A history of England

by Charles Oman

Now Henry VIII. was morbidly anxious for a son to succeed him; he was the only surviving male of the house of Tudor, and could not bear the thought of leaving the throne to a sickly girl. It was obvious that Catherine would bear him no more children, and, regardless of the duty and respect that he owed to her, he began to think of obtaining a divorce, and marrying a younger wife. His project took a definite shape when his eye was caught by the beautiful Anne Boleyn, a niece of the Duke of Norfolk, and one of the maids of honour. Becoming desperately enamoured of her, he resolved to press for a divorce at once. Wolsey, who saw that the kingdom needed a male heir, undertook to procure the Pope's consent to the repudiation of Catherine.

Attitude of the Pope.

But this task proved more difficult than he had expected. Popes were generally indulgent enough to kings who would pay handsomely for their heart's desire. But the reigning pontiff, Clement VII., was in an unhappy position: he was completely at the mercy of the Emperor Charles V., whose troops had lately taken and sacked Rome. Charles was resolved that his aunt Catherine should not be divorced, and Pope Clement was mortally afraid of offending him. Instead, therefore, of granting the demand of Henry VIII., he temporized, and appointed two cardinals, Wolsey himself and Campeggio, the Italian bishop of Salisbury, to investigate the question. Henry and Wolsey hoped to force on a prompt decision: but Campeggio deliberately hung back, and the Pope finally recalled him, and summoned the king to send his case to be tried at Rome (1528). Henry wrongly thought that this check was due to some bungling or reluctance on the part of Wolsey, not seeing that the Pope's fears of the Emperor were the real cause.

Unpopularity of Wolsey.

He at once withdrew his support from the great minister, though Wolsey needed it more at this moment than ever before, for he was in great disfavour with the nation, both for his arrogance and for the heavy taxation which he had imposed on the land. He had actually demanded from Parliament the unprecedented tax of 4s. in the pound on all men's lands and incomes, and, though the House plucked up courage to resist this extortionate claim, had obtained as much as 2s. In 1529 the cardinal, fearing to meet another Parliament, had recourse to the old device of benevolences, on a larger scale than ever. This led to rioting and open resistance. Then the king, to the surprise of all men, suddenly declared that Wolsey's action was taken without his knowledge and consent, and dismissed him from the office of Chancellor, which he had held since 1515.

His disgrace and death.

His place as the king's chief counsellor fell to the Duke of Norfolk, the uncle of Anne Boleyn. The king immediately proceeded to treat the cardinal with great ingratitude. Wolsey's harsh deeds had always been wrought for his master's benefit rather than his own, but Henry chose to ignore this fact, and to win a cheap popularity by persecuting his old and faithful servant. Probably Anne Boleyn and her uncle Norfolk, exasperated by the delay in the king's divorce, stirred up Henry to the attack. The cardinal was impeached for having accepted the title of legate from Rome, without the king's formal leave, many years before. Henry had made no objection at the time, and it was pure hypocrisy to pretend indignation now. But Wolsey was declared to have incurred penalties under the Statute of Praemunire, which forbad dealings with Rome conducted without royal leave. He was condemned, deprived of all his enormous personal property, and sent away from court, to live in his archbishopric of York. A year later Henry again commenced to molest him, and he was on his way to London, to answer a preposterous charge of treason, when he died at Leicester, as much of a broken heart as of any disease. He had been arrogant and harsh in his day of power, but had served his master so faithfully that nothing can excuse Henry's ingratitude. Unfortunately for England, he had taught the king the dangerous lesson that he could go very far in the direction of absolute and tyrannical government, and escape from the consequent unpopularity by throwing over his ministers. Henry used this knowledge to the full during the rest of his reign.

Cromwell and Cranmer.

Meanwhile Wolsey's disgrace, and the complete failure of the attempt to win a divorce from the Pope, had been leading the king into new paths. He had taken to himself two new councillors. In secular matters he gave his confidence to Thomas Cromwell, a clever, low-born adventurer, whom Wolsey had discovered and brought to court. In matters religious he was beginning to listen to his chaplain, Thomas Cranmer, a man with a curious mixture of piety and weakness, one of the few Englishmen who had as yet been touched by the doctrines of the Continental Reformers. It was not, however, as a Reformer that Cranmer commended himself to his master; indeed, he kept his Lutheran opinions very secret. But he had suggested to the king a new method of dealing with the divorce question, which Henry considered not unpromising. It might be urged that marriage with a deceased brother's wife was so strictly and definitely forbidden in the Scriptures, that the Pope had no authority to sanction it, and so the permissory bull of Julius II. might be scouted as so much waste paper. Henry eagerly swallowed the idea, and sent round the question, stated as a moot point, to all the universities of Europe. About half of them answered, as he wished, that the marriage was illegal from the first. Armed with this authority, he resolved to go further.

Attack on the clergy.