The Life of Cardinal Wolsey

by George Cavendish

The next day the king took my lord’s minstrels and rode unto a nobleman’s house, where was some goodly image that he had avowed a pilgrimage unto, to perform his devotion. When he came there, he danced, and others with him, the most part of that night; my lord’s minstrels played there so excellently all that night, that the shalme—[124], (whether it were with extreme labour of blowing, or with poisoning, as some judged, because they were more commended and accepted with the king than his own, I cannot tell), but he that played upon the shalme, an excellent man in that art, died within a day or twain after.

Then the king returned again unto Compeigne, and caused a wild boar to be lodged for him in the forest there; whither my lord rode with the king to the hunting of the wild swine within a toil; where the Lady Regent stood in chariots or wagons, looking on the toil, on the outside thereof, accompanied with many ladies and damosels; among whom my lord stood by the Lady Regent, to regard and behold the pastime and manner of hunting. There was within the toil divers goodly gentlemen with the king, ready garnished to this high enterprise and dangerous hunting of the perilous wild swine. The king being in his doublet and hosen only, without any other garments, all of sheep’s colour cloth; his hosen, from the knee upward, was altogether thrummed with silk very thick of the same colour: having in a slip a fair brace of great white greyhounds, armed, as the manner is to arm their greyhounds from the violence of the boar’s tusks. And all the rest of the king’s gentlemen, being appointed to hunt this boar, were likewise in their doublets and hosen, holding each of them in their hands a very sharp boar’s spear.

The king being thus furnished, commanded the hunts to uncouch the boar, and that every other person should go to a standing, among whom were divers gentlemen and yeomen of England; and incontinent the boar issued out of his den, chased with an hound into the plain, and being there, stalked a while gazing upon the people, and incontinent being forced by the hound, he espied a little bush standing upon a bank over a ditch, under the which lay two lusty gentlemen of France, and thither fled the boar, to defend him, thrusting his head snuffing into the same bush where these two gentlemen lay, who fled with such speed as men do from the danger of death. Then was the boar by violence and pursuit of the hounds and the hunts driven from thence, and ran straight to one of my lord’s footmen, a very comely person, and an hardy, who held in his hand an English javelin, with the which he was fain to defend himself from the fierce assault of the boar, who foined at him continually with his great tusks, whereby he was compelled at the last to pitch his javelin in the ground between him and the boar, the which the boar brake with his force of foining. And with that the yeoman drew his sword, and stood at defence; and with that the hunts came to the rescue, and put him once again to flight. With that he fled and ran to another young gentleman of England, called Master Ratcliffe, son and heir to the Lord Fitzwalter, and after[125] Earl of Sussex, who by chance had borrowed of a French gentleman a fine boar spear, [very sharp, upon whom, the boar being sore chafed, began to assault very eagerly, and the young gentleman deliverly avoided his strokes, and in turning about he struck the boar with such violence (with the same spear that he had borrowed) upon the houghs, that he cut the sinews of both his legs at one stroke, that the boar was constrained to sit down upon his haunches and defend himself, for he could go no more; this gentleman perceiving then his most advantage, thrust his spear into the boar under the shoulder up to the heart, and thus he slew the great boar. Wherefore among the noblemen of France it was reputed to be one of the noblest enterprises that a man might do (as though he had slain a man of arms); and thus our Master Ratcliffe bare then away the prize of that feat of hunting, this dangerous and royal pastime, in killing of the wild boar, whose tusks the Frenchman doth most commonly doubt above all other dangers, as it seemed to us Englishmen then being present.]

[In this time of my lord’s being in France, over and besides his noble entertainment with the king and nobles, he sustained diverse displeasures of the French slaves, that devised a certain book, which was set forth in diverse articles upon the causes of my lord’s being there: which should be, as they surmised, that my lord was come thither to conclude two marriages; the one between the king our sovereign lord and Madame Reneé[126], of whom I spake heretofore; and the other between the then princess of England, (now being queen of this realm) my Lady Mary the king’s daughter and the French king’s second son, the Duke of Orleans, who is at this present king of France: with diverse other conclusions and agreements touching the same. Of this book many were imprinted and conveyed into England, unknown to my lord, [he] being then in France, to the great slander of the realm of England, and of my Lord Cardinal. But whether they were devised of policy to pacify the mutterings of the people, which had diverse communications and imaginations of my lord’s being there; or whether [they] were devised of some malicious person, as the dispositions of the common people are accustomed to do, upon such secret consultations, I know not; but whatsoever the occasion or cause was, the author hath set forth such books. This I am well assured, that after my lord was thereof well advertised, and had perused one of the said books, he was not a little offended, and assembled all the privy council of France together, to whom he spake his mind thus; saying, that it was not only a suspicion in them, but also a great rebuke and a defamation to the king’s honour to see and know any such seditious untruths openly divulged and set forth by any malicious and subtle traitor of this realm; saying furthermore, that if the like had been attempted within the realm of England, he doubted not but to see it punished according to the traitorous demeanour and deserts. Notwithstanding I saw but small redress[127]].

So this was one of the displeasures that the Frenchmen showed him, for all his pains and travail that he took for qualifying of their king’s ransom.

Also another displeasure was this. There was no place where he was lodged after he entered the territory of France, but that he was robbed in his privy chamber, either of one thing or other; and at Compeigne he lost his standish of silver, and gilt: and there it was espied, and the party taken, which was but a little boy of twelve or thirteen years of age, a ruffian’s page of Paris, which haunted my lord’s lodging without any suspicion, until he was taken lying under my lord’s privy stairs; upon which occasion he was apprehended and examined, and incontinent confessed all things that were missed, which he stole, and brought to his master the ruffian, who received the same, and procured him so to do. After the spial of this boy, my lord revealed the same unto the council, by means whereof the ruffian was apprehended, and set on the pillory, in the midst of the market-place; a goodly recompense for such an heinous offence. Also another displeasure was; some lewd person, whosoever it was, had engraved in the great chamber window where my lord lay, upon the leaning stone there, a cardinal’s hat with a pair of gallows over it, in derision of my lord; with divers other unkind demeanours, the which I leave here to write, they be matters so slanderous.

Thus passing divers days in consultation, expecting the return of Christopher Gunner, which was sent into England with letters unto the king, as it is rehearsed heretofore, by empost, who at last returned again with other letters; upon receipt whereof my lord made haste to return into England.

In the morning that my lord should depart and remove, being then at mass in his closet, he consecrated the Chancellor of France a cardinal, and put upon him the habit due to that order; and then took his journey into Englandward, making such necessary expedition that he came to Guisnes, where he was nobly received of my Lord Sands, then captain there, with all the retinue thereof. And from thence he rode to Calais, where he tarried the shipping of his stuff, horses, and train; and in the meantime he established there a mart, to be kept for all nations; but how long it endured, and in what sort it was used, I know not, for I never heard of any great good that it did, or of any worthy assembly there of merchants or merchandise, that was brought thither for the furniture of so weighty a matter.

These things finished, and others for the weal of the town, he took shipping and arrived at Dover, from whence he rode to the king, being then in his progress at Sir Harry Wyatt’s house, in Kent, [it was] supposed among us that he should be joyfully received at his home coming, as well of the king as of all other noblemen: but we were deceived in our expectation. Notwithstanding he went, immediately after his coming, to the king, with whom he had long talk, and continued there in the court two or three days; and then returned to his house at Westminster, where he remained until Michaelmas term, which was within a fortnight after, and using his room of Chancellorship, as he was wont to do.

At which time he caused an assembly to be made in the Star Chamber, of all the noblemen, judges, and justices of the peace of every shire that were at that present in Westminster Hall, and there made to them a long oration, declaring unto them the cause of his embassy into France, and of his proceeding there; among the which he said, "he had concluded such an amity and friendship as never was heard of in this realm in our time before, as well between the emperor and us, as between the French king and our sovereign lord, concluding a perpetual peace, which shall be confirmed in writing, alternately, sealed with the broad seals of both the realms graved in fine gold; affirming furthermore, that the king should receive yearly his tribute, by that name, for the Duchy of Normandy, with all other costs which he hath sustained in the wars. And where there was a restraint made in France of the French queen’s dower, whom the Duke of Suffolk had married, for divers years during the wars, it is fully concluded, that she shall not only receive the same yearly again, but also the arrearages being unpaid during the restraint. All which things shall be perfected at the coming of the great embassy out of France: in the which shall be a great number of noblemen and gentlemen for the conclusion of the same, as hath not been seen repair hither out of one realm in an embassy. This peace thus concluded, there shall be such an amity between gentlemen of each realm, and intercourse of merchants with merchandise, that it shall seem to all men the territories to be but one monarchy. Gentlemen may travel quietly from one country to another for their recreation and pastime; and merchants, being arrived in each country, shall be assured to travel about their affairs in peace and tranquillity: so that this realm shall joy and prosper for ever. Wherefore it shall be well done for all true Englishmen to advance and set forth this perpetual peace, both in countenance and gesture, with such entertainment as it may be a just occasion unto the Frenchmen to accept the same in good part, and also to use you with the semblable, and make of the same a noble report in their countries.