The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (Pimlico) (32 page)

¹⁷⁷
See especially Pace’s comment to Wolsey ‘that no letter be sent unto his highness under your grace’s pacquet, but his highness doth read them every word’. (
LP
, ii, 4089).

¹⁷⁸
LP
, ii, 4014, 4057-8, 4071, 4082, 4085, 4228, 4277, 4360.

¹⁷⁹
See pp.153, 381-2 below.

¹⁸⁰
LP
, ii, 4479.

¹⁸¹
LP
, ii, 4664.

¹⁸²
Rymer, xiii, pp.624-ff (
LP
, ii, 4469).

¹⁸³
See especially Mattingly,
Journal of Modern History
,
X
; Scarisbrick,
Henry
VIII
, pp.70-4.

¹⁸⁴
LP
, ii, 4357; also
LP
, ii, 4137 for important minutes in Ruthal’s hand. Contemporary comment includes that by Erasmus, Fox, and Giustinian.

¹⁸⁵
CWE
, 4, p.261.

¹⁸⁶
Guicciardini, p.303.

¹⁸⁷
Pastor, vii, pp.213 ff.

¹⁸⁸
Inter alia LP
, ii, 4003, 4028, 4034, 4040, 4047, 4135, 4243.

¹⁸⁹
Cf. his comment to Giustinian: ‘Guard yourselves more against the Christian Turk than the real Turk.’ (
LP
, ii, 4047). It should be said that Erasmus took a not dissimilar view in letters to More and Warham, March 1518.

¹⁹⁰
LP
, ii, 2340, 2377, 2387.

¹⁹¹
The fact that the French were opposed to Maximilian and Charles becoming principal signatories of the universal peace treaty – and perhaps to the treaty itself – is instructive; see
LP
, ii, app.52.

¹⁹²
For these figures I have relied on Wolfe,
Crown Lands
, pp.76 ff; Schofield, ‘Direct Lay Taxation’, table 40, pp.415-6; M.J. Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’, app.ii, pp.292 ff. Some of the adding up, however, is mine!

¹⁹³
See pp.355 ff. below.

¹⁹⁴
Fox,
Letters
, p.112 (
LP
, ii, 4540).

¹⁹⁵
LP
, ii, 4170.

¹⁹⁶
LP
, ii, 4034.

¹⁹⁷
LP
, ii, 4055.

¹⁹⁸
LP
, ii, 4070, 4073, 4179.

¹⁹⁹
Macfarlane, pp.319-22. For Henry’s refusal in 1513 to allow Bainbridge to enter the country as legate see
LP
, i, 2512, 2517, 2611.

²⁰⁰
Pastor, vii, p.244.

²⁰¹
Campeggio wrote from Lapalisse, en route from Lyons to Paris, on 28 May (
LP
, ii, 4194) and was in Calais by at least 21 June (
LP
, ii, 4243).

²⁰²
A.F. Pollard, pp.115-16 is muddled; he realized that Castellessi’s deprivation was also involved but gives Wolsey’s legatine appointment as the first reason for Campeggio’s delay; Scarisbrick in
Henry
VIII
, pp.69-70 has it as the only reason. He also places Campeggio’s stay in Boulogne.

²⁰³
LP
, ii, 4271, 4284; also Chambers, ‘English representation’, pp.439-45; Pastor, vii, pp.170 ff.

²⁰⁴
LP
, ii, 4179 – Gigli to Wolsey 20 May, and thus after Wolsey’s appointment as legate
a latere
.

²⁰⁵
LP
, ii, 4289, 4350.

²⁰⁶
LP
, ii, 4333, 4348.

IN SOME RESPECTS IT IS POSSIBLE TO ATTACH TOO MUCH SIGNIFICANCE TO
Wolsey’s appointment as lord chancellor in December 1515.
¹
In describing his rise to power, considerable emphasis has been placed on his growing relationship with the king, rather than on his holding of any particular office. Before 1515 he had held no important political office, and yet this had not prevented him from playing a significant role in royal government. Moreover, the office of lord chancellor, for all its prestige, did not automatically ensure that the incumbent became the king’s most influential minister. Neither Wolsey’s immediate predecessor, William Warham, nor his two successors, Thomas More and Thomas Audley, achieved that eminence, whereas Thomas Cromwell, who did, never became lord chancellor. It is not quite so obvious, therefore, as is usually assumed that it was an office that a power-hungry Wolsey was bound to seek. Power did accrue, including some patronage and a considerable income,
²
but these came to anyone in royal favour. And there was one considerable drawback to the office: it involved a lot of work.

By the early sixteenth century this work was largely judicial, and in particular required the holder of the office to preside over both his own court of Chancery and the judicial activity of the king’s Council sitting in Star Chamber.
³
It has been estimated that during the fourteen years that Wolsey was lord chancellor over nine thousand cases were brought before these two bodies.
⁴
They came in different shapes and sizes, many of them getting no further than an initial bill of complaint and therefore not requiring much attention from Wolsey. In any case he often delegated the essential work. Nevertheless the numbers are impressive, particularly since during his tenure of office the number of cases dealt with annually by the lord chancellor significantly increased. During the four legal terms, that is, for about six months of each year, Wolsey would spend the best part of every morning at Westminster Hall

and there commune sometimes with the judges and sometimes with other persons. And that done he would repair into the Chancery, and sitting there until eleven of the clock, hearing suitors and determining of divers matters. And from thence he would divers
times go into the Star Chamber, as occasion did serve, where he spared neither high nor low, but judged every estate according to their merits and deserts
.
⁵

Perhaps what is most surprising about the time and effort that Wolsey put in, is that although the ‘high’ did appear before him, most of his cases concerned the purely private interests of individuals of no particular political significance. Why, then, did he bother? It was not as if he was short of things to occupy himself with, including many more glamorous or more important than determining whether or not George Blundell of Little Crosby in Lancashire had a life interest in the manor of Crosby,
⁶
or what to do about an organ-builder’s bad debts.
⁷
One obvious answer – so obvious, perhaps, that it can easily be overlooked – is that he had no choice. Henry
VIII
wanted him to be lord chancellor, and that being so, it was not for Wolsey to refuse. In any event, it seems likely that Wolsey was happy to take up the burdens of the chancellorship, not so as to satisfy his vanity, or to achieve his own private ends – both have been alleged
⁸
– but because he genuinely believed that there was an important job for him to do.

However, before looking more closely at Wolsey’s intentions, more detail about his work as lord chancellor is called for. Of the nine thousand and more cases already referred to, 7,526 came before Chancery
⁹
and about 1,685 before the Council in Star Chamber.
¹⁰
Chancery was, thus, though not the one on which Wolsey left most mark, by far the busier of the two judicial bodies. It had been in existence for well over a hundred years, and so its procedures and jurisidictional scope were well-established, as was its popularity. The number of cases coming before it under Wolsey increased, though not by very much, to about 540 a year; Morton and Warham had presided over an average of about five hundred.
¹¹
In Star Chamber the increase appears to have been much more dramatic: in Henry
VII
’s reign the number of cases averaged 12.5 per annum, while under Wolsey it averaged 120.
¹²

Such an increase might suggest that Wolsey took positive steps to popularize the Council’s judicial activity,
¹³
but if so this did not involve the introduction of any new category of cases. By far the largest category, comprising 41 per cent, was concerned with disputed title to land, however much this had to be disguised in order to justify bringing such cases before the Council rather than the common law courts.
¹⁴
A second category had to do with disputes over rival claims to jurisdiction
within towns: sometimes, as in Norwich, between the town government and the Church, and sometimes, as in Newcastle, between the town government and certain of its guild merchants. Another category concerned trade and commerce and included cases brought against people who had offended against proclamations regulating economic activity as well as against those who had failed to pay their debts. Yet another category had to do with disputes between landlord and tenant, over such matters as enclosure, poaching, rights of way and tithes. The Council also dealt with testamentary and defamation cases. In fact, as it was in theory open to anyone to bring any kind of complaint, there was nothing that might not provide the subject of a case, even if the Council might merely refer it to one of the regular law courts. In other words, the only limits to its jurisdiction were those it chose to make, and the choices it was making were no different in Wolsey’s time than they had been previously. A category that has been traditionally associated with the Council in Star Chamber included all cases to do with the perversion of justice and good government, whether by royal officials, juries, or anyone else. It is not, of course, surprising that the Council should have wanted to concern itself with such cases, but their number was comparatively small, comprising only about 15 per cent.

A brief survey of the cases coming before Chancery during Wolsey’s period of office reveals a very similar picture. There were, it is true, some categories which, if not peculiar to Chancery, were particularly associated with it. For instance, unlike the common law courts, Chancery was prepared to recognize that a man holding his land by copyhold tenure had legal rights. It was also prepared to recognize the increasingly popular, though still controversial, form of conveyance, the enfeoffment to uses. Like Star Chamber, however, it was happy to deal with commercial matters, especially those concerned with that most difficult of areas, contractual obligation and debt. But its involvement here was much greater: it has been estimated that whereas 28 per cent of cases in Chancery during this period involved commerce, in Star Chamber it was only 3 per cent.
¹⁵
On the other hand, as in Star Chamber, by far the largest category of cases in Chancery involved disputed title to land, and the proportion of such cases in both courts was very similar: 46 per cent in Chancery compared with 41 in Star Chamber.
¹⁶
Moreover, it would appear that, as in Star Chamber, it was here that the increase in Chancery business, such as it was; occurred. In fact, it has been suggested that by the 1520s there had been a significant reversal in the proportion of property to commercial cases compared with the 1470s, when commercial cases had predominated.
¹⁷
Whether this was so or not – and the statistics are fraught with problems – what does seem reasonably clear is that Wolsey made no alteration to the scope of Chancery’s jurisisdiction. As with Star Chamber, he allowed no new kinds of cases to be brought before him. This being so,
one obvious explanation for the increasing popularity of these two courts during his period of office is ruled out.