council it would have been very useful to have had his advice. As Dacre could not be spared, would he please give his opinion on three matters which Wolsey then proceeded to outline.197

  It would be tedious to list the sixty or more similar references to the Council’s active involvement in policy matters,198 but it should be stressed that they are to be discovered just as frequently at the end of Wolsey’s period as at the beginning. Indeed, the emergence of ‘the king’s great matter’, that is, his search for a divorce, if anything increased the need for Henry to consult with not only his councillors but also a wider sample of the political nation, and ultimately with parliament itself, though this only after Wolsey’s fall. In October 1528 the French ambassador was reporting that ‘in truth he [Wolsey] has been for ten days wonderfully burdened. The king came to him from Hampton Court to Richmond every morning and did not leave the Council till the evening.’199 The imminent arrival of Cardinal Campeggio was the occasion for this perhaps slightly unusual run of Council meetings attended by the king – though, as will be suggested shortly, attend Council meetings he certainly did. Moreover, one thing that all the ambassadorial coverage suggests is that Council meetings at which policy matters were discussed were the norm. So the sixty references are almost certainly the tip of an iceberg. The conclusion must, therefore, be that Wolsey did not preside over a one-man band, nor indeed did he even preside. Henry did that. Moreover, there is very little trace in any of the many letters that Wolsey wrote of that ‘thoughtlessness and self-aggrandizement’ that he has so often been accused of.200 As we have seen, he could be critical when people were failing to carry out instructions, but he could also show considerable patience, even when fellow councillors were advocating different and, in his view, damaging policies. Thus, when Richard Pace was bombarding him with excessive praise of the duke of Bourbon’s abilities and willingness to do Henry’s bidding, Wolsey bent over backwards not to offend the prickly royal secretary.201 In his inevitably difficult relationship with Warham, whose position he had in a number of ways usurped, Wolsey worked very hard to keep the older man happy. When in January 1523 Warham was ill, he seems to have been genuinely touched by Wolsey’s offer to allow him to convalesce at Hampton Court.202 In April 1525, at a most difficult time for both Wolsey and the government as opposition to the Amicable Grant increased, he was very supportive, pointing out to his ‘dearest friend’ that someone in Wolsey’s position would always take the brunt of any criticism of royal government, ‘but whatever be spoken, the fruits which a tree brings forth will prove its goodness.’203 Wolsey was good at the art of man-management, as More himself admitted when he acknowledged the way in which by praising him in a letter addressed to himself but which Wolsey knew would be read to Henry, the cardinal had managed both to ‘give me your thanks and get me his [the king’s]. I were, my good lord, very blind if I perceived not, very unkind if I ever forgot, of what gracious favour it proceedeth.’ And even under the enormous stress of the final months before his downfall, Wolsey could show a sensitivity to the pressures that the English envoys at Rome were also under.204

  It may have already become apparent – though it is a matter that will be considered in more detail in chapter 13 – that, far from being riven by faction, Henry’s councillors worked well together, often in difficult circumstances, to ensure the effectiveness of the king’s government. The composition of the Council was very much the same mix as it had always been: noblemen, such as the two Norfolks and Suffolk; leading churchmen, such Clerk and Tunstall, household officials such as Sir Henry Wyatt; and men such as Thomas More, or his predecessor as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Richard Wingfield, often with a legal background and a tradition of service to the Crown.205 Undoubtedly there was a pecking order, and one that reflected the fact that the Council was expected to turn its attention to every conceivable matter, whether it was dilapidated dovecotes in Sussex or complaints to be
presented to the emperor for his refusal to play his full part in the Great Enterprise. As regards policy, it was upon a small group of councillors that the king relied: again the two Norfolks, father and son, and Suffolk, Ruthal and Tunstall, Fitzwilliam, Lovell, More and Wingfield, and perhaps also Richard Pace, Henry Marney, Thomas Boleyn and Henry Wyatt. It is not a precise list. Important people were often away on the king’s business, leading armies, or on diplomatic missions. If we bear in mind that Marney and Ruthal died in 1523, the 2nd duke of Norfolk and Lovell in 1524 and Wingfield in 1525, it becomes clear that the inner ring, sometimes referred to as a privy or secret council, was indeed small.206 This is not altogether surprising: the number of close advisers that anyone has tends to be limited. Henry VII relied at any one time on about seven,207 Elizabeth perhaps on even fewer.208 It is a feature of every study of the royal Council from the late fourteenth century to at least the end of the sixteenth that it was the principal officeholders – lord chancellor, lord treasurer and lord privy seal – together with one or two household officials or special friends of the monarch, who made up the inner ring.209 In the metaphysical search for a privy council whose formation in the 1530s supposedly signified a new and ‘modern’ way of conducting the king’s business, the more vital fact that important matters had always been dealt with by a small group has been obscured.210 So also has the fact that a formal body with its own staff, assigned membership, and recognized procedures for implementing its decisions and recording of them, had been in existence for at least a hundred years before Wolsey, and, more relevantly, before the supposed architect of the new form of Council, Thomas Cromwell.211 In fact, as we saw in chapter 4, all that happened in the 1530s was that the legal work of the Council was formally hived off to the court of Star Chamber, so as to prevent its agenda from becoming clogged up.212 A similar process had taken place in the twelfth and and early thirteenth centuries to bring about the court of King’s Bench, and in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to establish the court of Chancery.