Part 3

He had always treated marriage primarily as an affair of politics, as was natural and inevitable, but with a sufficient respect for its moral aspects to keep him faithful to his own wife. Yet when his son died, the idea of joining the widow to his second son had for him none of that repulsion which it excited almost universally in his day. It is even said that when his own queen died he contemplated marrying Katherine himself. It is quite certain that he contemplated marrying Katherine’s sister Joanna of Castile, although he knew her to be mentally deranged. His economy degenerated into niggardliness; his politic scheming to fill his treasury developed into a griping greed for gold. Empson and Dudley carried on their nefarious work of extortion with his knowledge and sanction. He grew vindictive, and when Thomas More opposed a subsidy in the Parliament of 1504, he sought an excuse for fining the father, and the “beardless boy” himself had to retire into private life, lest a worse thing should befall him. He had always considered himself at liberty to break the spirit of a promise provided that he kept the letter; but, if tradition does not wrong him, when the Earl of Suffolk was surrendered on promise that he would not put him to death, he took care to suggest to the Prince of Wales that the promise would not bind his heir when his time came.

The man revealed to us in these later years is ugly, sordid, very unlovely. But this man does not truly or fairly present to us the real Henry who restored order in England, and recovered for her a respectable position among the nations; holding his own in a singularly difficult situation and keeping at bay the onslaughts of an embittered faction at the cost of a quite astonishingly small amount of bloodshed, and with the minimum of anything that could reasonably be called injustice towards antagonists. This at least England owes to him, that he did more than any of his predecessors to lay the foundations of her commercial greatness; that he recognised more clearly than any of them the benefit of her maritime development.

The man moreover was not altogether lacking in some finer qualities which seem to have withered when his degeneration set in. He who seems almost an incarnation of chill-blooded, unemotional craftiness was capable of very human and very tender feeling. A record from the hand of an anonymous contemporary, when his son Arthur died, has been transcribed before, and is worth transcribing again.

“In the year of our Lord God 1502, the second day of April, in the castle of Ludlow, deceased Prince Arthur, first begotten son of our sovereign Lord, King Henry the Seventh, and in the 17th year of his reign. Immediately after his death Sir Richard Poole his Chamberlain, with other of his Council, wrote and sent letters to the King and Council to Greenwich, where his Grace and the Queen’s lay, and certified them of the Prince’s departure. The which Council discreetly sent for the King’s ghostly father, a friar observant, to whom they showed this most sorrowful and heavy tidings, and desired him in his best manner to show it to the King. He in the morning of the Tuesday following, and somewhat before the time accustomed, knocked at the King’s chamber door; and when the King understood that it was his Confessor, he commanded to let him in. The Confessor then commanded all those there present to avoid, and after one salutation began to say _Si bona de Manu Domini suscipimus, mala autem quare non sustineamus?_ and so showed his Grace that his dearest son was departed to God. When his Grace understood that sorrowful heavy tidings he sent for the Queen, saying that he and his Queen would take the painful sorrows together. After that she was come, and saw the King her lord and that natural and painful sorrow, as I have heard say, she with full great and constant comfortable words, besought his Grace that he would, first after God, remember the weal of his own noble person, the comfort of his realm and of her. She then said that my lady his mother had never no more children but him only, and that God by his grace had ever preserved him and brought him where that he was; over that, how that God had left him yet a fair prince, two fair princesses; and that God is where he was, and we are both young enough; and that the prudence and wisdom of his Grace sprung over all Christendom, so that it should please him to take this accordingly thereunto. Then the King thanked her of her good comfort. After that she was departed and come to her own chamber, natural and motherly loss smote her so sorrowful to the heart, that those that were about her were fain to send for the King to comfort her. Then his Grace, of true, gentle, and faithful love, in good haste came and relieved her, and showed her how wise counsel she had given him before; and he for his part would thank God for his son, and would she should do in like wise.”

That story, obviously derived from an actual witness, gives a fine impression of Elizabeth; but it no less obviously implies a very genuine affection subsisting between her and Henry, and a very sincere devotion in both to their son. Henry, however, was by nature a reserved and somewhat lonely man, and Elizabeth’s death not long after deprived him of the last softening influence. His whole life had been a tremendous strain. His boyhood and early manhood aged him prematurely. From the day that he landed in England to wrest the sceptre from Richard, the strain had never relaxed; the bow had never been slackened. At five-and-forty, he may well have been as much worn out as are men less severely tried twenty-five years later in life. The work he had to do was anything but inspiriting; he did it with dogged patience. The task was thankless, and he got little thanks. It was accomplished ungraciously, and he receives no grace in return. A dreary life, and a dreary reign; yet the reign is not without admirable qualities, nor the life without gleams of nobility.

CARDINAL WOLSEY

I

APPRECIATIONS

He was a man Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking Himself with princes; one that by suggestion Tied all the kingdom: simony was fair-play: His own opinion was his law: i’ the presence He would say untruths and be ever double, Both in his words and meaning. He was never, But when he meant to ruin, pitiful: His promises were, as he then was, mighty: But his performance, as he is now, nothing.

In these words, Shakespeare or another has summed up the character of the great Cardinal as it presented itself to his enemies. As Katharine painted him, posterity has for the most part regarded him. Men who have risen from the ranks, and in their prosperity assume the state and splendour appropriate to hereditary position, are rarely popular. When they are so, it is because they have identified their names in some sort with popular causes. Of all the statesmen who for a long term of years controlled or seemed to control the destinies of England, not one perhaps has found apologists so few as Thomas Wolsey.

Of recent years, however, there has been a change. It has hardly yet made its way into popular accounts; but the attitude of serious historians has been at least largely modified by the publication of the State Papers under the editorship of the late Dr. Brewer, and of his Introductions to those volumes. The doctrine used to be that Wolsey was a man of exceeding arrogance who acquired a pernicious mastery over the mind of Henry VIII., and whose political achievement consisted mainly in a miserably fruitless meddling with foreign affairs in which England had no concern, dictated by an insatiable ambition for the Papal crown. Whereas Dr. Brewer and Bishop Creighton after him have laid it down that Wolsey raised England from the position of a third or fourth-rate Power to an equality with the greatest nations in Europe.

During the years of his power, it is at least clear that Wolsey did achieve for England such a position among the nations as she had not held, at any rate since the days of Henry V.; and that he did this, not, like Henry V., by aggressive militarism, but by diplomatic skill: that he sought to be, and to a great extent succeeded in being, the pacificator of Europe as well as the aggrandiser of England. In his aim and method, however, he followed in the footsteps of Henry VII., and his policy was a natural development, though a vast extension, of that laid down by that astute monarch. And in the second aspect of his policy, he was again developing that of the old king, in striving to make the power of the Crown independent alike of the old nobility and of Parliament.

But a recent biographer[A] has ventured so far as to declare that “Wolsey stands out as the greatest statesman England has ever produced; and it is not going beyond what records reveal if we say his was the master-mind of his age”--the age of Erasmus and Luther.

[A] Taunton, “Thomas Wolsey, Legate and Reformer,” p. 3.

That is unfortunately a species of criticism which excites the spirit of hostility. Wolsey was of that type of politicians, rare in England, who have made foreign affairs their first interest: also he was, what probably no other Englishman ever has been, beyond all comparison the ablest diplomatist among his contemporaries. Diplomacy is a field in which the reputation of England does not stand high. But one asks at once--What in fact did his diplomacy achieve? And, diplomacy apart, the great upheaval which issued in the Reformation was in full activity when Wolsey was at the height of his power and influence. The master-mind of his age therefore could hardly have failed to leave his mark on the Reformation. What did Wolsey accomplish--nay, what did he even attempt to accomplish--in that connexion?

II

CARDINALIS PACIFICATOR

Thomas Wolsey was born probably in 1471. His father was a citizen of Norwich--a grazier. The popular voice calls him a butcher. The boy was sent very young to Oxford, taking his degree when he was only fourteen years old, and otherwise achieving high distinction. At Magdalen he remained, fulfilling various college functions till the end of 1499. Before that date, John Colet, five years his senior, had commenced his famous course of lectures, introducing a new style of scholarship and a new type of biblical criticism. Thomas More, seven years his junior, had finished his University career. Erasmus had paid Oxford a flying visit. There is no trace of any personal association between Wolsey and these lights of the new school: yet there is no doubt whatever that as an educationist he was in close sympathy with them. The facts are therefore the more significant of some incompatibility of temperament: for we should naturally have expected scholars, agreed upon an innovating theory, to have been drawn together.

Acting at this time in a tutorial capacity to the sons of the Marquess of Dorset, Wolsey was rewarded by a living at Limington: and the ex-bursar of Magdalen was in a very short time a quite notable pluralist, and in close personal relations with various important personages, culminating in his appointment as Chaplain to Henry VII. in 1506. The king, whose only living rival in diplomatic astuteness was Ferdinand of Spain, was prompt to discern the kindred abilities of his new servant, who within a year or two was successfully employed to carry through important negotiations both in Flanders and in Scotland.

In April 1509 the old king died. His successor was hailed with acclamation on all hands. Of splendid physique, and glowing with martial ardour as was natural in a healthy boy of eighteen, the military section of society saw in him promise of a revival of the glories of Agincourt. The scholars too claimed their part in him, as he joyously claimed fellowship with them. The populace shouted applause when the detested Empson and Dudley were sent to the block. The veterans who occupied the chief thrones of Europe dreamed that the innocent youth would be to them as clay in the hands of the potter. Every one was satisfied.

For a little while all went merrily. The English nobles thirsted for war with France: Ferdinand and Maximilian had no difficulty in persuading the young monarch that in alliance with them he might achieve the laurels for which he hankered. He was to begin the fighting, they were to play at supporting him, and if by good luck something more substantial than laurels should be achieved, that of course would go to his partners.

Wolsey’s old pupil the Marquess of Dorset was sent to Spain in command of the expedition which was to begin the war, with the conquest of Guienne in view. Dorset’s army wanted beer: they could only get wine, which they considered thin. In effect they went on strike, and insisted on coming home again. The marquess brought them back ignominiously, without so much as a laurel-leaf.

Fox, Bishop of Winchester, perhaps the best of the old king’s surviving ministers, had been pressed into the background by the warlike nobles; but he had succeeded in introducing into the Council the man who was to sweep the nobles themselves into the background. Wolsey was nobody in particular, but he was a very clever man with immense organising ability and an infinite capacity for detail and for hard work. The fiasco was not repeated. In 1513, the army of invasion went to its proper field, Picardy. It was not a haphazard picnic party, and it captured Terouenne and Tournai. In the meantime, Surrey was shattering the Scots army at Flodden. A few months later, Henry had discovered that Ferdinand and Maximilian were using him as a cat’s-paw. Again a few months passed, and Wolsey had beaten them at their own game. France and England were in alliance. Then the uncontrollable changed the face of things. King Louis died: Francis I. succeeded. But the brief dream of the old kings had been finally dissipated: Henry was going to be nobody’s cats-paw. He had found a minister more than worthy to follow in his father’s footsteps.

In 1515 Wolsey was fully established not as the king’s chief adviser, but in effect as his sole minister. In 1513 he was not yet guiding the king’s policy: his work was mainly administrative. In 1514 the distinctive principle of his policy comes into full play. The anti-Gallic theory is discarded. Thenceforth, the hand of England is not against any Power in particular. As Foreign Minister, Wolsey’s business is to see that the balance of power is maintained; that no one prince shall be too far aggrandised; that each of them shall be a check on the aggression of others; that all shall maintain a habitual attitude of concession to England for the sake of her support; and that this is to be effected without involving England in actual warfare. Ferdinand dies in 1516; Maximilian in 1519. Charles V. succeeds both to Spain and to the Empire. In the latter year, the destinies of Europe are in the hands of three monarchs not one of whom is thirty years old. Wolsey during the following years remains in effect the arbiter of Europe till his hand is forced by Henry, and he finds himself compelled to overt hostility with France. After the disaster of Pavia, the blunder becomes manifest; his own policy is again allowed free play, and the old domination is all but recovered when the affair of the divorce wipes all other questions out of the field. The king’s will must be carried out at all costs. Failing therein, the Cardinal falls--irretrievably.

Two leading facts emerge. First: so long as Wolsey is allowed a free hand to carry out his own policy, he does it with complete success. Second: if the king elects to lay down a different policy, the Cardinal has to carry that policy through as best he may. The idea that he ruled the king is entirely fallacious. For some years, the king had the wisdom to recognise that his minister’s views were sound. Then his anti-Gallic leanings dominated him. Then he perceived his error, and reverted to his minister’s policy; till again a purely personal motive intervened, and policy again went to the winds. Since the personal motive could not be satisfied without a revolution, Henry conducted the revolution himself. The _rôle_ the king required of his minister was one demanding other abilities than those of the Cardinal, and the Cardinal was thrown to the wolves.

Effectively then it is true to say that while Wolsey held sway in England, he was the arbiter of Europe. Whether it was for the good of England that she should concern herself with being the arbiter of Europe is another matter. It may be argued that the less she has to do with Europe the better for her. But the theory of splendid isolation for Great Britain is not the same thing as that theory applied to England when Scotland was an independent nation in habitual alliance with France, and always ready for hostilities. Even after Flodden the menace on the Northern Border had to be taken into perpetual count. Moreover, the advocates of that doctrine must still recognise that the opposite view is legitimately maintainable; and it follows that the statesman who, acting on the opposite view, successfully upheld English predominance without plunging the country into sanguinary wars, is entitled to a very high meed of praise.

Yet this does not express the whole of Wolsey’s achievement: for, when he began to guide England’s policy, he had to win position for her, not merely to maintain a position already held--a hard enough task in itself. To say that she was no more than a third or fourth-rate Power is an exaggeration. It was true in 1485: it had ceased to be true in 1500. Long before the close of his reign, the first Tudor had made himself a person of very considerable importance, whom none of the continental Powers dreamed of ignoring, and with whom they treated on something very like equal terms. This, however, was in no small degree a matter of personal prestige. Henry’s reputation for astuteness stood so high, not to speak of his credit for accumulated wealth, that the Courts of the continent paid England’s king an amount of respect which they would not have rendered to the power of England. With the removal of his personality, England dropped to a lower plane, but certainly did not become a negligeable quantity. If there was a brief disposition to regard her not as negligeable but as futile, that was due merely to the hastily formed conclusion that the young king was a tender innocent. The old Henry’s position was recovered the moment that Wolsey’s abilities were recognised. The marriage of the young princess Mary to the old King of France in 1514, was precisely the kind of stroke which Henry VII. would have made. It marked the fact that in any leagues or combinations which foreign princes might contemplate, an England thoroughly alive to her own interests, and thoroughly capable of safe-guarding them, must be reckoned with. In producing this result, Wolsey’s administrative ability as well as his diplomatic skill had played no small part; since to that was owing, in a great degree, the successes which attended the English arms in 1513; successes which were effective reminders that what English troops had done before they might learn to do again.

So far, however, what Wolsey had done was little if at all more than to restore the position of 1508; though this was accompanied by a suggestion that English interference in Continental affairs might be of a less purely defensive order than it had been under the late king. The suggestion was very soon to be turned into fact; and for some years kings and emperors and popes were to find that, whatever designs they might have in hand, they would have no chance of carrying them out beyond the point which Wolsey might be induced to sanction. The distinguishing feature of Wolsey’s method was his reliance on purely diplomatic action, to which end he had the aid of a particularly capable subordinate in Richard Pace. The Cardinal habitually posed as an arbitrator, composing the differences of Christendom and maintaining that general peace which it was theoretically the special function of the Roman Pontiff to secure.

For Ferdinand of Aragon, the leading idea was always to find an ally who could be inveigled into doing his fighting for him without any return. For Maximilian, the leading idea was to find an ally who would subsidise him to do the fighting while he could evade his own part of the bargain. Wolsey, by his alliance with Louis XII., turned the tables on both of them. The alliance itself was practically terminated by the accession of Francis in January 1515. France reaped the immediate profit, for neither Spain nor the emperor would risk a course which depended for success on a mutual fulfilment of obligations. Ferdinand became friendly to Francis, but without any intention of giving him effective support. When the latter’s progress in Italy seemed likely to be too rapid, Wolsey entered into relations with Maximilian which served as a check on Francis without filling the emperor’s purse. When Ferdinand died, Charles, his successor, was only sixteen, and though his counsellors were well disposed to France, being mainly Flemings, there was no present prospect of vigorous intervention on his behalf. Active hostility on the part of England would be dangerous, and when Maximilian in turn died, both Charles and Francis were suitors for the favour of the supreme minister in England. The turn of the wheel had made them inevitable rivals. The imperial election went in favour of Charles, that being less dangerous than the success of Francis would have been, and it was now Wolsey’s policy to hold the balance between the two. An era of universal peace was inaugurated; Charles and Francis did not join in formal alliance, but England united with each of them.

III

WOLSEY AND THE FRENCH WAR

The inauguration of an era of universal peace is usually the prelude to a war. A year after the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Charles and Francis were on the verge of hostilities. Wolsey negotiated with both, ostensibly to bring about an accord. But in fact, England was committed to support Charles: and the responsibility was with the Cardinal.

The conclusion to which the circumstances point is that the pressure was too great for him to resist. Popular sentiment in England was opposed to the French alliance. The queen was a warm adherent of her young kinsman. The king was personally jealous of the achievements of Francis, and had visions of the French crown or at least of the recovery of Guienne. Wolsey probably felt that if he tried to maintain his own policy he would alienate Henry, and if he alienated Henry--who had just annihilated Buckingham--he would meet Buckingham’s fate amid universal applause, and the anti-French policy would triumph in any case. He elected to carry out the anti-French policy and remain at the helm. Hostile critics would suggest that he was actuated by the desire of obtaining the support of the emperor when the Papacy should become vacant. Charles failed to keep his promise when Leo died, and gave his support to another candidate; but neither then nor in the following year when Clement VII. was elected--again with the support of Charles--did Wolsey show any sign of changing his policy in consequence.