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

by Gwyn, Peter

  In emphasizing unemployment, or the threat of it, rather than scarcity or indeed famine, as the chief cause of the unrest in 1528, one is to some extent playing down the seriousness of the situation that Wolsey had to grapple with, and to that extent removing some of the credit due to him for coping with it so successfully. But something that undoubtedly contributed to the heightened tension, especially perhaps in London, was the deepening political crisis brought about by Henry’s desire for a divorce, which was never popular. And all these difficulties were connected, if in rather complicated ways, as the government’s efforts to secure imports of grain from both France and the Low Countries demonstrate. As it happened, though French grain was promised, it never materialized, while that from the Low Countries did.242 This only fuelled the general dissatisfaction with a French alliance, and this in turn made the conduct of foreign policy more difficult, because the alliance was vital for any success in the divorce negotiations.

  A difficult economic situation, the divorce and an unpopular foreign policy were what Wolsey was faced with from the autumn of 1527 onwards, and the impression one gets is of someone coping remarkably well, and with him the whole apparatus of government. Nobody could have worked harder at this time than the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, whether organizing the corn commissioners, talking to clothworkers, interrogating potential rebels or just giving advice. And it was not only leading royal councillors and noblemen who were involved, but every JP, every mayor and alderman, and every local constable. What is most impressive is the sense of a government that knew what it was about: detailed information on a national scale was sought and obtained, instructions were issued, difficulties were foreseen and steps taken to anticipate them. But the question remains of just how effective all this activity was. Some scepticism is probably justified, especially if the suggestion here is correct that supplies were probably never so short that market forces could not have coped. Still, as has also been pointed out, there is more to government than cold logic and in times of difficulty any government’s action may have some beneficial effect, if only on morale. And the scepticism may be unfounded. In judging Wolsey’s achievement, it is the totality of what he was doing that needs to be remembered, including that these years saw renewed efforts to grapple with enclosure, a problem that was thought to bear very directly upon the question of scarcity of corn. And the fact is that Wolsey showed himself just as concerned to grapple with the problem of unemployment as with that of scarcity, so he cannot be accused of making a wrong diagnosis; and anyway the one problem must have compounded the other. The trouble in Cranbrook in late May does seem to have been primarily the result of unemployment but, in the depositions of those arrested, shortage of corn was also mentioned.243 Very soon after helping to put down the trouble there Sir Edward Guildford was writing to Wolsey about local complaints of scarcity and high prices, urging that even greater efforts should be made to tackle the wicked ‘regraters’ who were responsible.244 So he, at least, had sufficient belief in the beneficial effects of government intervention to want more of it.

  What of Wolsey’s overall contribution to the common weal? The very diversity of the subjects that come under such a label, few of which are easily quantifiable in terms of success or failure, makes such an assessment difficult. What does emerge, though, despite the many gaps in the evidence, is Wolsey’s enormous concern to achieve something: the enclosure and corn commissions alone are proof of this. Add to these his reforms of the royal household and of taxation, his massive intervention in all areas of the English Church and his concern for ‘indifferent’ justice, and the final result in terms just of energy expended is remarkable, but especially so in one who, if he is not being portrayed as the gifted and self-indulgent amateur, usually emerges as more anxious to adorn a Field of Cloth of Gold than to master the complexities of the exchange rates, or to counter the effects of bad harvests. But if there is a seriousness about Wolsey’s concern for the common weal that cannot be gainsaid, this does not go very far to explaining his motivation. Because of the lack of direct evidence for his personal views they will probably always remain uncertain. Certainly, the things he was attempting show no striking new departures, neither do they suggest that he was driven by any deep ideological commitment such as might have been provided by Christian humanism. All the same, the possible effect on him of that admittedly rather nebulous concept, the climate of opinion, should not be underestimated, for after all, when in 1519 Erasmus had announced the dawn of a golden age, he had the court of Henry VIII much in his mind. And at the very least, Wolsey’s efforts suggest an enormous confidence in the efficacy of government intervention and more specifically in the usefulness of detailed information. Nevertheless, as always with Wolsey, it is his temperament that most catches the eye, and in particular that boundless energy and determination which he brought to bear on any problem. In December 1527, the duke of Norfolk, having ventured to give Wolsey some advice on the current problems, was so moved by the cardinal’s thanks that he promised that ‘from time to time I shall be so bold, as long as I shall know your grace content with the same, not only with my tongue and pen to give your grace my best poor advice to do that thing that may best and most sound to your honour, but also with my words and reports advance the same to the best of my little wit and power’. And why should he do this? Because he knew Wolsey ‘to be so firmly determined to do all things that may sound to the king’s high honour and the universal wealth of this realm’.245 Not a bad verdict from one who was supposedly his arch-enemy.

  1 Thomas Smith, p.53.

  2 But see Hoskins, Age of Plunder, in which Henry is presented as the ‘Stalin of Tudor of England’.

  3 There is a large literature but Ramsey still provides an excellent starting point. See also Coleman; Elton, Studies, i, pp.285-93.

  4LP, ii, 3297.

  5 Leadam, Domesday, i, pp.9-10.

  6 A.J. Pollard, pp.85-7.

  7 Elton, Reform and Reformation, p.69.

  8 Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’. Not only does this essay provide the starting point for what follows, but I owe an enormous debt to its author not only for much fruitful discussion and a visit to Wormleighton, but also for making available his detailed notes.

  9 4 Hen VIIC. 19; 6 Hen. VIIIC. 5; 7 Hen. VIIIC. 1.

  10 Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’, p.63 for his ‘nine peers, three bishops, thirty-two knights and fifty-one heads of religious houses’. My own list of peers numbers eleven together with two aristocratic ladies: dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, marquess of Dorset, earls of Derby, Devon and lords Cobham, Ferrers, Fitzwarren, Mountjoy and Zouche; also the countesses of Devon and Oxford.

  11 For the bishop of Lincoln being cited see PRO E 159/298, ro.xviii, the date Michaelmas 1519, two years before Longland became bishop. The subsequent history of the case is unknown, but if others are anything to go by, it could well have dragged on into Longland’s time.

  12LP, iv, 1525; also Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’.

  13 Here I am taking issue not only with Elton but also Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’, pp.65-6.

  14 See p.110 above.

  15 Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’, pp.51-4.

  16 Kerridge, EHR, lxx, pp.214-15; SR, iii, p.244.

  17TRP, no.110.

  18 PRO SP l/50/fo.151 (LP, iv, 4796).

  19TRP, nos. 113-44.

  20 Ibid, no. 119.

  21 Ibid, no.123.

  22 Ibid.

  23Select Cases in Star Chamber, pp.36 ff. For Wolsey’s over-zealousness see p.439.

  24CWM, 4, pp.65 ff; Hexter, pp.146-55 for interesting comments on the relationship between the two men, and its relevance to More’s decision to accept a career in royal service.

  25 ‘Your sheep … which are usually so tame and so cheaply fed, begin now according to report to be so greedy and wild that they devour human beings and devastate and depopulate fields, houses and towns.’ (CWM, 4, pp.65-7).

  26 Blanchard; Thirsk, Rural Economy, p
p.73-5; Thirsk (ed.), Agrarian History, pp.238-9.

  27CWM, 4, pp.65-9.

  28Tudor Economic Documents, iii, pp.20 ff. for extracts from A. Fitzherbert’s The Book of Husbandry, Thomas Lever’s St Pauls Cross sermon and C. Armstrong’s ‘A treatise concerning the Staple and Commodities of this Realme’ and ‘Howe to Reforme the Realme in settyng them to work and to restore Tillage’; Lamond; Thomas Starkey, pp.95-7, 155-6.

  29CWM, 4, pp.67-9.

  30 A good way into these is through the preamble to the 1517 instructions, for which see English Historical Documents, pp.929-30.

  31 Ibid, p.930.

  32CWM, 4, p.67. See also SR, ii, p.542; iii, pp.127, 176; TRP, nos.75, 110.

  33 Thirsk (ed.), Agrarian History, pp.1-112 for a detailed survey of the different farming regions.

  34TRP, no.155.

  35 The four were Sir Edward Belknap, Thomas Haselrig, Thomas Purfrey and John Spencer.

  36CWM, 4, p.67: Thorpe.

  37 Blanchard; C. Dyer, Lords and Peasants, pp.218 ff; EcHR, 2 ser., 35. Dyer’s work underlies much of what follows; and I must also thank him for taking the trouble to comment on it.

  38 C. Dyer, Lords and Peasants, pp.244 ff.

  39 C. Dyer, Dugdale Society, 27, pp.25 ff.

  40 Thorpe, pp.55-6; also C. Dyer, Dugdale Society, 27, p.18.

  41 In the enclosure findings the people affected are usually said to have departed in tears, or rather, since they were written in Latin, ‘lacrimando’, ‘lamentando’, or adverbially ‘lacrimose’ or ‘dolorose’; see Leadam, Domesday.

  42 Wordie, pp.491-4, where he modifies Gay’s much used findings; see Gay, TRHS, new ser, xiv; Quarterly Journal of Economics, xvii,

  43 C. Dyer, Dugdale Society, 27, pp.10-42.

  44 Ibid, pp.18 ff; C. Dyer, Dugdale Society, 27, pp.18 ff; Lords and Peasants, pp.244 ff; EcHR, 2 ser., 35, p.30.

  45 Parker, ‘Enclosure’, pp.30 ff.

  46 Magdalen College Muniments, Quinton, 56, 60.

  47 Alcock, Records of Social and Economic History, new ser., iv, p.35, this a revision of his earlier views in Warwickshire History, 3.

  48 PRO SP l/57/fo.151v (LP, iv, 4796).

  49 Blanchard, p.438 comments on this, but mostly it has been ignored.

  50 C. Dyer, EcHR, 2 ser., 35, p.31; B.M.S. Campbell.

  51 Skillington, pp.95-8; Hoskins, Leicestershire History, p.85.

  52Inter alia C. Dyer, EcHR, 2 ser., 35; Ramsey, pp.26 ff.

  53 The view is particularly associated with Thirsk and popularized in her Tudor Enclosures, but see also Thirsk (ed.), Agrarian History, pp.200-55.

  54 Thirsk (ed.), Agrarian History, pp.412-17.

  55 Ibid, pp.200-12.

  56 M. Dormer Harris, pp.169-211; Phythian-Adams, pp.254; see also p.449 below.

  57 Pam, p.4.

  58 Ramsey, p.22; Thirsk (ed), Agrarian History, p.204.

  59 Hoskins, Age of Plunder, pp.219-20; Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, pp.29-38.

  60 In writing thus I may be too much under the influence of C. Dyer, Lords and Peasants, pp.218 ff., but see also Blanchard, pp.436-45; B.M.S. Campbell, pp.145-54. Campbell produces a figure of 1,843, 568 for the population of early Tudor England, significantly lower than other estimates.

  61 Hoskins, Age of Plunder, p.87.

  62 Ibid, p.247.

  63 Ibid, p.116; see also Thirsk (ed.), Agrarian History, pp.275-7.

  64 Hoskins, Age of Plunder, pp.218-19.

  65 Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, p.35.

  66 Hoskins, Age of Plunder, p.87 for the harvest figures.

  67 Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, p, 171 for a table of relative movements of grain and wool prices. But for the argument that there was no financial advantage to be obtained from conversion see Blanchard.

  68 Thirsk (ed.), Agrarian History, p.214.

  69 Translated in English Historical Documents, pp.1014-16.

  70 Nichols, Grants from the Crown, pp.1i-lii; also in English Historical Documents, p.1016.

  71 4 Hen. VII c. 16; 4 Hen. VII c.19.

  72 Thirsk (ed.), Agraian History, pp.217-38; Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, pp.178-85.

  73 C. Dyer, EcHR, 2 ser., 35, p.25.

  74 The index price of wheat shot up from 132 in 1481, a figure which was anyway high, to 177, the highest it had been for over thirty years, and a figure not passed until 1543; see Thirsk (ed.), Agrarian History, pp.815-19.

  75 C. Dyer, EcHR, 2 ser., 35, p.24.

  76 Tierney, p.22

  77 For a still useful introduction to the vast literature on the relationship between humanism and politics see Elton, Reform and Renewal, pp.1-8.

  78 Gras, pp.223-6; Thirsk (ed.), Agrarian History, pp.214-15.

  79 Both the 1515 Acts mention it.

  80 For this episode see PRO STAC 2/13/183-4 printed in Tudor Economic Documents, i, pp.29 ff. The dating of the episode can be ascertained from the documents, but not when the case appeared in Star Chamber, which for the present argument is unfortunate.

  81 Gay, Quarterly Journal of Economics, xvii, p.581.

  82 PRO E 159/298, Mich., 11 Hen. VIII, m.xiv; C 43/28/6, no.24; C 47/7/2/3, no.7; Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’, p.48.

  83 Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’, p.61; Parker, ‘Enclosure’, pp.51 ff.

  84 For this estimate see Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’, p.56. It was, incidently, the plea that Thomas More made.

  85 Ibid, pp.63-4.

  86 Ibid, p.52.

  87 Ibid, pp.53-4.

  88 PRO C 43/28/6/4. What the court made of his defence does not emerge.

  89 PRO E 368/297, m.xxiv; see also Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’, p.61; Parker, pp.55-7.

  90 It cannot have helped that there was considerable uncertainty whether 1 Hen. VII(1485-6) or 4 Hen. VII(1489-90) should be taken as the terminus a quo for illegal enclosure.

  91 Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’, p.60; also PRO STAC 2/6/176; STAC 2/22/352 for other cases in which convertible husbandry was used as a defence. For convertible husbandry itself see Kerridge, Agricultural Revolution. pp.188 ff; Dyer, Dugdale Society, 27, pp.28 ff.

  92 See p.420 above.

  93 Alcock, Warwickshire History, p.182.

  94 Parker, ‘Enclosure’, pp.35-8, 188.

  95 Ibid, pp.51 ff.

  96 Ibid, p.187.

  97 Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’, p.52 for these figures.

  98 Ibid, p.62.

  99 In arguing that no permanent reversal occurred I rely heavily on Parker, ‘Enclosure’, the most detailed and convincing study of sixteenth-century enclosure yet to appear.

  100 Parker, Trans. of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society, xxiv, p.42, n.2; ‘Enclosure’, pp.26 ff; also Ramsey, pp.26-7; Wordie, pp.41-76.

  101 Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, pp.171, 178-85; Thirsk (ed.), Agrarian History, pp.227 ff.

  102 Parker, ‘Enclosure’, p.187.

  103 PRO C 43/28/3/3; Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’, p.54.

  104 PRO E 368/296, Mich. 14 Hen. VIII, m.ix; Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’, p.56, n.24.

  105 PRO E 368/298, Hil. 16 Hen. VIII.

  106 PRO C 54/388/32.

  107 PRO C 43/28/3/9.

  108 PRO E 159/302, Mich. 15 Hen. VIII, m.xix.

  109 Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’, pp.63-4. For the money accruing see p.413 above.

  110 Richard Fox, pp.112-14 (LP, ii, 4540) for all the quotations.

  111 Dyer, Dugdale Society, 27, pp.19ff; Lamond, pp.49,122; Thirsk (ed.), Agrarian History, pp.207-8.

  112 Thomas Smith, pp.74-5.

  113 6 Hen. VIII c.5; 6 Hen. VIII c.11; 14 & 15 Hen. VIII c.7; TRP, nos.86, 108, 112, 118.

  114 6 Hen. VIII c.8; 6 Hen. VIII c.12; 14 & 15 Hen. VIII c.3; 15 Hen. VIII c.11.

  115 14 & 15 Hen. VIII c.3.

  116 14 & 15 Hen. VIII c.9.

  117 Bernard, EHR, xcvi, p.770, n.4.

  118LP, iv, 2248.

  119 Palliser, Tudor York, p.47.

  120 6 Hen. VIIIc.l; 7 Hen. VIII c.7; TRP, nos.80-1.r />