Cardinal Wolsey

by M. Creighton

Truly these pleas were sorely contradictory. Henry was ready to acknowledge to the fullest extent the papal power of granting dispensations, and was ready to submit to the justice of the Pope as the highest justice upon earth. But this was solely on condition that the Pope gave decision according to his wishes. He regarded the Papacy as an excellent institution so long as it was on his own side. If it refused to see the justice of his pleas, then he fell back as strenuously as did Luther on the necessity of satisfying his own conscience, and to do so he was ready, if need were, to break with the Church. Truly the movement in Germany had affected public opinion more than was supposed when Wolsey could hold such language to the Pope. He did not know what a terrible reality that curious conscience of Henry would become. His words were a truer prophecy than he dreamed.

However, this line of argument was stubbornly pursued by Gardiner even in the Pope's presence. Clement at Orvieto was not surrounded by the pomp and splendour customary to his office. The English envoys found him in a little room, seated on a wooden bench which was covered with "an old coverlet not worth twenty pence." But he did not see his way to a restoration of his dignity by an unhesitating compliance with the demands of the English king; on the other hand, the mere fact that his fortunes had sunk so low demanded greater circumspection. He was not likely to escape from dependence on Charles V. by making himself the tool of Francis I. and Henry VIII.; such a proceeding would only lead to the entire destruction of the papal authority. Its restoration must be achieved by holding the balance between the opposing Powers of Europe, and Henry VIII.'s desire for a divorce gave the Pope an opportunity of showing that he was still a personage of some importance. Dynastic questions still depended on his decree, and he could use Henry's application as a means of showing Charles that he had something to fear from the Papacy, and that it was his policy to make the Papacy friendly to himself. So Clement resolved to adopt a congenial course of temporising, in the hope that he might see his advantage in some turn of affairs. No doubt he thought that Henry's matter would soon settle itself; either his passion for Anne Boleyn would pass away, or he would make her his mistress. The stubbornness of Henry, his strange hold upon formal morality while pursuing an immoral course of conduct, his imperious selfwill, which grew by opposition—these were incalculable elements which might have upset the plans of wiser men than Clement VII.

So the Pope acted the part of the good simple man who wishes to do what is right. He lamented his own ignorance, and proposed to consult those who were more learned in canon law than himself. When Gardiner said that England asked nothing but justice, and if it were refused would be driven to think that God had taken away from the Holy See the key of knowledge, and would begin to adopt the opinion of those who thought that pontifical laws, which were not clear to the Pope himself, might well be committed to the flames, Clement sighed, and suggested a compromise. Then he added, with a smile, that though canonists said "the Pope has all laws in the cabinet of his breast," yet God had not given him the key to open that cabinet; he could only consult his cardinals.

Gardiner's outspoken remonstrances were useless against one who pleaded an amiable incompetence. Against the churnings of Henry's conscience Clement set up the churnings of his own conscience, and no one could gainsay the Pope's right to a conscience as much as the English king. After pursuing this course during the month of March the Pope at length with sighs and tears devised a compromise, in which he feared that he had outstepped the bounds of discretion. He accepted one of the documents which the English envoys had brought, the permission for the king to marry whom he would as soon as his marriage with Katharine had been dissolved. He altered the terms of the other document, which provided for the appointment of a commission with plenary powers to pronounce on the validity of the king's marriage; he granted the commission, but did not give it plenary power; at the same time he chose as the commissioner who was to sit with Wolsey Cardinal Campeggio, who was the protector of England in the Papal Court, and who was rewarded for his services by holding the bishopric of Hereford. In this way he showed every mark of goodwill to Henry short of acquiescing entirely in the procedure which he proposed; but he kept the final decision of the matter in his own hands.

Gardiner was not wholly pleased with this result of his skill and firmness: after all his efforts to obtain a definite solution the Pope had managed to escape from giving any binding promise. Still, Foxe put a good face on Gardiner's exploits when he returned to England in the end of April. Henry and Anne Boleyn were delighted, and Wolsey, though he was more dissatisfied than Gardiner, thought it best to be hopeful. He tried to bind the Pope more firmly, and instructed Gardiner to press that the law relating to Henry's case should be laid down in a papal decretal, so that the legates should only have to determine the question of fact; this decretal he promised to keep entirely secret; besides this, he urged that there should be no delay in sending Campeggio.

During these months of expectancy Wolsey condescended to ingratiate himself with Anne Boleyn, who had become a political personage of the first importance. Anne was sure of Wolsey's devotion to her interests so long as they were also the king's, and could not dispense with Wolsey's skill. So she was kindly, and wrote friendly letters to Wolsey, and asked for little gifts of tunny-fish and shrimps. The English Court again resembled an amiable family party, whose members were all of one mind. In the course of the summer they were all thrown into terror by an outbreak of the "Sweating Sickness," which devastated the country. Anne Boleyn was attacked, though not severely; and Henry showed that his devotion to her did not proceed to the length of risking his own precious life for her sake. He fled to Waltham, and Anne was left with her father; Henry protested by letter his unalterable affection, but kept out of harm's way till all risk of infection was past. At the same time he showed great solicitude for Wolsey's health, as did also Anne Boleyn. It seemed as though Wolsey were never more useful or more highly esteemed.

Yet, strangely enough, this outbreak of the plague drew upon Wolsey the most significant lesson which he had yet received of his own real position and of Henry's resoluteness to brook no check upon his royal will. Amongst others who perished in the sickness was the Abbess of Wilton, and Anne Boleyn wished that the vacant office should be given to one of the nuns of the abbey, Eleanor Carey, sister of William Carey, who had married Anne's sister Mary. Wolsey was informed of the wishes of Anne and of the king on this point; but on examination found that Eleanor's life and character were not such as to fit her for the office. He therefore proposed to confer it on the prioress, Isabella Jordan. It would seem, however, that Eleanor's friends were determined to efface in some degree the scandal which their unwise haste had occasioned, and they retaliated by spreading reports injurious to the character of the prioress. Wolsey did not believe these reports; but Anne Boleyn and the king agreed that if their nominee was to be set aside, the cardinal's nominee should be set aside likewise, and Wolsey was informed of the king's decision. Perhaps Wolsey failed to understand the secret motives which were at work; perhaps he had so far committed himself before receiving the king's message that he could not well go back; perhaps he conscientiously did what he thought right. Anyhow, he appointed Isabella Jordan, and sent her appointment to the king for confirmation; further, he gave as his excuse that he had not understood the king's will in the matter.

To his extreme surprise and mortification the king took the opportunity thus afforded of reading him a lecture on his presumption, and reminding him that he was expected to render implicit obedience. Matters were no longer arranged between Henry and Wolsey alone; Anne Boleyn was a third party, and the king's pride was engaged in showing her that his word was law. When Henry took his pen in hand he assumed the mantle of royal dignity, and he now gave Wolsey a sample of the royal way of putting things which was so effectual in his later dealings with his Parliament. He began by assuring Wolsey that the great love he bore him led him to apply the maxim, "Whom I love I chasten;" he spoke therefore not in displeasure but for Wolsey's good. He could not but be displeased that Wolsey had acted contrary to his orders; he was the more displeased that Wolsey had pleaded ignorance as an excuse for his disobedience. He overwhelmed him with quotations from his letters on the subject, and went on, "Ah, my lord, it is a double offence both to do ill and colour it too; but with men that have wit it cannot be accepted so. Wherefore, good my lord, use no more that way with me, for there is no man living that more hateth it." He then went on to tell Wolsey that there were many rumours current about the means which he was employing to raise money from religious houses for the foundation of his new colleges; he told him this because "I dare be bolder with you than many that mumble it abroad." He showed that he had not forgotten the refusal of the monasteries to help in the Amicable Grant: why should they now give money to Wolsey unless they had some interested motive in doing so? He advised Wolsey to look closely into the matter, and ended, "I pray you, my lord, think not that it is upon any displeasure that I write this unto you. For surely it is for my discharge afore God, being in the room that I am in; and secondly, for the great zeal I bear unto you, not undeserved on your behalf. Wherefore, I pray you, take it so; and I assure you, your fault acknowledged, there shall remain in me no spark of displeasure; trusting hereafter you shall recompense that with a thing much more acceptable to me."

This letter came upon Wolsey as a sudden revelation of his true position. It showed him the reality of all the vague doubts and fears which he had for some time been striving to put from him. He was crushed into abjectness, which he did not even strive to conceal from others. He took the immediate matters of complaint seriously to heart, and wished to annul the appointment of Isabella Jordan, which the king ruled to be unnecessary; on that point he was satisfied with having asserted a principle. But he advised Wolsey to receive no more gifts for his colleges from religious houses, and Wolsey promised not to do so. "Thereby I trust, nor by any other thing hereafter unlawfully taken, your poor cardinal's conscience shall not be spotted, encumbered, or entangled; purposing, with God's help and your gracious favour, so to order the rest of my poor life that it shall appear to your Highness that I love and dread God and also your Majesty." This was a lamentable prostration of the moral authority of the chief churchman in England before the king, and showed Wolsey's weakness. He knew that he had not demeaned himself as befitted his priestly office; and though he may have felt that no man in England had less right than the king to reprove his conduct on moral grounds, still he could not plead that he was above reproach. In the particular matter of which he was accused—extorting money from the religious houses in return for immunities granted in virtue of his legatine power—there is no evidence that Wolsey was guilty. But he could not say that he had a conscience void of offence; he had acted throughout his career as a statesman and a man of the world. If the king chose to hold him up to moral reprobation he had no valid defence to offer. He had disregarded the criticisms of others that he might serve the king more faithfully; but if the king took upon himself the office of critic he had nothing to urge. It was because Henry had taken the measure of churchmen such as Wolsey that he ventured in later times to hold such lofty language in addressing the clergy. Henry was always superior to the weakness of imagining that his own conduct needed any defence, or his own motives any justification.

Wolsey, though forgiven with royal graciousness, was profoundly depressed, and could not recover his sense of security. The future was to him big with menaces, and perhaps he looked most sadly upon his designs which yet remained unrealised. He saw that his activity must henceforth work in a smaller sphere, and that he must make haste to finish what he had on hand. The ugly business of the divorce looked to him still uglier. Either he would fail in his efforts to move the Pope, in which case he lost his hold upon the king at once, or, if he succeeded, he saw that the reign of Anne Boleyn meant the end of his own uncontested influence. The king's letter was at least significant of that: he would never have raised a question about so trivial a matter if he had not wished to justify his absolute power in the eyes of one who was to him all-important.