Cardinal Wolsey

by M. Creighton

Cardinal College at Oxford met with better fortune. Wolsey pleaded hard for its preservation, and the authorities of the college made a stand in its behalf. The king was not yet prepared to seize the lands of the dissolved monastery of St. Frideswyde, or of the old Canterbury Hall, which had been absorbed, and it could be shown that he would lose as much as he would gain by attempting an accurate division of the property of the college. He agreed to "have an honourable college there, but not so great and of such magnificence as my lord cardinal intended to have, for it is not thought meet for the common weal of our realm." The site of the college and a portion of its revenues were saved from the commissioners who were realising Wolsey's forfeiture; but the name of Christ Church obliterated that of Cardinal College, and Henry VIII. endeavoured as far as he could to associate the foundation with himself and dissociate it from Wolsey.

This persistent disregard of the ideas which Wolsey had striven to put forward weighed heavily on his spirits. "I am put from my sleep and meat," he wrote, "for such advertisements as I have had of the dissolution of my colleges." It was not only the sense of personal disappointment which afflicted him; it was the hopeless feeling that all his policy was being reversed. Wolsey was in his way a churchman, and hoped as a statesman to bring the Church into accordance with the national needs. He saw that only in this way could the existing resources of the Church be saved from the hand of the spoiler. The king's desire to seize upon the revenues of his colleges showed him that Henry had cast away the principles which Wolsey had striven to enforce, that he had broken through the limits which Wolsey had endeavoured to set, and that when once he had tasted his prey his appetite was likely to be insatiable. This taught Wolsey that his own future was hopeless. On the lower level to which the king had sunk he was not likely to need the cardinal's aid. Wolsey's great schemes for the future were to make way for a policy mainly dictated by present greed. Henry VIII. had discovered how great his power was, and intended to use it for the satisfaction of his own desires.

So Wolsey turned himself more attentively to the duties of his episcopal office, hoping thereby to make some amends for past neglect, and fill up with useful work the remainder of his days. His poverty had prevented him from taking possession of his cathedral, as he had no money to defray the expenses of his installation. By the end of September he had managed to scrape together £1500, and set out from Scrooby to York. On his way he was busied with confirmations. At St. Oswald's Abbey he confirmed children from eight in the morning till noon; after dinner he returned to the church at one, and continued his confirmation till four, when he was constrained for weariness to sit down in a chair. Next morning before his departure he confirmed a hundred children more; and as he rode on his way he found at Ferrybridge two hundred children waiting for confirmation at a stone cross standing upon the green. It was late in the evening before he reached Cawood Castle, seven miles from York. There he was visited by the Dean of York, and made arrangements for his installation.

This ceremony, however, was not to take place. Wolsey's enemies were implacable, especially the Duke of Norfolk, who was alarmed at the renewal of Wolsey's popularity in the north, and at the signs of vigour which he showed. His actions were jealously watched and eagerly criticised to find some opportunity for a charge against him, which was at last found in Wolsey's communications with foreign envoys. It would seem that Wolsey could not reconcile himself to political inactivity, and trusted that the influence of Francis I., for whom he had done so much, would be used in his favour. But Francis treated Wolsey with the proverbial ingratitude of politicians. Wolsey had been a friend of France, but his friendship had been costly, and Francis I. found that the new ministers were equally friendly to France, and did not demand so much in return. In truth, Henry, though he had abandoned Wolsey for his failure in the matter of the divorce, had not been better served by his new advisers, who had no other course to follow than that which Wolsey had marked out—to use the close alliance with France as a means of bringing pressure to bear upon the Pope. So Norfolk was obsequious to Francis, who preferred to deal with a man of Norfolk's calibre rather than acknowledge a master in Wolsey.

Of this Wolsey was ignorant; and he no longer showed his old dexterity in promoting his own interests. He made the mistake of trusting to the old methods of diplomacy when his position was no longer that of a minister, and when he had been removed from actual touch of current affairs. He opened up communications with the French envoy by means of a Venetian physician, Agostino, who was a member of his household. He even communicated with the imperial envoy as well. However harmless these communications might be, they were certainly indiscreet, and were capable of being represented to the king as dangerous. Norfolk gained some information, either from the French envoy or from Agostino, and laid before the king charges against Wolsey, "that he had written to Rome to be reinstated in his possessions, and to France for its favour; and was returning to his ancient pomp, and corrupting the people." There was not much in these charges; but Norfolk was afraid of Wolsey in the background, and quailed before the king's bursts of petulance, in which he said that the cardinal knew more about the business of the State than any of his new advisers. Henry was quite satisfied with the proceeds of spoiling Wolsey, and was glad to keep him in reserve; but the suggestion that Wolsey was intriguing with foreign Courts sorely angered him, and he gave orders that Wolsey be brought to trial to answer for his conduct.

So Sir Walter Walshe was sent with a warrant to the Earl of Northumberland, and arrived as Wolsey was busied at Cawood with the preliminaries of his installation. On 4th November, when Wolsey had retired from dinner and was sitting in his own room over his dessert, the Earl of Northumberland appeared, and demanded the keys of the castle from the porter. He entered the hall, and posted his servants to guard all the doors. Wolsey, in ignorance of what was in store for him, met Northumberland and offered him hospitality, expressing his delight at the unexpected visit. When they were alone the Earl, "trembling, said, with a very faint and soft voice, unto my lord, laying his hand upon his arm, 'My lord, I arrest you of high treason.'" For a time Wolsey stood speechless with astonishment, then he asked to see the warrant, which Northumberland had not brought with him. As he was speaking Sir Walter Walshe opened the door and thrust into the room the physician Agostino, whom he had made prisoner. Wolsey asked him about the warrant, and when he recognised him as one of the gentlemen of the king's privy chamber, he submitted to the royal commands without asking further for the production of the warrant. Then he delivered up his keys to Northumberland.

Agostino was at once sent to London tied under a horse's belly—a mode of conveyance which was doubtless calculated to refresh his memory. When he arrived in London he was taken to the Duke of Norfolk's house, and showed himself ready to bear witness against Wolsey. "Since they have had the cardinal's physician in their hands," writes the imperial envoy, "they have found what they sought. Since he has been here he has lived in the Duke of Norfolk's house like a prince, and is singing the tune they wished."

There was not the same need of haste in bringing Wolsey to London, for even with Agostino's help Norfolk was doubtful if the evidence against Wolsey would be sufficient to ensure his condemnation to death; and he did not wish to give Wolsey the opportunity of a trial when he might still be formidable. His imprisonment in the Tower at the royal pleasure would only bring him nearer to the king, who might at any moment make use of him as he threatened. Really, Norfolk was somewhat embarrassed at the success of his scheme; and Wolsey, in a conversation with Cavendish, showed a flash of his old greatness. "If I may come to my answer," he said, "I fear no man alive; for he liveth not upon the earth that shall look upon this face and shall be able to accuse me of any untruth; and that know my enemies full well, which will be an occasion that I shall not have indifferent justice, but they will rather seek some other sinister way to destroy me."

It was this thought that unnerved Wolsey, worn out as he was by disappointment, humiliated by his helplessness, and harassed by a sense of relentless persecution. Still he retained his dignity and kindliness, and when on the evening of 7th November he was told to prepare for his journey, he insisted upon bidding farewell to his household. The Earl of Northumberland wished to prevent this, and only gave way through fear of a tumult if he persisted in his refusal. The servants knelt weeping before Wolsey, who "gave them comfortable words and worthy praises for their diligent faithfulness and honest truth towards him, assuring them that what chance soever should happen unto him, that he was a true man and a just to his sovereign lord." Then shaking each of them by the hand he departed.

Outside the gate the country folk had assembled to the number of three thousand, who cried, "God save your grace. The foul evil take all them that hath thus taken you from us; we pray God that a very vengeance may light upon them." Thus they ran crying after him through the town of Cawood, they loved him so well. After this moving farewell Wolsey rode through the gathering darkness to Pomfret, where he was lodged in the abbey. Thence he proceeded through Doncaster to Sheffield Park, where he was kindly received by the Earl of Shrewsbury, whose guest he was for eighteen days. Once a day the earl visited him and tried to comfort him, but Wolsey refused all human comfort, and applied himself diligently to prayer. While he was at Sheffield Park his health, which never had been good, began to give way, and he suffered from dysentery, which was aggravated by an unskilful apothecary.