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

by Gwyn, Peter

  The reasons for England’s changing fortunes will be analysed more fully later. All that needs to be mentioned now is that by early 1529 there were many reasons why Clement should want to commit himself more fully to the Imperial side. And there were good reasons, in law as well as in what might be best called natural justice, for taking the case out of Wolsey’s and Campeggio’s hands and advoking it to Rome. This the Imperialists had been begging Clement to do ever since the matter first arose in 1527, but by early 1529 it was really only a question of time before he would give in to them. Realizing this, in early May Wolsey decided to go ahead with the trial, even though there were many loose ends and the prospects for success were not all that good. He was still uncertain whether Clement had agreed to alter his and Campeggio’s commission so as to allow for the existence of the ‘Spanish brief’. In fact, Clement had, and by the time the trial began, or very shortly afterwards, Wolsey would have known this. But other problems remained unresolved. In particular there were Fisher’s many powerful interventions on Catherine’s behalf, especially his famous address to the legatine court on 28 June. Moreover, as he had always feared, the issue of whether or not Catherine’s first marriage, to Henry’s brother, Arthur, had been consummated increasingly dominated the court’s proceedings, and it was not a winning issue for Henry. On 23 July the legatine court was adjourned and it was on 9 October that Wolsey was dismissed from office.

  This, then, in brief, is the story of the divorce from its beginnings in early 1527 to the failure of the second legatine court and Wolsey’s downfall in the summer and autumn of 1529. Not surprisingly, there have been many different views of Wolsey’s role. Some have argued that he was so unsound on the divorce as to have been secretly sabotaging his own and the king’s efforts to obtain it and hence his dismissal.12 Others have gone to the opposite extreme, seeing Wolsey as the man who first advanced the idea that Henry’s marriage to Catherine was invalid, and hence as the true author of the divorce.13 Some, even, have wished to have the best, or worst, of both views and have portrayed him as one who, having started something, found it proceeding in a direction that he did not like and decided that he would have to suppress it. This last and most complex of scenarios goes something like this:14 Wolsey was determined to gain his revenge on Charles v for failing to carry out his promise to support his candidature for the papacy, a promise he had first made at Bruges in August 1521 and had broken both on the death of Leo x in the December of that year and again on the death of Adrian VI in the autumn of 1523.15 The divorce of the emperor’s aunt would serve Wolsey’s purpose not only because Charles and his family would be greatly dishonoured by it, but because it would leave the way open for Henry to marry into the French royal family. Such a marriage, probably to Renée, a daughter of Louis XII, would serve as a cornerstone for a permanent alliance between England and France, thereby delivering a severe blow to Habsburg power and pretensions. A secondary, or alternative, purpose, was simply to get rid of Catherine because, it has been alleged,16 Wolsey never got on with her, and this antagonism had hampered his domination of the king. The first part of Wolsey’s master plan succeeded all too well. Henry was quickly convinced that his marriage to Catherine had been invalid from the start, and that, therefore, he had been living in sin for almost twenty years. However, instead of being amenable to a French marriage he had promptly fallen head over heels in love with Anne Boleyn, the one queen, so this scenario goes, whom above all others Wolsey might have hoped to be spared. Why this was so will be discussed more fully in the following chapter, but Cavendish had grasped the essence of it when he wrote that ‘the great lords of the Council, bearing a secret grudge against the cardinal because that they could not rule in the commonweal as they would,’ realized that Anne ‘should be for them a sufficient and an apt instrument to bring their malicious purpose to pass’, that purpose being none other than Wolsey’s overthrow.17 Wolsey, it has been argued, saw this danger. He was also aware that in affairs of the heart Henry was very mutable. So he did everything in his power to drag out the matrimonial proceedings in the hope that Henry would cool towards Anne and either return to Catherine or marry someone who, if not a French princess, would at least be more sympathetic towards himself than Anne was.

  In fact, no view of the divorce which sees Wolsey either as its author or as one who worked to prevent it, whether from the very beginning or only after he grasped Henry’s intentions towards Anne, works very well. One reason is that there was almost certainly no aristocratic faction using Anne in the way that Cavendish and many others believed, and so there was no need for Wolsey to be frightened of her; but more of this when Wolsey’s downfall is discussed. Other reasons can be dealt with immediately. It was shown earlier that Wolsey was never anxious to become pope, that he never took very seriously Charles’s offer in 1521 to further his candidature and that it was certainly not the reason for the Anglo-Imperial alliance of that year.18 This being so, Charles’s failure to honour his promises can hardly bear the weight of interpretation that in so many accounts it has to. The timing of Wolsey’s diplomatic initiatives lends no support to the view that sees him consumed with a desire for revenge on the emperor. The Anglo-Imperial alliance continued with some vigour until after Pavia in 1525, and there was no formal break until January 1528. For a man allegedly consumed with dark thoughts of revenge, surely Wolsey waited rather too long to put them into action? Moreover, one of the themes of this book has been that Wolsey did not conduct foreign policy in order to further his private interests; and after Pavia, for instance, there were strong reasons for believing that a French alliance was the best means of achieving Henry’s wishes. If all this is so, and if Wolsey was not consumed with a hatred of Charles, or at least did not allow it to dominate his conduct of affairs, then the main reason for believing him to be the author of the divorce disappears.

  What of his alleged dislike of Catherine, irrespective of her relationship with Charles? The theory that Wolsey and Catherine were always enemies hardly stands up to close examination, if only because very little evidence concerning their relationship has survived. Such as there is, has mainly to do with their shared interest in education, and in particular Oxford university. If Wolsey did indeed visit that university in 1518 it was in her company,19 while perhaps the most distinguished of all the academics whom Wolsey appointed to his newly founded professorial chairs at Oxford, the Spanish humanist, Juan Luis Vives, was also closely connected with Catherine. And a letter of 1525 in which Longland describes Catherine’s reaction to the founding of Cardinal College suggests that queen and cardinal had a warm regard for each other.20 It is true that Tyndale in his The Practice of Prelates alleged that Wolsey kept spies in her household, but since that book consists largely of a diatribe against Wolsey, and since, also, he could have had very little, and certainly no first-hand, knowledge of the workings of the royal households, he can hardly be a reliable source.21 It is also true that very occasionally Imperial ambassadors hint that all was not well between Catherine and Wolsey,22 but then, of course, they would. When Wolsey was acting against the interests of Spain they naturally hoped that Catherine would try and influence Henry in the opposite direction; and what one hopes for, one may come to believe. Perhaps, Catherine did sometimes put in a good word for her uncle, and it may even be that in 1520 she tried, as has been alleged,23 to prevent the Field of Cloth of Gold taking place. What is more certain is that she can hardly have welcomed the direction that English foreign policy took after Pavia, when the French rather than the Imperialists became increasingly England’s main ally. But the point is that whatever Imperial ambassadors or Catherine may have hoped, she never had any influence over the conduct of foreign policy, and even the ambassadors really knew this. On his arrival in March 1527 the new Imperial ambassador, Mendoza, commented on the fact that he was being deliberately prevented from having a private conversation with Catherine, but it cannot be said that this worried him greatly because, he added, although she might wish to pre
serve the ‘old alliance’, she lacked the means.24 Later in the year he gave as a reason for Wolsey’s secret opposition to the divorce that, unlike Catherine, a new queen would not be incapable of doing him an injury.25 And surely there can be no better confirmation of Catherine’s lack of influence than Charles’s almost total failure to communicate with her during the 1520s,26 so that by November 1526 she had come to the conclusion that he must be angry with her.27 He was not angry. He just did not consider her important enough to write letters to.

  But if Catherine had no influence over the conduct of foreign policy and so was in this respect no worry to Wolsey, it could nevertheless be argued that in 1527 the mere fact that she was married to Henry stood in his way, because it prevented him from marrying the king off to a French princess. There is a great deal that is worrying about this view, not least the unconvincing evidence. All the same, Francesco Guicciardini in his History of Italy believed that this was indeed Wolsey’s intention, and the view of this very experienced contemporary diplomat deserves some respect.28 However, in 1527 Guicciardini was in Italy, trying his best to stave off Bourbon’s Imperialist army, and was thus far removed from Amiens and Compiègne where Wolsey was negotiating with the French. At the very best, therefore, he would only have been reporting high gossip. Other evidence is derived from the reports of someone with first-hand knowledge of Wolsey, the French ambassador du Bellay. In August 1528 he surmised, and it was only a surmise, that Wolsey had hoped to marry Henry to Madame Renée, but that Henry’s love for Anne had prevented him.29 Two months later he reported a conversation in which Wolsey had apparently admitted to him that he was responsible for starting the search for the divorce30, and this could, of course, be taken as conclusive proof that he was indeed its author. It should be stressed that this was the only time that Wolsey ever made such an admission, while on a number of other occasions both he and Henry denied it.31 It may also, on reflection, seem a rather curious, not to say dangerous, thing to have told a foreign ambassador unless, that is, he had good reason for admitting authorship, which Wolsey did. The admission came in the course of an interview concerning the payment of an English contribution to the French military effort, and he had been ‘very cold’ on the subject because, as he explained to du Bellay at some length, the French had grossly mishandled the military situation in Italy. Was this, demanded Wolsey, the way to reward someone who had done everything possible to bring about a perpetual union between England and France, a union which he had promised Louise of Savoy at Compiègne she would herself see if only she lived to be a year older?32 It was at this point that he mentioned the divorce, for it was in order to bring about this union that Wolsey alleged his desire to free Henry from his marriage to the Imperialist Catherine. In this context Wolsey’s remark appears to be merely a variant on his usual tactics towards the French, which were to make out that he was the only pro-French person in England and so they had better do what he advised if they wished to maintain good relations with her. ‘Look what I have done and am doing for you, even as far as getting the king to change his wife, but in return you will have to help me, and, in particular, you will have to stop going on about the money you think we owe you’: that was Wolsey’s message to du Bellay, and if a diplomatic lie concerning his authorship of the divorce increased its impact, so be it.

  It should be remembered that the French were well aware of the English desire for a divorce, so that the lie gave nothing away. It should also be remembered that the negotiations at Amiens and Compiègne were indeed about a perpetual union, and one that did involve a marriage: not, however, between Henry and Renée but between the Princess Mary and the duke of Orleans. What is more likely than that, given the rumours of Henry’s desire for a divorce that were already circulating in the courts of Europe, people not directly involved would assume that a marriage for Henry was intended? The chief reason for believing that this was the case, however, is that in all the extensive English correspondence to do with Wolsey’s embassy to France in 1527 there is nowhere the faintest hint of such a marriage. True, if Wolsey had been scheming behind Henry’s back one would hardly expect any mention of it, but is it really conceivable that Wolsey would have dared to do such a thing? Given the view advanced in this book that it was Henry who was the dominant partner, the answer must be no, but it is difficult to conceive of any view of the relationship that would lead to a different answer. To go about arranging a marriage without the king’s knowledge would have been too risky a manoeuvre to contemplate unless, that is, the king was putty in one’s hands. Even so, it would have made much more sense for him to explain to Henry what he was planning before leaving for Amiens, rather than casually announcing to Henry on his return that, by the way, he was to marry a French princess. And if Henry had been putty in Wolsey’s hands how does one explain Anne Boleyn?

  One of the most remarkable aspects of the divorce is the behaviour of the two leading ladies, Anne and Catherine. It was Anne’s refusal to take the easy option and become, as her sister had, yet another mistress that had precipitated the crisis. Almost as remarkable was Catherine’s decision to resist Henry’s efforts to obtain a divorce. The pressure on her to comply with the king’s wishes must have been enormous, at no point more than in November 1527 when her very life seemed threatened by an accusation of what might best be called ‘constructive treason’. It had been brought to the king’s notice that ‘divers personages do intend to conspire and imagine the death of the king’s grace’s most royal person and that of the lord legate. And this is surely thought to be enterprised for your grace’s [Catherine’s] sake, or for your grace’s occasion by such as be favourers of the emperor’. If any such conspiracy should be attempted, Catherine was told, she would be held directly responsible even though she ‘be nothing guilty therein’.33 She would make no answer to such an abominable accusation, Catherine apparently replied, for the thought that she might commit treason against her lord and husband was beneath contempt;34 and here she exhibited a dignity and courage characteristic of her behaviour throughout the difficult last years of her life. But on this occasion there were mitigating circumstances for her treatment. The totally unexpected appearance of the ‘Spanish brief’ just before the accusation was made, seemingly by her contrivance, had succeeded in destroying much of the work of the previous six months to achieve a divorce, and this must have been intensely provoking. There is also some evidence that at about this time king and minister were genuinely worried by information coming out of Spain and France that treasonable activity was being contemplated on Catherine’s behalf, so the accusation was not a total fabrication.35 Moreover, it needs to be borne in mind that however much we may admire Catherine’s courage and deplore Henry’s discarding of a woman who had loved and served him so loyally for so long, the fact remains that in deciding to resist the king’s wishes she became an enemy of the English Crown, and an extremely dangerous one. This was not only because of her Imperial connections, but because she could not help but become a focus of any discontent within the kingdom. Any moves, either by herself or by others acting on her behalf, would have to be most sternly countered by the king’s leading councillor.

  In fact, given the threat that Catherine’s opposition posed, what is only marginally less surprising than her bravery in offering it is the restraint shown by Henry and Wolsey in resisting it. She may have been threatened with constructive treason and subjected to lengthy harangues on the reasons why she should comply with Henry’s wishes, but she was allowed to take legal advice from foreigners and to appoint to her legal council men of the highest calibre who, whatever her occasional suspicions about them,36 seem to have prosecuted her case for the most part with sincerity and vigour. John Fisher is the outstanding example, but his episcopal colleagues, John Clerk and Henry Standish, were not far behind.37 That this was allowed to happen is not entirely to Henry’s and Wolsey’s credit, just as the pressure placed on her to comply is not entirely to their discredit. Given the need to secure for Henry as
legally and politically sound a marriage as possible, appearances had to be very important, and thus it was difficult not to allow her at least some of her legal rights. Catherine’s treatment had little to do with morality and everything to do with expediency; and it must be judged accordingly. But in order to understand Wolsey’s position we must remove the spotlight for a moment from the wronged but defiant queen and focus it on a figure whose overriding responsibility was to the king. It has been suggested here that Wolsey would have been unlikely to see any political advantage for himself or for the Crown in trying to remove Catherine. This alone means that he is a most unlikely candidate for the role of author of the divorce, and it will be suggested shortly that in his heart of hearts he would have been much more likely to be opposed to it because of the great difficulties it would so obviously present. But his personal views were neither here nor there. It was his duty to carry out the king’s wishes to the best of his ability. In the way of those wishes stood Catherine, who had so singularly failed to see where her duty as a loyal subject lay. This being so, she became the enemy who must be treated in whatever way the Crown found expedient.