The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (Pimlico) (78 page)

Probably he showed equal tact when he turned his attention to the remaining religious orders, but sadly the information is so meagre that it is not even always possible to state with certainty that he did anything. His use of the Cistercian abbot of Waverley as a legatine commissary may exemplify the way in which he made himself the effective head of this order in England. Unlike the Cistercians, the Premonstratensians, with thirty-one houses, had secured independence from their founding abbey – in their case, Prémontré – though only as recently as 1512.
⁶²
The abbot of Welbeck became
ex officio
head of the order, but what that abbot’s relationship with Wolsey was, or whether, indeed, there was any legatine interference in the affairs of the order, is not known. The same is true of the Carthusians and Gilbertines. The presence in England of both these orders was
small – perhaps as few as nine Carthusian and ten Gilbertine houses
⁶³
– and they may have escaped Wolsey’s attention on this account. On the other hand, his usual thoroughness would suggest otherwise, and, as there is so little information about any aspect of these orders for the 1520s, it seems reasonable to assume that Wolsey did intervene, despite the lack of evidence.

What of the friars, or mendicant orders? Together the various orders of friars owned about 180 houses, and numbered between 1,500 and 3,000 members.
⁶⁴
Most historians have taken a somewhat gloomy view of their performance during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries,
⁶⁵
a view that was shared by none other than Thomas More whose fictional friar in the first book of
Utopia
was made the butt of hangers-on at Cardinal Morton’s household – and of More’s readers ever since.
⁶⁶
Much of the contemporary criticism may have been exaggerated, a consequence of the long-standing battle between the friars and secular clergy which was touched upon in connection with the Hunne affair;
⁶⁷
and if the evidence of wills can be taken as an indication of genuine attitudes, it would seem that many laymen thought highly enough of the friars to believe that their presence at a funeral improved the deceased’s chances of salvation.
⁶⁸
Be that as it may, the friars constituted such a large part of the religious landscape of England that it is hard to believe that Wolsey would have ignored them, though again there are difficulties in establishing what precisely he did.

Best documented is Wolsey’s intervention in the affairs of the Franciscan Observants. Although a very small order with no more than six houses, they were, because of royal patronage and their reputation for holy living, much more important than their numbers suggest.
⁶⁹
In particular, Greenwich, founded in 1481 by Edward
IV
, but with its foundation confirmed in 1485 by Henry
VII
, played an important role because of its very close proximity to the royal palace.
⁷⁰
It was at Greenwich in June 1509 that Henry
VIII
and Catherine of Aragon were married, and that the Princess Mary was baptized in February 1516, with Wolsey as one of her godfathers. So it is not inappropriate that in the crisis brought about by Henry’s desire for a divorce from Catherine the majority of the Observants sided with Catherine and Mary. Indeed, the irony is that an order which the first Tudor monarch had done so much to encourage was the first to be suppressed, and this as early 1534.
⁷¹
Wolsey, too, had his difficulties with it. In the summer of 1524 both Clement
VII
and Francisco Quinones, the general of the order, wrote in an effort to
persuade him not to carry out his intended visitation of the Greenwich house.
⁷²
The new pope went out of his way to stress the importance of the order in the battle against Luther. He asked Wolsey to think more about the good of Christendom than of England alone by treating the Greenwich Observants with the utmost gentleness and tact; with some vehemence, he asked the English envoy at Rome to pass on the message, ‘For God’s sake use mercy with these Friars.’
⁷³
In reply, Wolsey assured the pope that he would use such tact that no complaints would arise, but he refused to give way.
⁷⁴
16th January 1525 was set aside for the visitation, which was to be conducted by John Allen, responsible for most of the legatine visitations, and by Henry Standish, the same man who in 1515 had done battle with the English clergy.
⁷⁵

That Standish was chosen is yet further evidence that Wolsey never held his actions in 1515 against him, but it may nonetheless have been a controversial choice.
⁷⁶
The bishop of St Asaph, as he had become by 1525, was probably the most distinguished English Franciscan of his time, but he was not an Observant, and between the Observants and the Conventual Franciscans there was no love lost. His appointment, therefore, as joint visitor, though making some sense, may explain the vigour of Greenwich’s opposition – of which the pleas of the pope and the general were but an early salvo – just as much as any dislike of legatine interference. When that salvo failed to head off the visitation, a number of the Greenwich friars decided to sabotage it by staging a mass walk-out. However, a new day was arranged, and it was made clear that those who did not attend would be expelled from the order. At the same time, one of the most eminent of the Greenwich friars, John Forest, confessor to Catherine of Aragon, and a future Catholic martyr, was called upon to preach against his offending brothers at Paul’s Cross. Some were for a time ‘put in the porter’s ward in the cardinal’s palace’, while a lay-brother, William Renscroft, was sent to the Greyfriars’ house in London until he ‘submitted himself, and was assoiled of the said bishop [Standish] by the authority of the cardinal, and so delivered home again’.
⁷⁷
For some this is yet another episode to be held against Wolsey. It may be that in carrying through the visitation, Wolsey was acting illegally, because it looks as if in the summer of 1524 the Observants had managed to secure a two-year restraint from legatine interference that was only lifted in November 1525 – after the visitation had taken place. If this is so, it would further help to explain the vigour of Greenwich’s resistance, as does the mere fact that they had such powerful friends. But if Wolsey did act illegally, it was one of the very rare occasions that he did; and the powerful are not always in favour of reform.

Very little is known of Wolsey’s legatine involvement with the remaining orders of friars. Apparently he had intended to carry out a visitation of the London Greyfriars himself, accompanied by the king. In what precise capacity Henry would
have acted is a little unclear, but his intention to take part is at any rate evidence of his support for Wolsey’s legatine activities. As it happened, the day chosen, 9 March 1525, was the moment when confirmation of the Imperial victory at Pavia reached London, and the visitation was postponed. When later in the year, it did take place it was carried out once again by John Allen.
⁷⁸
There is no evidence of any resistance, but neither is there any further information about what took place, nor evidence of any other legatine connection with the Franciscans. The small order of Austin Friars had run into financial difficulties as a result of a plenary indulgence secured in 1516 to help finance their Oxford house.
⁷⁹
It was thought that the provincial of the order, Edmund Bellond, may have pocketed some of the money, so the prior-general, the Venetian Gabriel della Volta, was brought in, and early in 1520 Bellond was removed from office. In April 1522, his financial affairs were examined by John Dowman and Richard Wolman, both distinguished clerical lawyers and administrators with close connections with Wolsey,
⁸⁰
and it seems likely, although there is no direct evidence, that they were acting in some legatine capacity. In any event, their investigations failed to solve the problems of the order. By the end of 1522 Bellond’s successor, William Wetherall, had in turn been replaced by John Stokes, only for Wetherall to be reinstated in 1526. This time he managed to secure his tenure of office for six years by virtue of Wolsey’s legatine powers – something that was to backfire on him when, following Wolsey’s downfall, he was accused by the prior-general of destroying the liberties of his province. Still, it provides some definite proof of Wolsey’s involvement with the order, though whether Wetherall was worthy of the cardinal’s support cannot be established.

For legatine involvement with the important Dominican order there is only one piece of evidence. A full discussion is best left until later, but what it shows is Bishop Longland once again calling upon Wolsey’s legatine authority to interfere in the affairs of an ‘exempt’ house – in this case, King’s Langley. As regards the Carmelites and the very small order of Crutched Friars, there is nothing. For involvement with any order of nuns, there is only one dramatic episode – the so-called ‘Matter of Wilton’ – but, as with King’s Langley, it is better that consideration of it is postponed. Still, the final tally is not unimpressive: the two largest religious orders, the Augustinians and Dominicans, had had new statutes provided, while in one way or another the Cistercians, the Conventual and Observant Franciscans, the Dominicans and the Austin Friars had accepted Wolsey’s legatine authority; and probably all the others had as well. Only in the rather special case of the Greenwich Observants had he faced any serious opposition, in part because of the sensitivity he showed to the pride and susceptibilities of the different orders. There remains the important question of what qualitative difference his interference made, but before this is looked at some outline of the legatine machinery itself is called upon.

Precisely when Wolsey began to organize his legatine administration is not known.
As early as 1519 he was asked by John Colet to arbitrate as legate in a dispute that, as dean of St Paul’s, he was having with his residentiary canons. The result was an elaborate composition, or legal agreement, which would have had to be drawn up by some officials, though perhaps at that date not by those with formal responsibilities for legatine matters.
⁸¹
Still, the likelihood is that similar appeals would have been made, which would have forced a consideration of the setting-up of some permanent machinery. On the other hand, since Wolsey’s legatine commissions were for a long time granted only for limited periods, this would not have encouraged more formal arrangements. As mentioned earlier, originally they had to do either with the proposed crusade or with the reform of the religious orders. When, in January 1521, Wolsey secured a renewal of his commission, it included a passing reference to reform of the secular clergy, however eminent
⁸²
– an indication that he did mean business; and by then he had already issued his legatine constitutions. However, it was not until April of that year that he was granted a number of specific powers to intervene in the administration of the Church as a whole: to grant dispensations and exemptions, to absolve from excommunication, to license preachers, to grant university degrees and the like.
⁸³
Then, in July, his commission was extended for five years, and amongst a number of additional powers granted was one allowing him to appoint by ‘prevention’ his ‘familiars’ – that is, members of his household to any benefice in ecclesiastical patronage.
⁸⁴
Only then did it make sense to set up a legatine machinery, and the first indication that he was doing so may come from two letters to him from Archbishop Warham. Both are full of complaints of interference in his jurisdiction by Wolsey’s officials, despite Wolsey’s having promised him that this would not happen. If it continued, Warham lamented, he ‘should be as a shadow and image of an archbishop and legate [
legatus natus
], void of authority and jurisdiction, which should be to my perpetual reproach, and to my Church [Canterbury] a perpetual prejudice’.
⁸⁵
Maddeningly, on neither letter did Warham record the year, only the month – March and April respectively – but the suggestion here is that they should be assigned to 1522.
⁸⁶
And at any rate, by October 1522 a legatine court was definitely in being, because the proceedings of a testamentary case before it on 2nd of that month have survived.
⁸⁷
It was in this same month that a draft composition between Wolsey and Warham was drawn up, a final version being signed the following January.
⁸⁸

The composition concerned itself with one aspect of their respective jurisdictions, that to do with testamentary matters. The proving of those wills which had previously been part of the archbishop’s prerogative, that is wills of those with
bona notabilia
in more than one diocese, was now to be administered jointly by
officials appointed by both Wolsey and Warham, and the resulting probate fees were to be divided equally between them. The value to be given to
bona notabilia
was not specified, which is strange, because it was precisely this that had been at issue in that major dispute between Warham and his suffragans only ten years before.
⁸⁹
The figure then agreed was £10 or over – and probably the same was assumed in 1523, for that amount was specifically mentioned in the composition between Wolsey and Bishop Longland made the following year.
⁹⁰
Where the testator left goods worth over £100, the proving of his will was reserved for Wolsey’s commissaries alone,
⁹¹
as was the will of anyone who left goods in the exempt jurisdictions of Westminster, St Albans, Bury, and Bewley.