The Life of Cardinal Wolsey

by George Cavendish

[2] The Norfolk MS. is defective at the beginning, one leaf being lost, which contained a portion of the prologue; there is consequently no title to the work. It has a blank leaf at the place where the lacunæ usually occur in the manuscript copies. The hand-writing is of the reign of Elizabeth, and the text corresponds very nearly with that of Dr. Wordsworth: the orthography is not the same. This MS. is in its original binding, and has the name of its ancient possessor, Henrie Farleigh, stamped on each cover. The other manuscript copy in my possession is carefully written, but apparently of more recent date; it has the following title in German text hand prefixed:

The Life of Master
Thomas Wolsey
Archbishoppe of Yorke
and Cardinall
written by
George Cavendish
his Gentleman Usher.

The same chasm is marked in this MS. as in the former, two pages and a half being left blank, but the imperfect passages at the conclusion of the hunt, and at the commencement of the relation concerning the libels on Wolsey, are completed by a few words as they now stand in Dr. Wordsworth’s text. The variations between these copies are chiefly literal; the orthography is in many respects different.

[3] Mr Hunter informs me that Clement Rossington the elder, who must be here alluded to, died in 1737. He acquired the manor of Dronfield by his marriage with Sarah Burton, sister and co-heir of Ralph Burton, of Dronfield, Esq. who died in 1714. The father of Ralph and Sarah Burton was Francis Burton, also of Dronfield, who was aged twenty-five at the visitation of Derbyshire, 1662, and the mother, Helen, daughter and heir of Cassibelan Burton, son of William Burton the distinguished antiquary and historian of Leicestershire. There is good reason to believe that the Rossingtons were not likely to purchase a book of this curiosity, and it is therefore more than probable that it once formed part of the library of William Burton, other books which had been his having descended to them.

[4] Vide pp. [181], [182], [183], and for another addition pp. [166], [167], [168]; in the present edition the passages are included in brackets.

[5] Bound up in the same volume with the Life of Wolsey, in Mr. Heber’s copy, are the following tracts bearing upon the subject; of which a very limited impression appears to have been made, as they are all equally rare. Two Dialogues in the Elysian Fields between Cardinal Wolsey and Cardinal Ximenes, by Mr. Grove of Richmond. London, Printed for the Author by D. Leach, 1761. A Short Historical Account of Sir William Cavendish, Gentleman Usher to Cardinal Wolsey, and of his Lady Elizabeth (afterwards Countess of Shrewsbury) and their descendants. This has no title page. The Observations and Appendix to the Life of Wolsey appear to have been annexed, as the paging is continued. Six Appendices to a Short History of King Henry VIII. which he had previously published. These have no general title, and are separately paged. A Short Examination into some Reflections cast on the Memory of Cardinal Wolsey, by the Author of the Life of Sir Thomas More, in the Biographia Britannica. 1761. The Life of Robert Wolsey, of Ipswich, Gentleman, Father of the famous Cardinal. 1761. Grove has divided his edition into sections for the purpose of reference. His text has now nothing to recommend it, though it was then a laudable undertaking: he occasionally shows that he could not very well decipher his MS.; he puts hinnocrisse for hippocrass at p. 71, and at p. 76 peeres for speres, with many other palpable mistakes. Grove’s ingenuity, though not his ingenuousness, may be admired; for finding in his manuscript the work attributed to George Cavendish, he converts it to Gu. Cavendish, Gent. not to disturb his own historical account of Sir William Cavendish, in which he gives a circumstantial relation of the intimacy between Wolsey and Thomas Cavendish of the Exchequer, the father of Sir William, who, he says, placed him in the service of Wolsey, and of the growth of his fortunes in consequence, with a confidence and detail which is truly amusing.

[6] This manuscript is carefully written in a volume with other curious transcripts, and has marginal notes by the transcriber, who appears to have been a puritan, from his exclamations against pomp and ceremony. At the end he writes, “Copied forth by S. B. anno 1578, the first day of September.”

[7] Kippis’s Edit. vol. iii. p. 321.

[8] Vol. i. p. 302.

[9] Vol. i. p. 314.