II CHAP bable that there was more reason than Wolsey knew of for the latter complaint; for two years later, SecreA.D. 1529 tary Knight wrote to him (Aug. 19, 1527), “I have heard the King and noblemen speak things incredible of the acts of M. Allen and Cromwell, a great part whereof ye shall know not only by me, but by other of your faithful and loving servants." If there was any more foundation for this, however, than the rising dissatisfaction of the King and the noblemen at the prospect of losing the monastic lands, it is certain that Wolsey sanctioned no unjust acts on the part of His desire his agents. "For, sir," he wrote to the King, "Aljustly with mighty God I take to my record, I have not meant, the monas- intended, or gone about, nor also have willed my dissolved officers to do anything concerning the said suppres to deal teries he sions but under such form and manner as is and hath largely been to the full satisfaction, recompence, and joyous contentation of any person which hath had, or could pretend to have, right or interest in the same. Verily, sir, I would be loath to be noted that I should intend such a virtuous foundation for the increase of your Highness' merit, profit of your subjects, the advancement of good learning, and for the weal of my poor soul, to be established or acquired ex rapinis." A similar misunderstanding arose in July 1528, about the appointment of an Abbess to Wilton. Wolsey intended to have given it to Dame Eleanor Cary, but Anne Boleyn wanted it for some one else, and it formed the subject of some of the love-letters which passed between her and the King at this time.1 8 State Pap., i. 261. ''Ibid.,314,316. "Of all women," on this subject, "the King would not have had Cary's eldest sister." The reason of this is not very evident, but it seems to be as II Henry wrote a reassuring letter to Wolsey, of which CHAP Heneage writes to the latter, "This morning the King's Highness, after the writing of his letter to A.D. 1529 your Grace, called Mr. Russell and me, to whom it pleased him to read the same; and said to us that he dealt with you as one entire friend and master should do to another, with many kind words of your Grace. Wherefore, in the honour of God, be of good comfort, and take not this matter to your heaviness, but of the kind intent of his Highness; and so he said he was sure ye would do, like a wise man.” Wolsey replied to this letter of the King, calling it a gracious, loving letter, whereby he perceives that no spark of displeasure remaineth in the King's noble heart.2 ficence dis But from this correspondence it is evident that His muniHenry was displeased with Wolsey for expending so pleased large a sum in the foundation of Christ Church. Henry. sociated with the marriage of Cary to Mary Boleyn, the King's former paramour. In 1520 the Lord-Lieutenant and Council of Ireland proposed to Wolsey that the Earl of Ormonde's son should marry Sir Thomas Boleyn's daughter, for the purpose of adjusting disputes respecting titles to land in Ireland. [State Pap., ii. 50.] Henry agreed to this proposal, but Wolsey's despatch sanctioning it is dated a year later, November 1521, long after Mary Boleyn's marriage to Cary. [State Pap., ii. 57.] Neither letter mentions the name of the daughter. While on this subject it may be noted that Sanders' story about Henry's successive profligate alliances with Lady Boleyn and both her daughters, Mary and Anne, is not without foundation, Cardinal Pole accusing him of seducing Mary 66 and living in concubinage with her, 2 State Pap., i. 316, 317. VIII. II CHAP Probably he looked upon it as so much deducted from his own chance. Had the dissolved monasteries A.D. 1529 been dissolved into the royal treasury there would have been no complaint. This view is confirmed by the diminution of the project when it fell into the King's hands. ceases to him The alienation seems to have been complete on the part of the King when, in September 1529, The King Wolsey wrote desiring an audience, that he might hold inter- communicate some matters of state, which he was views with unwilling to put in writing. The King replied by Gardiner, requiring Wolsey to state the heads of what he had to say, a proceeding so different from his usual habits as regarded the Cardinal, that we must conclude he wished to put an end to the confidential terms which had so long existed between them. When Campeggio, the legate sent over to act with Wolsey in adjudicating on the divorce, had an audience of the King to take his leave, a week or two afterwards, Wolsey accompanied him, but was insulted by the careful omission of any preparation for his stay near the King. This was the last time he and Henry ever met, for when the King showed some signs of wishing for another interview with his faithful old minister, the new mistress who had got possession of him hurried him away by her persuasions so as to make it impossible. and supersedes him as chancellor Wolsey opened the Michaelmas term as Lord 3 State Papers, i. 344. This may possibly have been a daring act of Gardiner, but it is scarcely probable that he would have ventured so far, even had he wished to shut Wolsey out from the King's presence. On September 23, Wolsey had been admitted to an audience at Greenwich, and Thomas Alward writes to Cromwell that he never saw the King behave more kindly to Wolsey, and that, "whatever they bare in their hearts," Suffolk, Rochford, Tuke, and Master Stevens (Gardiner) were as humble towards him as ever. Ellis, I. i. 309. II retirement Chancellor, but on the following day the Dukes of CHAP Norfolk and Suffolk came to him with a verbal message from the King, requiring him to give up the A.D. 1529 great seal. This was a most unconstitutional proceeding, as the great seal is always delivered to the chancellor by the sovereign in person, and received back in the same manner. Wolsey therefore refused to give up its custody without some further authority. This was given under letters patent (though how they could be confirmed without the great seal itself it is difficult to see), and on the following day Wolsey ceased to be chancellor and prime minister, remaining simply Archbishop of York so far as regarded his constitutional position. He was ordered to retire to Esher, the King's officers taking such Wolsey's complete possession of all his goods that when there to Esher he found the greatest difficulty in securing even food for himself and his attendants; and was deprived of such simple luxuries as household linen and plate. Some months later, about February, the King sent him some such necessaries, and permitted him to remove to the house built by Dean Colet at Sheen, near Richmond, where Wolsey spent most of his time in religious conversation with one of the old brethren of the charterhouse there, a gallery communicating between his residence and the monastery. In Passion Week he started for the north, spending and afterPalm Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter at Peter- York borough; and nearly all the rest of his days he spent at Cawood, near York, which was then the Archiepiscopal residence. Here he won universal respect, his true character being all the more conspicuous now that he was freed from cares of state. A contemporary writer on the Puritan side, quoted by wards to CHAP Burnet, speaks of him in high terms of commendation, within four or five years of his death :— II A.D. 1530 "None was better beloved than he, after he had been there His exem- a while. He gave bishops a good example, how they might plary life win men's hearts. There was few holy-days but he would as a bishop ride five or six miles from his house; now to this parish church, now to that; and there cause one of his doctors to make a sermon unto the people: he sate among them, and said mass before all the parish. He saw why churches were made, and began to restore them to their right and proper use. If our bishops had done so, we should have seen, that preaching the gospel is not the cause of sedition; but rather lack of preaching it. He brought his dinner with him, and bade divers of the parish to it. He inquired if there was any debate or grudge between any of them; if there were, after dinner he sent for the parties to the church, and made them all one." But this happy life of retirement was of very short duration. Before November he was arrested for high-treason by the Earl of Northumberland (the Lord Percy to whom Anne Boleyn had been attached) and Sir Walter Welsh (a cousin of Elizabeth Talbois, Anne Boleyn's predecessor), who seem to have been chosen for some purpose of special inHis death dignity. He died at Leicester Abbey, heart-broken at the fate of his colleges and the King's ingratitude, on November 29, 1530, when, even after so eventful a life, he was not quite sixty years of age. So passed away the greatest statesman that England had as yet ever seen, and the real leader of the Reformation. It is not necessary to say anything here of his personal character, as no attempt has been made to review his history, except so far as it is part of that of the Church and country at the period. But it may be said in passing that he has been |
