Cardinal Thomas Wolsey

English religious leader and politician

• Born: 1471 or 1472
• Birthplace: Ipswich, Suffolk, England
• Died: November 29, 1530
• Place of death: Leicester Abbey, Leicester, England

By combining for himself the highest lay administrative post of chancellor and the religious position of papal legate a latere, Wolsey paved the way for the combining of church and state under Henry VIII.

Early Life

Thomas Wolsey (WOOL-zee) was the child of Robert Wulcy, a butcher, from Ipswich, Suffolk, and his wife, Joan. Sent at an early age to Oxford, he received his bachelor of arts degree at the age of fifteen. He became a fellow at Magdalen College in 1497, soon after receiving his master of arts degree and becoming first junior and then senior bursar there. Forced to resign as bursar for using funds without authorization in order to complete the building of the great tower at the college, he became a priest in 1498.

Subsequently, Wolsey became chaplain to Sir Richard Nanfan, the deputy lieutenant of Calais, and Nanfan recommended him to Henry VII. The king appointed Wolsey as one of his chaplains and occasionally used him on royal business. With the accession of Henry VIII in April, 1509, and the death of his grandmother, who did not like Wolsey, Wolsey came into his own. He became Henry’s almoner in November and was advanced to councillor in late 1511.

Life’s Work

From 1512 until his fall from power in 1529, Wolsey controlled the government of England, by acquiescing to the desires of his sovereign. Wolsey satisfied Henry’s appetite for glory with the successful French campaign of 1513, in which Henry’s forces won the Battle of Spurs and captured the French towns of Tournai and Thérouanne. In return for this success, Henry rewarded Wolsey by securing for him several clerical appointments the bishopric of Tournai, the bishopric of Lincoln, the archbishopric of York, and the cardinalate. Later, Wolsey would add legate a latere, the bishopric of Bath and Wells, the abbacy of St. Albans, the bishopric of Durham, and the bishopric of Winchester to his titles. Though only archbishop of York and thus theoretically under the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Warham, Wolsey surpassed Warham and the entire English church by virtue of his status as papal legate a latere. Moreover, when Warham resigned as chancellor in December, 1515, Henry appointed Wolsey to the post. Thus, Wolsey united in himself the supreme lay post of chancellor and the supreme clerical post of legate a latere, making him the second most important person in the kingdom, only below the king. As Henry’s chief minister, Wolsey expended most of his energies on diplomacy. Whenever he saw either Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, or Francis I , the king of France, growing stronger, Wolsey sided with the other, trying to maintain a balance of power on the Continent. His greatest successes included the 1513 campaign against the French; the Anglo-French treaty of 1514; the 1518 peace treaty of Noyon, which involved England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire; and the magnificent Field of Cloth of Gold of 1520, when Henry and Francis met in a glorious spectacle of amity. His failures included the refusal of the East Anglians to agree to the Amicable Grant of 1525 and the pope’s refusal to annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn.

In 1527, Henry began to worry about his lack of a male heir and about the legality of his marriage to Catherine, who had previously been married for nearly five months to his elder brother, Arthur. Wolsey, with Warham, in May, 1527, examined the king about the marriage but came to no conclusion. Instead, Wolsey decided to use his influence to secure a decree of nullity from Pope Clement VII . Clement was unwilling to antagonize Charles V, whose troops had sacked Rome in 1527 and briefly imprisoned the pope. Charles was Catherine’s nephew, and he had sworn to help her.

Nevertheless, the pope sent his legate to England but instructed him to do nothing without papal permission. Wolsey and the papal legate heard the marriage case from June 18 to July 23, 1529, when the case was called back to Rome because the planned Treaty of Cambrai between Charles and Francis soon made it unnecessary for Clement to give Henry what he wanted. Earlier in the year, when Clement had been gravely ill, Wolsey had desperately tried to accumulate enough votes in the college of cardinals for his own candidacy, in the event of Clement’s death. Twice before, in 1522 and in 1523, Wolsey had thought of himself as a papal candidate, but in 1522, Charles’s tutor became Adrian VI, and in 1523, Giulio de’ Medici became Clement VII. Perhaps it was unrealistic for a man such as Wolsey, who had never been to Rome and had not developed his Italian contacts, to think of himself as a viable candidate. Wolsey expended most of his energies on serving Henry and advancing his own interests.

Failure to secure the decree of nullity led to Wolsey’s fall from power. He was indicted on October 9, 1529, under the statute of praemunire, which said that no ecclesiastical causes could be taken outside England for settlement, for his having overstepped his authority as legate. Wolsey lost his post as chancellor on October 18, 1529, to Sir Thomas More and signed a confession of his wrongdoing three days later. On November 3, he answered forty-six parliamentary charges against him (he was ably defended by Thomas Cromwell). In February, 1530, Henry restored him as archbishop of York, and Wolsey went to that city in the spring. Once there, he endeared himself to the people by singing masses in parish churches and adopting a more religious way of life, even to the wearing of a hair shirt. Questions, however, arose about his correspondence with foreign powers after his fall, and the king had him arrested for treason. As Wolsey made his way to London, he stopped at Leicester Abbey, where he died on November 29, 1530. He was buried in the abbey chapel, next to Richard III.

Significance

Money from Wolsey’s various ecclesiastical posts, combined with his fees from chancery and foreign pensions, made him the wealthiest man in the kingdom, wealthier even than the king in personal income. Wolsey was a great builder. He constructed York Place; his palace in Westminster, which later became the palace of Whitehall when Henry took it over; and Hampton Court, which Wolsey gave to Henry in 1525 to appease the king’s jealousy.

Although Wolsey was given the power as papal legate to reform the English church, he failed to do so. He was anti-Lutheran and, in 1521, had presided over the burning of Martin Luther’s books. Nevertheless, Wolsey had a reputation for fairness in his dealings in the Court of the King’s Council and in the Star Chamber.

Wolsey’s private life, arrogance, and pluralism made for him many enemies, including the poets William Roy and John Skelton, who viciously satirized him in their poetry. Possibly Wolsey’s example fed the anticlericalism that enabled Henry and Thomas Cromwell to reform the English church in the Reformation Parliament of 1529-1536. Moreover, Wolsey’s practice of dissolving decaying monasteries in order to use the revenue to found colleges at Ipswich and Oxford was not lost on Cromwell, who dissolved all the English monasteries and nunneries to feed Henry’s coffers. Thus, Wolsey’s example of uniting lay and clerical power in himself paved the way for the extension of Henry’s power over the church as well as the state. Wolsey served Henry well, but financially, he served himself better. At his death he was scarcely mourned, except by the good people of York, who, in the few months that he spent with them, saw him as their spiritual father.

Bibliography

Cavendish, George. The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey. Reprinted in Two Early Tudor Lives, edited by Richard S. Sylvester and Davis P. Harding. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1962. One of the earliest of English biographies, written in 1557 by Wolsey’s gentleman usher.

Elton, G. R. Reform and Reformation: England, 1509-1558. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979. Notes the ephemeral nature of Wolsey’s achievements. The real administrative revolution awaited the energy, efficiency, and work of Thomas Cromwell.

Erickson, Carolly. Great Harry: The Extravagant Life of Henry VIII. New York: Summit Books, 1980. Fascinating insights into both Wolsey and Henry VIII.

Ferguson, Charles W. Naked to Mine Enemies: The Life of Cardinal Wolsey. New York: Time, 1965. Dramatic, readable retelling of Wolsey’s life by the former editor of Reader’s Digest.

Gunn, S. J., and P. G. Lindley, eds. Cardinal Wolsey: Church, State, and Art. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Anthology of essays assessing all aspects of Wolsey’s career, from his patronage of the arts to his handling of the church to his involvement in foreign affairs. Includes thirty-six pages of plates, illustrations, sheet music, bibliographic references, and index.

Guy, J. A. The Cardinal’s Court: The Impact of Thomas Wolsey in Star Chamber. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1977. Based extensively on documents in England’s Public Record Office, this study notes Wolsey’s innovative use of the Court of Star Chamber but concludes that the court was used more extensively and more practically by Thomas Cromwell. Challenging, but well worth reading.

Harvey, Nancy Lenz. Thomas Cardinal Wolsey. New York: Macmillan, 1980. A brief, readable account. Follows the judgments of Wolsey’s gentleman usher and Wolsey’s other contemporaries.

Loades, David. Politics and Nation: England, 1450-1660. 5th ed. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999. Includes a chapter on Wolsey’s administration and his role in the establishment of the Tudor Dynasty. Includes bibliographic references and index.

Pollard, A. F. Wolsey. New York: Longmans, Green, 1953. Originally issued in 1929, this is Pollard’s masterpiece. Revised by works of Erickson, Williams, and Elton, but still worth reading.

Smith, Lacey Baldwin. This Realm of England, 1399 to 1688. Vol. 2 in A History of England, edited by Lacey Baldwin Smith. 7th ed. Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1996. A wonderfully written tour de force. The sort of history that cannot fail to excite the reader.

Strong, Roy. The Spirit of Britain: A Narrative History of the Arts. New York: Fromm International, 2000. Examines Wolsey’s role in shaping the course of the history of British art and music. Includes illustrations, map, sheet music, bibliographic references, and index.

Williams, Neville. The Cardinal and the Secretary: Thomas Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell. New York: Macmillan, 1975. A fascinating dual biography of two men, Wolsey and Cromwell, who were at the center of English public events for nearly thirty years. Shrewd insights from a master historian.

Wilson, Derek. In the Lion’s Court: Power, Ambition, and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002. Vivid study of the perils of Henry VIII’s court that details the fates of six members of the court, including Wolsey and five other men named Thomas. Examines Wolsey’s background and education, and provides a thorough survey of his activities in the court and the events leading up to his arrest for treason. Includes illustrations, maps, sixteen pages of plates, bibliographic references, and index.