Whether it be happy or not, or enviable by the least peasant who can pay his way and sleep heartily, will be left to the judgment of the reader.
The site of Whitehall was originally occupied by a mansion built by Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, and Chief Justice of England in the reign of Henry the Third, one of the ancestors of the present Marquess of Clanricarde. De Burgh bequeathed it to the Brotherhood of the Black Friars, near "Oldborne," in whose church he was buried; the Brotherhood sold it to Walter Gray, Archbishop of York, who left it to his successors in that see as the archiepiscopal residence, which procured it the name of York Place; and under that name, two centuries and a half afterwards, it became celebrated for the pomp and festal splendour of the "full-blown" priest, Wolsey, the magnificent butcher's son. Wolsey, on highly probable evidence, is thought to have so improved and enlarged the mansion of his predecessors, as to have in a manner rebuilt it, and given it its first royalty of aspect: but, as we shall see by and by, it was not called Whitehall, nor occupied anything like the space it did afterwards, till its seizure by the Cardinal's master.
We have always thought the epithet of "full-blown," as applied to Wolsey, the happiest poetical hit ever made by Dr. Johnson:
"In full-blown dignity see Wolsey stand,
Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand."
His ostentation, his clerical robes, his very corpulence, and his subsequent fading, all conspire to render the image felicitous. Wolsey is the very flower of priestly prosperity—fat, full-blown, gorgeous, called into life by sunshine; the very odours he was fond of carrying in his hand, become a part of his efflorescence; one imagines his cheek florid, and his huge, silken vestments expanding about him, like bloated petals. Anon, the blast blows from the horrid royal mouth: the round flower hangs its head; it lays its dead neck on the earth; and in its room, is a loathed weed.
Wolsey, however, did not grow to be what he was with the indolence of a flower. He began his career with as much personal as mental activity, rendered himself necessary to the indolence of a young and luxurious Sovereign,—in fact, became his Sovereign's will in another shape, relieving the royal person of all trouble, and at the same time securing all his wishes, from a treaty down to a mistress; and hence, as he himself intimated, the whole secret of his prosperity. He had industry, address, eloquence, the power of pleasing, the art (till success spoilt him) of avoiding whatever was unpleasant. He could set his master at ease with himself, in the smallest points of discourse, as well as on greater occasions. Henry felt no misgiving in his presence. He beheld in his lordly and luxurious agent a second self, with a superior intellect, artfully subjected to his own, so as to imply intellectual as well as royal superiority; and he loved the priestly splendour of Wolsey, because, in setting the church so high, and at the same time carrying himself so loyally, the churchman only the more elevated the Prince. The moment the great servant appeared as if he could do without the greater master, by a fortune superior to failure in his projects, Henry's favour began to give way; and when the princely churchman, partly in the heedlessness arising from long habits of security, and partly in the natural resentment of a superior mind, expressed a doubt whether his Sovereign was acting with perfect justice towards him, his doom was sealed. Kings never forgive a wound to their self-love. They have been set so high above fellowship by their fellow-creatures, that they feel, and in some measure they have a right to feel, the least intimation of equality, much more of superiority, as an offence, especially when it is aggravated by a secret sense of the justice of the pretension; and all Wolsey's subsequent self-abasements could not do away with that stinging recollection, pleased as Henry was to widen the distance between them, and recover his own attitude of self-possession by airs of princely pity. Wolsey was a sort of Henry, himself—wilful, worldly, and fat, but with more talents and good-nature; for he appears to have been a man of rare colloquial abilities, and, where he was not opposed in large matters, of a considerate kindliness. He was an attached as well as affable master; and his consciousness of greater merit in himself would never have suffered him to send a couple of poor light-hearted girls to the scaffold, for bringing the royal marriage-bed into some shadow of a doubt of its sacredness. He would have sent them to a nunnery, and had a new marriage, without a tragedy in it, like a proper Christian Sultan! Had Henry been in Wolsey's place, he would have proposed to set up the Inquisition; and King Thomas would have reproved him, and told him that such severities did not become two such fat and jolly believers as they.
The people appear to have liked Wolsey much. They enjoyed his pomp as a spectacle, and pitied his fall. They did not grudge his pomp to one who was so generous. Besides, they had a secret complacency in the humbleness of his origin, seeing that he rose from it by real merit. Those that quarrelled with him for his pride, were proud nobles and grudging fellow-divines. It is pretty clear that Shakspeare, who was such a "good fellow" himself, had a regard for Wolsey as another. He takes opportunities of echoing his praises, and dresses his fall in robes of pathos and eloquence. As to a true feeling of religion, it is out of the question in considering Wolsey's history and times. It was not expected of him. It was not the fashion or the morality of the day. It was sufficient that the Church made its way in the world, and secretly elevated the interests of literature and scholarship along with it. A king in those times was regarded as a visible God upon earth, not thoroughly well behaved, but much to be believed in; and if the Church could compete with the State, it was hoped that more perfect times would somehow or other ensue. A good deal of license was allowed it on behalf of the interests of better things—a singular arrangement, and, as the event turned out, not likely to better itself quite so peaceably as was hoped for; but it was making the best, under the circumstances, of the old perplexity between "the shows of things, and the desires of the mind." Wolsey (as the prosperous and the upper classes are apt to do in all ages) probably worshipped success itself as the final proof of all which the divine Governor of the world intended, in his dealings with individuals or society. Hence his proud swelling while possessed of it, and his undisguised tears and lamentations during his decline. He talks with his confidants about the King and good fortune, like a boy crying for a cake, and they respectfully echo his groans, and evidently think them not at all inconsistent, either with manliness or wisdom.
There was a breadth of character in all that Wolsey thought, did, and suffered—in his strength and in his weakness. In his prosperity he set no bounds to his pomp; in adversity he cries out and calls upon the gods, not affecting to be a philosopher. When he was angry he huffed and used big words, like his master; when in good humour, he loaded people with praise; and he loved a large measure of it himself, he issued forth, with his goodly bulk and huge garments, and expected a worship analogous to his amplitudes. There is a passage written with great humour by Sir Thomas More, which, according to Dr. Wordsworth (the poet's brother), is intended, "no doubt, to represent the Cardinal at the head of his table." What reasons the doctor has for not doubting the application, we cannot say, and therefore do not think ourselves any more justified than inclined to dispute them. The supposition is highly probable. Wolsey must have offered a fine dramatic spectacle to the eyes of a genius like More. We shall therefore copy the passage for the reader's entertainment, from a note in Mr. Singer's excellent edition of the Cardinal's Life by Cavendish:—
"Anthony. I praye you, Cosyn, tell on. Vincent. Whan I was fyrste in Almaine, Uncle, it happed me to be somewhat favoured with a great manne of the churche, and a great state, one of the greatest in all that country there. And in dede whosoever might spende as muche as hee mighte in one thinge and other, were a ryght great estate in anye countrey of Christendom. But glorious was hee verye farre above all measure, and that was great pitie, for it dyd harme, and made him abuse many great gyftes that God hadde given him. Never was he saciate of hearinge his owne prayse.