Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History (16 page)

But this, too, earned him no appreciation from the ruling class. Nor was he popular with the lawyers. Since litigants flocked to his courts for cases involving property, contract, perjury, libel, and forgery instead of to the court of Common Pleas or the ecclesiastical courts which normally had jurisdiction in such matters, officers of these courts resented the loss of jurisdiction and fees. Eventually, the cardinal’s courts were overwhelmed with the amount of judicial business they attracted, forcing him to create a new tribunal rooted in the council called the Court of Requests.

Since most government officials were allowed to charge a fee for each piece of business that passed through their hands, Wolsey’s engrossment of office was another source of his wealth. Though an impartial judge, the cardinal was thought to be a corrupt administrator, taking bribes, and selling civil as well as Church offices. In any case, his control of so many government offices and departments gave him vast patronage opportunities. As lord chancellor and the king’s chief minister, Wolsey could influence the appointment of over half of the royal administration. So if you wanted an office, a pension, a favor – any of the goodies the Crown had to offer – you were best advised to go to York Place or Hampton Court, not to Richmond or Westminster Palace, and see the Great Cardinal first. To fail to do so, to offend the cardinal, was virtually to seal the doom of one’s career. As a result, both God’s Church and the king’s government were full of Wolsey’s nominees, working for the cardinal’s interests as much as they did for either of those two superior beings. No wonder John Skelton (ca. 1460–1529) jibed:

The King’s court

Should have the excellence

But Hampton Court

Hath the preeminence!

It will be recalled that Henry VII had been careful to limit the authority of his most important subjects and to ensure that
he
was the center of power, patronage, and attention. His son, preoccupied with youthful pleasure, was content to let Wolsey run things. This caused many to assume that the Great Cardinal was all powerful and his position unassailable. It is possible that Henry VIII actually encouraged these misconceptions, letting Wolsey take the blame for policies which had offended nearly every important group in the political elite. By attacking retaining, enclosure, and price-gouging on grain and providing justice for the poor, Wolsey offended the landed nobility and gentry. By attracting so much business to the courts over which he presided, he attacked the interests of the common and canon lawyers. And by dominating and exploiting the Church as he did, he alienated his fellow clergymen. As a result, for all his apparent power and wealth, the cardinal’s only friend was the king. Presumably, Henry always knew this. He also knew what many of his courtiers, and perhaps Wolsey himself, may have forgotten: that he was still the king, and the Great Cardinal was powerful only so long as (1) Henry remained lazy and (2) the cardinal retained his confidence.

During the first two decades of the reign, Wolsey did so primarily through his conduct of war and diplomacy.

War and Diplomacy

For the first 20 years of the reign, neither Henry VIII nor Cardinal Wolsey seems to have been terribly interested in domestic policy. Rather, both concentrated on making a splash in European affairs. Henry VII had been content to make friends abroad, rattle the saber occasionally against potential enemies, and, for the most part, stay home. That may have been the less interesting course of action, but it was safer and cheaper. His son had different ideas. Why?

First, it must be recalled that, ever since the Norman Conquest, the “continental option” had been attractive to English rulers. Many English kings had sought adventure, glory, and a distraction from domestic disunity by pursuing continental ambitions. The English had, often in their past history, controlled territory in France. But following the débâcle of the Hundred Years’ War, that territory had shrunk to the port of Calais. Revival of England’s continental empire was naturally, nostalgically, attractive. Moreover, it could be argued that English involvement on the continent was natural for a European people.

More specifically, Henry VIII – young, dashing, chivalrous, and a fan of a previous “King Hal” (Henry V) – wanted his own measure of military glory and honor. As the reign of Henry V seemed to demonstrate, such adventure would also fulfill the ambitions and distract the attention of an aristocracy which had been oppressed and demoralized by his father’s policies. Henry VIII seems to have sympathized, issuing a general pardon and canceling over 45 recognizances during the first year of his reign. A chivalrous crusade against an ancient enemy such as France or Scotland might, if successful, go even farther to placate the grumbling nobility. Playing at tournaments with his nobles was not enough to fulfill this ambition. This latter-day King Hal needed a real war.

This is where the Great Cardinal came in. It will be recalled that Wolsey first came to royal attention by arranging and supplying Henry’s early military campaigns. He knew that, in order to maintain the king’s confidence, he would have to continue to fulfill royal desires by making Henry a major player in Europe, either through logistical support in war or through his diplomatic efforts. Moreover, many contemporaries believed that the Great Cardinal had an even higher ambition: to be the first English pope since the twelfth century, though historians now discount this.
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In any case, his attempt to become the arbiter of Europe was simply unrealistic. England was, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a comparatively poor and militarily weak state, a relative midget hoping to tip the balance between two giants: a unified and wealthy France and the Holy Roman Empire, which comprised most of central Europe. After 1519, the emperor would also rule Spain and the Spanish Empire (see
map 6
). France’s population and royal revenue were both three times those of England; the emperor’s population six and his revenue five times bigger than Henry’s. Even if England had been wealthier and better mobilized, it was far away from the main theater of conflict between these two powers, for they were bickering over control of Italy. England might be a useful auxiliary partner to one side or the other but it was hardly likely to tip the balance or gain much land or glory for itself.

Map 6
Europe ca. 1560.

The result was a series of wars between France and the Empire in which England more or less tagged along. Those wars and the brief intervals of peace that punctuated them took place in four phases. The first phase, during which Henry and Wolsey’s chances of success were brightest, lasted from 1511 to 1514. The king was young, his treasury full, and his confidence in his almoner great. All the other great powers were currently under the sway of old, cautious rulers of Henry VII’s generation: Louis XII (1462–1515; reigned 1498–1515) in France; Maximilian I (1459–1519; reigned 1493–1519) in the Empire; and his nominal ally, Ferdinand in Spain. In 1511 Henry VIII joined with Spain, Venice, and the Swiss to form the Holy League, the purpose of which was to aid the pope in keeping the French out of Italy. The following year, Henry dispatched an army of 10,000 men to northwest Spain, but the cagey Ferdinand eventually made a separate peace with France. The English troops, left in the lurch by their allies, poorly supplied from England, reduced to starvation and mutiny, gradually slunk home without permission. In 1513 the emperor joined the Holy League and contributed 2,000 men. Henry offered 23,000 soldiers in return for the pope’s secretly naming him king of France. In response, the French pressured the Scottish king, James IV, to break the Treaty of Perpetual Peace and invade England. Henry’s force landed at Calais, marched south, captured the city of Tournai, and won a few skirmishes. This, combined with the crushing defeat of the Scottish army and death of James IV at Flodden, enabled Wolsey to engineer a favorable peace the following year. In fact, Henry could have taken Scotland; but he was more interested in France. The aged Louis XII married Henry’s sister Mary Tudor (1496–1533), renewed his subsidy, and allowed the English to keep the territory they had captured. This was the high-water mark of English success on the continent for almost two centuries and it coincided with the elimination of the Scottish threat for a generation when the death of James IV brought the infant James V (1512–42; reigned 1513–42) to the throne.
¹⁶
But Tournai was not much of a prize (which one can appreciate by locating it on the map) for the treasure spent to win it: Henry expended £650,000 on the 1513 campaigns alone, or six times his annual revenue! Thus, he had wiped out his father’s financial nest-egg at one stroke. From this point on, Wolsey would have to raise money the old-fashioned way: through parliamentary votes or the solicitation of loans. Unfortunately, his unpopularity and inability to make domestic allies hindered these efforts. What little money was raised in future would often be spent foolishly on Swiss and Imperial mercenaries who failed to act.

Over the next five years (1515–20), the European situation changed dramatically. First, in 1515 Louis XII died and was succeeded by Francis I (1494–1547; reigned 1515–47). Francis was, like Henry, young, handsome, energetic, and ambitious for glory. In other words, the English king now had a personal rival who was backed by a much wealthier country than England. Francis immediately displayed his aggressiveness by refusing Henry’s request that he marry the widowed Princess Mary, and by supporting a Scottish rebellion against Henry’s other sister, Margaret, who was now regent there. Wolsey attempted to preserve the peace – and render himself the arbiter of Europe – with a series of summits and agreements which culminated in the Treaty of London of 1518 and the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. The former was a general European treaty involving all of the major powers and 20 lesser states in a promise to act collectively to preserve the peace. The latter was a summit between Henry and Francis, held on the border between English and French territory on the continent. It involved magnificent pageantry and pomp, fountains running with wine, tournaments, pledges of friendship, and even a wrestling match between the two kings – which, according to legend, Francis won.

The peace would not last. In 1519 the Holy Roman emperor, Maximilian I, died. He was succeeded by his grandson, Charles V (1500–58; reigned 1519–56). Because his other grandfather had been Ferdinand of Spain, the fortunate Charles ruled over most of central Europe, the Spanish Empire (where he was known as Charles I), Burgundy, the Netherlands, and Naples. Habsburg territories encircled France, whose rulers immediately felt threatened. On the surface, this seemed to be good news for England, but, in reality, the new emperor had little reason to be concerned about English interests.

England’s relative powerlessness became clear between 1521 and 1525. In 1521 Henry allied with Charles V against France; subsequently, he hoped to cement the relationship by marrying his daughter, Mary (1516–58), to the emperor. Over the course of the next four years, an English army landed in France, burnt a few villages, threatened to march on Paris, ran out of money, and went home. The emperor’s war was more successful: in 1525 his army crushed the French and captured Francis at the battle of Pavia in Italy. Henry saw this as his great opportunity. His plan was for Wolsey to raise some quick cash, secure the emperor’s assistance by finalizing the marriage to Mary, invade France and seize Francis’s throne. But Wolsey’s tax plan, misnamed the “Amicable Grant,” yielded revolts, not money, and was eventually withdrawn.
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Since Henry’s cupboard was now bare, he could not provide a dowry for Mary, which deflated her attractions in Charles’s eyes. Instead, the emperor married Isabella of Portugal (1503–39). This enraged the English king, but he was powerless to act.

Between 1525 and 1528 a diplomatic revolution took place. Henry and Wolsey, stung by Charles’s indifference, extended feelers toward France. Eventually, they joined the League of Cognac against their former ally, Charles V. In fact, Henry soon had two gripes against Charles. First, the emperor continued to disregard English interests. Second, in the spring of 1527 Imperial forces sacked Rome and captured the pope. This was disastrous for Henry because he wanted something from the pope that the emperor did not want him to have: a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, who just happened to be Charles’s aunt.