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

by Gwyn, Peter

  121 N.B. Harte is my chief source of information.

  122 Quoted in N.B. Harte p.139.

  123Libelle of Englyshe Polyce, p.18.

  124 Essentially a paraphrase of Sir John Fortescue quoted in Tillyard, p.39, but examples can be found in every kind of writing and government pronouncement of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

  125CW8, pp.1378-9.

  126 Elyot, p.102.

  127 N.B. Harte, pp.139-40. Du Boulay, pp.61-79 is a useful introduction to class in late medieval England.

  128 BL Caligula D vi, fo.115 (LP, iv, 1223).

  129 Hall, p.583.

  130 Ibid, p.597.

  131 Thomas More, Latin Epigrams, no. 70. I owe this reference to Walker.

  132CWM, 4, pp.153-4.

  133 Quoted in Tillyard, p.39.

  134 Ramsey, pp.146 ff. and P. Williams, Tudor Regime, 139 ff. for useful discussions of this extremely difficult subject.

  135 Heinze, pp.108-9.

  136 I am reminded of the resistance to the introduction of bridge at Winchester College in the 1960s – and in the original statutes all these games were banned.

  137 Hall, p.712.

  138TRP, no. 121; Heinze, pp.89-94.

  139 Heinze, p.98 for the accusation. My interpretation rests on my reading of the documents printed in Select Cases in Star Chamber, pp.123-42.

  140 It is Elton who has argued for the constitutional Cromwell in all his writings on him, but he has been followed by Heinze; see Heinze, pp.108-9.

  141 Slack, Impact of the Plague, pp.199 ff; ‘Mortality Crises’, pp.9 ff; also useful is Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, pp.46-54.

  142 Hall, p.592; dinner was usually taken between 10 am and 12 noon and supper about 6 pm. For other good descriptions see Rawdon Brown, ii, pp.113, 126-7 (LP, ii, 3558, 3638).

  143 Byrne, p.73 (LP, iv, 4408).

  144LP, iv, 4510.

  145 Slack, Impact of the Plague, pp.44 ff.

  146 Webster.

  147 Ibid, p.208; Slack, Impact of the Plague, p.201.

  148LP, ii, 4124-5.

  149 Slack, Impact of the Plague, pp.41 ff. for current debates on the morality of fleeing from the plague.

  150 Kennedy, pp.203 ff for London and the plague. I have found Kennedy’s thesis on London an enormous help; and it ought to be much better known.

  151 This account owes much to Holmes; but see also Giuseppi; Pettegree, pp.1 ff. For Giustinian’s excellent account and other contemporary material see Rawdon Brown, ii, pp.69 ff.

  152 14 & 15 Hen. VIIIc. 2.

  153 Kennedy, pp.168-81.

  154 See pp.88 ff. above.

  155LP, ii, 1832, quoted in Kennedy, pp.196-7.

  156Mercers’ Company, pp.443-4.

  157 Holmes, pp.643-4.

  158 Kennedy, p.198.

  159 Kennedy, p.200.

  160 Rawdon Brown, ii, 74-5, an account written by the Venetian ambassador’s secretary, Nicolo Sagudino.

  161 That Wolsey did make efforts to arrange matters is suggested by the number of meetings between himself and the City authorities; see Kennedy, pp.200-1.

  162 Kennedy, p.33; but more generally ibid, pp.29 ff.

  163 Hall, pp.698-9.

  164 This suggested in Kennedy, pp.212 ff.

  165 Kennedy, pp.30-1. For Henry VII and the City see Cooper, pp.106-8, 110, 126.

  166 PRO SP l/4/6/fo.160 (LP, iv, 3843).

  167 Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, pp.217-18.

  168 Palliser, Tudor York, p.48.

  169 Pythian-Adams, p.63; Hoskins, Age of Plunder, p.13.

  170LP, iv, 3843.

  171 Palliser, Tudor York, pp.201-2.

  172 Ibid.

  173 Bridbury, pp.13-14; Elton, Reform and Renewal, pp.107-8; Lander, Government and Community, p.19.

  174 Bridbury, p.23 whose scepticism about urban decline I find convincing.

  175 Admittedly her cloth and wool exports were not as buoyant as in the 1490s boom, but the flourishing trade in wine may have compensated for there was no significant fall in customs revenue; see Hoskins, Age of Plunder, p.181.

  176 Hoskins, Age of Plunder, p.180.

  177 Pythian-Adams, pp.51 ff. One of my many worries about his interpretation is that the national slump is difficult to find, and even his figures for high food prices are not all that convincing: 2s. 3d. a bushel in 1520 but under 1s in 1522 and 1523 and only 1s. 5d. in 1524.

  178 The account in Pythian-Adams, pp.253 ff. needs to be checked against M. Dormer Harris, pp.155 ff.

  179 Dobson, pp.13-14; Kermode.

  180 For useful recent introductions and bibliographies see Beier and Pound. Slack’s important Poverty and Policy appeared too late to be fully assimilated.

  181 Tierney, pp.128-9.

  182 Elton, EcHR, 2 ser, vi; Reform and Renewal, pp.122 ff. Tierney, pp.125 ff. for fifteenth-century canonists.

  183TRP, nos.80, 118.

  184 Kennedy, pp.204-5; also Leonard, pp.25 ff.

  185 Beier, pp.2-4, 19-23; Scarisbrick, Reformation, pp.51-4; Youings, Seventeenth Century, pp.254 ff.

  186 Knowles, pp.264-7. My feeling is that there is a lot more to be discovered about medieval provision for the poor.

  187 Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, pp.116-29; Pound, pp.68-75 on what is a controversial matter, much of the debate centring on Jordan’s findings, for which see Jordan.

  188 Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, pp.126-9; Pound, pp.56-67 but can one really believe that Gloucester was the first English town to take action?

  189 But see Palliser, Age of Elizabeth, pp.118-29 for a quietly revisionist view.

  190 Challis, pp.70-1, a book which should be consulted for all that follows. See also Feaveryear, pp.46 ff; Gould.

  191 Challis, pp.68 ff. Did any of Thomas Cromwell’s reforms have a longer history?

  192 Ibid, pp.70-1, 168.

  193LP, iv, 2595.

  194LP, iv, 2541 Knight to Wolsey, 1 Oct. 1526 re. the issuing of the November proclamation. For this and the August proclamation see TRP, nos. 111-12.

  195 BL Galba B viii, fo.192 (LP, iv, 1400).

  196Mercers’ Company, pp.544, 548.

  197 Hoskins, Age of Plunder, pp.181-2.

  198 For the figures see Carus-Wilson and Coleman; Hoskins, Age of Plunder, pp.177-91; for the cloth trade Bowden.

  199LP, iii, 1533, 1544, 1558, 1577, 1594, 1611, 1630; see also Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, pp.89-92.

  200 See p.542 below.

  201LP, iv, 3449, 3451 (2); TRP, no.115; Hall, p.729.

  202 Hall, p.729.

  203LP, iv, 3959, 3966; Sp. Cal., iii (ii), p.603.

  204LP, iv, app.153, 158-60, 162-9, 175.

  205LP, iv, 3958, 4009, 4018, 4069, 4147, 4071, 4286; Hall, pp.744-5.

  206St. P, i, p.294 (LP, iv, 4404).

  207 As suggested in Herbert, p.196, probably following Hall, pp.747-9.

  208LP, iv, 3959; Sp. Cal., iii (ii), p.603.

  209LP, iv, 4080.

  210LP, iv, 4376, 4389, 4404, 4409, 4426.

  211Ven. Cal., iv, 188; Hall, pp.721, 736; Stow, p.885.

  212 Hoskins, Age of Plunder, p.87.

  213 Harrison, AHR, xix, pp.148, 152; Hoskins, AHR, xii, pp.33-4; Thirsk (ed.), Agrarian History, pp.817, 835.

  214 Hoskins, Age of Plunder, p.86 calls 1527-8 the famine years, but see Dymond, pp.31-4 for important qualifications. See Ven. Cal., iv, 208 for the fact that bean flour was used.

  215Ven. Cal., iv, 188, 205, 210, 212, 235.

  216 Hall, p.736.

  217 Hoskins, AHR, xii, p.34, quoting from the mayor’s register.

  218 Heinze, p.99.

  219TRP, no. 118.

  220LP, iv, 3544 (Notts), 3587 (Northants), 3665 (Essex, Northants, Wilts), 3712 (Northants), 3819 (Notts), 3822 (N. Ridings). Dymond is invaluable but see also Heinze, pp.100-2.

  221Select Cases Star Chamber, pp.178 ff.

  222 For these definitions see Heinze, p.100, n.36; but cf Gras, pp.130-1 and the terms do seem to have been rather interchangeable.

>   223 Gras, pp.130 ff.

  224Select Cases in Star Chamber, pp.165-8. But for parts of Nottinghamshire reporting a surplus see Heinze, p.102, n.40.

  225LP, iv, 3883.

  226 Dymond, p.32.

  227LP, iv, 4188; for Norfolk’s worries about such questions see LP, iv, 4192.

  228LP, iv, 3231, 3234.

  229LP, iv, 3664, 4012-13, 4129, 4145. See also Bernard, War, Taxation and Rebellion, p.143-4; MacCullough, pp.298-9 though his redating of the Stowmarket trouble to 1526 must be wrong because of the specific references in the relevant documents to the 1527 commission and to Francis Pointz’s return from Spain.

  230LP, iv, 4310.

  231LP, iv, 4301.

  232LP, iv, 4043, 4058, 4085.

  233LP, iv, 3625, 3664, 3712, 3822; Select Cases in Star Chamber, p.168.

  234LP, iv, 4044.

  235 Kennedy, p.220; also Mercers Company, Acts of Court, ii, fo.10, the reference to which I owe to I. Archer.

  236LP, iv, 4058.

  237 Hall, pp.745-6.

  238LP, iv, 4239.

  239 It was signed on the 15th but not proclaimed until the 27th.

  240LP, iv, 3930.

  241LP, iv, 4129, 4145; and quoted in Bernard, War, Taxation and Rebellion, 144.

  242LP, iv, 4018, 4107, 4147, app.156; Hall, p.736.

  243LP, iv, 4310.

  244LP, iv, 4414.

  245 PRO SP l/4/5/fo.193 (LP, iv, 3663).

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  REFORM AND REFORMATION

  DURING 1528 AND THE FIRST HALF OF 1529 CLEMENT VII APPEARS TO HAVE been willing to give Wolsey more or less anything that he asked for – except, that is, what he wanted above all else, his consent to Henry’s divorce from Catherine. Over twenty papal grants of one sort or another were made during this period. Many had to do with Wolsey’s two colleges at Oxford and at Ipswich; others concerned his translation as bishop from Durham to Winchester. All these might be considered personal concerns of Wolsey, though it was argued earlier that his colleges were very much part of his plans for reform.1 Definitely of public concern was a bull dated 12 May 1529 which made it easier to degrade those in holy orders who had committed serious crimes, so that they could be tried in the secular courts.2 The background and purpose of this measure has already been discussed,3 but it provides important evidence for that combination of persistence and political tact – in this case a determination to meet the criticisms of the Crown lawyers concerning the abuse of ‘benefit of clergy’ without offending too much the susceptibilities of the clergy themselves – already singled out as typical of Wolsey’s approach to reform of the Church. However, at the centre of this reform were four bulls intended to tackle two major areas much in need of attention – the size and composition of English dioceses and the multiplicity and general health of monastic institutions. And it was concern for the latter that had been one of the stated reasons for Wolsey’s original acquisition of legatine powers.

  These two matters were closely connected, as a brief summary of the bulls concerning the creation of new dioceses makes clear. The first, dated 12 November 1528, empowered Wolsey to inquire into the expediency of suppressing certain monasteries in order that their buildings and revenues might be used to create new cathedrals and dioceses.4 The second, obtained the following May, gave him the executive powers to proceed. It is particularly unfortunate that many of the details of the bulls have not survived,5 as I believe they would have provided vital evidence of Wolsey’s serious commitment to the welfare of the English Church. All, however, is not lost, and the first thing to do is to see how much of his plans can be recovered.6

  What is known is that they received a mixed reception at Rome. Clement did show some interest; at any rate, he asked a number of questions, including the most relevant, which was whether there was any need for new dioceses.7 But at least some of his cardinals and curial officials took a more partial view, fearing that in one way or another the proposals would be detrimental to both their honour and their pocket. There was more justification for their worries about Wolsey’s insistence on the deletion of a clause stating that it was necessary to obtain the agreement of all those with a rightful interest in any of the institutions concerned.8 Moreover, curial suspicion of Wolsey’s intentions was not surprising. At the very least, he was out to secure the best possible financial bargain – which meant from the Curia’s point of view the worst – and to be given the freest possible hand.

  By and large Wolsey seems to have got what he was after. As regards the offending clause, he explained that he wanted it deleted, not so that he could ride rough-shod over other people’s interests, but in order to prevent factious and malicious opposition to his well intentioned plans.9 This the Curia accepted and the clause, though not removed, was so qualified as to become meaningless.10 No limits were imposed on the number of monastic institutions that could be affected by the scheme, and none to the number of dioceses to be created. Indeed, there was no reference to numbers at all, even though the cardinals had expressed worries on this point.11 The organization of the new dioceses was placed entirely in Wolsey’s hands. The major decision facing him was whether their presiding cathedrals should be left as essentially monastic institutions, as so many English cathedrals, such as Benedictine Winchester and Augustinian Carlisle, already were. Alternatively, he could go for the compromise of allowing both secular and religious canons, as was already the case at Bath and Wells and at Coventry, or make them entirely secular on the model of Lincoln and London. The obvious advantage of retaining some monastic or ‘religious’ features is that any changes would meet with less opposition, but clearly Wolsey was prepared to be ruthless. He was permitted to appoint the heads of the existing monastic institutions as the new bishops, but he did not have to; indeed, in the first instance he was specifically empowered to appoint as bishop anyone Henry chose, only subsequent appointments having to be made in the normal way, by papal provision.

  What was involved here was almost certainly not the de facto rights of English kings to choose their own bishops, for this had not been challenged for over a century, but finance. If bishops were not ‘provided’, no annates, or more correctly ‘common services’, would be due to the pope and Curia. On the face of it, then, it looks as if Wolsey had secured an important financial concession, which no doubt would have also helped him to sell the idea politically at home. In fact, the opposition of the cardinals was successful, to the extent that at one stage in the negotiations for the bulls Wolsey had felt compelled to promise that nothing that he intended would result in financial loss to the papacy.12 In the final bull, it was laid down that the apostolic camera was to be informed of the annual revenues of the new dioceses as soon as possible so that the necessary calculations could be made, and the figure proved to be owing was to be paid within six months of the new bishop being appointed, or everything to do with the creation of the new diocese would be declared of ‘no force or moment’.13 None of these technicalities, nor the arguments they resulted in, are of great moment in themselves.14 But they help to make the point that the reforms Wolsey was contemplating constituted a minefield which was liable to erupt at any moment. A lot of people, and not just greedy curial officials and cardinals – and there were, it should be said, altruistic reasons for not wanting papal revenues to fall – were likely to have strong objections to the changes that Wolsey was proposing. Existing English bishops would lose part of their revenues – not, it is true, from land, because the dioceses were to be funded out of former monastic land, but from the loss of large areas over which they had had jurisdiction and had therefore drawn fees of various kinds. And there was more than money involved. One of the strongest traditions of the English episcopacy had to do with the intense loyalty of its members to the dioceses over which they presided. Anselm’s cri de coeur at the end of the eleventh century, that he ‘would not dare to appear before the judgment seat of God with the rights of [his] see diminished’ expresses an attitude that was very much al
ive in early sixteenth-century England.15 Whether this was ‘well’ depends on one’s point of view, but it was certainly central to the serious quarrels discussed earlier between both Morton and Warham as archbishops of Canterbury and their suffragans.

  So for one reason or another, some opposition could be expected from the existing bishops. The position of the monastic institutions to be affected was more complicated. If they were to close down altogether, then serious objections, perhaps even physical resistance, might be forthcoming. When in the summer of 1525 the Premonstratensian monastery of Bayham in Sussex was suppressed in order that its revenues might form part of the endowments of Cardinal College, some of the monks staged a forcible reoccupation of their former home. Admittedly it only lasted for a week, but if it could happen at a comparatively small house such as Bayham, what might not result if more powerful houses were to come under the axe? Moreover, a feature of ‘the riot of Bayham’ was the close involvement of local laymen, in particular the head of a leading local family, that controversial figure, Lord Bergavenny.16 This may serve as a reminder of the close connection between religious houses and local inhabitants at every level. Apart from any spiritual pull that they may have exercised, the religious houses provided employment and were a source of loans and gifts of charity. Many leading families had a long tradition of involvement with a particular house: perhaps an ancestor had founded it, or at any rate there was a family tradition to be buried there. Families like the Nevilles at Bayham would have expected to act as protectors to the house they were associated with, so that anyone with designs on a monastic house was not just taking on a small, isolated group of unworldly individuals, but a whole nexus of vested interests which might include some of the most powerful in the land. And it is worth recalling that the most serious rebellion that the Tudors ever faced, the Pilgrimage of Grace of 1536-7, had a lot to do with the suppression of monasteries.