Part 10 (1/2)

[Footnote 308: _L. and P._, ii., 3558.]

[Footnote 309: _Ibid._, iii., 1713.]

[Footnote 310: _Ven. Cal._, iii., 975.]

[Footnote 311: Brewer (Henry VIII., ii., 388; _L.

and P._, vol. iv., Introd., p. dx.x.xv. _n._) is very indignant at this allegation, and when recording Chapuys' statement in 1529 that Pace had been imprisoned for two years in the Tower and elsewhere by Wolsey, declares that ”Pace was never committed to the Tower, nor kept in prison by Wolsey” but was ”placed under the charge of the Bishop of Bangor,”

and that Chapuys' statement is ”an instance how popular rumour exaggerates facts, or how Spanish amba.s.sadors were likely to misrepresent them”. It is rather an instance of the lengths to which Brewer's zeal for Wolsey carried him. He had not seen the despatch from Mendoza recording Pace's committal to the Tower on 25th Oct., 1527, ”for speaking to the King in opposition to Wolsey and the divorce” (_Sp. Cal._, 1527-29, p. 440). It is true that Pace was in the charge of the Bishop of Bangor, but he was not transferred thither until 1528 (Ellis, _Orig. Letters_, 3rd ser., ii., 151); he was released immediately upon Wolsey's fall.

Erasmus, thereupon, congratulating him on the fact, remarked that he was consoled by Pace's experience for his own persecution and that G.o.d rescued the innocent and cast down the proud (_ibid._, iv., 6283). The _D.N.B._ (xliii., 24), has been misled by Brewer. Wolsey had long had a grudge against Pace, and in 1514 was anxious to make ”a fearful example” of him (_L. and P._, i., 5465); and his treatment of Pace was one of the charges brought against him in 1529 (_ibid._, iv., p. 2552).]

Wolsey's pride in himself, and his jealousy of others, were not (p. 115) more conspicuous than his thirst after riches. His fees as Chancellor were reckoned by Giustinian at five thousand ducats a year. He made thrice that sum by New Year's presents, ”which he receives like the King”.[312] His demand for the Bishopric of Bath and Wells, coupled with the fact that it was he who pet.i.tioned for Hadrian's deprivation, amazed even the Court at Rome, and, ”to avoid murmurs,”[313] compliance was deferred for a time. But these scruples were allowed no more than ecclesiastical law to stand in the way of Wolsey's preferment. One of the small reforms decreed by the Lateran Council was that no bishoprics should be held _in commendam_; the ink was scarcely dry when Wolsey asked _in commendam_ for the see of the recently conquered Tournay.[314]

Tournay was restored to France in 1518, but the Cardinal took care that he should not be the loser. A _sine qua non_ of the peace was that Francis should pay him an annual pension of twelve thousand livres as compensation for the loss of a bishopric of which he had never obtained possession.[315] He drew other pensions for political services, from both Francis and Charles; and, from the Duke of Milan, he obtained the promise of ten thousand ducats a year before Pace (p. 116) set out to recover the duchy.[316] It is scarcely a matter for wonder that foreign diplomatists, and Englishmen, too, should have accused Wolsey of spending the King's money for his own profit, and have thought that the surest way of winning his favour was by means of a bribe.[317] When England, in 1521, sided with Charles against Francis, the Emperor bound himself to make good to Wolsey all the sums he would lose by a breach with France; and from that year onwards Charles paid--or owed--Wolsey eighteen thousand livres a year.[318] It was nine times the pensions considered sufficient for the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk; and even so it does not include the revenue Wolsey derived from two Spanish bishoprics. These were not bribes in the sense that they affected Wolsey's policy; they were well enough known to the King; to spoil the Egyptians was considered fair game, and Henry was generous enough not to keep all the perquisites of peace or war for himself.

[Footnote 312: Giustinian, _Desp._, App. ii., 309.]

[Footnote 313: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 1045.]

[Footnote 314: _L. and P._, i., 5457.]

[Footnote 315: _Ibid._, ii., 4354.]

[Footnote 316: _L. and P._, ii., 1053, 1066.]

[Footnote 317: _Ibid._, ii., 1931; _cf._ Shakespeare, _Henry VIII._, Act. I., Sc. i.:--

Thus the Cardinal Does buy and sell his honour as he pleases And for his own advantage.]

[Footnote 318: _L. and P._, iii., 709, 2307 (where it is given as nine thousand ”crowns of the sun”); _Sp. Cal._, ii., 273, 600. In 1527 Charles instructed his amba.s.sador to offer Wolsey in addition to his pension of nine thousand ducats with arrears a further pension of six thousand ducats and a marquisate in Milan worth another twelve or fifteen thousand ducats a year (_L. and P._, iv., 3464).]

Two years after the agreement with Charles, Ruthal, Bishop of Durham, died, and Wolsey exchanged Bath and Wells for the richer see formerly held by his political ally and friend. But Winchester was richer (p. 117) even than Durham; so when Fox followed Ruthal to the grave, in 1528, Wolsey exchanged the northern for the southern see, and begged that Durham might go to his natural son, a youth of eighteen.[319] All these were held _in commendam_ with the Archbishopric of York, but they did not satisfy Wolsey; and, in 1521, he obtained the grant of St. Albans, the greatest abbey in England. His palaces outshone in splendour those of Henry himself, and few monarchs have been able to display such wealth of plate as loaded the Cardinal's table. Wolsey is supposed to have conceived vast schemes of ecclesiastical reform, which time and opportunity failed him to effect.[320] If he had ever seriously set about the work, the first thing to be reformed would have been his own ecclesiastical practice. He personified in himself most of the clerical abuses of his age. Not merely an ”unpreaching prelate,” he rarely said ma.s.s; his _commendams_ and absenteeism were alike violations of canon law. Three of the bishoprics he held he never visited at all; York, which he had obtained fifteen years before, he did not visit till the year of his death, and then through no wish of his own. He was equally negligent of the vow of chast.i.ty; he cohabited with the daughter of ”one Lark,” a relative of the Lark who is mentioned in the correspondence of the time as ”omnipotent”

with the Cardinal, and as resident in his household.[321] By her (p. 118) he left two children, a son,[322] for whom he obtained a deanery, four archdeaconries, five prebends, and a chancellors.h.i.+p, and sought the Bishopric of Durham, and a daughter who became a nun. The accusation brought against him by the Duke of Buckingham and others, of procuring objects for Henry's sensual appet.i.te, is a scandal, to which no credence would have been attached but for Wolsey's own moral laxity, and the fact that the governor of Charles V. performed a similar office.[323]

[Footnote 319: _L. and P._, iv., 4824.]

[Footnote 320: There is no doubt about his eagerness for the power which would have enabled him to carry out a reformation. As legate he demanded from the Pope authority to visit and reform the secular clergy as well as the monasteries; this was refused on the ground that it would have superseded the proper functions of the episcopate (_L. and P._, ii., 4399; iii., 149).]

[Footnote 321: _L. and P._, ii., 629, 2637, 4068.

Lark became prebendary of St. Stephen's (_Ibid._, iv., _Introd._, p. xlvi.).]

[Footnote 322: Called Thomas Wynter, see the present writer's _Life of Cranmer_, p. 324 _n._ Some writers have affected to doubt Wolsey's parentage of Wynter, but this son is often referred to in the correspondence of the time, _e.g._, _L. and P._, iv., p. 1407, Nos. 4824, 5581, 6026, 6075.

Art. 27.]

[Footnote 323: _Ibid._, iii., 1284; iv., p. 2558; ii., 2930.]

Repellent as was Wolsey's character in many respects, he was yet the greatest, as he was the last, of the ecclesiastical statesmen who have governed England. As a diplomatist, pure and simple, he has never been surpa.s.sed, and as an administrator he has had few equals. ”He is,”

says Giustinian, ”very handsome, learned, extremely eloquent, of vast ability and indefatigable. He alone transacts the same business as that which occupies all the magistracies, offices, and councils of Venice, both civil and criminal; and all State affairs are managed by him, let their nature be what it may. He is thoughtful, and has the reputation of being extremely just; he favours the people exceedingly, and especially the poor, hearing their suits and seeking to despatch them instantly. He also makes the lawyers plead gratis for all poor suitors. He is in very great repute, seven times more so than if (p. 119) he were Pope.”[324] His sympathy with the poor was no idle sentiment, and his commission of 1517, and decree against enclosures in the following year, were the only steps taken in Henry's reign to mitigate that curse of the agricultural population.

[Footnote 324: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 1287; Giustinian, _D sp._, App. ii., 309; _L. and P._, iii., 402.]