Ten Tudor Statesmen

by Arthur D. Innes

III
WOLSEY AND THE FRENCH WAR

The inauguration of an era of universal peace is usually the prelude to a war. A year after the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Charles and Francis were on the verge of hostilities. Wolsey negotiated with both, ostensibly to bring about an accord. But in fact, England was committed to support Charles: and the responsibility was with the Cardinal.

The conclusion to which the circumstances point is that the pressure was too great for him to resist. Popular sentiment in England was opposed to the French alliance. The queen was a warm adherent of her young kinsman. The king was personally jealous of the achievements of Francis, and had visions of the French crown or at least of the recovery of Guienne. Wolsey probably felt that if he tried to maintain his own policy he would alienate Henry, and if he alienated Henry—who had just annihilated Buckingham—he would meet Buckingham’s fate amid universal applause, and the anti-French policy would triumph in any case. He elected to carry out the anti-French policy and remain at the helm. Hostile critics would suggest that he was actuated by the desire of obtaining the support of the emperor when the Papacy should become vacant. Charles failed to keep his promise when Leo died, and gave his support to another candidate; but neither then nor in the following year when Clement VII. was elected—again with the support of Charles—did Wolsey show any sign of changing his policy in consequence.

The English people had wanted the war; when they got it they paid for it at first cheerfully. But no advantage accrued, not even appreciable glory, and they tired of it. After Pavia, Henry thought the opportunity had come to strike for the French crown; but such an effort demanded more money. The business of getting it of course devolved on the Cardinal. There was no hope of obtaining it legitimately from a Parliament; Wolsey tried illegitimate methods—and failed. There was no alternative but to drop the war policy. Wolsey made an advantageous peace, and Charles promptly found himself obliged to come to terms with Francis. But it is clear that from this moment Wolsey’s position with his master became painfully uncertain.

Here then is the practical termination of Wolsey’s great period. After this, the king is absorbed by the divorce, and the minister, willy-nilly, must devote himself to that object—his own ruin being the alternative. His diplomatic labours achieved no permanent result, because the position won for England could only be maintained by continuity of diplomatic effort and diplomatic skill. After her own very different fashion, Elizabeth fifty years later was balancing continental forces, and manipulating them to her own ends, in a manner much less impressive and often indeed singularly undignified, but certainly not less successful. And with her, the result was that the England which Philip of Spain had hoped to make an appanage of his own established herself as the indisputable mistress of the seas. The change in the relative position of England between 1558 and 1588 was far greater than between 1508 and 1528.

But Elizabeth worked with a perfectly free hand. Wolsey worked for a master, who was quite capable of wrecking the minister’s schemes for a purely personal end. He had to persuade that master to sanction a policy which he never adopted with enthusiasm. He had to carry it through in spite of the hostility of the governing classes, the ill-will of the queen—who was still on terms of accord with her husband—and his own extreme unpopularity with the mob. That is, he had to work single-handed amidst extremely adverse conditions; and all the circumstances being taken together, it may fairly be said that he displayed a diplomatic genius unique among English statesmen.

IV
DOMESTIC POLICY

In the field of foreign affairs Wolsey’s policy and his methods were both derived from Henry VII.: or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he applied the same methods to a development of the same policy. The invaluable make-weight was converted into the inevitable arbiter: the means, a process of peaceful bargain-driving. The bargains were usually in both cases profitable for England. Incidentally, they generally contained unwritten clauses which were profitable also to the Cardinal. There is no reason to suppose that any case occurred in which Wolsey permitted essentials to be in the slightest degree affected by considerations of his own gain. But he himself would never have thought of disputing that he accumulated great profits out of his diplomatic transactions.

The first objective then of Wolsey’s policy was the establishment of England not merely as an important factor but as the dominant factor in European politics: therein going beyond anything that Henry VII. had contemplated, but still acting on lines laid down by him. In his second objective, he was still a disciple of the old king. This was the establishment of the Crown as a practical autocracy.

The primary condition of an absolutist government was a full treasury; and here Wolsey had the immense advantage of the great hoards accumulated during the last reign. In spite of the heavy expenditure involved in ministering to the king’s pleasures, and on such pageantry as the Field of the Cloth of Gold, government in Wolsey’s hands was economically conducted. The great revenues which fell into his own hands not merely from the numerous preferments he held in England, but also from foreign sources, enabled him to defray the magnificence of his own establishment, public as well as private: and there were indirect methods of throwing much of the cost of the Court upon private persons. It was not till 1523 that the Cardinal found himself forced to look to the country for supplies by the necessities of a war budget. For very nearly ten years he had carried on the government without calling Parliament, although it had hardly been summoned during the preceding decade; under a continuance of the same régime, England might have become accustomed to doing almost without Parliament.