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

by Gwyn, Peter

  Much the same can be said of the other new appointments. John Veysey, in September 1519 appointed bishop of Exeter, was like Wolsey a Magdalen man, although he had resigned his fellowship in 1496, a year before Wolsey took his up. His early patron had been John Arundel, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield from 1496 to 1502, and of Exeter from 1502 until his death in 1504. Veysey acted as his vicar-general in both sees, continuing in that post under the new bishop of Exeter, Henry Oldham, until in 1509 he became dean of Exeter. It is just possible that Wolsey had a hand in what was clearly the vital appointment in Veysey’s career, that to the deanery of the Chapel Royal in 1514; but his subsequent appointments, culminating in his bishopric, were probably at the king’s initiative. Veysey had been a major spokesman for Henry both in the debates over the Standish affair in 1515 and over the legal position of sanctuaries in 1519. Given his earlier connections with Exeter, he was an obvious choice for that see. Veysey was older than Wolsey, as were the pre-1518 appointments, West and Booth, neither of whom had any close connections with Wolsey; so also was John Kite, appointed to Carlisle in 1521. Tunstall was almost Wolsey’s exact contemporary. All these men were therefore well-established on the ladder of clerical promotion before Wolsey could have had any decisive say in church appointments. And there is a further point to bear in mind. Wolsey’s rise was so rapid that there was no time for him to have gathered a group of clerical administrators or household officials who could have been immediately considered for episcopal office. It is thus not surprising that he only ever had a limited influence over episcopal appointments. His protégés, people like Stephen Gardiner and Rowland Lee, were to become bishops only after he himself had fallen.

  Still, there are two episcopal appointments in which Wolsey may have had a considerable say. One is John Clerk’s who became bishop of Bath and Wells in 1523. Like Tunstall, Clerk attended Bologna university, where in 1510 he became a doctor of canon law. He had then been snapped up by Cardinal Bainbridge as part of the talented team he surrounded himself with during his five-year embassy at Rome, a team which also included Richard Pace, the future royal secretary, and William Burbank who was to become one of Wolsey’s leading legatine officials.183 On Bainbridge’s death in 1514 Wolsey took over this team, and this undoubtedly accelerated Clerk’s promotion, as it did Pace’s and Burbank’s. Clerk’s experience of Rome no doubt explains why in 1521 he was sent on an important embassy there in 1521, one of the purposes of which was to present to the pope Henry VIII’s defence of the Catholic Church against Martin Luther, the Assertio Septem Sacramentorum. He returned to England in the autumn of 1522, and it was early in 1523 that he became bishop. By the end of that year he was back in Rome on another important mission, and it was from there that, on 2 December, he wrote to Wolsey to inform him that he was about to be consecrated as bishop, adding: ‘I pray God send me grace to behave myself henceforth accordingly in the high and holy order whereunto most unworthily I have been called only by your grace.’184 Even allowing for the element of flattery, the remark may well have been somewhere near the truth.

  There is no direct evidence for the appointment of John Longland to Lincoln in 1521, but there are good reasons for thinking that it owed something to Wolsey.185 They had been exact contemporaries at Magdalen, and their surviving correspondence, most of it admittedly for the period following Longland’s appointment as bishop, suggests a genuine friendship within the limits set by their different positions in the Tudor hierarchy. And that Wolsey respected Longland is indicated by the fact that he chose him to deliver the sermon to the monks of Westminster at his joint-legatine visitation of the abbey in January 1519, which signalled his intention to embark on reform. It should be said, though, that by that date Longland was already a distinguished doctor of theology, and probably did not need Wolsey’s influence to bring him to the king’s attention; from 1518 he was a regular preacher at court and thus well known to the king, well before he became bishop. Be that as it may of all his episcopal colleagues, Longland was probably the closest to Wolsey. But that does not mean that he was Wolsey’s ‘creature’, or even that he owed his appointment entirely to him.

  What emerges, therefore, is that a significant number of bishops owed nothing to Wolsey as regards their appointment; one, John Longland, was personally close to him and no doubt owed something to him, but only one, John Clerk, owed a great deal. Moreover, given his academic qualifications and diplomatic skills, even if Clerk had not had the good fortune to be taken up by Wolsey in 1514, he would almost certainly have risen to a high position in the Church. In other words, there was nothing odd about Clerk’s appointment, and the same can be said about all the others. The chief characteristic of those appointed to English bishoprics between 1514 and 1529 was simply the suitability of their qualifications, which differed very little from bishops of earlier periods, except insofar as not one of them was of noble birth, and not one of them was incompetent. In fact, if one takes Wolsey’s episcopal colleagues as a whole, it is fair to say that they were an exceptionally able and conscientious group.186 With Fisher as its star, any group that also included Warham, Tunstall and Fox must be awarded high marks. Longland was a theologian by training and an outstanding preacher. Sherborne of Chichester a first-rate diocesan administrator.187 Even those who at first glance do not appear to be promising episcopal material improve on closer inspection. In some ways Veysey of Exeter looks like a typical court appointment, but his earlier diocesan experience should not be forgotten, nor that he had been an active preacher in his earlier days.188 Although West of Ely had been at one time heavily involved in diplomacy, this did not prevent him from earning the praise of Fisher, not only for his learning but for being a good bishop.189 Only Booth of Hereford has nothing particular to recommend him – apart from his residency – and perhaps Kite of Carlisle, though he had been very active in royal government before his appointment. It is not a bad line-up. Only Fisher, it is true, gave his life for the Catholic Church, but in their different ways Clerk, Nix, Sherborne, Tunstall, Warham, West and Standish all attempted to resist the ‘break with Rome’.190 And it certainly cannot be argued that the reason why there was so little opposition to Wolsey’s legatine powers was because the bishops were either too sycophantic or too afraid to put up more resistance.

  There is a coda to this survey of episcopal appointments and one that will serve to emphasize something that may have been read between the lines, namely, the king’s involvement. The most detailed information on the subject to have survived relates not to an English see, but to a Welsh one. When early in 1518 the see of St Asaph became vacant, Richard Pace, the royal secretary, then with the king at Abingdon, wrote to Wolsey to recommend as new bishop the abbot of Valle Crucis.191 Meanwhile, Wolsey had made his own choice: William Bolton, prior of St Bartholomew’s, London, whose main claim to fame was that he was an excellent supervisor of major building works, one of which was Henry VII’s chapel at Westminster.192 It was this that enabled Henry to have some fun at Wolsey’s expense, for as it happened, he had already made his own decision about who was to become bishop of St Asaph – none other than Friar Standish, the great champion in 1515 of the royal position vis-à-vis the Church. In considering Wolsey’s choice, Henry admitted that masters of works had previously risen to high position in the Church – William of Wykeham was one he could have mentioned – but on the whole, he thought, not for their skill in building but for such good qualities as profound learning; and when it came to learning, Henry had no doubt that Standish was more profound than Bolton.193 Pace was very upset at Henry’s choice of a man who, he reported, was very popular in the royal household because of his efforts to subvert the English Church194 – an interesting piece of evidence for anticlericalism in high places. Whether Wolsey was quite so upset does not emerge, but since, as was mentioned earlier, the two men were to get on perfectly well together during the 1520s, it does not look as if he was. But what is beyond argument is that as regards St Asaph Wolsey did not get the bishop
of his choice. Neither was this his only failure. In October 1528, Richard Fox died and Wolsey asked Henry if he might not himself succeed to Winchester on the grounds that Winchester’s geographical position would enable him to play a personal role in his diocese while continuing in Henry’s service.195 The fact that Winchester was the wealthiest see may also have come into his calculation, though Durham, which he proposed to surrender, was not significantly less wealthy.196 But Wolsey had in mind a scheme by which he would have effectively retained control of Durham, for he suggested that it should be given to Thomas Winter. Wolsey did get Winchester, but Winter did not get Durham.

  Henry VIII’s interest in the appointment of bishops should come as no surprise, for it is a commonplace of medieval history that the Crown’s wishes played a decisive factor in such appointments. How far this relates to the comparative lack of opposition to Wolsey’s legatine powers will be discussed shortly. For the moment, what needs to be stressed is the more obvious point that it must seriously modify the generally accepted view of Wolsey exercising a ‘despotism’ over the English Church, especially since it can be shown that Henry’s interest extended to a wide range of church appointments, apart from bishops’. If there had been a ‘despotism’, it would have been exercised jointly by king and cardinal. However, a search through the bishops’ registers (which is where most church appointments were recorded) leaves the overwhelming impression that during the 1520s they were being made in more or less the same way as they always had been – that is by the bishops themselves, the Crown, and by the very great number of lay and monastic holders of benefices. Wolsey’s legatine powers, which included the right, by virtue of the papal plenitudo potestatis invested in his office, to override the rights of existing patrons and to appoint, or, as it was technically called, to prevent whom he liked,197 hardly figure at all. This runs counter to the usual impression given by historians, following perhaps a reference to ‘divers benefices’ in the articles brought against Wolsey at his fall, that he did prevent on a large scale.198

  But before we tackle the question of Wolsey’s preventions, we need to look at the church patronage that Wolsey exercised in perfectly traditional ways. The extent of a bishop’s patronage – that is, his right to appoint, or to collate, to prebends, collegiate churches and livings within his diocese – varied from one to another, but was never a very high percentage of the total patronage, most of which was exercised by monastic institutions or laymen. Recently it has been suggested that only about 6 per cent of all livings were in the bishops’ gift.199 But Wolsey was unique amongst English bishops by virtue of the fact that he held more than one see at a time: from 1518 to 1523 he combined Bath and Wells with his archbishopric of York, from 1523 to 1529 he held Durham, and from 1529 and thereafter Winchester. Moreover, for much of this time he effectively controlled patronage in the name of the foreign bishops who had been appointed to the sees of Worcester and Salisbury. As abbot of St Albans from 1521 he controlled the abbey’s extensive patronage.200 Finally, in his capacity as lord chancellor, he had the right to appoint to all Crown livings valued at under twenty marks a year, a limit which Wolsey raised to £20.201 The chancellor also claimed the right to prevent to livings in Calais, though in 1527 Henry queried it – another demonstration of his personal interest in church patronage.202 It has proved very difficult to calculate what all this added up to, but from the end of 1524 when Campeggio, and thus effectively Wolsey, became bishop of Salisbury, Wolsey may have had about 380 church dignities and livings in his gift.203

  The extent of Wolsey’s non-legatine patronage was undoubtedly great; and, for instance, more than double the amount at Warham’s disposal when he was lord chancellor.204 Nevertheless, with the number of livings alone running at over eight thousand, Wolsey’s holding in no sense constituted a monopoly, and moreover, for him as for anyone else just how much patronage it gave him depended on the mortality rate amongst the holders of those dignities and livings. For instance, although there were forty-one Salisbury prebends, only one can be shown to have become vacant during the four and a half years that Wolsey had a say in appointments to them.205 And he was probably fortunate that during his sixteen years as archbishop of York he was able to make thirty-four appointments to prebends there, though even that figure is one less than the total number.206

  In discussing Wolsey’s non-legatine church patronage, a balance has to be struck between emphasizing its considerable and in all probability unique extent, while at the same time avoiding exaggeration. When looking at what he did with it, the same care has to be exercised. In most respects he did the same as every other bishop: he shared it amongst members of his family and household and his leading diocesan officials, while much of what was left over he gave to anyone whose request he had some reason for complying with. Wolsey was always being approached by people seeking preferment, either for themselves or others,207 but until more detailed work has been done on Wolsey’s church patronage, it is impossible to say what proportion of it was used to satisfy such requests; probably a considerable amount. It is also impossible to say how far political considerations influenced his use of patronage, but here the guess would be not as much as might be expected. The appointment of William Boleyn, a cousin of Anne, in December 1529 as a prebend of York and in January 1530 archdeacon of Winchester, no doubt had everything to do with the importance of the Boleyn family and with Wolsey’s own fall from favour. However, most of Wolsey’s appointments to York prebends had no obvious political overtones. The key man in the York administration was Brian Higden. Not only was he Wolsey’s vicar-general, but from June 1516 dean of York, when he was also rewarded with a prebend. Also active either in the diocese or, more generally, in northern affairs, were Hugh Ashton, Thomas Donyngton, William Franklyn, Cuthbert Marshall, Edward Kellet and William Tate – all made prebendaries of York by Wolsey. Two of them, Franklyn and Tate, along with Brian Higden, were appointed to the Council of the North in 1525.

  Another category of people whom Wolsey appointed prebendaries were academics who had close connections with him. These, in order of appointment, were Thomas Linacre, the famous humanist and medical man; John London, warden of New College, Oxford from 1526; Robert Shorton, master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, from 1516, but also at some time dean of Wolsey’s chapel and almoner to Catherine of Aragon; Richard Duke, a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, and also at some time dean of Wolsey’s chapel; John Higden, brother of the dean of York, president of Magdalen from 1516 to 1525, and then first and last dean of Cardinal College; Robert Nooke of Eton and King’s College, where he was a fellow from 1504 to 1526; and Laurence Stubbs, the controversial president of Magdalen, reinstated by Wolsey’s legatine authority in 1527 and used by him in the setting-up of Cardinal College.

  Then there were those who were closely connected with either legatine or royal administration. Robert Toneys was registrar of the joint-prerogative court. Edward Fox, after Eton and King’s, became Wolsey’s secretary, did much to organize the propaganda campaign in favour of the divorce, and in 1535 became bishop of Hereford. Richard Sampson, a future bishop of Chichester and of Coventry and Lichfield, spent a long time in Wolsey’s household, only to become, like so many of Wolsey’s servants, increasingly involved in royal service. Neither Cuthbert Tunstall nor Edward Lee was ever directly in Wolsey’s service, but both worked very closely with him, especially in diplomatic affairs. In a category of his own was Reginald Pole, who in the 1520s was very much a favourite scholar of the king, to whom he was related. In 1525 he had written from Italy, where he was studying, that he hoped he would not be forgotten, or alone thought ungrateful amongst the many who had received Wolsey’s favours, and on his return to England he was rewarded with a York prebend.208

  Last but not least there is the ubiquitous Thomas Winter, who was given the prebend of Fridaythorpe in 1522 but was quickly switched to the more valuable one of Strensall. Since, in addition, he was made archdeacon of York in 1523 and of Richmond in 1526, by the late 1520
s he was receiving about £350 a year from the dean and chapter revenues. He also received innumerable dignities and livings in other dioceses, including the deanery of Wells, the archdeaconries of Suffolk and Norfolk, the chancellorship of Salisbury, and prebends at Bath and Wells, Beverley, Lincoln, Salisbury and Southwell.209 His annual income, as stated in the articles brought against Wolsey in 1529, was £2,700.210 There is thus no question but that Winter was extremely well provided for, but it is necessary to point out that he was neither the first nor the last to benefit greatly from having a bishop for a close relative. William Warham, a so-called nephew but perhaps like Winter an illegitimate son, was given by his uncle the archdeaconry of Canterbury, worth £163 a year, the provostship of a college worth £56, and various other benefices and lay farms.211 Nicholas Hawkins, nephew of Bishop West of Ely, became archdeacon of Ely in 1527.212 In 1528 Longland made his nephew, Richard Pate, a prebendary of Lincoln offering Wolsey £200 for Cardinal College to ensure that he retained it.213 At Coventry and Lichfield various members of the Blythe family held important ecclesiastical posts: the chancellorship of Lichfield Cathedral, two archdeaconries and two prebends were divided up amongst four of the bishop’s relatives. Even the saintly Fisher saw no objection to helping his brother, though admittedly he was a layman.214

  All in all, then, it would appear that nepotism was widespread, if not universal, amongst Wolsey’s episcopal colleagues – which may suggest that it was not considered a great evil. True, in the 1530s a petition was presented to parliament criticizing the practice, but then in the 1530s the Church was fair game for lay prejudice.215 Moreover, the notion of helping one’s relatives so saturated the secular world that it would have been very odd if it had not permeated into the ecclesiastical – as it had done long before Wolsey appeared on the scene. Even such a critic of the early sixteenth-century Church as John Colet thought it perfectly reasonable that a quarter of a bishop’s revenue should be spent on his family, and in this he was only following St Augustine.216 With nepotism so out of fashion, it is easy to overlook that the practice was not merely a means of gratifying one’s relatives’ desires. Given the very narrow limits to their patronage, bishops had a real problem in exercising effective control in their dioceses, and the appointment of suitable relatives to important positions offered one solution, for they at least could usually be relied upon to further the bishops’ own interests. Winter, of course, was not of an age to contribute anything directly to Wolsey’s ecclesiastical administration, but the many positions that were obtained for him, especially those which were not in Wolsey’s direct gift, did in a roundabout way further the cardinal’s control over the English Church. Another way that Wolsey might have sought to control it was by making use of his legatine power to prevent. As has been suggested already, historians have tended to exaggerate the extent to which Wolsey made use of this, and in doing so have heaped much criticism on him. It is thus a matter of some importance to try to establish what the facts are – but first some background.