The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (Pimlico) (61 page)

²⁰¹
See pp.385-6, 552 below.

²⁰²
LP
, iii, 2767. For an excellent treatment of their relationship see Bernard,
War, Taxation and Rebellion
, pp.96-109.

²⁰³
LP
,iv, app.39.

²⁰⁴
See
St. P
, vii, p.193 (
LP
, iv, 5797).

²⁰⁵
Inter alia
Guy,
Cardinal’s Court
, pp.23-9; Lander,
Crown and Nobility
, pp.204-16.

²⁰⁶
Guy,
Cardinal’s Court
, p.28. For references to a ‘privy’ or secret council see
LP
, iii, 1252 (
St. P
, ii, p.66); iv, 5016;
Sp. Cal.
, iii (ii), p.105;
Sp. Cal
., F.S,, p.38, 78, 124.

²⁰⁷
Chrimes, p.113.

²⁰⁸
S.L. Adams, p.63.

²⁰⁹
Inter alia
, A.L. Brown, pp.95-109; Chrimes,
Administrative History
, pp.133, 161-2, 223-5; Catto, ‘King’s servants’, p.81; Ross, p.308;
Select Cases
, pp.xxix-li.

²¹⁰
The metaphysics largely provided by Elton; see especially
Tudor Revolution
, 316-69;
Studies
, iii, pp.21-38; but followed by his pupils, Guy and Starkey, though they have sought to modify their master’s chronology; see Guy, ‘Privy Council’, pp.59 ff; D.R. Starkey,
History Today
, 37, pp.27-31.

²¹¹
Inter alia
, A.L. Brown, 96-8; Chrimes,
Administrative History
, pp.216 ff; Harriss, pp.32 ff. Catto, ‘King’s servant’, pp.82-84.

²¹²
See p.115 above.

²¹³
LP
, iv, 1800.

²¹⁴
LP
, iv, 1801.

²¹⁵
Guy, Cardinal’s Court, pp.29-35 for this and other appearances.

²¹⁶
Inter alia
, Davies,
Peace, Print and Protestantism
, p.156; Elton,
Reform and Reformation
, pp.33-4; Guy,
Cardinal’s Court
, p.9-21, 29.

²¹⁷
Chrimes,
Henry
VII
, pp.102-3
Select Cases of Henry VII
, pp.xix, xxxiii-xxxiv, 7 ff.

²¹⁸
Guy,
Cardinal’s Court
, p.27.

²¹⁹
Guy,
Cardinal’s Court
, pp.1 ff.

²²⁰
A.L. Brown, pp.96-7; Chrimes,
Administrative History
, p.236.

²²¹
LP
, iv, 4061, 4124, 4125, 4288, 4293.

²²²
Sp. Cal
., F.S, p.176.

²²³
Sp. Cal
., iii (i), p.194.

²²⁴
Richard Fox, p.97 (
LP Add
, 185): ‘And much I marvel when you could find the leisure to write it yourself. I know perfectly that it came of your special good heart and affection towards me.’

²²⁵
The notion underlies all Starkey’s work on the privy chamber and faction first presented in ‘King’s privy chamber’; see also Scarisbrick,
Thought
, 52, pp.251-6.

²²⁶
St. P
, i, p.289 (
LP
, iv, 4335).

²²⁷
Cavendish, p.24.

²²⁸
Rawdon Brown, ii p.268 (
Ven. Cal.
, ii, 1215).

²²⁹
Ven. Cal.
, iii, 1201, 1203, 1220, 1235.

²³⁰
Sp. Cal., F.S
, pp.177 ff.

²³¹
Sp. Cal., F.S
, p.181.

²³²
LP
, ii, 4276.

²³³
LP
, iii, 3485, 3568.

²³⁴
LP
, iv, 1234.

²³⁵
Thomas More,
Correspondence
, pp.275 f;
St. P
, i, pp.135 ff; the latter includes Wolsey’s letters direct to Henry.

²³⁶
See especially Thomas More
Correspondence
, p.275 (
LP
, iii, 3270).

²³⁷
See especially ibid, p.295 (
LP
, iii, 3355) for More reporting to Wolsey that he had ‘distinctly read’ to Henry a letter from Wolsey to himself, four letters from Margaret of Scotland, two to Henry and two to Surrey, and two letters devised by Wolsey to be sent to her. In 1521 Pace informed Wolsey that Henry ‘readeth all your letters with great diligence’; see
St. P
, i, p.79 (
LP
, iii, 717).

²³⁸
Elton, Tudor Revolution, pp.68-9 for some examples.

²³⁹
More,
Correspondence
, p.283 (
LP
, iii, 3291).

²⁴⁰
LP
, iii, 3477, 3515; iv, 2392.

²⁴¹
More,
Correspondence
(
LP
, iii, iv, 2535) Wolsey to More in Sept-Oct 1526.

²⁴²
Ibid, pp.279-82 (
LP
, iii, 3291).

²⁴³
Ibid, pp.275-8 (
LP
, iii, 3270).

²⁴⁴
Ibid, p.285 (
LP
, iii, 3320).

²⁴⁵
Ibid, pp.289-95 (
LP
, iii, 3346).

²⁴⁶
Gunn,
EHR
,
CI
, pp.607-11.

²⁴⁷
More,
Correspondence
, pp.288-9 (
LP
, iii, 3340).

²⁴⁸
Ibid, pp.295-7 (
LP
, iii, 3355).

²⁴⁹
Ibid, p.287 (
LP
, iii, 3359).

²⁵⁰
St. P
, i, p.149 (
LP
, iii, 3613).

²⁵¹
More,
Correspondence
, p.301 (
LP
, iii, 3485).

²⁵²
See Bernard,
War, Taxation and Rebellion
, pp.40-5 for an excellent treatment of Henry’s role in the conduct of foreign policy.

WOLSEY SPENT LESS THAN SIX MONTHS IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND, AND
then only after his fall from favour. However, an enormous amount of his time and energy was spent on its affairs. Partly this was because as archbishop of York from 1514 until his death in 1530, and as bishop of Durham from 1523 until 1529, he had specific responsibilities in the area. But the major reason was that the North posed serious problems for royal government which demanded constant attention from any important servant of the Crown. And perhaps it would be helpful to state at the outset that these problems were insoluble: there were too many of them, and any attempt to solve one would only aggravate another. This point needs stressing if only because historians, like journalists, are apt to believe in solutions, and have sometimes suggested that the Tudors did have a solution to the problems of the North. Put at its simplest, their answer was to remove the ‘feudal barons’ from power and influence in the North and to replace them with ‘modern’, ‘bureaucratic’ Councils, staffed by royal nominees and closely controlled from the centre.
¹

In such a scheme, Wolsey puts in a rather muted appearance as the architect in 1525 of a Council of the North – otherwise referred to as the duke of Richmond’s Council – but even this had been foreshadowed by those set up by the Yorkist kings, and was but a pale shadow of what was to come. Wolsey thus earns few marks from such historians, being always considered more medieval than modern, whatever that is supposed to mean. In reality, the problems facing Wolsey in the 1520s were much the same as those facing Elizabethan statesmen in the 1580s and 1590s. The differences were those of detail, and it is the detail that historians have tended to ignore. For the people having to deal with the day-to-day problems of the North, they were of the utmost importance. All that was really open to Tudor statesmen was to ‘make and mend’, and this was something that Wolsey was very good at.

The underlying problem was that the North had a border with a traditionally unfriendly country only too willing to make trouble, especially when England was involved in continental matters. In 1496 and 1497 James
IV
had invaded England on Perkin Warbeck’s behalf, and when in 1513 Henry
VIII
had taken an army to France, James could not resist the opportunity to invade yet again. There followed his defeat and death at Flodden, but for England the Scottish threat remained. The intervention of the duke of Albany in Scottish affairs, with his close connections with France, had foiled English efforts to set up a government in Scotland with which they could co-operate. In the summer of 1517 Albany had returned to France, but by the end of 1521 he was back and during the following three years, a period
when England was actively engaged in a war with France, a Scottish invasion was a constant threat. At the end of May 1524, Albany left Scotland for good, and by the end of that year a truce between the two countries was signed. During the next three years this was constantly renewed until in December 1528 a five-year truce was arranged at Berwick, along with a major redress of grievances.
²

Two things had greatly contributed to the improved relations between the two countries following Albany’s departure. First and foremost, there was the new English alliance with France, signalled by the Treaty of the More in August 1525. Only in conjunction with France could Scotland be a real threat to England, and both countries knew this. Secondly, in February 1525, a new faction headed by the earl of Angus had taken over the government in Scotland – a faction which owed much of its success to English support, for the return of Angus and his brother to Scotland had been engineered by Wolsey.
³
But the underlying reason for the good relations – something that was stressed in a previous chapter – was English restraint.
⁴
Evidence of what might otherwise appear to be too Sassenach a view can be found in the English reaction to the overthrow of Angus in 1528 by a faction led by the young king, James
V
. Neither James nor the new faction were by inclination friends of England, and there is no doubt that the overthrow of Angus was a major defeat for Wolsey, who was for some time, and according to some of his advisers on the spot, for too long, reluctant to accept it.
⁵
Yet despite Scotland’s continuing isolation and the insecurity of James’s position, the English reaction was not to wage war but to negotiate the Treaty of Berwick. All this is not to suggest that Wolsey was a saint. There was constant English intervention in Scottish affairs, and Wolsey was, as usual in his conduct of foreign policy, quite prepared to heighten tension and to use force – in this case border raids – in order to exert pressure to achieve his ends. But in the North the direction of this pressure was always towards peace. The conquest of Scotland was never one of Wolsey’s aims, which is also to say that it was never one of Henry’s. Scottish affairs were peripheral to their European design, to be coped with only insofar as they affected it, and with as little expenditure as possible. But that did not prevent both men having to spend a great deal of time on Scottish affairs, nor did their pacific intentions enable them to escape from the reality that the North was a border which had to be kept in some kind of military preparedness.