The events of the year 1523 had practically made an end of the imperial alliance. Henry VIII. was not in a position to go to war again, and his confidence in Charles V.'s good intentions towards him was dispelled. Charles and Francis had had enough of war, and both of them secretly desired peace, but neither would make the first move towards it. Wolsey watched their movements keenly, and strove that English interests should not be entirely sacrificed in the pacification which seemed imminent. He strove to induce Charles to allow proposals of peace to proceed from England, which should arbitrate on the differences between him and Francis. He urged that in any negotiations which Charles himself undertook he was bound to consider how Henry could be recompensed for his losses. Moreover, he secretly opened up negotiations of his own with the French Court, and used the imperial alliance as a means to heighten England's value to France.
The more Wolsey watched events the more he became convinced that the best thing was to make a separate peace with France, yet in such a way as to avoid an open breach with the Emperor. There were other reasons besides the failure of military expeditions, and the distrust in any good result from their continuance, which impelled Wolsey to a pacific policy. He knew only too well that war was impossible, and that the country could not bear the continued drain on its resources. If Henry VII. had developed the royal power by a parsimony which enabled him to be free from parliamentary control, Henry VIII. had dazzled his people by the splendour of royalty, and had displayed his magnificence to such an extent that Englishmen were beginning to doubt if they could afford much longer to be so important, or rather if England's importance in Continental affairs were worth all the money that it cost. Of late years the weight of taxation had become oppressive, and the expenses of the last campaign were difficult to meet.
There was no difference between the national revenue and the royal revenue in Wolsey's days. The king took all the money he could get, and spent it as he thought good; if he went to war he expected his people to pay for it. In an ordinary way the king was well provided for by his feudal dues and the proceeds of customs, tonnage and poundage, and the tax on wool, wool-fells, and leather. When extraordinary expenses were incurred Parliament was summoned, and granted taxes to the king. Their vote was reckoned on an old assessment of tenths and fifteenths of the value of chattels possessed by the baronage and the commons; and when Parliament made this grant the clergy in their convocation granted a tenth of clerical incomes. The value of a tenth and fifteenth was £30,000; of a clerical tenth £10,000; so that the usual grant in case of an emergency amounted to £40,000 from the whole realm. For his expedition of 1513 Henry obtained a vote of two tenths and fifteenths, besides a subsidy of a graduated income and property tax which was estimated to produce £160,000, and this had to be supplemented by a further grant of tenths and fifteenths in 1515.
It was in 1515 that Wolsey became Chancellor, and with that office assumed the entire responsibility for all affairs of state. He managed to introduce some order into the finances, and during the years of pacific diplomacy things went tolerably well. But the French expeditions were costly, and in April 1523 Parliament had to be summoned to pay the king's debts. The war against France was popular, and men were willing to contribute.
So on 15th April Henry VIII. opened Parliament, and Tunstal, Bishop of London, delivered the usual oration in praise of the king and grief over the evils of the time. The Commons departed, and elected as their Speaker Sir Thomas More, who had already abandoned the quiet paths of literature for the stormy sea of politics. The king's assent was given in the usual manner to his appointment, and the session was adjourned. The Commons doubtless began to take financial matters under their consideration, but it was thought desirable that they should have a definite statement of the national needs. On 29th April Wolsey went to the House, and after urging the importance of the interests at stake in the war, proposed a subsidy of £800,000, to be raised according to an old method, by a tax of four shillings in the pound on all goods and lands. Next day there was much debate on this proposal; it was urged that the sudden withdrawal of so large an amount of ready money would seriously affect the currency, and was indeed almost impossible. A committee was appointed to represent to Wolsey that this was the sense of the House, and beg him to induce the king to moderate his demands. Wolsey answered that he would rather have his tongue pulled out with red-hot pincers than carry such a message to the king.
The Commons in a melancholy mood renewed their debate till Wolsey entered the House and desired to reason with those who opposed his demands. On this Sir Thomas More, as Speaker, defended the privilege of the House by saying, "That it was the order of that House to hear and not to reason save among themselves." Whereupon Wolsey was obliged to content himself with answering such objections as had come to his ear. He argued, it would seem with vigour, that the country was much richer than they thought, and he told them some unpleasant truths, which came with ill grace from himself, about the prevalence of luxury. After his departure the debate continued till the House agreed to grant two shillings in the pound on all incomes of £20 a year and upwards; one shilling on all between £20 and £2; and fourpence on all incomes under £2; this payment to be extended over two years. This was increased by a county member, who said, "Let us gentlemen of £50 a year and upwards give the king of our lands a shilling in the pound, to be paid in two years." The borough members stood aloof, and allowed the landholders to tax themselves an extra shilling in the pound if they chose to do so. This was voted on 21st May, and Parliament was prorogued till 10th June. Meanwhile popular feeling was greatly moved by rumours of an unprecedented tax, and what was really done was grossly exaggerated on all sides. As the members left the House an angry crowd greeted them with jeers. "We hear say that you will grant four shillings in the pound. Do so, and go home, we advise you." Really the members had done the best they could, and worse things were in store for them. For when the session was resumed the knights of the shire showed some resentment that they had been allowed to outdo the burgesses in liberality. They proposed that as they had agreed to pay a shilling in the pound on land assessed over £50 in the third year, so a like payment should be made in the fourth year on all goods over the value of £50. There was a stormy debate on this motion; but Sir Thomas More at length made peace, and it was passed. Thus Wolsey, on the whole, had contrived to obtain something resembling his original proposal, but the payments were spread over a period of four years. After this Wolsey, at the prorogation of Parliament, could afford to thank the Commons on the king's behalf, and assure them that "his Grace would in such wise employ their loving contribution as should be for the defence of his realm and of his subjects, and the persecution and pressing of his enemy."
Yet, however Wolsey might rejoice in his success, he knew that he had received a serious warning, which he was bound to lay to heart. He had been faithful to the king, and had done his best to carry out his views. The war with France was none of his advising, and he had no hopes of any advantage from it; yet he was willing to take all the blame of measures which inwardly he disapproved. He stood forward and assumed the unpopularity of taxation, whose necessity he deplored. Henry spent the nation's money at his pleasure, and Wolsey undertook the ungrateful task of squeezing supplies from a reluctant Parliament, while the king sat a benevolent spectator in the background. Henry took all the glory, and left Wolsey to do all the unpleasant work. Wolsey stood between the national temper and the king; he felt that he could not stand under the odium of accomplishing many more such reconciliations. England had reached the limit of its aspirations after national glory. For the future Wolsey must maintain the king's honour without appealing to the national pocket.
There was no prospect of obtaining further supplies from Parliament, and the best way to pay the expenses of a futile war was by making a lucrative peace. Wolsey tried to induce Francis I. to renew his financial agreement with Henry VIII. which the war had broken off; and to bring pressure to bear upon him for this purpose, was willing to continue with Charles V. negotiations for a fresh undertaking.
So in June the unwearied Pace was sent to Bourbon's camp to promise England's help on terms which Wolsey knew were sure to be refused. England would again join in a campaign against France in the north, provided Bourbon, by an invasion of Provence, succeeded in raising a rebellion against Francis I., and would take an oath of allegiance to the English king as lord of France. Bourbon sorely needed money, and did all he could to win over Pace. He secretly took an oath of fidelity, not of allegiance; and Pace was impressed with admiration of his genius and believed in his chances of success. Wolsey was coldly cautious towards Pace's enthusiasm, and the result was a breach between them. Pace openly blamed Wolsey, as Wingfield had done before, and pressed for money and an armed demonstration. Wolsey soberly rebuked his lack of judgment by setting before him a well-considered survey of the political chances. His caution proved to be justified, as Bourbon's invasion of Provence was a failure. Wolsey gained all that he needed by his pretence of helping Bourbon; he induced the French Court to undertake negotiations seriously by means of secret envoys who were sent to London.
Still Wolsey did not hide from himself the difficulties in the way of an alliance with France which would satisfy Henry VIII. or bring substantial advantage to the country. However, on one point he managed to obtain an immediate advantage. He always kept his eye on Scotland, and now used the first signs of returning friendliness on the part of France to further his scheme of restoring English influence in that country. In June the Duke of Albany was recalled to France, and Wolsey set to work to win back Queen Margaret to her brother's cause. He seems to have despaired of blandishments, and contrived a way to have a more powerful weapon. Margaret's husband, the Earl of Angus, had been sent by Albany to France, where he was carefully guarded. On the first signs of renewed friendliness between England and France a hint from Wolsey procured him an opportunity of escaping to England. With Angus at his disposal Wolsey urged Margaret to be reconciled to her husband, and terrified her by the prospect of alternately restoring him to Scotland. By playing cleverly on her personal feelings, Wolsey led her by degrees to accept his own plan for freeing Scotland from Albany and French interference. He urged that the young king was now old enough to rule for himself, and promised Margaret help to secure her supremacy in his council. At the same time he won over the Scottish lords by the prospect of a marriage between James and Mary of England, who was still Henry VIII.'s heir. In August James V. was set up as king, and the Scottish Parliament approved of the English marriage. Again Wolsey won a signal triumph, and accomplished by diplomacy what the sword had been unable to achieve.
We need not follow the complicated diplomacy of the year 1524, which was transferred to Italy, whither Francis I. had pursued Bourbon and was engaged in the siege of Pavia. It is enough to say that Wolsey pursued a cautious course: if Francis won the day in Italy he was ready to treat with him liberally: if the imperial arms prevailed, then he could sell England's alliance more dearly. But this cautious attitude was displeasing to Charles, whose ambassador in London, De Praet, complained without ceasing of the growing coldness of Henry and Wolsey. Wolsey kept a sharp watch on De Praet, and resented his keen-sightedness; finally, in February 1525, De Praet's despatches were intercepted, and he was called before the Council, when Wolsey charged him with untruth. De Praet answered by complaining that his privileges as an ambassador had been violated. He was ordered to confine himself to his own house till the king had written to the Emperor about his conduct.
This was indeed an unheard-of treatment for the ambassador of an ally, and we can scarcely attribute it merely to personal spite on the part of so skilled a statesman as Wolsey. Perhaps it was a deliberate plan to cause a personal breach between Henry and the Emperor. No doubt Henry's own feelings were towards Charles rather than Francis, and it seems probable that Wolsey wished to show his master that Charles was only trying to make use of his friendship for his own purposes. The despatches of Charles's envoy were opened and their contents made known to Henry for some time before Wolsey took any open action. He acted when he saw his master sufficiently irritated, and he probably suggested that the best way to give Charles a lesson was by an attack upon his ambassador. This proposal agreed with the high-handed manner of action which Henry loved to adopt. It gave him a chance of asserting his own conception of his dignity, and he challenged Charles to say if he identified himself with his ambassador's sentiments.
Under any circumstances it was an audacious step, and as things turned out it was an unfortunate one. Within a few days the news reached England that Francis had been attacked at Pavia by the imperial forces, had been entirely routed, and was a prisoner in the hands of Charles. Though Wolsey was prepared for some success of the imperial arms, he was taken aback at the decisiveness of the stroke. His time for widening the breach between Charles and Henry had not been well chosen.
However, Charles saw that he could not pursue his victory without money, and to obtain money he must adopt an appearance of moderation. So he professed in Italy willingness to forget the past, and he avoided a quarrel with England. He treated the insult to his ambassador as the result of a personal misunderstanding. Henry complained of De Praet's unfriendly bearing; Charles assured him that no offence was intended. Both parties saved their dignity; De Praet was recalled, and another ambassador was sent in his stead. Wolsey saw that he had been precipitate, and hastened to withdraw his false step; Henry lent him his countenance, but can scarcely have relished doing so. Wolsey knew that his difficulties were increased. The victory of Charles again drew Henry to his side and revived his projects of conquest at the expense of France, now left helpless by its king's captivity. As the defection of Bourbon had formerly awakened Henry's hopes, so now did the captivity of Francis. Again Wolsey's pacific plans were shattered; again he was driven to undertake the preparations for a war of which his judgment disapproved.
Indeed Wolsey knew that war was absolutely impossible for want of money; but it was useless to say so to the king. He was bound to try and raise supplies by some means or other, and his experience of the last Parliament had shown him that there was no more to be obtained from that source. In his extremity Wolsey undertook the responsibility of reviving a feudal obligation which had long been forgotten. He announced that the king purposed to pass the sea in person, and demanded that the goodwill of his subjects should provide for his proper equipment. But the goodwill of the people was not allowed the privilege of spontaneous generosity. Commissioners were appointed in every shire to assess men's property, and require a sixth part of it for the king's needs. Wolsey himself addressed the citizens of London. When they gave a feeble assent to his request for advice, "whether they thought it convenient that the king should pass the sea with an army or not," he proceeded, "Then he must go like a prince, which cannot be without your aid." He unfolded his proposals for a grant of 3s. 4d. in the pound on £50 and upwards, 2s. 8d. on £20 and upwards, and 1s. in the pound on £1 and upwards. Some one pleaded that the times were bad. "Sirs," said Wolsey, "speak not to break what is concluded, for some shall not pay even a tenth; and it were better that a few should suffer indigence than the king at this time should lack. Beware, therefore, and resist not, nor ruffle not in this case; otherwise it may fortune to cost some their heads." This was indeed a high-handed way of dealing with a public meeting, which was only summoned to hear the full measure of the coming calamity. We cannot wonder that "all people cursed the cardinal and his adherents as subverters of the laws and liberty of England." Nor was Wolsey ignorant of the unpopularity which he incurred; but there was no escape possible. He rested only on the king's favour, and he knew that the king's personal affection for him had grown colder. He was no longer the king's friend and tutor, inspiring him with his own lofty ideas and slowly revealing his far-reaching schemes. Late years had seen Wolsey immersed in the business of the State, while the king pursued his own pleasures, surrounded by companions who did their utmost to undermine Wolsey's influence. They advocated war, while he longed for peace; they encouraged the royal extravagance, while he worked for economy; they favoured the imperial alliance and humoured Henry's dreams of the conquest of France, while Wolsey saw that England's strength lay in a powerful neutrality. The king's plans had deviated from the lines which Wolsey had designed, and the king's arbitrary temper had grown more impatient of restraint. Wolsey had imperceptibly slipped from the position of a friend to that of a servant, and he was dimly conscious that his continuance in the royal service depended on his continued usefulness. Whatever the king required he was bound to provide.
So Wolsey strained every nerve to fill the royal coffers by the device of an "Amicable Loan," which raised a storm of popular indignation. Men said with truth that they had not yet paid the subsidy voted by Parliament, and already they were exposed to a new exaction. Coin had never been plentiful in England, and at that time it was exceptionally scarce. The commissioners in the different shires all reported the exceeding difficulty which they met with in the discharge of their unpleasant duty. It soon became clear to Wolsey that his demand had overshot the limits of prudence, and that money could not be raised on the basis of the parliamentary assessment without the risk of a rebellion. Accordingly Wolsey withdrew from his original proposal. He sent for the mayor and corporation of London and told them, in the fictitious language in which constitutional procedure is always veiled, "I kneeled down to his Grace, showing him both your good minds towards him and also the charge you continually sustain, the which, at my desire and petition, was content to call in and abrogate the same commission." The attempt to raise money on the basis of each man's ratable value was abandoned, and the more usual method of a benevolence was substituted in its stead.
This, however, was not much more acceptable. Again Wolsey summoned the mayor and corporation; but they had now grown bolder, and pleaded that benevolences had been abolished by the statute of Richard III. Wolsey angrily answered that Richard was a usurper and a murderer of his nephews; how could his acts be good? "An it please your Grace," was the answer, "although he did evil, yet in his time were many good acts made not by him only, but by the consent of the body of the whole realm, which is Parliament." There was nothing more to be said, and Wolsey had to content himself with leaving every man to contribute privily what he would. It did not seem that this spontaneous liberality went far to replenish the royal exchequer.
What happened in London was repeated in different forms in various parts of England. In Norwich there was a tumult, which it needed the presence of the Duke of Norfolk to appease. He asked the confused assembly who was their captain, and bade that he should speak. Then out spake one John Greene, a man of fifty years. "My lord, since you ask who is our captain, forsooth, his name is Poverty; for he and his cousin Necessity have brought us to this doing. For all these persons and many more live not of ourselves, but we live by the substantial occupiers of this country; and yet they give us so little wages for our workmanship that scarcely we be able to live; and thus in penury we pass the time, we, our wives and children: and if they, by whom we live, be brought in that case that they of their little cannot help us to earn our living, then must we perish and die miserably. I speak this, my lord: the clothmakers have put away all their people, and a far greater number, from work. The husbandmen have put away their servants and given up household; they say the king asketh so much that they be not able to do as they have done before this time, and then of necessity must we die wretchedly."
John Greene's speech expressed only too truly the condition of affairs in a period of social change. The old nobility had declined, and the old form of life founded on feudalism was slowly passing away. Trade was becoming more important than agriculture; the growth of wool was more profitable than the growth of corn. It is true that England as a whole was growing richer, and that the standard of comfort was rising; but there was a great displacement of labour, and consequent discontent. The towns had thriven at the expense of the country; and in late years the war with France had hindered trade with the Netherlands. The custom duties had diminished, the drain of bullion for war expenses had crippled English commerce. There had been a succession of bad seasons, and every one had begun to diminish his establishment and look more carefully after his expenditure.
All this was well known to the Duke of Norfolk, and was laid before the king. The commissions were recalled, pardons were granted to the rioters, and the loan was allowed to drop. But Wolsey had to bear all the odium of the unsuccessful attempt, while the king gained all the popularity of abandoning it. Yet Henry VIII. resented the failure, and was angry with Wolsey for exposing him to a rebuff. In spite of his efforts Wolsey was ceasing to be so useful as he had been before, and Henry began to criticise his minister. Brave and resolute as Wolsey was, his labours and disappointments began to tell upon him. Since the failure of the Conference of Calais he had been working not at the development of a policy which he approved, but at the uncongenial task of diminishing the dangers of a policy which he disapproved. The effects of this constant anxiety told upon his health and spirits, and still more upon his temper. He might be as able and as firm as ever, but he no longer had the same confidence in himself.
It was perhaps this feeling which led Wolsey to show the king the extremity of his desire to serve him by undertaking the desperate endeavour to wring more money from an exhausted people. Wolsey had done his utmost to satisfy the king; he had accepted without a murmur the burden of popular hatred which the attempt was sure to bring. There is a pathos in his words, reported by an unfriendly hand, addressed to the council: "Because every man layeth the burden from him, I am content to take it on me, and to endure the fume and noise of the people, for my goodwill towards the king, and comfort of you, my lords and other the king's councillors; but the eternal God knoweth all." Nor was it enough that he submitted to the storm; he wished to give the king a further proof of his devotion. Though others might withhold their substance, yet he would not. He offered the king his house at Hampton Court, which he had built as his favourite retreat, and had adorned to suit his taste. It was indeed a royal gift, and Henry had no scruple in accepting it. But the offer seems to show an uneasy desire to draw closer a bond which had been gradually loosened, and renew an intimacy which was perceptibly diminishing.
However, in one way Wolsey had a right to feel satisfaction even in his ill-success. If money was not to be had, war was impossible, and Wolsey might now pursue his own policy and work for peace. He had to face the actual facts that England was allied to Charles, who had won a signal victory over Francis, and had in his hands a mighty hostage in the person of the King of France. His first object was to discover Charles V.'s intentions, and prevent him from using his advantage solely for his own profit. Bishop Tunstal and Sir Richard Wingfield were sent to Charles with orders to put on a bold face, and find whether Charles thought of dethroning Francis or releasing him for a ransom. In the first case, they were to offer military aid from England; in the second, they were to claim for England a large share in the concessions to be wrung out of Francis. The English demands were so exorbitant that though they may have satisfied the fantastic aspirations of Henry, Wolsey must have known them to be impossible. Under cover of a friendly proposal to Charles he was really preparing the way for a breach.
Charles on his side was engaged in playing a similar game. In spite of his success at Pavia he was really helpless. He had no money, and the captivity of the French king awakened so much alarm in Europe that he felt compelled to use his advantage moderately. As a first measure he needed money, and saw no chance of obtaining it save by marrying Isabella of Portugal, who would bring him a dowry of 1,000,000 golden crowns. For this purpose he must free himself from the engagement of the treaty of Windsor, by which he was betrothed to Mary of England. So he acted as Wolsey was acting. He professed a great desire to carry out his engagement as a means of getting rid of it, and sent ambassadors to ask that Mary and her dowry should be given up to him, with a further loan of 200,000 ducats.
The two embassies had crossed on the way, and Henry received Charles's communication as an answer to his demands. In this way it served Wolsey's purpose admirably, for it showed clearly enough that the interests of Henry and Charles were not the same. Charles was bent upon pursuing his own advantage, and was still willing to use Henry as a useful ally; but Henry saw nothing to be gained from the alliance, and the time had come when some tangible gain was to be secured from all his expenditure. Hitherto he had been personally on Charles's side, but in his conferences with the imperial envoys in the month of June he made it clear that his patience was exhausted. Henceforth he accepted Wolsey's views of peace with France. If Charles was striving to make what he could out of the captivity of the French king, then England might as well join in the scramble. The misfortune of France was England's opportunity. If Charles was not willing to share his gains with Henry, then Henry must pick up what he could for himself. It was an unwelcome conclusion for Charles, who hoped to bring the pressure of irresistible necessity to bear on his captive. If England also joined in the bidding its competition would run down his price.
Moreover, this resolution of Henry made a great change in his domestic relations. Queen Katharine was devoted to her nephew's interests, and had exercised considerable influence over her husband. They talked together about politics, and Henry liked to move amidst acquiescent admiration. All that was now at an end, as Katharine could not change her sympathies, and had not the tact to disguise her disapprobation. From this time forward Henry did not treat her with the affection and familiarity which had been his wont, and when he made up his mind he did not scruple to emphasise his decision by his acts. He had not been a faithful husband, but hitherto his infidelity had not been a cause of domestic discord. He had an illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, by Elizabeth Blunt, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting; and on 15th June he created this boy of six years old Duke of Richmond. This he did with a display of pomp and ceremony which must have been very offensive to the Queen; nor was the offence diminished when, a month afterwards, the boy was created Lord High Admiral of England. Such an act was, to say the least, a taunt to Katharine that she had borne no son; it was a public proclamation of the king's disappointment and discontent with his matrimonial lot. The luckless Katharine could make no complaint, and was forced to submit to the king's will; but we cannot doubt that she put down to Wolsey what was not his due, and that Wolsey had to bear the hatred of her friends for the king's change of policy, and all that flowed from it.
However, Wolsey's course was now clearly to dissolve the imperial alliance without causing a breach. For this purpose he used Charles's desire for his Portuguese marriage. He offered to release Charles from his engagement to Mary on condition that the treaty was annulled, that he paid his debts to Henry, and concluded a peace with France to England's satisfaction. Charles refused to take any step so decided, and the negotiations proceeded. But Wolsey's attention was not so much directed to Charles as to France, where Louise, the king's mother, was desperately striving to procure her son's release. In their dealings with France there was a keen rivalry between England and the Emperor, which should succeed in making terms soonest. In this competition Wolsey had one advantage; he had already learned the stubbornness of the national spirit of France, and its willingness to submit to anything rather than territorial loss. So, while Charles haggled for provinces, Wolsey demanded money. He told the French envoys that in order to make peace, without having won laurels to justify it, Henry could not take less than 2,000,000 crowns, and he would hear of no abatement. There was much discussion of all the old claims of England for compensation from France, but Wolsey knew the necessity of the moment, and carried all his points.
When the terms were agreed upon there was another discussion about the security to be given. Francis was a prisoner in Spain, and though his mother was regent, a doubt might be thrown upon her capacity to ratify such an important treaty. Wolsey would admit no doubts in the matter. He knew that peace with France would not be popular, but he was determined that his master should see its advantage in the substantial form of ready money with good security for its payment. Besides ratification by the regent he demanded the personal security of several French nobles, of towns and local estates. At length he was satisfied. The treaty was signed on 30th August, and was published on 6th September. Henry was to receive 2,000,000 crowns in annual instalments of 50,000; the treaty included Scotland as an ally of France, and it was stipulated that the Duke of Albany was not to return. Scotland, left unprotected, was bound to follow France, and in January 1526 peace was signed with Scotland to the satisfaction of both countries.
Wolsey could congratulate himself on the result of his work. Again he had won for England a strong position, by setting her in the forefront of the opposition to the overweening power of the empire. Again had England's action done much to restore the equilibrium of Europe. This had been achieved solely by Wolsey's diplomacy. Charles V. had received a blow which he could neither parry nor resent. The French treaty with England deprived Charles of the means of exercising irresistible pressure upon Francis, and encouraged the Italian States to form an alliance against the Emperor. Francis, weary of his long captivity, signed the treaty of Madrid, and obtained his freedom in February 1526. But he previously protested against it as extorted by violence, and refused to surrender an inch of French territory notwithstanding his promises. Charles gained little by his victory at Pavia. His hands were again full, as the Turks invaded Hungary, and Francis joined the Italian League against him. He still had every motive to keep on good terms with England, and Wolsey had no desire to precipitate a breach.
So Wolsey's policy for the future was one of caution and reserve. The king withdrew more and more from public affairs, and spent his time in hunting. His relations with Katharine became day by day more irksome, and he tried to forget his domestic life by leading a life of pleasure. Wolsey strove to hold the balance between Charles and Francis without unduly inclining to either side. Both wished to be on good terms with England, for neither was free from anxiety. The sons of Francis were hostages in Spain, and Charles was hampered by the opposition of the Italian League. Of this League Henry VIII. was a member, but he declined to give it any active support. The Italians, as usual, were divided, and Clement VII. was not the man to direct their distracted councils successfully. In September 1526 a small force of Spaniards, aided by a party amongst the Roman barons, surprised Rome, sacked the papal palace, and filled Clement with terror. Charles V. disavowed any share in this attack, and excused himself before Henry's remonstrances. But as Clement did not entirely amend his ways, the experiment was repeated on a larger scale. In May 1527 the imperial troops under the Duke of Bourbon and the German general George Frundsberg captured and plundered Rome, and took the Pope prisoner. This unwonted deed filled Europe with horror. It seemed as if the Emperor had joined the enemies of the Church.
During this period Wolsey had been cautiously drawing nearer to France. At first he only contemplated strengthening the ties which bound the two countries together; but in the beginning of 1527 he was willing to form a close alliance with France, which must lead to a breach with the Emperor. French commissioners came to London, and a proposal was made that Francis should marry Mary, then a child of ten, though he was betrothed to the Emperor's sister Eleanor. Wolsey's demands were high: a perpetual peace between the two countries, a perpetual pension of 50,000 crowns to the English king, a tribute of salt, and the surrender of Boulogne and Ardres. In the course of the discussion the son of Francis, the Duke of Orleans, was substituted for the father as Mary's husband; on all other points Wolsey had his will, and never did he show himself a more consummate master of diplomacy. The treaty was signed on 30th April. The debts of Charles were transferred to Francis, and Wolsey could show that he had made a substantial gain.
Doubtless Wolsey intended that this peace with France should form the basis of a universal peace, which he never ceased to pursue. The success of Charles V. in Italy, and subsequent events at home, rapidly dispelled his hopes. Already the selfwill of Henry VIII. had driven him to consent to measures which were against his judgment; the same selfwill, turned to domestic and personal affairs, was already threatening to involve Wolsey in a matter whose far-reaching effects no man could foresee.
We have been following the laborious career of Wolsey in his direction of foreign affairs. He held in his hands the threads of complicated negotiations, by which he was endeavouring to assure England's power on the Continent, not by means of war but by skilful diplomacy. In doing this he had to guard the commercial relations of England with the Netherlands, and had also to bow before the selfwill of the king, who insisted on pursuing fantastic designs of personal aggrandisement. Still he steered a careful course amidst many difficulties, though when he looked back upon his labours of thirteen years he must have owned to serious disappointment. Perhaps he sometimes asked himself the question, if foreign policy was worthy of the best attention of an English minister, if he had not erred in adventuring on such large schemes abroad. There was much to do at home; many useful measures of reform awaited only a convenient season. He had hoped, when first he began his course, to have seen England long before this time peaceful and powerful, the arbiter of European affairs, a pattern to other kingdoms, dealing honestly and sagaciously with the pressing needs of the time. He had laboured incessantly for that end, but it was as far off as ever. The year 1527 saw England exhausted by useless wars, and Europe plunged in irreconcilable strife. Wolsey's dream of a united Europe, cautiously moved by England's moderating counsels, had vanished before forces which he could not control.
Meanwhile domestic reforms had been thrust into the background. Wolsey was keenly alive to their importance, and had a distinct policy which he wished to carry out. He had carefully gathered into his hands the power which would enable him to act, but he could not find the time for definite action. Something he contrived to do, so as to prepare the way for more; but his schemes were never revealed in their entirety, though he trained the men who afterwards carried them out, though in a crude and brutal shape.
England was passing through a period of social change which necessitated a re-adjustment of old institutions. The decay of feudalism in the Wars of the Roses had been little noticed, but its results had been profound. In the sphere of government the check exercised by the barons on the Crown was destroyed. Henry VII. carefully depressed the baronage and spared the pockets of the people, who were willing to have the conduct of affairs in the hands of the king so long as he kept order and guarded the commercial interests, which were more and more absorbing national energies. The nation wished for a strong government to put down anarchy and maintain order; but the nation was not willing to bear the cost of a strong government on constitutional principles. Henry VII. soon found that he might do what he liked provided he did not ask for money; he might raise supplies by unconstitutional exactions on individuals provided he did not embarrass the bulk of the middle classes, who were busied with trade. The nobles, the rich landowners, the wealthy merchants, were left to the king's mercies; so long as the pockets of the commons were spared they troubled themselves no further.
Henry VII. recognised this condition of national feeling, and pursued a policy of levelling class privileges and cautiously heeding the popular interests; by these means he established the royal power on a strong basis, and carried on his government through capable officials, who took their instructions from himself. Some of the old nobles held office, but they gradually were reduced to the same level as the other officials with whom they consorted. The power of the old nobility passed silently away.
With this political change a social change corresponded. The barons of former years were great in proportion to the number of their retainers and the strength of their castles. Now retainers were put down by the Star Chamber; and the feudal lord was turned into the country gentleman. Land changed hands rapidly; opulent merchants possessed themselves of estates. The face of the country began to wear a new look, for the new landlords did not desire a numerous tenantry but a large income. The great trade of England was wool, which was exported to Flanders. Tillage lands were thrown into pasture; small holders found it more difficult to live on their holdings; complaints were heard that the country was being depopulated. England was slowly passing through an economic change which involved a displacement of population, and consequent misery on the labouring classes. No doubt there was a great increase in national prosperity; but prosperity was not universally diffused at once, and men were keenly conscious of present difficulties. Beneath the surface of society there was a widespread feeling of discontent.
Moreover, amongst thinking men a new spirit was beginning to prevail. In Italy this new spirit was manifest by quickened curiosity about the world and life, and found its expression in a study of classical antiquity. Curiosity soon led to criticism; and before the new criticism the old ideas on which the intellectual life of the Middle Ages was built were slowly passing away. Rhetoric took the place of logic, and the study of the classics superseded the study of theology. This movement of thought slowly found its way to England, where it began to influence the higher minds.
Thus England was going through a crisis politically, socially, and intellectually, when Wolsey undertook the management of affairs. This crisis was not acute, and did not call for immediate measures of direction; but Wolsey was aware of its existence, and had his own plans for the future. We must regret that he put foreign policy in the first place, and reserved his constructive measures for domestic affairs. The time seemed ripe for great achievements abroad, and Wolsey was hopeful of success. He may be pardoned for his lofty aspirations, for if he had succeeded England would have led the way in a deliberate settlement of many questions which concerned the wellbeing of the whole of Christendom. But success eluded Wolsey's grasp, and he fell from power before he had time to trace decidedly the lines on which England might settle her problems for herself; and when the solution came it was strangely entangled in the personal questions which led to Wolsey's fall from power. Yet even here we may doubt if the measures of the English Reformation would have been possible if Wolsey's mind had not inspired the king and the nation with a heightened consciousness of England's power and dignity. Wolsey's diplomacy at least tore away all illusions about Pope and Emperor, and the opinion of Europe, and taught Henry VIII. the measure of his own strength.
It was impossible that Wolsey's powerful hand should not leave its impression upon everything which it touched. If Henry VIII. inherited a strong monarchy, Wolsey made the basis of monarchical power still stronger. It was natural that he should do so, as he owed his own position entirely to the royal favour. But never had any king so devoted a servant as had Henry VIII., in Wolsey; and this devotion was not entirely due to motives of selfish calculation or to personal attraction. Wolsey saw in the royal power the only possible means of holding England together and guiding it through the dangers of impending change. In his eyes the king and the king alone could collect and give expression to the national will. England itself was unconscious of its capacities, and was heedless about the future. The nobles, so far as they had any policy, were only desirous to win back their old position. The Church was no longer the inspirer of popular aspirations or the bulwark of popular freedom. Its riches were regarded with a jealous eye by the middle classes, who were busied with trade; the defects of its organisation had been deplored by its most spiritually-minded sons for a century; its practices, if not its tenets, awakened the ridicule of men of intelligence; its revenues supplied the king with officials more than they supplied the country with faithful pastors; its leaders were content to look to the king for patronage and protection. The traders of the towns and the new landlords of the country appreciated the growth of their fortunes in a period of internal quiet, and dreaded anything that might bring back discord. The labouring classes felt that redress of their grievances was more possible from a far-off king than from landlords who, in their eyes, were bent upon extortion. Every class looked to the king, and was confident in his good intentions. We cannot wonder that Wolsey saw in the royal power the only possible instrument strong enough to work reforms, and set himself with goodwill to make that instrument efficacious.
So Wolsey was in no sense a constitutional minister, nor did he pay much heed to constitutional forms. Parliament was only summoned once during the time that he was in office, and then he tried to browbeat Parliament and set aside its privileges. In his view the only function of Parliament was to grant money for the king's needs. The king should say how much he needed, and Parliament ought only to advise how this sum might most conveniently be raised. We have seen that Wolsey failed in his attempt to convert Parliament into a submissive instrument of royal despotism. He under-estimated the strength of constitutional forms and the influence of precedent. Parliament was willing to do its utmost to meet the wishes of the king, but it would not submit to Wolsey's high-handed dictation. The habits of diplomacy had impaired Wolsey's sagacity in other fields; he had been so busy in managing emperors and kings that he had forgotten how to deal with his fellow-countrymen. He was unwise in his attempt to force the king's will upon Parliament as an unchangeable law of its action. Henry VIII. looked on and learned from Wolsey's failure, and when he took the management of Parliament into his own hands he showed himself a consummate master of that craft. His skill in this direction has scarcely been sufficiently estimated, and his success has been put down to the servility of Parliament. But Parliament was by no means servile under Wolsey's overbearing treatment. If it was subservient to Henry the reason is to be found in his excellent tactics. He conciliated different interests at different times; he mixed the redress of acknowledged grievances with the assertion of far-reaching claims; he decked out selfish motives in fair-sounding language; he led men on step by step till they were insensibly pledged to measures more drastic than they approved; he kept the threads of his policy in his own hands till the only escape from utter confusion was an implicit confidence in his wisdom; he made it almost impossible for those who were dissatisfied to find a point on which they could establish a principle for resistance. He was so skilful that Parliament at last gave him even the power over the purse, and Henry, without raising a murmur, imposed taxes which Wolsey would not have dared to suggest. It is impossible not to feel that Henry, perhaps taught in some degree by Cromwell, understood the temper of the English people far better than Wolsey ever did. He established the royal power on a broader and securer basis than Wolsey could have erected. Where Wolsey would have made the Crown independent of Parliament, Henry VIII. reduced Parliament to be a willing instrument of the royal will. Wolsey would have subverted the constitution, or at least would have reduced it to a lifeless form; Henry VIII. so worked the constitutional machinery that it became an additional source of power to his monarchy.
But though Wolsey was not successful in his method of making the royal power supreme over Parliament, he took the blame of failure upon himself, and saved the king's popularity. Wolsey's devotion to his master was complete, and cannot be assigned purely to selfish motives. Wolsey felt that his opinions, his policy, his aspirations had been formed through his intercourse with the king; and he was only strong when he and his master were thoroughly at one. At first the two men had been in complete agreement, and it cost Wolsey many a pang when he found that Henry did not entirely agree with his conclusions. After the imperial alliance was made Wolsey lost much of his brilliancy, his dash, and his force. This was not the result of age, or fatigue, or hopelessness so much as of the feeling that he and the king were no longer in accord. Like many other strong men, Wolsey was sensitive. He did not care for popularity, but he felt the need of being understood and trusted. He gave the king his affection, and he craved for a return. There was no one else who could understand him or appreciate his aims, and when he felt that he was valued for his usefulness rather than trusted for what he was in himself, the spring of his life's energy was gone.
Still Wolsey laboured in all things to exalt the royal power, for in it he saw the only hope of the future, and England endorsed his opinion. But Wolsey was too great a man to descend to servility, and Henry always treated him with respect. In fact Wolsey always behaved with a strong sense of his personal dignity, and carried stickling for decorum to the verge of punctiliousness. Doubtless he had a decided taste for splendour and magnificence, but it is scarcely fair to put this down to the arrogance of an upstart, as was done by his English contemporaries. Wolsey believed in the influence of outward display on the popular mind, and did his utmost to throw over the king a veil of unapproachable grandeur and unimpeachable rectitude. He took upon himself the burden of the king's responsibilities, and stood forward to shield him against the danger of losing the confidence of his people. As the king's representative he assumed a royal state; he wished men to see that they were governed from above, and he strove to accustom them to the pomp of power. In his missions abroad, and in his interviews with foreign ambassadors, he was still more punctilious than in the matters of domestic government. If the king was always to be regarded as the king, Wolsey, as the mouthpiece of the royal will, never abated his claims to honour only less than royal; but he acted not so much from self-assertion as from policy. At home and abroad equally the greatness of the royal power was to be unmistakably set forth, and ostentation was an element in the game of brag to which a spirited foreign policy inevitably degenerates. It was for the king's sake that Wolsey magnified himself; he never assumed an independent position, but all his triumphs were loyally laid at the king's feet. In this point, again, Wolsey overshot the mark, and did not understand the English people, who were not impressed in the manner which he intended. When Henry took the government more directly into his own hands he managed better for himself, for he knew how to identify the royal will with the aspirations of the people, and clothed his despotism with the appearance of paternal solicitude. He made the people think that he lived for them, and that their interests were his, whereas Wolsey endeavoured to convince the people that the king alone could guard their interests, and that their only course was to put entire confidence in him. Henry saw that men were easier to cajole than to convince; he worked for no system of royal authority, but contented himself with establishing his own will. In spite of the disadvantage of a royal education, Henry was a more thorough Englishman than Wolsey, though Wolsey sprang from the people.
It was Wolsey's teaching, however, that prepared Henry for his task. The king who could use a minister like Wolsey and then throw him away when he was no longer useful, felt that there was no limitation to his self-sufficiency.
Wolsey, indeed, was a minister in a sense which had never been seen in England before, for he held in his hand the chief power alike in Church and State. Not only was he chancellor, but also Archbishop of York, and endowed beside with special legatine powers. These powers were not coveted merely for purposes of show: Wolsey intended to use them, when opportunity offered, as a means of bringing the Church under the royal power as completely as he wished to subject the State. He had little respect for the ecclesiastical organisation as such; he saw its obvious weaknesses, and wished to provide a remedy. If he was a candidate for the Papacy, it was from no desire to pursue an ecclesiastical policy of his own, but to make the papal power subservient to England's interests. He was sufficiently clear-sighted to perceive that national aspirations could not much longer be repressed by the high-sounding claims of the Papacy; he saw that the system of the Church must be adapted to the conditions of the time, and he wished to avert a revolution by a quiet process of steady and reasonable reform. He was perhaps honest in saying that he was not greatly anxious for the Papacy; for he knew that England gave him ample scope for his energies, and he hoped that the example of England would spread throughout Europe. So at the beginning of his career he pressed for legatine powers, which were grudgingly granted by Leo X., first for one year, and afterwards for five; till the gratitude of Clement VII. conferred them for life. Clothed with this authority, and working in concert with the king, Wolsey was supreme over the English Church, and perhaps dreamed of a future in which the Roman Pontiff would practically resign his claims over the northern churches to an English delegate, who might become his equal or superior in actual power.
However this might be, he certainly contemplated the reform of the English Church by means of a judicious mixture of royal and ecclesiastical authority. Everything was propitious for such an undertaking, as the position of the Church was felt to be in many ways anomalous and antiquated. The rising middle class had many grievances to complain of from the ecclesiastical courts; the new landlords looked with contempt on the management of monastic estates; the new learning mocked at the ignorance of the clergy, and scoffed at the superstitions of a simpler past which had survived unduly into an age when criticism was coming into fashion. The power of the Church had been great in days when the State was rude and the clergy were the natural leaders of men. Now the State was powerful and enjoyed men's confidence; they looked to the king to satisfy their material aspirations, and the Church had not been very successful in keeping their spiritual aspirations alive. It was not that men were opposed to the Church, but they judged its privileges to be excessive, its disciplinary courts to be vexatious, its officials to be too numerous, and its wealth to be devoted to purposes which had ceased to be of the first importance. There was a general desire to see a re-adjustment of many matters in which the Church was concerned; and before this popular sentiment churchmen found it difficult to assert their old pretensions, and preferred to rest contentedly under the protection of the Crown.
A trivial incident shows the general condition of affairs with sufficient clearness. One of the claims which on the whole the clergy had maintained was the right of trial before ecclesiastical courts; and the greater leniency of ecclesiastical sentences had been a useful modification of the severity of the criminal law, so that benefit of clergy had been permitted to receive large extension of interpretation. Further, the sanctity of holy places had been permitted to give rights of sanctuary to criminals fleeing from justice or revenge. Both of these expedients had been useful in a rude state of society, and had done much to uphold a higher standard of humanity. But it was clear that they were only temporary expedients which were needless and even harmful as society grew more settled and justice was regularly administered. Henry VII. had felt the need of diminishing the rights of sanctuary, which gave a dangerous immunity to the numerous rebels against whom he had to contend, and he obtained a bull for that purpose from Pope Innocent VIII. The example which he set was speedily followed, and an Act was passed by the Parliament of 1511, doing away with sanctuary and benefit of clergy in the case of those who were accused of murder.
It does not seem that the Act met with any decided opposition at the time that it was passed; but there were still sticklers for clerical immunities, who regarded it as a dangerous innovation, and during the session of Parliament in 1515 the Abbot of Winchcombe preached a sermon in which he denounced it as an impious measure. Henry VIII. adopted a course which afterwards stood him in good stead in dealing with the Church; he submitted the question to a commission of divines and temporal peers. In the course of the discussion Standish, the Warden of the Friars Minors, put the point clearly and sensibly by saying, "The Act was not against the liberty of the Church, for it was passed for the weal of the whole realm." The clerical party were not prepared to face so direct an issue, and answered that it was contrary to the decretals. "So," replied Standish, "is the non-residence of bishops; yet that is common enough." Baffled in their appeal to law the bishops fell back upon Scripture, and quoted the text, "Touch not mine anointed." Again Standish turned against them the new critical spirit, which destroyed the old arguments founded on isolated texts. David, he said, used these words of all God's people as opposed to the heathen; as England was a Christian country the text covered the laity as well as the clergy. It was doubtless galling to the clerical party to be so remorselessly defeated by one of their own number, and their indignation was increased when the temporal lords on the commission decided against the Abbot of Winchcombe and ordered him to apologise.
The bishops vented their anger on Standish, and summoned him to answer for his conduct before Convocation, whereon he appealed to the king. Again Henry appointed a commission, this time exclusively of laymen, to decide between Standish and his accusers. They reported that Convocation, by its proceeding against one who was acting as a royal commissioner, had incurred the penalties of præmunire, and they added that the king could, if he chose, hold a parliament without the lords spiritual, who had no place therein save by virtue of their temporal possessions. Probably this was intended as a significant hint to the spirituality that they had better not interfere unduly with parliamentary proceedings. Moreover, at the same time a case had occurred which stirred popular feeling against the ecclesiastical courts. A London merchant had been arrested by the chancellor of the Bishop of London on a charge of heresy, and a few days after his arrest was found hanging dead in his cell. Doubtless the unhappy man had committed suicide, but there was a suspicion that his arrest was due to a private grudge on the part of the chancellor, who was accused of having made away with him privily. Popular feeling waxed high, and the lords who gave their decision so roundly against Convocation knew that they were sure of popular support.
Henry was not sorry of an opportunity of teaching the clergy their dependence upon himself, and he summoned the bishops before him that he might read them a lesson. Wolsey's action on this occasion is noticeable. He seems to have been the only one who saw the gravity of the situation, and he strove to effect a dignified compromise. Before the king could speak Wolsey knelt before him and interceded for the clergy. He said that they had designed nothing against the king's prerogative, but thought it their duty to uphold the rights of the Church; he prayed that the matter might be referred to the decision of the Pope. Henry answered that he was satisfied with the arguments of Standish. Fox, Bishop of Winchester, turned angrily on Standish, and Archbishop Warham plucked up his courage so far as to say feebly, "Many holy men have resisted the law of England on this point and have suffered martyrdom." But Henry knew that he had not to deal with a second Becket, and that the days of Becket had gone by for ever. He would have nothing to say to papal intervention or to clerical privilege; the time had come for the assertion of royal authority, and Henry could use his opportunity as skilfully as the most skilful priest. "We," said he, "are by God's grace king of England, and have no superior but God; we will maintain the rights of the Crown like our predecessors; your decrees you break and interpret at your pleasure: but we will not consent to your interpretation any more than our predecessors have done." The immemorial rights of the English Crown were vaguer and more formidable than the rights of the Church, and the bishops retired in silence. Henry did not forget the service rendered him by Standish, who was made Bishop of St. Asaph in 1518.
In this incident we have a forecast of the subsequent course of events—the threat of præmunire, the assertion of the royal supremacy, the submission of the clergy. Nothing was wanting save a sufficient motive to work a revolution in the ancient relations between Church and State. Wolsey alone seems to have seen how precarious was the existing position of the Church. He knew that the Church was wrong, and that it would have to give way, but he wished to clothe its submission with a semblance of dignity, and to use the papal power, not as a means of guarding the rights of the Church, but as a means of casting an air of ecclesiastical propriety over their abandonment. Doubtless he proposed to use his legatine power for that purpose if the need arose; but he was loyal to the Church as an institution, and did not wish it to fall unreservedly to the tender mercies of the king. He saw that this was only to be avoided by a judicious pliancy on the Church's part, which could gain a breathing-space for carrying out gradual reforms.
The fact that Wolsey was a statesman rather than an ecclesiastic gave him a clear view of the direction which a conservative reformation should pursue. He saw that the Church was too wealthy and too powerful for the work which it was actually doing. The wealth and power of the Church were a heritage from a former age, in which the care for the higher interests of society fell entirely into the hands of the Church because the State was rude and barbarous, and had no machinery save for the discharge of rudimentary duties. Bishops were the only officials who could curb the lawlessness of feudal lords; the clergy were the only refuge from local tyranny; monks were the only landlords who cleared the forests, drained the marshes, and taught the pursuits of peace; monastery schools educated the sons of peasants, and the universities gave young men of ability a career. All the humanitarian duties of society were discharged by the Church, and the Church had grown in wealth and importance because of its readiness to discharge them. But as the State grew stronger, and as the power of Parliament increased, it was natural that duties which had once been delegated should be assumed by the community at large. It was equally natural that institutions which had once been useful should outlast their usefulness and be regarded with a jealous eye. By the end of the reign of Edward I. England had been provided with as many monastic institutions as it needed, and the character of monasticism began to decline. Benefactions for social purposes from that time forward were mainly devoted to colleges, hospitals, and schools. The fact that so many great churchmen were royal ministers shows how the energy of the Church was placed at the disposal of the State and was by it absorbed. The Church possessed revenues, and a staff of officials which were too large for the time, in which it was not the only worker in the field of social welfare. It possessed rights and privileges which were necessary for its protection in days of anarchy and lawlessness, but which were invidious in days of more settled government. Moreover, the tenure of so much land by ecclesiastical corporations like monasteries, was viewed with jealousy in a time when commercial competition was becoming a dominant motive in a society which had ceased to be mainly warlike.
From this point of view Wolsey was prepared for gradual changes in the position of the Church; but he did not wish those changes to be revolutionary, nor did he wish them to be made by the power of the State. He knew the real weakness of the Church and the practical omnipotence of the king; but he hoped to unite the interests of the Crown and of the Church by his own personal influence and by his position as the trusted minister of king and Pope alike.
He did not, however, deceive himself about the practical difficulties in the way of a conservative reform, which should remove the causes of popular discontent, and leave the Church an integral part of the State organisation. He knew that the ecclesiastical system, even in its manifest abuses, was closely interwoven with English society, and he knew the strength of clerical conservatism. He knew also the dangers which beset the Church if it came across the royal will and pleasure. If any reform were to be carried out it must be by raising the standard of clerical intelligence. Already many things which had accorded with the simpler minds of an earlier age had become objects of mockery to educated laymen. The raillery of Erasmus at the relics of St. Thomas of Canterbury and the Virgin's milk preserved at Walsingham expressed the difference which had arisen between the old practices of religion and the belief of thoughtful men. It would be well to divert some of the revenues of the Church from the maintenance of idle and ignorant monks to the education of a body of learned clergy.
This diversion of monastic property had long been projected and attempted. William of Wykeham endowed his New College at Oxford with lands which he purchased from monasteries. Henry VI. endowed Eton and King's College with revenues which came from the suppression of alien priories. In 1497 John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, obtained leave to suppress the decrepit nunnery of St. Rhadegund in Cambridge and use its site for the foundation of Jesus College. Wolsey only carried farther and made more definite the example which had previously been set when in 1524 he obtained from Pope Clement VII. permission to convert into a college the monastery of St. Frideswyde in Oxford. Soon after he obtained a bull allowing him to suppress monasteries with fewer than seven inmates, and devote their revenues to educational purposes.
Nor was Wolsey the only man who was of opinion that the days of monasticism were numbered. In 1515 Bishop Fox of Winchester contemplated the foundation of a college at Oxford in connection with the monastery of St. Swithin at Winchester. He was dissuaded from making his college dependent on a monastery by his brother bishop, Oldham of Exeter, who said, "Shall we build houses and provide livelihoods for a company of bussing monks, whose end and fall we ourselves may live to see? No, no: it is meet to provide for the increase of learning, and for such as by learning shall do good to Church and commonwealth." Oldham's advice prevailed, and the statutes of Fox's college of Brasenose were marked by the influence of the new learning as distinct from the old theology.
Still Wolsey's bull for the wholesale dissolution of small monasteries was the beginning of a process which did not cease till all were swept away. It introduced a principle of measuring the utility of old institutions and judging their right to exist by their power of rendering service to the community. Religious houses whose shrunken revenues could not support more than seven monks, according to the rising standard of monastic comfort, were scarcely likely to maintain serious discipline or pursue any lofty end. But it was the very reasonableness of this method of judgment which rendered it exceedingly dangerous. Tried by this standard, who could hope to escape? Fuller scarcely exaggerates when he says that this measure of Wolsey's "made all the forest of religious foundations in England to shake, justly fearing that the king would fell the oaks when the cardinal had begun to cut the underwood." It would perhaps have required too much wisdom for the monks to see that submission to the cardinal's pruning-knife was the only means of averting the clang of the royal axe.
The method which Wolsey pursued was afterwards borrowed by Henry VIII. Commissioners were sent out to inquire into the condition of small monasteries, and after an unfavourable report their dissolution was required, and their members were removed to a larger house. The work was one which needed care and dexterity as well as a good knowledge of business. Wolsey was lucky in his agents, chief amongst whom was Thomas Cromwell, an attorney whose cleverness Wolsey quickly perceived. In fact most of the men who so cleverly managed the dissolution of the monasteries for Henry had learned the knack under Wolsey, who was fated to train up instruments for purposes which he would have abhorred.
The immediate objects to which Wolsey devoted the money which he obtained by the dissolution of these useless monasteries were a college in his old university of Oxford and another in his native town of Ipswich. The two were doubtless intended to be in connection with one another, after the model of William of Wykeham's foundations at Winchester and Oxford, and those of Henry VI. at Eton and Cambridge. This scheme was never carried out in its integrity, for on Wolsey's fall his works were not completed, and were involved in his forfeiture. Few things gave him more grief than the threatened check of this memorial of his greatness, and owing to his earnest entreaties his college at Oxford was spared and was refounded. Its name, however, was changed from Cardinal College to Christ Church, and it was not entirely identified with Wolsey's glory. The college at Ipswich fell into abeyance.
Wolsey's design for Cardinal College was on a magnificent scale. He devised a large court surrounded by a cloister, with a spacious dining-hall on one side. The hall was the first building which he took in hand, and this fact is significant of his idea of academic life. He conceived a college as an organic society of men living in common, and by their intercourse generating and expressing a powerful body of opinion. Contemporaries mocked and said, "A fine piece of business; this cardinal projected a college and has built a tavern." They did not understand that Wolsey was not merely adding to the number of Oxford colleges, but was creating a society which should dominate the University, and be the centre of a new intellectual movement. For this purpose Wolsey devised a foundation which should be at once ecclesiastical and civil, and should set forward his own conception of the relations between the Church and the intellectual and social life of the nation. His foundation consisted of a dean, sixty canons, six professors, forty petty canons, twelve chaplains, twelve clerks, and sixteen choristers; and he proposed to fill it with men of his own choice, who would find there a fitting sphere for their energies.
Wolsey was a man well adapted to hold the balance between the old and the new learning. He had been trained in the theology of the schools, and was a student of St. Thomas Aquinas; but he had learned by the training of life to understand the new ideas; he grasped their importance, and he foresaw their triumph. He was a friend of the band of English scholars who brought to Oxford the study of Greek, and he sympathised with the intellectual aspirations of Grocyn, Colet, More, and Erasmus. Perhaps he rather sympathised than understood; but his influence was cast on their side when the opposition to the new learning broke out in the University and the Trojans waged a desperate and at first a successful war against the Greeks. The more ignorant among the clerical teachers objected to any widening of the old studies, and resented the substitution of biblical or patristic theology for the study of the schoolmen. They dreaded the effects of the critical method, and were not reassured when Grocyn, in a sermon at St. Paul's Cathedral, declared that the writings attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite were spurious. A wave of obscurantism swept over Oxford, and, as Tyndale puts it, "the barking curs, Dun's disciples, the children of darkness, raged in every pulpit against Greek, Latin, and Hebrew." Wolsey used the king's authority to rebuke the assailants of learning; but the new teachers withdrew from Oxford, and Wolsey saw that if the new learning was to make way it must have a secure footing. Accordingly he set himself to get the universities into his power, and in 1517 proposed to found university lectureships in Oxford. Hitherto the teaching given in the universities had been voluntary; teachers arose and maintained themselves by a process of natural selection. Excellent as such a system may seem, it did not lead to progress, and already the Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, Henry VII.'s mother, had adopted the advice of Bishop Fisher, and founded divinity professorships in the two universities. Wolsey wished to extend this system and organise an entire staff of teachers for university purposes. We do not know how far he showed his intention, but such was his influence that Oxford submitted its statutes to him for revision. Wolsey's hands were too full of other work for him to undertake at once so delicate a matter; but he meant undoubtedly to reorganise the system of university education, and for this purpose prevailed on Cambridge also to entrust its statutes to his hands. Again he had prepared the way for a great undertaking, and had dexterously used his position to remove all obstacles, and prepare a field for the work of reconstruction. Again he was prevented from carrying out his designs, and his educational reform was never actually made. We can only trace his intentions in the fact that he brought to Oxford a learned Spaniard, Juan Luis Vives, to lecture on rhetoric, and we may infer that he intended to provide both universities with a staff of teachers chosen from the first scholars of Europe.