Cardinal Wolsey

by M. Creighton

There is little that is directly ennobling in the contemplation of such a career. It may be doubted if the career of any practical statesman can be a really ennobling study if we have all its activity recorded in detail. At the best it tells us of much which seems disingenuous if not dishonest—much in which nobility of aim or the complexity of affairs has to be urged in extenuation of shifty words and ambiguous actions.

The age in which Wolsey lived was immoral in the sense in which all periods are immoral, when the old landmarks are disappearing and there is no certainty about the future. Morality in individuals and in states alike requires an orderly life, a perception of limits, a pursuit of definite ends. When order is shattered, when limits are removed, when all things seem possible, then political morality disappears. In such a condition was Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The old ideas, on which the mediæval conception of Christendom depended, were passing away. No one any longer regarded Christendom as one great commonwealth, presided over by Pope and Emperor, who were the guardians of international law and arbiters of international relations. The Empire had long ceased to exercise any control, because it was destitute of strength. The Papacy, after vainly endeavouring to unite Europe round the old cry of a crusade against the Turk, had discovered that there was no European power on which it could rely for support. The old ideas were gone, the old tribunals were powerless, the old bonds of European union were dissolved.

The first result of this decay in the mediæval state-system of Europe was the emergence of vague plans of a universal monarchy. The Empire and the Papacy had harmonised with the feudal conception of a regulative supremacy over vassals who were free to act within the limits of their obligations to their superior lord. When the old superiors were no longer recognised, the idea of a supremacy still remained; but there was no other basis possible for that supremacy than a basis of universal sovereignty. It was long before any state was sufficiently powerful to venture on such a claim; but the end of the fifteenth century saw France and Spain united into powerful kingdoms. In France, the policy of Louis XI. succeeded in reducing the great feudatories, and established the power of the monarchy as the bond of union between provinces which were conscious of like interests. In Spain, the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella united a warlike people who swept away the remains of the Moorish kingdom. Germany, though nominally it recognised one ruler, had sacrificed its national kingship to the futile claims of the Empire. The emperor had great pretensions, but was himself powerless, and the German princes steadily refused to lend him help to give reality to his high-sounding claims. Unconsciously to themselves, the rulers of France and Spain were preparing to attempt the extension of their power over the rest of Europe.

France under Charles VIII. was the first to give expression to this new idea of European politics. The Italian expedition of Charles VIII. marked the end of the Middle Ages, because it put forth a scheme of national aggrandisement which was foreign to mediæval conceptions. The scheme sounded fantastic, and was still cast in the mould of mediæval aspirations. The kingdom of Naples had long been in dispute between the houses of Arragon and Anjou. As heir to the Angevin line, Charles VIII. proposed to satisfy national pride by the conquest of Naples. Then he appealed to the old sentiment of Christendom by proclaiming his design of advancing against Constantinople, expelling the Turk from Europe, and realising the ideal of mediæval Christianity by planting once more the standard of the Cross upon the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.

The first part of his plan succeeded with a rapidity and ease that bewildered the rest of Europe. The French conquest of Naples awakened men to the danger which threatened them. France, as ruler of Naples, could overrun the rest of Italy, and as master of the Pope could use the authority of the head of Christendom to give legitimacy to further schemes of aggression. A sense of common danger drew the other powers of Europe together; and a League of Spain, the Empire, the Pope, Milan, and Venice forced Charles VIII. to retire from Naples (1495), where the French conquests were rapidly lost. A threat of his return next year led to an emphatic renewal of the League and an assertion of the basis on which it rested—"the mutual preservation of states, so that the more powerful might not oppress the less powerful, and that each should keep what rightly belongs to him."

This League marks a new departure in European affairs. There was no mention of the old ideas on which Europe was supposed to rest. There was no recognition of papal or imperial supremacy; no principle of European organisation was laid down. The existing state of things was to be maintained, and the contracting powers were to decide amongst themselves what rights and claims they thought fit to recognise. Such a plan might be useful to check French preponderance at the moment, but it was fatal to the free development of Europe. The states that were then powerful might grow in power; those that were not yet strong were sure to be prevented from growing stronger. Dynastic interests were set up as against national interests. European affairs were to be settled by combinations of powerful states.

The results of this system were rapidly seen. France, of course, was checked for the time; but France, in its turn, could enter the League and become a factor in European combinations. The problem now for statesmen was how to use this concert of Europe for their own interests. Dynastic considerations were the most obvious means of gaining powerful alliances. Royal marriages became matters of the greatest importance, because a lucky union of royal houses might secure a lasting preponderance. The Emperor Maximilian married his son Philip to a daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Death removed the nearer heirs to the Spanish rulers, and the son of Philip was heir to Austria, the Netherlands, and the Spanish kingdoms. The notion of a maintenance of European equilibrium faded away before such a prospect.

This prospect, however, was only in the future. For the present there was an opportunity for endless scheming. The European League for the preservation of the existing state of things resisted any expansion on the part of smaller states, but encouraged compacts for aggression amongst the more powerful. France, Spain, and Germany had each of them a national existence, while Italy consisted of a number of small states. If Italy was to survive it was necessary that she should follow the example of her powerful neighbours, and consolidate herself as they had done. The only state which was at that time likely to unite Italy was Venice; and Venice, in consequence, became the object of universal jealousy. The concert of Europe was applied to the Venetian question, and discovered a solution of the simplest sort. Instead of allowing Venice to unite Italy, it was judged better to divide Venice. A secret agreement was made between Spain, France, the Emperor, and the Pope that they would attack Venice simultaneously, deprive her of her possessions, and divide them amongst themselves. There was no lack of claims and titles to the possessions which were thus to be acquired. The powers of Europe, being judges in their own cause, could easily state their respective pleas and pronounce each other justified. The League of Cambrai, which was published at the end of 1508, was the first great production of the new system of administering public law in Europe.

Anything more iniquitous could scarcely be conceived. Venice deserved well at the hands of Europe. She had developed a great system of commerce with the East; she was the chief bulwark against the advance of the Turkish power; she was the one refuge of Italian independence. Those very reasons marked her out for pillage by the powers who, claiming to act in the interests of Europe, interpreted these interests according to their own selfishness. Each power hoped to appropriate some of the profits of Venetian commerce; each power wished for a slice of the domains of Italy. What the Turk did was a matter of little consequence; he was not the object of immediate dread.

This League of Cambrai witnessed the assimilation by the new system of the relics of the old. Imperial and papal claims were set in the foreground. Venice was excommunicated by the Pope, because she had the audacity to refuse to give up to him at once his share of the booty. The iniquities of the European concert were flimsily concealed by the rags of the old system of the public law of Europe, which only meant that the Pope and the Emperor were foremost in joining in the general scramble. France was first in the field against Venice, and consequently France was the chief gainer. Pope Julius II., having won from Venice all that he could claim, looked with alarm on the increase of the French power in Italy. As soon as he had satisfied himself, and had reduced Venice to abject submission, his one desire was to rid himself of his troublesome allies. The papal authority in itself could no longer influence European politics; but it could give a sanction to new combinations which interested motives might bring about. With cynical frankness the Papacy, powerless in its own resources, used its privileged position to further its temporal objects. We cannot wonder that Louis XII. of France tried to create a schism, and promoted the holding of a general council. We are scarcely surprised that the fantastic brain of the Emperor Maximilian formed a scheme of becoming the Pope's coadjutor, and finally annexing the papal to the imperial dignity. On every side the old landmarks of Europe were disappearing, and the future was seen to belong to the strong hand and the adventurous wit.