Cardinal Wolsey

by M. Creighton

But though Wolsey was not successful in his method of making the royal power supreme over Parliament, he took the blame of failure upon himself, and saved the king's popularity. Wolsey's devotion to his master was complete, and cannot be assigned purely to selfish motives. Wolsey felt that his opinions, his policy, his aspirations had been formed through his intercourse with the king; and he was only strong when he and his master were thoroughly at one. At first the two men had been in complete agreement, and it cost Wolsey many a pang when he found that Henry did not entirely agree with his conclusions. After the imperial alliance was made Wolsey lost much of his brilliancy, his dash, and his force. This was not the result of age, or fatigue, or hopelessness so much as of the feeling that he and the king were no longer in accord. Like many other strong men, Wolsey was sensitive. He did not care for popularity, but he felt the need of being understood and trusted. He gave the king his affection, and he craved for a return. There was no one else who could understand him or appreciate his aims, and when he felt that he was valued for his usefulness rather than trusted for what he was in himself, the spring of his life's energy was gone.

Still Wolsey laboured in all things to exalt the royal power, for in it he saw the only hope of the future, and England endorsed his opinion. But Wolsey was too great a man to descend to servility, and Henry always treated him with respect. In fact Wolsey always behaved with a strong sense of his personal dignity, and carried stickling for decorum to the verge of punctiliousness. Doubtless he had a decided taste for splendour and magnificence, but it is scarcely fair to put this down to the arrogance of an upstart, as was done by his English contemporaries. Wolsey believed in the influence of outward display on the popular mind, and did his utmost to throw over the king a veil of unapproachable grandeur and unimpeachable rectitude. He took upon himself the burden of the king's responsibilities, and stood forward to shield him against the danger of losing the confidence of his people. As the king's representative he assumed a royal state; he wished men to see that they were governed from above, and he strove to accustom them to the pomp of power. In his missions abroad, and in his interviews with foreign ambassadors, he was still more punctilious than in the matters of domestic government. If the king was always to be regarded as the king, Wolsey, as the mouthpiece of the royal will, never abated his claims to honour only less than royal; but he acted not so much from self-assertion as from policy. At home and abroad equally the greatness of the royal power was to be unmistakably set forth, and ostentation was an element in the game of brag to which a spirited foreign policy inevitably degenerates. It was for the king's sake that Wolsey magnified himself; he never assumed an independent position, but all his triumphs were loyally laid at the king's feet. In this point, again, Wolsey overshot the mark, and did not understand the English people, who were not impressed in the manner which he intended. When Henry took the government more directly into his own hands he managed better for himself, for he knew how to identify the royal will with the aspirations of the people, and clothed his despotism with the appearance of paternal solicitude. He made the people think that he lived for them, and that their interests were his, whereas Wolsey endeavoured to convince the people that the king alone could guard their interests, and that their only course was to put entire confidence in him. Henry saw that men were easier to cajole than to convince; he worked for no system of royal authority, but contented himself with establishing his own will. In spite of the disadvantage of a royal education, Henry was a more thorough Englishman than Wolsey, though Wolsey sprang from the people.

It was Wolsey's teaching, however, that prepared Henry for his task. The king who could use a minister like Wolsey and then throw him away when he was no longer useful, felt that there was no limitation to his self-sufficiency.

Wolsey, indeed, was a minister in a sense which had never been seen in England before, for he held in his hand the chief power alike in Church and State. Not only was he chancellor, but also Archbishop of York, and endowed beside with special legatine powers. These powers were not coveted merely for purposes of show: Wolsey intended to use them, when opportunity offered, as a means of bringing the Church under the royal power as completely as he wished to subject the State. He had little respect for the ecclesiastical organisation as such; he saw its obvious weaknesses, and wished to provide a remedy. If he was a candidate for the Papacy, it was from no desire to pursue an ecclesiastical policy of his own, but to make the papal power subservient to England's interests. He was sufficiently clear-sighted to perceive that national aspirations could not much longer be repressed by the high-sounding claims of the Papacy; he saw that the system of the Church must be adapted to the conditions of the time, and he wished to avert a revolution by a quiet process of steady and reasonable reform. He was perhaps honest in saying that he was not greatly anxious for the Papacy; for he knew that England gave him ample scope for his energies, and he hoped that the example of England would spread throughout Europe. So at the beginning of his career he pressed for legatine powers, which were grudgingly granted by Leo X., first for one year, and afterwards for five; till the gratitude of Clement VII. conferred them for life. Clothed with this authority, and working in concert with the king, Wolsey was supreme over the English Church, and perhaps dreamed of a future in which the Roman Pontiff would practically resign his claims over the northern churches to an English delegate, who might become his equal or superior in actual power.

However this might be, he certainly contemplated the reform of the English Church by means of a judicious mixture of royal and ecclesiastical authority. Everything was propitious for such an undertaking, as the position of the Church was felt to be in many ways anomalous and antiquated. The rising middle class had many grievances to complain of from the ecclesiastical courts; the new landlords looked with contempt on the management of monastic estates; the new learning mocked at the ignorance of the clergy, and scoffed at the superstitions of a simpler past which had survived unduly into an age when criticism was coming into fashion. The power of the Church had been great in days when the State was rude and the clergy were the natural leaders of men. Now the State was powerful and enjoyed men's confidence; they looked to the king to satisfy their material aspirations, and the Church had not been very successful in keeping their spiritual aspirations alive. It was not that men were opposed to the Church, but they judged its privileges to be excessive, its disciplinary courts to be vexatious, its officials to be too numerous, and its wealth to be devoted to purposes which had ceased to be of the first importance. There was a general desire to see a re-adjustment of many matters in which the Church was concerned; and before this popular sentiment churchmen found it difficult to assert their old pretensions, and preferred to rest contentedly under the protection of the Crown.

A trivial incident shows the general condition of affairs with sufficient clearness. One of the claims which on the whole the clergy had maintained was the right of trial before ecclesiastical courts; and the greater leniency of ecclesiastical sentences had been a useful modification of the severity of the criminal law, so that benefit of clergy had been permitted to receive large extension of interpretation. Further, the sanctity of holy places had been permitted to give rights of sanctuary to criminals fleeing from justice or revenge. Both of these expedients had been useful in a rude state of society, and had done much to uphold a higher standard of humanity. But it was clear that they were only temporary expedients which were needless and even harmful as society grew more settled and justice was regularly administered. Henry VII. had felt the need of diminishing the rights of sanctuary, which gave a dangerous immunity to the numerous rebels against whom he had to contend, and he obtained a bull for that purpose from Pope Innocent VIII. The example which he set was speedily followed, and an Act was passed by the Parliament of 1511, doing away with sanctuary and benefit of clergy in the case of those who were accused of murder.

It does not seem that the Act met with any decided opposition at the time that it was passed; but there were still sticklers for clerical immunities, who regarded it as a dangerous innovation, and during the session of Parliament in 1515 the Abbot of Winchcombe preached a sermon in which he denounced it as an impious measure. Henry VIII. adopted a course which afterwards stood him in good stead in dealing with the Church; he submitted the question to a commission of divines and temporal peers. In the course of the discussion Standish, the Warden of the Friars Minors, put the point clearly and sensibly by saying, "The Act was not against the liberty of the Church, for it was passed for the weal of the whole realm." The clerical party were not prepared to face so direct an issue, and answered that it was contrary to the decretals. "So," replied Standish, "is the non-residence of bishops; yet that is common enough." Baffled in their appeal to law the bishops fell back upon Scripture, and quoted the text, "Touch not mine anointed." Again Standish turned against them the new critical spirit, which destroyed the old arguments founded on isolated texts. David, he said, used these words of all God's people as opposed to the heathen; as England was a Christian country the text covered the laity as well as the clergy. It was doubtless galling to the clerical party to be so remorselessly defeated by one of their own number, and their indignation was increased when the temporal lords on the commission decided against the Abbot of Winchcombe and ordered him to apologise.

The bishops vented their anger on Standish, and summoned him to answer for his conduct before Convocation, whereon he appealed to the king. Again Henry appointed a commission, this time exclusively of laymen, to decide between Standish and his accusers. They reported that Convocation, by its proceeding against one who was acting as a royal commissioner, had incurred the penalties of præmunire, and they added that the king could, if he chose, hold a parliament without the lords spiritual, who had no place therein save by virtue of their temporal possessions. Probably this was intended as a significant hint to the spirituality that they had better not interfere unduly with parliamentary proceedings. Moreover, at the same time a case had occurred which stirred popular feeling against the ecclesiastical courts. A London merchant had been arrested by the chancellor of the Bishop of London on a charge of heresy, and a few days after his arrest was found hanging dead in his cell. Doubtless the unhappy man had committed suicide, but there was a suspicion that his arrest was due to a private grudge on the part of the chancellor, who was accused of having made away with him privily. Popular feeling waxed high, and the lords who gave their decision so roundly against Convocation knew that they were sure of popular support.

Henry was not sorry of an opportunity of teaching the clergy their dependence upon himself, and he summoned the bishops before him that he might read them a lesson. Wolsey's action on this occasion is noticeable. He seems to have been the only one who saw the gravity of the situation, and he strove to effect a dignified compromise. Before the king could speak Wolsey knelt before him and interceded for the clergy. He said that they had designed nothing against the king's prerogative, but thought it their duty to uphold the rights of the Church; he prayed that the matter might be referred to the decision of the Pope. Henry answered that he was satisfied with the arguments of Standish. Fox, Bishop of Winchester, turned angrily on Standish, and Archbishop Warham plucked up his courage so far as to say feebly, "Many holy men have resisted the law of England on this point and have suffered martyrdom." But Henry knew that he had not to deal with a second Becket, and that the days of Becket had gone by for ever. He would have nothing to say to papal intervention or to clerical privilege; the time had come for the assertion of royal authority, and Henry could use his opportunity as skilfully as the most skilful priest. "We," said he, "are by God's grace king of England, and have no superior but God; we will maintain the rights of the Crown like our predecessors; your decrees you break and interpret at your pleasure: but we will not consent to your interpretation any more than our predecessors have done." The immemorial rights of the English Crown were vaguer and more formidable than the rights of the Church, and the bishops retired in silence. Henry did not forget the service rendered him by Standish, who was made Bishop of St. Asaph in 1518.

In this incident we have a forecast of the subsequent course of events—the threat of præmunire, the assertion of the royal supremacy, the submission of the clergy. Nothing was wanting save a sufficient motive to work a revolution in the ancient relations between Church and State. Wolsey alone seems to have seen how precarious was the existing position of the Church. He knew that the Church was wrong, and that it would have to give way, but he wished to clothe its submission with a semblance of dignity, and to use the papal power, not as a means of guarding the rights of the Church, but as a means of casting an air of ecclesiastical propriety over their abandonment. Doubtless he proposed to use his legatine power for that purpose if the need arose; but he was loyal to the Church as an institution, and did not wish it to fall unreservedly to the tender mercies of the king. He saw that this was only to be avoided by a judicious pliancy on the Church's part, which could gain a breathing-space for carrying out gradual reforms.