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

by Gwyn, Peter

  In fact, it will never be known for certain what was intended, for on that very day confirmation of the overwhelming nature of the Imperial victory at Pavia arrived in London, and the audience was cancelled even as the envoys were on their way.168 All the same, the view put forward here is that the negotiations with the French were serious enough, and had become increasingly so. One reason for thinking this is the kind of terms that were being discussed. Back in the summer of 1524 the English demands, by Wolsey’s own account at any rate, had been ludicrously high – nothing less, indeed, than ‘the whole realm of France’.169 Since, this piece of information was only for Imperial consumption, it may well have been disinformation, but be that as it may, by the time Joachim had been joined by the chancellor of Alençon in late January 1525 the demands were of a much more realistic kind: the counties of Boulogne and Guisnes and the town of Ardres, which is to say an area of land adjoining Calais and the English Pale, together with an annual pension of 100,000 crowns. It is true that the French appear to have been determined not to surrender any territory and thought that the financial demands were on the high side, but on the other hand the possible gains for them were great: if they could break the Anglo-Imperial alliance, Milan might be theirs once again, and perhaps even Naples – in which case a bit of land around Calais might not seem too high a price. As for the money, it was only a little more than they were paying before war broke out, and as it turned out, was to be precisely the amount agreed to a few months later at the Treaty of the More. From the English point of view, it appears to be not nearly so good a deal, for by giving up the Great Enterprise they were in theory giving up the opportunity of conquering France. On the other hand, they would at least be sure of getting some money, which they had singularly failed to do from the emperor. They also stood to recover that dominant position in European affairs which, as it became increasingly obvious how little influence they had over their present allies, was rapidly slipping away – but more of this later. For the present the point to be made is not that the terms on the table were especially liked by either party, but that they were not so unacceptable as to suggest that neither side took them seriously. There are other reasons, too, for believing that the contrary was true.170

  One of the things that anyone who thinks otherwise has to account for is the enormous damage that the presence of Joachim in England for so lengthy a period did to Anglo-Imperial relations. From the moment in June 1524 when Wolsey, in order to assuage Imperial worries, reported that he had sent the French emissary packing after only half an hour, to well after Pavia when, at least by some accounts, the English were very keen to revive the Great Enterprise, the negotiations with Joachim were a stumbling block which all Wolsey’s diplomatic inventions did little to remove.171 Thus, when the English ambassador at the Imperial court first presented the English congratulations for Pavia, he had to report that Charles’s response had not been altogether gracious. One reason for this was Joachim’s long stay in England which, according to the emperor, could only mean that Henry had chosen to desert him – and by implication deserved no share in the spoils of victory.172 No doubt it suited Charles at this moment to play down his ally’s contribution, but in truth it had not been very great, nor was this by any means the first time that he had expressed his disappointment.173 Why, if Wolsey was still au fond committed to the Great Enterprise, did he let the negotiations with Joachim drag on so that they became a real bone of contention with England’s partner? Even a merely wary Wolsey might have been a little more careful not to provide the emperor with such an obvious excuse for not co-operating. It was very curious behaviour, as was his failure to ensure that Charles’s special envoy, Beaurain, was not granted, while he was in London, an audience with the king – something that Henry had expressed himself perfectly amenable to.174 As it was, the failure to do so provided Charles with another reason for his lack of graciousness in March.

  Yet another arose from Wolsey’s treatment of the Imperial ambassador in England, Louis de Praet. Whether Wolsey deliberately set out to engineer a diplomatic incident with the emperor by the seizure on 11 February, against all diplomatic conventions, of de Praet’s correspondence, or whether it came into his hands accidentally, will probably always remain an open question. But it has to be said that Wolsey’s relationship with the Imperial ambassador was already bad, and he was certainly quite capable of such a move.175 However, the relevant point is how he chose to react; and this was to make as much out of the incident as possible. De Praet was banished from court and put under virtual house arrest. Even Pavia made no difference to Wolsey’s view that if the Imperialists wanted a resident ambassador, they must send a new one.176 One result of this was that Wolsey’s negotiations became bogged down in acrimonious exchanges about de Praet at the very time when Henry was supposedly hell bent on an invasion of France in company with his ‘dear brother’, the emperor. Admittedly, de Praet had not been reporting back very complimentary things about Wolsey – and, given the negotiations going on with Joachim, why on earth should he have been? Even so, if Wolsey still believed in the Imperial alliance, his behaviour in the months leading up to and immediately after Pavia was more than inept. It was downright foolish.

  Does the notion of an insurance policy against French success save Wolsey from such a charge, or, to put it another way, did Wolsey think the potentially harmful consequences of that success sufficient to justify jeopardizing England’s relationship with her allies? Obviously nobody likes to end up on the losing side, but it would have been curiously naïve of Wolsey, and indeed of Henry, to assume that something like the Great Enterprise could proceed without any setbacks, and, given the will to succeed, one might have expected any reversals to be countered with more, rather than less, co-operation with England’s allies. Moreover, it is certainly not true that when, back in March 1524, the Anglo-French negotiations began, the French success was such that sheer survival demanded that England consider reapproachment. In fact, the French army, which had crossed into Northern Italy in the previous autumn, had barely survived a harsh winter holed up at Abbiategrasso, in early March was threatened not only by an Imperial army but also by plague, and by the end of April was in full retreat.177 Even allowing for some time lag for the news to reach England, English diplomatic correspondence throughout the first half of 1524 was much more concerned about what her allies had not done than what the French were doing.178 Moreover, it would have been perfectly possible to have sent Joachim packing, once news of the French defeat was certain but this was not at all what happened.

  But might it not be that the return in October 1524 of a French army to Northern Italy, this time led by Francis in person, was sufficiently alarming for Wolsey to want to pursue his negotiations with the French with even greater urgency?179 Given the almost total lack of detail concerning any of the negotiations up until this point, it is very difficult to answer such a question. It is clear, however, that Wolsey, worried by the effect of French success on England’s at least theoretical allies in Northern Italy, the papacy and Venice, made moves to counter their possible defection180 – arguably curious behaviour for one on the verge of being frightened into defecting himself. But although he was receiving some fairly gloomy assessments of the allied position there, at no point did he show great alarm.181 Perhaps his most worrying moment occurred in mid-January 1525 when he was informed by the French of their newly formed alliance with the papacy, Venice, Sienna and Lucca, but significantly his advice to Henry was that it should be treated with some scepticism. At the same time he permitted himself the revealing prayer that ‘good resistance may be made against the French king while we shall be treating with [the ambassador] that cometh now out of France [that] our bargain shall be like to be the better wherein to have some good success’.182 In other words, what bothered Wolsey about French success was not that it was directly harmful to English interests. The spectre of a rampant France in alliance with Scotland and even with Richard de la Pole, the Yorkist claimant to
the English throne, was never raised by him, presumably because he never saw it as a possibility.183 Moreover, from a defensive point of view, the more the French were drawn into Italy the better, while Albany’s participation in the campaign there prevented his active intervention in Scottish affairs. More interestingly, Wolsey never even expressed regret that French success might signal the end of the Great Enterprise. What did worry him about it was that it weakened his bargaining position, and to that extent prevented him making an acceptable deal with the French.

  It is always dangerous to believe that one document offers the answer to a historical problem, and perhaps especially so as regards foreign policy in which the circumstances are always changing, and with them the answer. At the very least, however, Wolsey’s letter of 12 February 1525 provides some insight into the way he operated. In the course of the letter he gave Henry the latest news from Italy, including the French failure to detach Venice from the Anglo-Imperial camp and the Imperial commanders’ decision to do immediate battle with a French army that for over two months had been tied down outside Pavia and still, Wolsey was happy to report, showed no sign of taking it. Indeed, what with one thing and another, Wolsey felt able to venture the opinion that ‘thanked be to Almighty God, the affairs there be in very good train’ – and this which ever side won the impending battle! It is a very curious statement for an ally of Bourbon and the emperor to have made, but then the burden of the argument here has been that by now this was precisely what Wolsey was not. Admittedly, his expectation was of an Imperial victory, and this was marginally the preferred outcome. But, even so, it was not so much the victory itself that was to be welcomed, but ‘the good effect which shall come of this matter may well, and is to be, ascribed unto your highness, who in the time of extreme desperation of the emperor’s affairs in Italy, have been the only reviver of the same’. Henry was to get the credit, and the implication was that he would then be in a position to dominate the outcome of such a victory.184 What Wolsey did not feel it necessary to spell out was the kind of settlement he would have envisaged imposing upon the French. Obviously one favourable to England, but whether much more favourable than the one he was negotiating at the time may be doubted; for, as has been indicated, what in the letter seems to be his chief concern is to secure for Henry, not any particular gains, but some kind of hold over his ostensible ally, the emperor.

  To interpret the letter in this way may be to strain too hard for something that was not meant. Moreover, it must be pointed out that this same letter has been seen as vital evidence that the negotiations with France were only ever an insurance against French success because, as Wolsey wrote, if by any chance they were to be successful in battle ‘your affairs be by your high wisdom in more assured and substantial train by such communications as be set forth with France apart than others in outward places would suppose’.185 Thus, if Francis I had won the battle of Pavia, the French envoys in England, instead of being denied an audience with Henry on 9 March would have been welcomed with open arms, and the Treaty of the More would have been signed seven months earlier.186 The difficulty in accepting this interpretation is that it appears to ignore the important qualification that Wolsey made about a French victory – that it could only be achieved at such great cost to them that even in victory they would be forced to look for support from England, and thus submit to English direction. At any rate, this seems to have been what he had in mind when declaring that any battle would be ‘well and highly to the benefit of your grace’s purpose’.187 Nowhere in the letter or, I would suggest, anywhere else, is there any hint of genuine fears that a French victory would pose a serious threat to vital English interests.

  It is really for this reason that the notion of an ‘insurance policy’ seems to mislead. Honour and reputation are what Henry and Wolsey dealt in, not insurance; if the latter is what they had chiefly been concerned with, then they would never have embarked upon the Great Enterprise in the first place. French success in 1525 would have been unwelcome, not because of the harm that it was doing to the Great Enterprise but because the more successful the French were, the less they would be prepared to pay for England’s switch to their side; and in bringing an end to the Great Enterprise it would be necessary for Wolsey to show not only that the emperor had continually let England down, but that there were substantial advantages to be gained from an alliance with the former enemy. As his letter of 12 February indicates, Wolsey believed that events in Northern Italy were playing into his hands: whatever happened there, all the leading participants were likely to want English support, and this put him in a strong position to reassert the English king’s role as the arbiter of European affairs. It was for this reason that the negotiations with the French continued; during the first week of March one or other of the French envoys appears to have been continually with Wolsey. Neither did Wolsey feel much need to conciliate his allies. In interviews on the 7th and 8th, Margaret’s newly arrived envoys, sent to persuade England to take military action against France, found Wolsey ‘intractable’ – something of an understatement since they had found his conditions for any English invasion of France totally unacceptable.188 As every new report was indicating Imperial success, this was curious behaviour on Wolsey’s part if, that is, he saw the French negotiations only as an insurance policy. But then the argument here has been that, if that was really all it ever was, almost everything he had done during the last ten or so months was very curious – especially since as early as 4 March he appears to have used unconfirmed reports of Pavia to raise his terms with the French envoys.189

  If, on the other hand, the main thrust of his policy is interpreted as seeking to create a situation that would enable him to extract England from an enterprise which was clearly not working, while retaining a dominant position in European affairs, then his behaviour, especially towards his ostensible allies, makes much more sense. Not only can one afford to be a little rude towards an ally whose help is no longer wanted, but also it is useful to have a long list of complaints with which to justify one’s desertion; and this Wolsey had little trouble in compiling, helped by the unexpected – or perhaps not so unexpected – access to the rude remarks that the Imperial ambassador had been writing home about him.190 Since the spring of 1524 Wolsey’s policy had been to do the minimum to further the allied cause consistent with the need to maintain sufficient pressure on the French to come to terms with him – precisely the policy he had used to persuade the French to sign the Treaty of London in 1518.191 The difficulty, as always, was to get the timing right, for to have moved too soon and thereby miss out on any advantage that might accrue from Imperial success would have been a pity, to say the least. It may well be that only an hour or so had stood between Wolsey and a decision to jump too soon. Given that England was still formally at war with France, it is difficult to see why Henry would have been willing to grant the French envoys an audience unless there had been some major breakthrough in the negotiations, perhaps even the renouncing of any territorial claim by England. On the other hand, it would have been surprising if Wolsey had been willing to show all his hand before receiving definite news from Italy – this an argument for thinking that whatever the purpose of the audience it was not to make any final agreement.192 But whichever scenario is correct, the important thing was that the French were in play, ready to be hooked when the right moment came. What temporarily threw all Wolsey’s plans awry was the extent of the Imperial victory at Pavia and in particular the capture of the French king; once he had full knowledge of it some fairly fancy footwork would be needed, if only to buy himself a little time to weigh up the new possibilities.

  It is hoped that in this account the notion that Pavia might cause Wolsey considerable worry will not come as too much of a surprise. True, it was suggested earlier that his preferred solution was some kind of allied victory, but because this would put considerable pressure on the French to do his bidding. Immediately after Pavia, it must have seemed as if there would be no French for him t
o negotiate anything with. The cards would have appeared to be now all with Charles, who was in a position to make what terms he liked with the French and finally to impose his will on Northern Italy. In doing this he might have chosen to show some gratitude to England for past services, though, despite what Wolsey was going to maintain, the English contribution to the final victory had been paltry in the extreme and, in this account, deliberately so. Moreover, in the new situation such grievances as Joachim’s lengthy residence in England and the seizure of de Praet’s letters would not have enhanced England’s standing with the emperor.193

  But for Henry and Wolsey Charles’s generosity was beside the point. They were not in the business of making do with crumbs from the Imperial table; on the contrary, it was they who wished to dole out the crumbs and from this point of view Pavia threatened to be a disaster. But if so, why was it that the news of the Imperial victory was greeted with such rapture? Bonfires were ordered to be lit, Wolsey led the English nation in a service of thanksgiving in St Paul’s, and Henry was allegedly so excited that he compared the messenger who brought him the news to the Angel Gabriel.194 And if all these gestures had only to do with appearances, rather more substantial was the decision to send new ambassadors to Spain with grandiose proposals for Henry to lead an army into France to help remove that kingdom from the map of Europe!195 And what is more, to give some substance to these proposals, the nation was called upon to donate to their king a free gift of money so that he might lead an English army over the Channel to recover his rightful throne of France. Do not all these things suggest at the very least the revival of a genuine commitment to the Great Enterprise – in which case, of course, the interpretation so far presented of Wolsey’s conduct of foreign policy must be seriously flawed? Many people have thought so. Henry’s reaction to Pavia – for some would have a doubt about Wolsey’s196 – was perfectly genuine: any suspicions previously harboured about the emperor’s behaviour were apparently blown away by the euphoria surrounding the great Imperial victory, and Henry really did think that the time had come to recover his French throne. And if one then asks why the euphoria was so short-lived, two straightforward explanations are forthcoming. The first is that the emperor notably failed to share in the euphoria, so that in any conquest of France, England would have had to go it alone. This in itself might have put an end to England’s grandiose plans but, as it happened – and this is the second reason – Henry’s subjects made it very clear that they had no intention of giving the Amicable Grant, thereby ruling out any serious military activity.197