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

by Gwyn, Peter

  What it is also difficult to sustain is a belief in the Machiavellian Norfolk, for if there is one thing which his many letters from the North make abundantly clear, it is that he found responsibility a great worry, which makes him an unlikely candidate for the role of leader of a faction. Of course, one has to be extremely careful. Writing in the 1530s, his wife provided the text for the Machiavellian Norfolk when she alleged that he could ‘speak fair, as well to his enemy as to his friend, and that I perceive by them that be dead and them that be alive’.88 But given the unhappy state of the marriage at this time the text does not have to be believed; and it may be relevant that in their quarrels not only their children, but her own brother, who refused even to have her in his house, took the duke’s side.89 And it is very difficult to believe that when on 23 October 1523 Norfolk ‘scribbled’ a note to Wolsey ‘at 11 at night’ desperately seeking further instructions, 90 he was only pretending to be worried in order to disguise his ambitious plans to usurp Wolsey’s place. Norfolk was always worrying about something, usually about whether he was carrying out his instructions properly, so that on occasions he drove Wolsey to distraction. Yet this is the man who is supposed to have successfully plotted to bring down first Wolsey and then Cromwell, so that he could be, under Henry, the first man in the land. It really will not do. Norfolk was loyal, conscientious, hardworking, reasonably intelligent, though, as du Bellay commented on more than one occasion, 91 not nearly as intelligent as Wolsey. If this makes him seem too good to be true, there are criticisms that can be made. Thomas Magnus, a close observer of Norfolk’s rule of the North during 1523 and 1524, believed that, while the duke always took great pains to serve the king, he was ‘some deal suspicious, … and soon will be moved to be hasty’, 92 and the observation seems a shrewd one. Norfolk was a little suspicious, towards the end of his life even a little paranoid, as his letter from the Tower in 1546 indicates, though perhaps one should be allowed a little paranoia when in the Tower! Still, his efforts always to do the right thing may well have been only part of a strategy to deflect all possible criticism from himself. He may also have felt that his great services to Henry had not always been appreciated, even that Wolsey had not always appreciated him. Norfolk was no saint, but there is nothing in his character to suggest that he had either the ability or the desire to be a ruthless manipulator of the political scene. Why then did people as shrewd as the Imperial and French ambassadors think that he was just that? Part of the explanation is that as one of the two or three most important men in the kingdom, Norfolk was bound to be thought of as Wolsey’s rival. It has also to do with the particular circumstances of the years 1527 to 1529. More will have to be said about both these things, but before this is done it is necessary to consider whether, any more than his fellow duke, Suffolk emerges as someone who had it in him to bring Wolsey down.

  There are three aspects to Suffolk’s career and character that are relevant. The most obvious is that he seems to have always got on well with Wolsey; indeed, in their younger days they were probably close friends.93 The hiccup to Suffolk’s career in early 1515 brought about by his initially unauthorized marriage to the king’s sister Mary may have placed some strain on the friendship, but the strain was inherent in the situation; Henry to begin with was furious, as well he might be, and Wolsey had no choice but to represent that fury to Suffolk. However, it appears that Wolsey did his best to restore Suffolk to royal favour, and, that achieved, continued to give help and advice, especially on his very complicated financial affairs. One consequence of his becoming duke in 1514 and being set up as a great East Anglian magnate, was that Suffolk was less frequently at court, so that he did not see as much of Wolsey as previously. However, one of his close advisers in East Anglia, Humphrey Wingfield, was also close to Wolsey, which must have helped to continue the good relations between duke and cardinal.94 Certainly, as late as 1527 and at least during the first half of 1528, the two were corresponding in a friendly way, with Suffolk asking Wolsey the usual mixture of favours, and Wolsey doing his best to provide them.95 In fact, the increasing importance to England at this time of the French alliance involved Wolsey and Suffolk, known for his francophile sentiments, working closely together on plans for possible military action against the emperor.96 Their co-operation was also called for over the difficulties in East Anglia, for, like Norfolk, Suffolk was doing everything possible to ensure that the government measures to alleviate distress and to maintain law and order were put into effect there.97 And, as with Norfolk, there is no hint in all this of any attempt by Suffolk to take advantage of the government’s difficulties to embarrass a Wolsey who on the face of it remained his friend.

  The second point to make is that Suffolk emerges as an even less likely candidate for the leadership, or even membership of a faction, than Norfolk. Indeed, the chief impression is of a man who, despite almost as dramatic a rise as Wolsey’s – from, ‘stable boy into a nobleman’, as Erasmus, with a good deal of exaggeration, had put it98 – was as near as anybody in his position could have been to being apolitical. His elevation to a dukedom had been entirely due to his friendship with the young Henry, with whom he shared an interest in military matters. He showed himself to be a competent enough soldier, who was, as has already been noted, along with Norfolk, the natural choice to command a royal army in the 1520s, and indeed during most of the reign. But what really seems to have brought him and Henry together was their mutual passion for the joust, at which they both excelled. And sport is perhaps the key to Suffolk’s character: today he would have been very much the ‘good chap’, almost a ‘hooray Henry’, excelling at most games, enjoying his field sports, not especially bright but loyal and courageous. Suffolk, wrote the Venetain ambassador in 1531 was

  sixty-one years of age, very robust, and although not of very noble lineage, yet as he has for his wife his Majesty’s sister, widow of the King Louis of France, much honour and respect are paid him; and he has the second seat in his Majesty’s Council, which he rarely enters, save for discussion of matters of certain importance, passing his time more pleasantly in other amusements.99

  Not for Suffolk the loss of weight and sleep that his fellow duke had to endure in the service of his king, nor indeed frequent attendance at the no doubt often tedious Council meetings. Instead, what Suffolk seems to have wanted was the honour and respect due to a personal friend of the king whose family’s record of service to the Tudors was outstanding, but not too much responsibility or hard work. This is not a man who hungered after Wolsey’s job, or who would have taken any initiative to bring him down.

  The third point to make is that while there is plenty of evidence that Suffolk and Wolsey were friends, there is little to show that Suffolk and Norfolk were.100 Indeed, there is quite a lot to suggest that they were not. Even Suffolk’s elevation in 1514 probably did not help. The 3rd duke’s father’s great victory at Flodden virtually demanded that he be restored to the dukedom of Norfolk which he had lost on his attainder in 1485 for having fought at Bosworth for Richard III. But to ease the slight embarrassment that such a step involved, it may have helped to raise to a similar rank someone whose Tudor credentials were impeccable, Suffolk’s father having achieved the ultimate distinction of death on the field of Bosworth at the hands of Richard himself! And if the Howards’ reaction to being paired with Suffolk in this way must in the end remain speculation, in the following year Suffolk definitely saw them as rivals.101 Moreover, it so happened that a large part of the de la Pole lands, which had been granted to Suffolk on his elevation, had previously been granted to the 3rd duke of Norfolk. Some extremely complicated negotiations ensued, in which Wolsey was much involved and which resulted in Suffolk having to buy back some of his own land, while renting the rest for the considerable sum of £413 6s. 8d., to be paid annually, either until Norfolk died or forty years had elapsed, when the land would revert to him.102 Given their importance, considerable efforts must have been taken to make this settlement as acceptable as possible to
both men, but it cannot have been pleasing to Suffolk, especially given the parlous state of his finances, to be paying out such large sums for land that was nominally his. This did not prevent him from co-operating with Norfolk in the affairs of East Anglia, but the assumption, at least implicit in so many accounts of Wolsey’s downfall, that the two men were natural allies should be resisted. Their characters and careers were very different, and indeed one of the few things they had in common was that neither was the kind of man to have taken upon himself the destruction of Wolsey. Such a conclusion flies in the face not only of most historians’ interpretations of Wolsey’s downfall, but also, and more worryingly, of a good deal of contemporary evidence, especially that of two very acute observers of the English political scene, the Imperial ambassador, Mendoza, and Jean du Bellay, bishop of Bayonne, since November 1527 the French ambassador in London. Why is it then, that so many people have got it so wrong? An examination of three particular moments in the story of Wolsey’s downfall may help to provide an answer.

  The traditional story really begins with Mendoza’s reports of May 1527. It was at this time that he first got wind of Henry’s desire for a divorce, but even before then he was describing a London seething with discontent, a discontent directed particularly against Wolsey. His main explanation for this was a severe attack of francophobia brought on by the recent visit to England of an important French embassy. Much hard bargaining throughout April had at length resulted in new treaties, providing, amongst other things, for the marriage of Princess Mary either to Francis himself, or to his second son, the duke of Orléans, a prospect which seems to have been especially unpopular. The treaties also increased the likelihood of an out-and-out war with the emperor, one consequence of which would be severe, if not complete, disruption of the vital trade with the Low Countries. But what concerns us for the moment is the report that Wolsey was about to be relieved of some of his duties; and one rumour had Tunstall, whom Mendoza anyway saw, along with Norfolk, as a secret opponent of Wolsey, succeeding to the office of lord chancellor. Wolsey was on the way out, and in support of this assessment Mendoza pointed to the fact that lately he had absented himself from court, pleading, what was for Mendoza at least, a purely diplomatic illness.103

  How much truth was there in all this? Well, to begin with, Mendoza’s suspicions about the illness seem to have been groundless; at any rate, a reliable French source states that during the second half of April Wolsey was ill for about a week with a ‘tertian fever’.104 But if Wolsey had really been ill, he had also been exceptionally busy. There was, first, the negotiations with the French: these had lasted for over a month, had involved a great deal of hard bargaining, with himself very much in the thick of things, and there is nothing to indicate, whatever the citizens of London, or even Norfolk and Tunstall, may have thought, that Henry was at all unhappy with the outcome. Indeed, the French alliance was such an essential part of the strategy to achieve the divorce that Henry was bound to approve of it. Indeed, it is the emergence of the divorce as the dominant issue in English politics that makes it highly unlikely that Henry was contemplating getting rid of Wolsey in the spring of 1527. Put at its simplest, his own cardinal legate was his best weapon in the struggle to obtain the Church’s authorization for the divorce. Wolsey was already in April busy preparing the case which in May was to be presented to a court called by virtue of his legatine powers, over which he would preside. Arguably there had never been a time when the king needed Wolsey more, and so it can be said with reasonable certainty that on the matter of Wolsey’s position, Mendoza had got it wrong. What he almost certainly did not get wrong was Wolsey’s, and indeed Henry’s, unpopularity – but more of that in a moment.

  Most later historians, while picking up on the general notion that Wolsey’s position first began to be threatened in the spring of 1527, have not followed Mendoza in thinking that Wolsey’s absence from Court at this time had any special significance. Instead they have focused their attention on his absence during the summer of that year on his famous mission to Amiens and Compiègne, seeing this as the moment when the aristocratic faction first began to put its act together.105 The main reason for doing this is the company that Henry was keeping while he was on progress and Wolsey was away; and it was indeed very distinguished, including the marquess of Exeter, the earls of Oxford, Essex and Rutland, and viscount Fitzwalter;106 plus the triumvirate of Norfolk, Suffolk and Boleyn, with whom, it was reported to Wolsey, Henry usually took supper.107 Obviously there could have been something very significant in all this, but the point that will be stressed here is that there does not have to be.

  To begin with, Wolsey was not in the habit of accompanying Henry on progress, so there would have been nothing unusual in his not being with him, even if he had not been in France. Noblemen, on the other hand, usually did, especially those whose estates lay in the parts of the country that Henry had chosen to visit. In the previous summer his progress had taken him through Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire, and so he had been accompanied by the earl of Arundel, Viscount Lisle, and the Lords Dacre of the South, de la Warr and Sandys, men whose chief residences lay in these counties. Their attendance upon the king had been duly reported to Wolsey,108 but nobody so far has suggested that they comprised an aristocratic faction! In 1527 Henry chose to centre his progress on his own palace of Beaulieu, or New Hall, near Chelmsford in Essex. It is not, therefore, all that remarkable that he was surrounded on this occasion by his East Anglian noblemen, who happened to include pre-eminently the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and Boleyn, who had sold Beaulieu to the king.109 And, given that these three were with the king, it is hardly surprising that they supped with him – much more remarkable if they had not. It is only with hindsight or if one already believes in he existence of the aristocratic faction that their presence at Beaulieu appears significant.

  In the previous chapter it was suggested that at this time an elaborate charade was being acted out, to which Wolsey was privy, the purpose of which was to allay the queen’s fears about Henry’s intentions towards her and also to try and disperse any rumours about a possible divorce. In this sense there may have been some political significance in the progress of 1527, but it had nothing to do with any cabal to bring Wolsey down. Admittedly, there was criticism being voiced at Beaulieu at his suppression of monasteries to endow his new college at Oxford, and this criticism focused on two men closely associated with him, his leading legatine official, John Allen, and a member of his household, Thomas Cromwell.110 But to turn this very natural reaction into evidence for an aristocratic plot to destroy the cardinal is to stretch the evidence quite unjustifiably. The search for the divorce was increasingly to introduce an unsettling element into English politics but whatever else the triumvirate of Norfolk, Suffolk and Boleyn were doing at Beaulieu, they were not, or at least not according to the royal secretary, William Knight, taken into Henry’s confidence on the one matter that most concerned him.111 It may be true, though, that on this particular progress Henry had desired a specially good turn-out in order to demonstrate what was clearly not the case – that it was business as usual: with the queen at his side, and his noblemen arrayed around them, all was supposed to be well with the world.

  A year later the French ambassador was describing a series of lengthy interviews with Wolsey in which the cardinal had appeared to be more than usually expansive and personal.112 He stressed his deep commitment to the French alliance, which in his usual fashion he claimed had cost him a great deal of popularity, a view which, it should be said, du Bellay fully endorsed. Wolsey also talked much about his own future: if only he could bring about a perpetual amity between England and France, if only he could reform the laws and customs of England, and if only he could resolve all possible doubts about the royal succession, then he could retire, a happy man, in order to devote himself to the service of God. In his patron Fox and in Archbishop Warham, there were, indeed, recent precedents for such honourable retirements, but Wolsey in 1528 was a go
od ten years younger than both these men had been when they had resigned. Moreover, there were rather too many ‘ifs’ in Wolsey’s conversation for his words to carry great conviction, nor did du Bellay entirely believe them. Wolsey might be thinking of retirement, though not because he was hungering for a life of devotion to God, but because he was frightened of what would happen if Anne became queen even though, according to him, Wolsey was not fully apprised of Henry’s intentions as regards the divorce. Moreover, du Bellay reported ‘on good authority’, though he could not give it ‘as certain’, that recently ‘the king used terrible language [to Wolsey] because he seemed desirous to cool [the king], and show him that the pope would not consent to [the divorce]’. Of course, it is impossible to prove that such an episode did not take place, and Wolsey must frequently have had to counsel patience, something that Henry cannot have been eager to listen to. But as we saw earlier, there is substantial evidence to suggest that in the summer of 1528 king and minister had never been closer, and that at least until October and Campeggio’s arrival in England, expectations of success were high, at least on Henry’s part, and that until the second legatine court had taken place, there was no way in which he was going to dismiss Wolsey. So, like Mendoza a year earlier, du Bellay got it wrong, deceived by a more than usually brilliant performance put on by Wolsey to delay, even to avoid, the payment then due, of an English contribution to the French war effort.