The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (Pimlico) (29 page)

Mention of Erasmus does, however, suggest a point that must be made in any discussion of Wolsey’s universal peace treaty. By far the most influential writer of his day had for some years before 1518 been clamouring for peace, and he was influential just because he had important friends in high places, not only in England but throughout Europe. Europe was, thus, prepared, even eager for peace, so that Erasmus could write in a letter to the German humanist, Wolfgang Faber, on 26 February 1517: ‘At this moment, nonetheless, I should be almost willing to grow young again for a space, for this sole reason that I perceive we may shortly behold the rise of a new kind of golden age.’
¹⁸⁵
Inspiration is difficult to assess, but for that reason should not be ignored.

But if ‘affairs everywhere were tending towards peace’,
¹⁸⁶
it was not only inspiration or Erasmus that had brought it about. Europe had been in an almost continuous state of war ever since the first French invasion of Italy in 1494. A war weariness was setting in that disposed rulers to accept unpalatable facts which they would have challenged when feeling more buoyant or more financially solvent. By
his adherence to the Treaty of Noyon in 1516 Maximilian had accepted that for the time being he was not going to obtain any territorial gains from Venice, and by that same treaty Charles accepted the French occupation of Milan, while Francis in effect accepted the Spanish occupation of Naples. What may also have greatly contributed to these moves towards peace was the death of Ferdinand early that same year, the youthfulness of his successor, Charles, and his urgent need to establish his rule in Spain. Only when this had been achieved could he don his grandfather’s mantle as the chief opponent of the crown of France; and in 1521 Europe would be at war again, war weary or not.

In 1518 there was another consideration which inclined some people towards peace, and that was the Turk. In a series of successful campaigns during 1516 and 1517 Selim
I
had defeated the Syrian and Egyptian sultans with the result that he found himself in control of much of the Middle East. As he already held much of the Balkans and the Greek peninsula, he appeared to be ominously poised for an attack on Christian Europe, whether along the Mediterranean to Italy and Spain or by land through Hungary. In 1517 and again in 1518 Leo
X
had made serious efforts to concentrate the minds of the European leaders on this threat. On 6 March 1518 a five-year truce amongst the European powers was solemnly declared in Rome, the purpose of which was to facilitate a crusade. To show that he meant business Leo nominated four papal legates
a latere
to attend upon the four principal rulers of Europe to obtain their adherence to his proposals.
¹⁸⁷

A Wolsey devoted to peace might have been expected to respond enthusiastically to his spiritual prince’s call, but in fact his response was lukewarm.
¹⁸⁸
He never rejected the truce, but he made certain that the papal proposals were completely subordinated to his own. Rightly or wrongly, he never took the Turkish threat very seriously, and thus might justifiably have felt that the plans for a crusade were an irrelevance as far as European peace was concerned.
¹⁸⁹
He could have had no such excuse when rejecting Francis
I
’s proposal in September 1516 that England should become a signatory to the Treaty of Noyon. As we have seen, it was this treaty that had removed, for a time at any rate, the real obstacles to European peace, essentially by the acceptance by its signatories of the status quo in Italy, and its contribution to European peace was in reality much greater than anything that would be achieved by the Treaty of London. But what was Wolsey’s reaction? Not only did he reject Francis’s offer to join, but he did everything in his power to destroy it. The only conclusion that can be drawn, as also from his reaction to Leo
X
’s proposal for a European truce, is that if Wolsey was devoted to peace, it was to peace on no one else’s terms but his own.
¹⁹⁰

Such a conclusion is not intended to engender cynicism. If it does, it seriously misleads. For one thing, Wolsey himself was not a cynic, but believed passionately that it was his duty to work for the greater glory of Henry. For another, it could easily obscure what is, after all, the logical consequence of this conclusion, which is
that having obtained a favourable peace Wolsey would work hard to maintain it. It was not only that the peace treaty guaranteed the favourable terms obtained from France, though that was its most important function. It also obviated the danger that Francis might use his new alliance with England to advance yet further his Italian ambitions,
¹⁹¹
and these ambitions were much more troublesome to England in 1518 than they had been three years previously. This had nothing to do with Wolsey’s alleged love of the papacy, but was a consequence of Ferdinand’s death. With his successor Charles as both king of Naples and duke of Burgundy it was harder than ever before to isolate the affairs of Italy, and the particular danger for England was that in the furtherance of his Italian ambitions Francis might get dragged into a war in the Low Countries, thereby threatening vital English trading interests.

Peace was also a much cheaper way of securing England’s dominant role in European affairs than subsidizing expensive anti-French alliances. Ever since Henry had joined the Holy League in November 1511 royal expenditure had been outrunning royal income by a considerable amount, despite the £290,000 received from parliamentary and £115,000 from clerical taxation. Between April 1512 and June 1513, admittedly the period of greatest military involvement, over £600,000 was paid out by the treasurer of the Chamber for the purposes of war, and when it is borne in mind that Henry
VIII
’s ordinary revenues were running at just over £100,000 a year, the financial strain that war produced can be easily understood.
¹⁹²
More will have to be said about England’s ability to finance the ambitious foreign policy that both Henry and Wolsey were determined to pursue,
¹⁹³
but there seems little reason to doubt – though it is nowhere mentioned – that the high cost of war combined with England’s comparative lack of financial resources provided a strong incentive to work for the peace of Europe, especially when that peace did so much to uphold the honour and prestige of the English monarch. Where others had failed to bring about peace England had succeeded. The treaty had been signed in London with the greatest possible publicity, while England’s pivotal position was built into it by the fact that adherents only signed an agreement with England, not with each other. Henry and Wolsey as the peacemakers of Europe! It was an exciting and honourable role, and for the next three years they played it with the utmost panache. The caveat must be that circumstances change, and it would not always be in England’s interests for the maintenance of peace to be the principal aim of English foreign policy. When that happened, it will be shown that Wolsey had no great difficulty in adapting.

Richard Fox informed Wolsey that the Treaty of London was ‘the best deed that was ever done for the realm of England, and, after the King’s Highness, the laud and praise thereof shall be to you a perpetual memory’.
¹⁹⁴
Something for which Wolsey has not received so much praise is that first acquisition, on 17 May 1518, of legatine
powers with which this chapter began.
¹⁹⁵
What this meant for Wolsey and the English Church will be considered in another chapter. This will conclude with some attempt to disperse some of the myths and misconceptions that have grown up concerning the way in which these powers were obtained.

When in late March 1518 Henry had been informed of Leo
X
’s decision to send Cardinal Campeggio to England as legate
a latere
in order to further the papal plans for a crusade, his initial reaction was to suppose that, though it was not really the English practice to admit such officials, it would be all right as long as Campeggio confined his activity to doing just that.
¹⁹⁶
Wolsey had other ideas. If Leo wanted his legate to enter England, why not insist that he make Wolsey legate with him? Henry had immediately taken the point.
¹⁹⁷
On 11 April a request was sent to Rome, and, whatever Leo’s personal feelings may have been, he had little option but to agree if he wanted his own plans to proceed.
¹⁹⁸

Three things should be said about this episode. Henry’s comment that it was not the English practice to admit legates
a latere
was substantially correct. The rules and precedents were against doing so, though exceptions had been made.
¹⁹⁹
Second, other countries took a very similar attitude to papal legates, while that same year Maximilian and Cardinal Gurk used precisely the same tactics as Henry and Wolsey to ensure that Gurk was made a co-legate with Cardinal Cajetan, who was the Pope’s choice as papal legate for Germany.
²⁰⁰
The last point is that Leo’s grant to Wolsey in 17 May predated Campeggio’s arrival in Calais by about a month,
²⁰¹
so that the commonly stated view that he was delayed there until the grant was made is incorrect.
²⁰²
The real reason for his enforced delay was that Wolsey was anxious for Leo to grant him a further request. It concerned the unfortunate Adriano Castellessi. Wolsey’s relationship with this cardinal had never been very good, and had worsened considerably during the winter of 1514-15 when he had discovered that Polydore Vergil was writing rude comments about him to Castellessi. Subsequently, their relationship appeared to improve, but probably only because it was difficult for Wolsey to do much about a man who had been a loyal friend of the English Crown for well over twenty years and, perhaps more importantly had great influence in the Curia. However, in the summer of 1517 Castellessi gave Wolsey his opportunity by becoming implicated in a plot to murder Leo. The trouble was that it soon became clear that his involvement had only been slight, and Leo, who always found decisive action difficult, proved reluctant to move against him. One reason for this was that he knew that Wolsey was less concerned for his, the pope’s, safety
than with getting his hands on the bishopric of Bath and Wells, held by Castellessi for the last fourteen years, and which Wolsey intended to hold
in commendam
with York. Leo saw no point in making unnecessary concessions to Wolsey, and thus resisted the demand for Cardinal Castellessi’s deprivation, a demand which was also being pushed by Castellessi’s main rival for English favour at the Roman Curia and fellow English bishop, Silvestro Gigli.
²⁰³
It appears to have been Gigli’s idea to keep Campeggio waiting in Calais until Leo gave in on this point,
²⁰⁴
and whosoever idea it was it worked. On 5 July Castellessi was deprived both of his cardinal’s hat and of his English bishopric.
²⁰⁵
As soon as Wolsey heard the news he sent over a knight of the garter to escort Campeggio from Calais to London where he was received with the greatest honour possible.
²⁰⁶

This, briefly, is the story of Campeggio’s first journey to England, and Wolsey’s acquisition of his first legatine commission. Leo had intended that it should last only for as long as Campeggio remained in England. Moreover, he must have hoped that as a result of granting it Wolsey would help Campeggio to further the papal project for a crusade. As it turned out, Wolsey was to remain a legate
a latere
until his downfall, while his interest in the crusade, as has been shown, was minimal. His real reasons for wanting to become legate will provide the subject of another chapter.

¹
Rawdon Brown, ii p.113 (
LP
, ii, 3558); see also p.440-2 below.

²
Rawdon Brown, pp.126-9 (
LP
, ii, 3634, 3655) – this in Aug. 1517.

³
LP
, ii, 3748, 3788.

⁴
Hall, p.592.

⁵
LP
, ii, 3985 ff.

⁶
LP
, ii, app.38.

⁷
Wolsey’s detailed instructions to Pace give the best indication of English policy at this time; for which see
LP, ii, 1065, 1095
, but also
LP
, ii, 1943 (BL, Vit. B. xix, fos.98-102v.), which has been placed in May 1516, but must be before Maximilian’s retreat from Milan, and is probably an answer to Pace’s letter of 4 Feb. (
LP
, ii, 1480).

⁸
Knecht, pp.67-8.

⁹
LP
, ii, 1003.

¹⁰
See Brandi, pp.96-9 for an excellent pen portrait: ‘unstable, easily tempted by wild plans, usually without patience, and always without money’ – which follows closely Julius
II
’s judgement reported by Pace to Wolsey, 12 May 1516 (
LP
, ii, p.lxxviii). Also Pace’s own assessment that Maximilian ‘doth as oftentimes change his mind as the weathercock doth change his turn’ (
LP
, ii, 2034).