Read The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (Pimlico) Online
Authors: Peter Gwyn
As an account of what took place, and of what Wolsey was thinking Cavendish’s rings true, and, for what it is worth, receives some support from the very few other surviving accounts of Wolsey’s last days, especially as regards the issue that has been of most concern: whether or not he had conspired against the king. On 4 December Chapuys noted that Wolsey had ‘prepared for his death like a good Christian. At the time of receiving the holy sacrament he protested that he had never undertaken anything to his sovereign’s prejudice’.
176
Two days earlier the Milanese ambassador had sent home a somewhat fuller account. Like Cavendish, he refers to Kingston’s sympathetic treatment of the cardinal, and his account of the medical symptoms is very similar. As for the deathbed scene itself, the Milanese ambassador’s was, in fact, the more dramatic:
According to report, his mind never wandered at the last, and on seeing Captain Kingston, he made his attendants raise him in his bed, where he knelt, and whenever he
heard the king’s name mentioned, he bowed his head, putting his face downwards. He then asked Captain Kingston where his guards were, and being answered that lodging was provided for them in several chambers on the ground floor of the palace, he requested that they might all be sent for into his presence. As many having entered as the place would hold, and having raised himself as much as he could, he said that on the day before he had taken the sacrament and expected to find himself soon before the supreme judgment seat, and that in such extremity he ought not to fail in speaking the truth, or leave any other opinion of him than such as was veracious. He added, 1 pray God that that sacrament may be the damnation of my soul if ever 1 thought to do disservice to my king
.
177
According to Cavendish, Wolsey had spent all his remaining energies in his final interview with Kingston, so that by the time the guards were summoned to witness the end he was already almost unconscious. Moreover, in that interview he had been less concerned with the issue of his guilt as regards the particular charge of treason. Instead, he took a longer view, asking to be
commended unto his royal majesty, beseeching him in my behalf to call to his most gracious remembrance all matters proceeding between him and me from the beginning of the world unto this day, and the progress of the same. And most chiefly in the weighty matter yet depending (meaning the matter newly begun between him and good Queen Catherine) then shall his conscience declare whether I have offended him or no
.
178
The answer that Wolsey wanted and expected is the answer that this book has ended up providing. Unfortunately, what has also emerged is that it was a terrible error of judgement for him to have believed that his king would take his past record into consideration when deciding on his future. But then, as one of the most perceptive observers of the English political scene, the French ambassador du Bellay, had realized, the key to an understanding of Thomas Wolsey is that he loved his master more than himself.
179
1
Elizabethan copies of three letters from Henry to Bryan recently discovered in the British Library by L.R. Gardiner; see Gardiner. The reference numbers are BL Add MS 48066. fos.184, 186-7.188.
2
For Agostini see A.F. Pollard, p.295, n.3.
3
Sp. Cal
, iv (i), p.630. One of them must have been Agostini. Another seems to have been a chaplain arrested while crossing the Channel; see
Mil. Cal
, 832. Could the third have been Cromwell?
4
Sp. Cal
, iv (i), pp.600-1, 619.
5
Gardiner, p.103.
6
Sp. Cal
, iv (i), p.805.
7
Sp. Cal
, iv (i), p.819.
8
Mil. Cal
, 833.
9
LP
, iv, 6763 (PRO SP1/58/fo.215).
10
Bradford, p.306-7;
Sp. Cal
,iv (i), pp.448, 486, 514.
11
SP. Cal
, iv (i), pp.600-1
(‘plus grandes censures et a la invocacion du bras seculier, cart maintenant yl ny a nul
nerf.’)
.
12
Sp. Cal
, iv (i), p.600.
13
Sp. Cal
, iv (i), p.692.
14
Sp. Cal
, iv (i), 486.
15
St. P
, vii, p.194 (
LP
, iv, 5797).
16
Logan, p.13 ff.
17
Sp. Cal
, iv (i), pp.599-601. It was not until Jan. 1532 that Clement formally rebuked Henry for cohabiting with Anne, and not until that November that he threatened excommunication.
18
Ibid, pp.601, 673, 736.
19
Ibid, pp.514-5.
20
Inter alia LP
, v, 62;
Sp. Cal
, iv (i), p.690;
Sp. Cal
, iv (ii), p.40.
21
Sp. Cal
, iv (i), p.672.
22
Herbert, pp.331 ff. (
LP
, iv, 6513); for further details see A.F. Pollard, p.287.
23
Inter alia
his letters to Montmorency of 12 and 17 Oct 1529; see
Correspondence
, pp.104-11 (
LP
, iv, 6003, 6011).
24
St. P
, vii, p.213 (
LP
, iv, 6733).
25
St. P
, vii, p.213 (
LP
, iv, 6733).
26
Sp. Cal
, iv (i), p.805.
27
Boleyn’s embassy to the emperor early in 1530 was an attempt to take advantage of this opportunity; see Parmiter, pp.133-5.
28
This was Chapuys’s assessment (
Sp. Cal
, iv (i), 712); and almost all du Bellay’s reports confirm it.
29
LP
, iv, 6271, 6273, 6307;
Sp. Cal
, iv (i), p.486; Rymer, xiv, p.372 for the agreement; also Friedmann, i, pp.110-2.
30
Bradford, pp.326-7. (
Sp. Cal
,iv (i), p.820).
31
Sp. Cal
., iv (i), pp.486-7; and following Wolsey’s arrest Joachim was cleared of any suspicion of plotting by Henry and the Council; see
LP
, iv, 6720.
32
Gardiner, p.102.
33
Ven. Cal
., iv, 638.
34
A.F. Pollard, p.291; Scarisbrick,
Henry
VIII
, p.239.
35
BL, Add, 25114, fos.47-8 (
LP
, iv, 6705).
36
For full details see Scarisbrick,
Bibl. d’Humanisme et Renaissance, xxiv
, pp.212-5.
37
Sp. Cal, iv (i), p.805.
38
Ibid.
39
Ibid, pp.718-20.
40
He left Greenwich on 1 Nov.
41
Cavendish, p.163.
42
LP
, iv, 6335, 6344, 6436, 6447, 6496, 6545, 6571.
43
St. P
, i, p.347 (
LP
, iv, 5999).
44
Sp. Cal
., iv (i), p.303.
45
Ibid.
46
Cavendish, p.102-3.
47
St. P, i, p.352 (
LP
, iv, 6098), but see also St. P, i, pp.351-2, 354, 359 (
LP
, iv, 6114, 6203-4).
48
St. P
, i, 351(
LP
, iv, 6114).
49
LP
, iv, 6151.
50
Cavendish, pp.120-2.
51
Sp. Cal
., iv (i), p.486.
52
Rymer, xiv, p.366 (
LP
, iv, 6313).
53
Rymer, xiv, pp.371-4 (
LP
, iv, 6220).
54
King’s Works
, pp.300-8.
55
Rymer, xiv, p.373 (
LP
, iv, 6220); see also
Registrum Thome Wolsey
, pp.184-7.
56
Rymer, xiv, pp.374-5 (
LP
, iv, 6214 (ii)) for a schedule of what was given.
57
Inter alia
£500 for ‘the defraying of my servants’ (
LP
, iv, 6226); and perhaps a further gift of £1,000 (Cavendish, p.132).
58
St. P
, i, p.354 (
LP
, iv, 6204), a figure apparently first suggested by Gardiner.
59
LP
, iv, 6663, William Capon’s to Wolsey of 4 Oct. outlining steps taken to dissolve the college on the king’s command; but as early as 20 July he was reporting that the decision had been taken (
LP
, iv, 6523).
60
LP
, iv, 6679 for More’s invlovement; but see also
LP
, iv, pp.6377, 6510, 6574-5, 6579, 6666.
61
Bodleian Library, MS Jesus Coll, 74, fo.194v (otherwise known as the Masters MSS); Lord Herbert’s often detailed summaries of letters between Wolsey and Cromwell for his
Life and Reign of King Henry the Eighth
, useful where, as in this case, the original has not survived.
62
St. P
, i, pp.347-8 (
LP
, iv, 5999). It begins: ‘Though that I, your poor, heavy and wretched priest, do daily pursue, cry and call upon your royal majesty for grace, mercy, remission and pardon, …’
63
As Wolsey explained to Cavendish, by confessing to something that Henry knew that he was not guilty of, ‘the king (I doubt not) had a great remorse of conscience, wherein he would rather pity me than malign me’. (Cavendish, pp.136-7).
64
LP
, iv, 2576 Darcy to Wolsey, 15 Jan. 1514, a passionate plea for Wolsey not to forget ‘such as were your lovers and friends’.
65
LP
, iv, 5749, p.2554 ‘Item, voiding me upon his promise to recompense me of the offices of treasurer, chamberlain and customer of Berwick …’
66
LP
, iv, 541.