The Promising King
No one imagined that the young man who came to rule England in 1509 would play, on the most spectacular stage of his country's history, both hero and villain. At eighteen Henry had a face as pretty as a girl's, but his athletic frame and courage soon overcame the feminine look. Foreign ambassadors, like native praisers, admired his fair hair, golden beard and "extraordinarily delicate legs." Giustiniani wrote to the Venetian Senate, "He is a passionate lover of tennis. His fair skin, seen through his finely woven shirt when he plays, has no equal in the world for beauty." In archery and wrestling he matched the best champions of the realm. He never tired of hunting, jousted twice a week, with only the Duke of Suffolk his rival, and was a skilled musician who, as the pope's envoy wrote, "played all instruments with skill and mastery." He composed two Masses still played in church services. He loved dancing, plays and fine clothes and decked himself in purple; the law allowed him alone to wear purple or cloth of gold. He ate heartily, and his formal suppers sometimes lasted seven hours, though in his twenty years of rule pride outweighed appetite. Everyone loved him and praised his simple manners, closeness to the people, patience and generosity. His countrymen saw his accession as the beginning of a brilliant age in their history.
The educated were pleased too, for Henry joined to the athlete a love of learning and music. He who was fated to take the headship of the Church knew the Bible so well that he could quote it on any subject. He had much artistic taste, collected works of art with sound judgment, and wisely called the German painter Hans Holbein to his court and made his work immortal. Under him architecture, shipbuilding and the building of towers and ramparts grew in England, and the army was equipped with artillery. Sir Thomas More said of him, "England has never had so wise a ruler. Nothing less is to be expected of a king reared in the lap of philosophy and the nine Muses." Mountjoy wrote joyfully to Erasmus, then in Rome:
"What hope may you not hold of a prince whose extraordinary talent and heavenly qualities you know? But if you knew what great things he now does, how wisely he acts, how devoted he is to justice and goodness, and how he loves men of learning and art, I am sure you would come at once to see this new and happy star. Ah, my Erasmus, if you knew how the people rejoice in such a prince and how much his life is desired by all, tears of joy would pour from your eyes. The heavens rejoice and the earth is delighted."
Erasmus came to England on receiving the letter and for a time sang the king's praises. He wrote, "Learning has hitherto been in the hands of the clergy; but now that they are given to gluttony, luxury and love of money, the love of learning and art has left them and passed to princes, the court and the nobles ... The king not only receives men like More, he encourages them, even compels them, to watch what he does and share his duties and pleasures. He prefers the company of men like More to that of youths or girls or rich fools." More was among the king's counselors, Linacre his physician, and Colet his preacher at St. Paul's.
John Colet and St. Paul's School
In the year Henry became king, Colet inherited a large fortune from his father and spent most of it founding St. Paul's School. About a hundred and fifty chosen boys studied there classical literature, Christian theology and ethics. Colet used lay teachers, breaking with tradition; it was the first school in Europe not run by the clergy. Oxford conservatives, who thought teaching the classics would shake people's religious beliefs, opposed the school's program, but the king silenced them and encouraged Colet to continue. Though Colet was a devout and conservative man, his enemies accused him of unbelief. Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, backed by the king, silenced them. When Henry went to war with France, Colet openly opposed the king's policy and, like Erasmus, declared that an unjust peace is better than a just war. He even condemned war from the pulpit in the king's presence and called bloodshed contrary to Christ's teaching. The king privately told him not to weaken the army's discipline and spirit. But when he was asked to dismiss Colet from his post at St. Paul's, he answered, "Every man has the right to choose his own doctor ... this man is my doctor." Colet did not retreat from his view, and in 1517, in the manner of Thomas à Kempis, wrote Erasmus this letter:
"Ah, Erasmus, there is no end to learned books; but for us in this short and fleeting life nothing is better than to live in purity and holiness, and out of love for Christ and in imitation of him to strive for the cleansing and sanctifying of our souls. My heart's desire is to leave the roundabout ways and by the nearest road reach truth and right. Farewell."
In 1518 he made himself a simple grave with a stone bearing his Latin name, Johannes Coletus. A year later he fell into the sleep of death in it, and to many it seemed that a saint had departed.
Thomas Wolsey
Henry, who later took on the character of Machiavelli's prince, was still raw and inexperienced in politics and felt the need of guidance from seasoned men, so he gathered several about him. More, though a shrewd and wise man, was only thirty-one, and loved piety and holiness more than politics. Thomas Wolsey was only three years older than More, a priest, who cared for politics more than religion and did not separate religion from politics. Wolsey was born at Ipswich, in Guicciardini's words, "of a lowly family." At fifteen he finished his preliminary studies at Oxford, and at twenty-three he became bursar of Magdalen College, where by finding funds to complete the great tower of that college he proved his ability. He knew the secrets of advancement.
With perfect insight in administration and negotiation he rose through the clerical ranks and served Henry VII in religious and diplomatic affairs. After Henry VIII came to the throne he put the management of charities in Wolsey's hands. Soon Wolsey joined the Privy Council and, by favoring an English-Spanish alliance against France, angered Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury. Louis XII had marched into Italy and was feared likely to make the pope once more a servant of France. French growth had to be stopped at any price. Though Henry did not then want war, he accepted the views of Wolsey and of his father-in-law Ferdinand of Spain. He told Giustiniani, "What I have is enough for me. My only wish is to rule my subjects; but I will not let another make me his subject." Henry's foreign policy lies hidden in these words. Henry VIII had inherited the claim of English kings to the throne of France, but he knew it was baseless.
After the Battle of the Spurs (1513), Wolsey reconciled England and France and induced Louis XII to marry Henry's sister Mary. Pope Leo X, in thanks for Wolsey's services in removing the French danger, made him Archbishop of York (1514) and then Cardinal (1515). Henry, after his victory over France, made Wolsey Chancellor of England (1515). Believing he owed the pope's freedom to his own efforts, the king would later regard the next pope's opposition to his remarriage as unbearable ingratitude.
Wolsey's Diplomacy
The first five years of Wolsey's chancellorship are among the brightest in England's political history. He meant to set up a peace to England's advantage by creating a balance of power between the Holy Roman Empire and France; and perhaps he thought that, if the policy succeeded, he himself would become Europe's absolute ruler and that the peace of the continent would secure England's trade with the Netherlands, vital to his country.
To this end he first negotiated an alliance with France (1518) and betrothed Mary, the two-year-old daughter of Henry VIII (later queen of England), to the seven-month-old son of Francis I. When the French envoys came to London to sign the pact, Wolsey's taste for show appeared. At Westminster he gave them a supper so splendid that, in Giustiniani's words, "the like was never given by Cleopatra or Caligula; the whole hall was adorned with great vessels and vases of gold and silver." The greed and ambition of this worldly cardinal can be excused. He had great hopes and reached them. Wolsey insisted that the pact be open to all and invited Emperor Maximilian I, Charles I (king of Spain) and Pope Leo X to join. They accepted. Erasmus, More and Colet, thinking Christendom had at last won unity and peace, could not contain their joy. Even Wolsey's enemies congratulated him on the success. Using it, and bribing England's agents in Rome, he persuaded the pope to name him legate in England. In this way Wolsey became head of the English Church and, with a prudent bow to Henry, in effect ruler of England.
A year later the struggle of Francis I and Charles for the imperial crown upset Europe's calm. Henry too thought of joining the contest, but he had no wealthy man like Fugger to back him. Charles, who had beaten his rival, made a short visit to England as Charles V (May 1520), calling on his aunt Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and now wife of Henry and queen of England. He also asked for the hand of Mary, Henry's daughter, earlier promised to Francis's eldest son, on condition that England in future support Spain against France. Wolsey refused but accepted a regular grant from the emperor of 7,000 ducats and got a promise of help to reach the papacy.
The Field of the Cloth of Gold
The shrewd cardinal won his most brilliant and spectacular triumph at the meeting of the rulers of England and France on the "Field of the Cloth of Gold" in France (June 1520). On this field, between Guînes and Ardres near Calais, the art and the spirit of medieval chivalry showed themselves under the golden rays of the sun. Four thousand English nobles chosen by Cardinal Wolsey, in silver clothes and trappings in the late medieval style, came to the field with Henry, red-bearded on a white horse, to meet Francis I. Wolsey was with the king in a robe of scarlet satin equal to the finery of kings. For the kings, their wives and followers a palace was built in haste, and for talks and banquets a tent covered with cloth of gold and hung with figured curtains was set up. Wine flowed from fountains, and a space was ready for a royal tournament. In their talks the rulers of France and England confirmed a political alliance and a marriage between their houses. Pleased with the result, the two kings joined the jousting and even wrestled, and Francis, by throwing the English king, put the peace of Europe at risk. Next morning Francis, to soothe Henry, went to his lodging unarmed with his unarmed attendants. The two rulers exchanged costly gifts and swore friendship and loyalty.
In truth neither trusted the other, since, as history testifies, men who come to rule lie more than others. After seventeen days spent with Francis, Henry went to Calais for three days to talk with Charles (July 1520). There the king of England and the emperor, under Wolsey's guidance and watch, swore eternal friendship and agreed that the marriage of the English and French royal houses be dropped. These separate agreements guaranteed Europe's peace less than the general one Wolsey had arranged before Maximilian's death; yet they kept England the mediator among the European powers, a position beyond what England's wealth and strength deserved. Pleased with the outcome, Henry rewarded his chancellor by ordering the monks of St. Albans to choose Wolsey as their head and give him the abbey's net income, "for my cardinal has had much expense on this journey." The monks obeyed, and so Wolsey's income about matched his spending.
The Cardinal's Wealth and Rule
Wolsey had more human virtues and faults than many of us. Giustiniani described him as "very handsome, exceedingly sweet-spoken, able and untiring." He was not morally pure and left two illegitimate children; in that age such failings counted as small and excusable sins. According to a bishop's report he also suffered from a serious illness. He took large pensions from both Francis and Charles, who vied in giving him annuities. Believing his policy served Europe, he expected Europe to serve him in return. Undoubtedly he loved money and power. To make England look richer than it was to foreign envoys, he spent most of his income on splendid display. Henry paid Wolsey no salary, so the chancellor had to meet the cost of his living and entertaining from church income and foreign gifts. Still, it is unbelievable that with the huge sums he drew as abbot of St. Albans, bishop of Bath and Wells, archbishop of York, administrator of Winchester and, with absentee Italian bishops, of Worcester and Salisbury, he still needed money. He also held the right to name to political and church posts and apparently took payment for them. A Catholic historian has estimated that at the height of his power Wolsey took a third of all English church income. He was the richest and mightiest man in England. Giustiniani called him "seven times more powerful than the pope," and Erasmus called him "the second king." He was only a step from the papacy. Twice he strove to win it, but the cunning Charles, ignoring his promises, shut him out.
Wolsey thought splendid ceremony the guarantee of lasting power; power could be seized by force but kept only if the people were used to force; and people judged a man's rank by his ceremony. So at official and public rites he adorned himself in the rich clothes he thought fit for a representative of pope and king, with the red cardinal's hat, red gloves, purple robe and silver shoes set with pearls and jewels, as though Pope Innocent III, Benjamin Disraeli and Beau Brummell were all embodied in him. He was the first English churchman to wear silk. When he said Mass, which he did rarely, bishops and abbots served him, and sometimes when he washed his hands for the Eucharist, dukes and earls poured water over them. His attendants knelt round his table awaiting his commands. Five hundred people, most of them gentlemen of high birth, served in his household and office. Hampton Court, which he built as his residence, was so grand that to quiet the king's envy he gave it to him (1525).
Even so, Wolsey sometimes forgot that Henry was king of England. Giustiniani wrote to the Venetian Senate, "When I first came to England the cardinal said to me, 'His Majesty will do thus and so'; a little later he said, 'We shall do thus and so'; and now he says, 'I shall do thus and so.'" The same ambassador wrote, "If we must choose between the king and the cardinal, it is better to give up the king, because the cardinal may be offended at precedence given to the king." Great men and statesmen were not admitted to the cardinal until they had asked at least three times. As time passed he grew more despotic. In all his chancellorship he summoned Parliament only once. He ignored constitutional forms, answered opposition with change and criticism with rebuke. The historian Polydore Vergil wrote that this manner of rule would bring the cardinal down. Wolsey threw him into prison and freed him only after repeated mediation by Pope Leo X. Opposition to Wolsey's rule grew.
Those whom Wolsey rebuked or set aside may have written some of his weaknesses into history as unpardonable sins; but no one doubted his ability and diligence. Giustiniani wrote to the proud Venetian Senate, "He manages alone all the business that occupies the officials, offices and councils of Venice, civil and criminal, and personally examines all affairs of the state." His impartiality in justice made him loved by the poor and hated by the powerful. After Alfred, he was the first in English history to open the doors of his court to the oppressed and hand oppressors over to justice, whatever their rank. He was a patron of scholars and artists and, by turning several monasteries into colleges, began a reform of religion in England. The narrow pride of Wolsey in his hasty activity made him many enemies, and now, while he was busy reforming English education, these enemies, with the help of the king's mistress, plotted to bring him down.