СНАР. П. were Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chancellor; Howard, Earl of Surrey, Lord Treasurer; and Fox, Bishop of Winchester, Lord Privy-Seal. But among the inferior dependents of the court, there had already appeared in Henry the Seventh's reign, one whose aspiring views and superior talents rapidly enabled him to supplant every rival. This was Thomas Wolsey, a native of Ipswich, generally reputed to be the son of a butcher or grazier, a statement which admits of great doubt.* He was, however, of humble parentage, though not below the benefits of education; for his father procured him these, and brought him up for the church,. which was, in that age, what the law has been in modern times, the ladder by which able men of the lowest classes to which the opportunities of a liberal education were available, climbed to the highest stations which a subject can fill.+ Wolsey studied at Oxford, where, on account of his precocity, and the early age at which he took his degree, he was called "The Boy Bachelor." For some time he taught the Grammar School adjoining to Magdalen College, and had the sons of the Marquis of Dorset among his pupils. The marquis gave him the living of Limington, in Somerset (1500), which he soon left, to become domestic chaplain to the Treasurer of Calais. The treasurer introduced him to Fox, who, perceiving his wit and ability, recommended him to Henry VII. That King entrusted him with a secret and delicate negotiation, at the imperial court, which he executed with so much address and expedition, that Henry promoted him to the deanery of Lincoln, and recommended his son to make him his almoner; an office which gave Wolsey every facility of access to the presence of the young monarch. 10. His Offices and Preferments. The new almoner captivated Henry with the elegance of his manners and the gaiety of his disposition. His house was the frequent resort of the King; and, according to Polydore Virgil, the Pope's sub-collector in England, and an enemy of the cardinal, he threw off, on the occasions of these royal visits, all the decencies of his station, and sang, and danced, and caroused with all the levity and impetuosity of youth. When Henry invaded France, he was entrusted with the department for victualling the army; and after the reduction of Tournay received the administration of that diocese. In the following year (1514) he was made Dean of York, and then Bishop of Lincoln, and in a few months afterwards he was appointed Archbishop of See Cavendish's Life; also Lingard, VI., 32." † Mackintosh, II., 13. Lingard, VI., 32. 1518 York. In 1515, he received a cardinal's hat, and in the same year succeeded Archbishop Markham in the office of chancellor. In 1519, he was made papal legate, with the extraordinary power of suspending the laws and canons of the church. Yet, with all these offices and preferments his ambition was not satisfied; and he laboured hard, but in vain, to seat himself in the chair of St. Peter. 11. His Wealth and Revenues. His love of wealth was subordinate only to his love of power. He derived considerable emoluments from the courts over which he presided as chancellor and legate. “He was Archbishop of York; he farmed the revenues of Hereford and Worcester, sees which had been granted to foreigners; he held in commendam the Abbey of St. Alban's, with the bishopric of Bath; and afterwards, as they became vacant, he exchanged Bath for the rich bishopric of Durham, and Durham for the still richer see of Winchester."* In addition to these revenues he received salaries and donations from foreign princes. Francis settled upon him a pension of 12,000 livres as a compensation for the bishopric of Tournay, and Charles and Pope Leo X. conferred upon him a yearly income of 7,500 ducats from the bishoprics of Toledo and Palencia, in Spain. Though he thus grasped at riches, it must be said in justice to his memory, that he was rapacious not to hoard, but to spend, his wealth; for the celibacy of his order stood in the way of accumulation of fortune; and he was prodigal in his household, his dress, his retinue, his palaces, and in the magnificence of his literary and religious foundations.‡ 12. His Grandeur and Power. His establishment comprised as many as eight hundred individuals. The chief offices were filled by barons and knights; and he numbered among his retainers the sons of many distinguished families, who aspired under his patronage to civil or military preferment. He surrounded himself with pomp and ceremony wherever he went; and "his passion for shows and festivities, not an uncommon infirmity in men intoxicated by sudden wealth, perhaps served him with a master whose ruling folly seemed to be of the same harmless and ridiculous nature," § and who doubtless looked upon all the glory of his minister as a mere reflection of his own. The buildings he erected were of the most costly description; and as soon as he had finished the palace of Hampton Court, and * Lingard, VI., 42. + Ibid. Mackintosh, TI., 13. § Ibid, II., 14. CHAP. II. furnished it in the most sumptuous manner, he gave the whole to Henry. Literature found in him a constant and bountiful patron: and while he invited the most eminent scholars of the continent to teach in the universities, he encouraged the learning of his own. country, and heaped preferment upon native scholars. His conversations with Henry upon their favourite author Aquinas, are said to have been one of his means of pleasing so capricious a monarch. Both the universities were the objects of his care, and especially Oxford, where he endowed seven lectureships, and laid the foundation of Christ Church, in connection with which he erected a college at Ipswich.* 13. His Character and Policy. "It is peculiarly difficult," remarks Mackintosh, "to form a calm estimate of a man to whose memory the writers of the two ecclesiastical factions are alike unfriendly; the Catholics, for some sacrifices by a minister to the favourite objects of an imperious sovereign; the Protestants, for the unwillingness of a cardinal to renounce the church, and to break altogether with the Pope." + His character has been pourtrayed by Erasmus and by Polydore. He had many of the faculties which generally lead to sudden elevation, and most of the vices which often tarnish it. He was pliant and supple towards the powerful, insolent and overbearing to the multitude, kind and generous to his followers and dependents. He had three great objects: first, the acquisition of wealth and power, glory and self-aggrandisement; second, the exaltation of the throne on which his own greatness was built; and last, the exaltation of the church of which he was so distinguished a member. In the pursuit of these objects he stooped to expedients which were contrary to the dictates of sincerity and justice, in order to indulge the caprice and passions of the King; and they consequently involved him in contradictions and difficulties which ultimately occasioned his ruin. As he was chiefly occupied in the politics of the continent, it is impossible to determine what share of the merit or demerit of the internal legislation of this reign ought to be allotted to him. His part in the death of the Duke of Buckingham was his most conspicuous fault, and it is probable that he was no worse than the other statesmen of his age. § The circumstances of the time were peculiarly favourable to his *Lingard, VI., 43. Lingard, VI., 42. § Mackintosh, II., 14; see also Robertson's Charles V., book II. + Mackintosh, II., 12-13. 1519 genius for diplomacy. His eyes were never diverted from the shifting politics of the continent, and he was regularly informed by confidential agents of all the secret proceedings of the European courts. His great object abroad was, to preserve the balance of power between Austria and France; and as it was his policy to desert the party which by his support had obtained the ascendancy, in order to repair the tottering fortunes of the other, he was feared and courted by princes and pontiffs, and Henry VIII., through him, held the distinguished position of arbiter of Europe. SECTION II.-FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF WOLSEY IN POWER TO HIS DISGRACE AND FALL. 1519-1530. I. EVENTS CONNECTED WITH THE WAR BETWEEN CHARLES V. AND FRANCIS I. The Character of 14. Accession of Charles V. to the Imperial Throne. period upon which we are now entering is one of the greatest in continental history, as it contains the most the period. illustrious group of contemporary monarchs to be found in the modern history of Europe. Leo X., Charles V., Henry VIII., Francis I., and Solyman the Magnificent, "were each of them possessed of talents which might have rendered any age wherein they happened to flourish, conspicuous. In every contest, great power, as well as great abilities, were set in opposition; the efforts of valour and conduct on one side, counterbalanced by an equal exertion of the same qualities on the other, not only occasioned such a variety of events as renders the history of this period interesting, but served to check the exorbitant progress of any of those princes, and to prevent their attaining such pre-eminence in power as would have been fatal to the liberty and happiness of mankind." * Under princes of this stamp, the mutual relations of the existing states became more clearly ascertained, and the practice of politics acquired more regularity in its forms. two principal causes of this were: first, the growing rivalry of France and Spain; second, the political character of the Reformation. † The The death of the Emperor Maximilian (January 12th, 1519) * Robertson's Charles the Fifth, II., 11-12. + Heeren, 28. D |