Besides the two kings who were at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, there was a great man there, whom you must know something about. His name was Wolsey. He was a clergyman, and in the time of King Henry the Seventh he was known to be very clever indeed. But Henry the Eighth first made him a bishop, and then the Pope (who you know is the Bishop of Rome) gave him the rank of Cardinal.
In those days a cardinal was thought to be almost as great a man as a king. He dressed in long fine silk robes, trimmed with fur, and when he went out he wore a scarlet hat with a broad brim and fine red cords and tassels.
This Cardinal Wolsey was very clever, as I told you, and very learned; he was one of the scholars at Oxford when Thomas Linacre taught Greek there; and with a part of the great riches that he got from the king he built the great college, called Christ Church, at Oxford, and a school at Ipswich, the town where he was born. He also built the great palace of Hampton Court, and made a present of it to the king. And these you know were all useful things.
But Cardinal Wolsey was proud towards the nobles, and had to tax the people heavily to pay for the king’s wars; so he was greatly disliked. And some persons told the king that the cardinal spoke ill of him, and that he boasted of being richer and more powerful than the king. So Henry, who was very passionate, ordered all his riches to be taken away from him suddenly, and sent for him to London, where I am almost sure he intended to order his head to be cut off. But the cardinal fell ill and died on the road. His last words were—“If I had served God as diligently as I have served the king, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs.”
Now I must end this chapter. In the next I shall tell you about King Henry’s six wives.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
HENRY VIII.—Continued.
How King Henry married six times; and how he got rid of his wives when he was tired of them.
Henry the Eighth’s first wife was Catherine of Arragon. She was a princess from Spain, who came to England to be married to Prince Arthur, King Henry’s brother. But as you read in the chapter before the last, Prince Arthur died when he was very young; and Catherine was married to Henry.
They had only one daughter, the Princess Mary, who came to be Queen of England, as you will read. Now, though Henry was very fond of his wife for a great many years, he grew tired of her at last, and wished very much to marry a beautiful young lady who lived with Queen Catherine.
