by Gwyn, Peter
However, the essential point being made here is that the king’s Council, as the most important consultative and administrative body in the realm, did not go into abeyance in Wolsey’s time. Then, as now, it can be difficult to express opinions contrary to one’s boss – something that Tunstall had in mind when in December 1525 he wrote to Henry from Toledo begging him not to think that he was dissatisfied with the ‘determination’ of the king and Council. However, as Henry had admitted him, ‘being of your own making, to be of your most honourable Council’, he thought it right to give his opinion, and had been encouraged to do so by declarations often made by Henry in Council ‘that, whatsoever our opinions be, we may have liberty to show them without displeasure’.213 And in a letter to Wolsey he asked him to mitigate the king’s displeasure, expressed in royal letters of 30 October, at certain words in a letter he had written to Brian Tuke, which he believed Henry had misunderstood.214 If the ambassadors with the emperor could not write freely to the king and Council, it might hinder affairs.
Tunstall’s two letters contain many insights into the workings of the upper reaches of Henry’s government. They confirm that to offer advice on important policy matters was considered, at least by one of its members, to be an integral part of the Council’s role. They also help to confirm an underlying theme of this study, that in a real sense Henry did rule. For one thing, it is strongly implied that he frequently sat in Council. Usually it is held that he appeared only on a few very important occasions or set pieces: for instance, when on 14 May 1517 those who had been arrested for their part in the Evil May Day riots were pardoned.215 In contrast, his father is often said to have sat regularly, thereby confirming once more that a hardworking father had been succeeded by a lazy son.216 One of the problems in arriving at any conclusions on this subject is that information about Council meetings for both reigns is extremely scanty; for Henry VII’s reign only 135, or about a six a year, are known of, when, during the legal term at least, the Council may have sat every day. Of these 135, the king is known not to have sat in less than half.217 For Wolsey’s period, 580 meetings of the Council in Star Chamber have been identified, but with Henry VIII appearing in only a handful.218 The conclusion should not, though, be that the usual view is correct. What in essence has survived are selections made by late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century officials of the court of Star Chamber, together with often undated documents relating to particular cases.219 One result of this is that the evidence is very much weighted towards judicial matters, and even on the known figures it seems that neither king was an active participant in the everyday judicial work of the Council. At the beginning of his reign at least, Henry VII may have sat a little more frequently than his son did, but it looks as if he soon realized that this was a waste of his time; at any rate from 1497 it was thought necessary to appoint a president of the Council. Moreover, it had not been customary for previous kings regularly to preside over the judicial and administrative work of their Councils, much of it of a fairly routine nature. Like Henry VII, they only did so in exceptional circumstances.220 What they wanted was advice and support, but it is precisely in this area that the sources are so deficient, as indeed they have continued to be. Policy matters tend not to get into minutes of any kind, or, if they do, only in the most laconic form: a heated discussion lasting an hour may result in only one line, if that. If one combines the nature of the sources with the usual bias against Wolsey, one can quite see why he has been thought, erroneously, not to have allowed the Council a political role. What has contributed to the error is precisely the notion that Henry VIII was weak and lazy, at least when young, and therefore happy to allow Wolsey to take the reins of government into his capable hands.
Tunstall’s letter is not the only piece of evidence that Henry sat in Council. Already mentioned are the half-dozen set pieces and du Bellay’s references to the the ten days he was present in October 1528. It is known that ten years earlier Henry was presiding over Council meetings at Abingdon and Woodstock.221 And in January 1523 the Imperial ambassadors reported that after dinner the king was some time in Council.222 An interesting variation on this was noted in June 1525, when Margaret of Austria’s envoys reported a meeting with the Council during which Henry, in an adjoining room, occasionally put in an appearance.223 This could be taken as evidence of the lazy Henry who did not bother to attend the whole meeting; but the head of any organization may wish to reserve his interventions to particular moments in a discussion; and as far as international relations are concerned, the whole point of having foreign secretaries, or their equivalents, is to keep the head of state in reserve. Still, it is a reminder that evidence does need interpretation, and the evidence of Henry’s direct involvement in government is not only sparse, but difficult to interpret. Hence the wildly differing assessments of the part he played – at least by historians. Contemporaries never seem to have doubted that he was a powerful personality, whose presence could never be forgotten – a perception not to be dismissed lightly.
Part of the reason for the difficulty in assessing the evidence is the one already touched upon: that it is the consequences of decisions – in the early sixteenth century letters patent, writs and so on, along with the more familiar correspondence – rather than the making of them which produce evidence that survives. And since it was the king’s task to make decisions rather than implement them, he does not figure in surviving evidence in the way that much less important figures do; and if importance depended upon extant handwriting, it would be people such as Ruthal and Pace, and even humbler figures such as the clerks of the Council, who would come out on top – which would be plainly absurd. It is not that Henry did not like writing letters, or even that he was incapable of writing them; he was a highly educated man, perfectly literate, and not just in his own language. As now, important people had secretaries, and might barely glance at the bulk of the letters that went out under their name. Most of Wolsey’s letters were written by others, and in 1517 Richard Fox could marvel that he had found the leisure to write to him in his own hand, clearly taking it it as a special compliment.224
The major problem for a biographer of Wolsey is that much of the business between king and cardinal was conducted in private, without any record of what was said surviving, and this makes it very difficult to assess the dynamics of the relationship. And at this point it is important to stress that they did meet frequently, because it has been argued that one of the problems Wolsey faced in retaining the confidence of and, in some accounts, domination over the king is that he was with him so little.225 What is true is that once he became lord chancellor he was forced to be in London much of the year, presiding over Chancery and Star Chamber. London was also the most convenient place to conduct the day to day running of foreign policy. It was there that the foreign ambassadors resided, and it was well placed to be a centre of communications with the continent. And if he was not at his London residence, York Place, he was usually at Hampton Court, even after he had exchanged it with Henry for the palace of Richmond, probably in 1525, or, if not there, at either Tittenhanger or the More, two manor houses belonging to the the abbey of St Albans. Henry also spent a good deal of time in and around London, but mainly at his palace at Greenwich, or, if he wished to be right in the City, at Bridewell. He was also often at Windsor, the usual venue for the court’s Christmas festivities, and those connected with St George and the knights of the garter in April and May. In July and August Henry went on progress, visiting his leading subjects’ country houses, and also staying at the many royal manor houses, such as Ampthill and Woodstock. Mentioned already has been his visit to the duke of Buckingham at Penshurst in 1519. In 1526 he was in Sussex and Hampshire and in the following year spent most of August at his new palace of Beaulieu in Essex, while Wolsey was in France. In fact, even in a more normal year, it was not Wolsey’s practice to go on progress with Henry, so that during the summer months their usual means of communication was by letter.
Just how
often they met during the remainder of the year is hard to establish. Writing in probably June 1528, Heneage reported Henry’s remark that Wolsey was ‘always accustomed to be with him as upon Monday night’;226 and that there were regular weekly meetings is confirmed by Cavendish, though he has it that they took place on Sunday.227 Evidence for these meetings is, however, difficult to pick up, presumably because, since they were regular there was no need for any special arrangements to be made. One has to rely on the reports of foreign ambassadors. They could not have been aware of every meeting of king and cardinal, but nevertheless they do report their meetings sufficiently to confirm that they were very frequent. Thus, in May 1519 Giustinian recorded that Wolsey had visited Henry at Greenwich twice within three days,228 while another Venetian ambassador in letters of 13 and 17 January, 19 February and 28 March 1526 reported that Henry and Wolsey were together at Greenwich.229 In December 1522 the Imperial ambassadors found Wolsey at court,230 and on January 1523 the king and cardinal kept them in conversation for two consecutive days.231 None of these meetings appears to have required any special arrangements, but on occasions these had to be made. Thus, in 1518 Henry had dashed up to London from Woodstock to have a secret meeting with Wolsey to consult about the negotiations with the French.232 In October 1523 Henry agreed to move to Windsor to be near enough to Wolsey to consult about the many military and foreign policy issues which were then preoccupying them both, and in fact shortly after this Henry stayed at Wolsey’s ‘poor house’ in London.233 April 1525 was also a difficult time, what with the Amicable Grant and the consequences of the Imperial victory at Pavia to be decided upon, and again the reaction of both Henry and Wolsey was to consult in person. On this occasion it appears to have been Henry who took the initiative, but Wolsey’s response was that nothing could be more advantageous, offering to put Henry up at the same ‘poor house’, if that would facilitate the meeting.234
Henry and Wolsey did meet and, when they were geographically close, probably very often. When they did not, letters passed between them almost daily, and it is such of these which have survived – not many, alas – that provide one with the best opportunity of making some assessment of how king and cardinal worked together. Twenty-four letters have survived for August and September 1523, and they are additionally interesting because many of them were written by Thomas More, acting as royal secretary, something he seems to have done quite a lot while the actual secretary, Richard Pace, was on his long mission abroad.235
One thing that emerges from this correspondence is that the normal practice was for letters addressed to the king to go directly to him rather than, as is often implied, for them to be opened first by Wolsey.236 More importantly, Henry either read or had read to him virtually all letters addressed to Wolsey that in any way related to his own affairs.237 Sometimes those about him complained of his dilatoriness in grappling with his correspondence,238 but in fact a portion of each day was devoted to this task; on 1 September More mentioned that he had spent over two hours going through it.239 Much went through on the nod, but this is what one would expect. However, if Wolsey was anxious to draw Henry’s attention to a particular matter, he was in the habit of adding his own comments in the margins,240 or he would ask whoever was in attendance on the king specifically to bring it up.241 Many of the policy initiatives to be found in these letters came from Wolsey, but again one would expect this. Indeed, this was what he was paid to provide. On 1 September Henry agreed to Wolsey’s redrafting of instructions to Sir Richard Wingfield, while a letter Wolsey had written to Margaret of Scotland he ‘so well liked that I never saw him like thing better’.242 On the other hand, Henry himself was all the time putting forward his own views. More’s letter to Wolsey on 26 August was full of the king’s advice on Scottish affairs.243 On 12 September Wolsey was instructed to convey Henry’s views on strategy to English and Imperial commanders in France,244 and on 20 September he was presented with two thousand words on why the siege of Boulogne should not be raised.245 It was a brilliant presentation of the arguments, many of which were to prove all too prescient; but in fact the siege was to be abandoned and the alternative strategy of a march into the bowels of France adopted. This is not evidence of a weak and easily led Henry. Wolsey himself had only just changed his mind, and received praise from Henry for doing so, for ‘his highness esteemeth no thing in counsel so perilous than one to persevere in the maintenance of his advice because he has once given it’. And the reason why Wolsey had changed his mind, and why Henry did as well, despite his serious reservations, is that the commanders in the field were so strongly in favour of abandoning the siege.246 Moreover, Henry was quite consciously raising his reservations with Wolsey so that ‘such final determination may be taken by his grace and yours, as shall, with God’s grace, bring his affairs to good and honourable effect’.
What we have here is evidence of that genuine partnership that was referred to at the beginning of this book. Wolsey was Henry’s leading councillor because the king trusted him to carry out his wishes, but it was Henry who was king, and Wolsey was never allowed to forget it. Thus, Wolsey was told to arrange a marriage for a member of the royal household.247 The king noticed that copies of letters from Surrey to Margaret of Scotland, which had been sent to Wolsey, had not been sent on to him, and he wanted the omission remedied. In the same letter he also ‘much desireth … thinketh it very necessary, … also requireth’. He concluded by having sent back to Wolsey all the Scottish documents ‘to be by your good grace again sent unto his highness, with your most politique counsel thereupon’.248 How Wolsey must have cursed when it was all deposited back on his desk, but if these were the king’s wishes, so be it, and sure enough the missing material with Wolsey’s additional comments were soon back with Henry.249 Even the evidence of Wolsey taking the initiative turns out to support the view of a king genuinely in charge.
On 7 December 1523 Wolsey reported to Henry that he had ‘incontinently devised new instructions’ for the duke of Suffolk, the English commander in France, and what he meant by this was that he had sent them without Henry seeing them.250 This could be taken as evidence that it was really Wolsey who was running affairs, but to do so would be to ignore the explanation Wolsey gave to Henry. Firstly, there was the necessity for speed. There was, after all, a war being fought, and though I am reluctant to make too much of the difficulties of communication in the early sixteenth century, clearly Wolsey was right to want to get instructions off as quickly as possible, especially as Sir William Fitzwilliam, who was already deputed to go out to Suffolk, was with Wolsey and waiting to leave. His second reason was that he ‘had well incorporated in my mind your full deliberation and intent in that matter, as well by such consultation as I lately had with your grace therein, as also by the knowledge of your pleasure signified unto me by the said Sir Thomas More’. And two further comments. First, it was Wolsey who had sought the meeting with Henry ‘for the better furtherance and advancement’ of the king’s affairs, which ‘may be more perfectly communicated and more speedily set forth by groundly consultation in presence than by letters in absence’.251 Secondly, if Wolsey had not ‘incorporated’ Henry’s mind in drawing up the new instructions, he would not have got away with it because he immediately sent the king a copy of them.
All these letters do need to be interpreted, and in the end everyone must make up his or her mind – since these letters have been printed, they can quite easily be consulted. The conclusion here is that they firmly support the view of a Henry, while confident of Wolsey’s great abilities, very much on top of his own affairs. It is a view that is confirmed by much else, including the earlier suggestion in this chapter that it was the king who exercised his own patronage and was perfectly happy to consult with people other than Wolsey. It is also confirmed by the considerable amount of evidence of foreign ambassadors’ dealings with him. None of them gave any indication that Henry was ever out of his depth or incompetent. Indeed, they all present a picture of a man fully informed
of all that was going on in foreign affairs, and, like Wolsey, possessed of all the skills of a good negotiator, including an ability to turn on and off the charm as the occasion required.252 If one were to take a modern analogy, Henry’s role was that of chairman of the board, responsible ultimately for everything, including the hiring and firing of all who worked in the firm. His councillors are the directors, some of them part-time, others more actively involved. Wolsey is the managing director, responsible for the day-to-day running of affairs, and in a strong position to influence what happened, just as long as he retained the confidence of his chairman. Like all analogies, it only goes so far, and in particular it leaves out that essential element which is so hard to capture, but which must have had its effect on those who served Henry: the magic of kingship. But it may help to explain how it is that one can ascribe to Wolsey such an active role in the king’s government, while still maintaining that Henry was the dominant force. And if he was, then much else falls into place. With the king in command and perfectly accessible to the upper reaches of the political nation, it was always likely that the nobility would be happy to co-operate with a man such as Wolsey, so obviously a master of all the political skills. What also follows is that it is unlikely that Wolsey ever felt seriously threatened by other members of the political elite. This was not an environment in which faction flourished. Many people have thought otherwise, and in particular it has been commonly supposed that Wolsey was brought low by a group of noblemen seizing upon the opportunity to do him damage presented by the king’s wish for a new wife. But more of that when the question of why Wolsey was dismissed from office in October 1529 is discussed.
