Henry VIII Part 9

[Footnote 272: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 1287; Giustinian, _Desp._, ii., App., 309; _L. and P._, iii., 402.]

[Footnote 273: These details are from the King's "Book of Payments" calendared at the end of _L. and P._, vol. ii.]

[Footnote 274: _L. and P._, i., 4417.]

[Footnote 275: _Ibid._, ii., 4115.]

Piety went hand in hand with a filial respect for the head of the Church. Not once in the ten years is there to be found any expression from Henry of contempt for the Pope, whether he was Julius II. or Leo X. There had been no occasion on which Pope and King had been brought into conflict, and almost throughout they had acted in perfect harmony.

It was the siege of Julius by Louis that drew Henry from his peaceful policy to intervene as the champion of the Papal See, and it was (p. 107) as the executor of papal censures that he made war on France.[276] If he had ulterior views on that kingdom, he could plead the justification of a brief, drawn up if not published, by Julius II., investing him with the French crown.[277] A papal envoy came to urge peace in 1514, and a Pope claimed first to have suggested the marriage between Mary and Louis.[278] The Milan expedition of 1516 was made under cover of a new Holy League concluded in the spring of the previous year, and the peace of 1518 was made with the full approval and blessings of Leo.

Henry's devotion had been often acknowledged in words, and twice by tangible tokens of grat.i.tude, in the gift of the golden rose in 1510 and of the sword and cap in 1513.[279] But did not his services merit some more signal mark of favour? If Ferdinand was "Catholic," and Louis "Most Christian," might not some t.i.tle be found for a genuine friend? And, as early as 1515, Henry was pressing the Pope for "some t.i.tle as protector of the Holy See".[280] Various names were suggested, "King Apostolic," "King Orthodox," and others; and in January, 1516, we find the first mention of "Fidei Defensor".[281] But the prize was to be won by services more appropriate to the t.i.tle than even ten years' maintenance of the Pope's temporal interests. His championship of the Holy See had been the most unselfish part of Henry's policy since he came to the throne; and his whole conduct had been an example, which others were slow to follow, and which Henry himself was soon to neglect.

[Footnote 276: _L. and P._, i., 3876, 4283.]

[Footnote 277: _Arch. R. Soc. Rom._, xix., 3, 4.]

[Footnote 278: _L. and P._, i., 5543.]

[Footnote 279: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 53-54, 361; _L.

and P._, i., 976, 4621.]

[Footnote 280: _Ibid._, ii., 887, 967.]

[Footnote 281: _Ibid._, ii., 1456, 1928; iii., 1369.]

CHAPTER V. (p. 108)

KING AND CARDINAL.

"Nothing," wrote Giustinian of Wolsey in 1519, "pleases him more than to be called the arbiter of Christendom."[282] Continental statesmen were inclined to ridicule and resent the Cardinal's claim. But the t.i.tle hardly exaggerates the part which the English minister was enabled to play during the next few years by the rivalry of Charles and Francis, and by the apparently even balance of their powers. The position which England held in the councils of Europe in 1519 was a marvellous advance upon that which it had occupied in 1509. The first ten years of Henry's reign had been a period of fluctuating, but continual, progress. The campaign of 1513 had vindicated England's military prowess, and had made it possible for Wolsey, at the peace of the following year, to place his country on a level with France and Spain and the Empire. Francis's conquest of Milan, and the haste with which Maximilian, Leo and Charles sought to make terms with the victor, caused a temporary isolation of England and a consequent decline in her influence. But the arrangements made between Charles and Francis contained, in themselves, as acute English diplomatists saw, the seeds of future disruption; and, in 1518, Wolsey was able (p. 109) so to play off these mutual jealousies as to rea.s.sert England's position. He imposed a general peace, or rather a truce, which raised England even higher than the treaties of 1514 had done, and made her appear as the conservator of the peace of Europe. England had almost usurped the place of the Pope as mediator between rival Christian princes.[283]

[Footnote 282: _L. and P._, iii., 125; Giustinian, _Desp._, ii., 256.]

[Footnote 283: _L. and P._, iii., 125. Men were shocked when the Pope was styled "comes" instead of "princeps confederationis" of 1518. "The chief author of these proceedings," says Giustinian, "is Wolsey, whose sole aim is to procure incense for his king and himself" (_Desp._ ii., 256).]

These brilliant results were achieved with the aid of very moderate military forces and an only respectable navy. They were due partly to the lavish expenditure of Henry's treasures, partly to the extravagant faith of other princes in the extent of England's wealth, but mainly to the genius for diplomacy displayed by the great English Cardinal.

Wolsey had now reached the zenith of his power; and the growth of his sense of his own importance is graphically described by the Venetian amba.s.sador. When Giustinian first arrived in England, Wolsey used to say, "His Majesty will do so and so". Subsequently, by degrees, forgetting himself, he commenced saying, "We shall do so and so". In 1519 he had reached such a pitch that he used to say, "I shall do so and so".[284] Fox had been called by Badoer "a second King," but Wolsey was now "the King himself".[285] "We have to deal," said Fox, "with the Cardinal, who is not Cardinal, but King; and no one in the realm dares attempt aught in opposition to his interests."[286] On another occasion Giustinian remarks: "This Cardinal is King, nor does His Majesty depart in the least from the opinion and counsel of (p. 110) his lordship".[287] Sir Thomas More, in describing the negotiations for the peace of 1518, reports that only after Wolsey had concluded a point did he tell the council, "so that even the King hardly knows in what state matters are".[288] A month or two later there was a curious dispute between the Earl of Worcester and West, Bishop of Ely, who were sent to convey the Treaty of London to Francis. Worcester, as a layman, was a partisan of the King, West of the Cardinal. Worcester insisted that their detailed letters should be addressed to Henry, and only general ones to Wolsey. West refused; the important letters, he thought, should go to the Cardinal, the formal ones to the King; and, eventually, identical despatches were sent to both.[289] In negotiations with England, Giustinian told his Government, "if it were necessary to neglect either King or Cardinal, it would be better to pa.s.s over the King; he would therefore make the proposal to both, but to the Cardinal first, _lest he should resent the precedence conceded to the King_".[290] The popular charge against Wolsey, repeated by Shakespeare, of having written _Ego et rex meus_, though true in fact,[291] is false in intention, because no Latin scholar could put the words in any other order; but the Cardinal's mental att.i.tude is faithfully represented in the meaning which the familiar phrase was supposed to convey.

[Footnote 284: _Ven._ Cal., ii. 1287.]

[Footnote 285: _L. and P._, ii., 1380.]

[Footnote 286: _Ibid._, ii., 3558.]

[Footnote 287: _Cf. Ven. Cal._, ii., 671, 875, 894.]

[Footnote 288: _L. and P._, ii., 4438.]

[Footnote 289: _Ibid._, ii., 4664. On other occasions Wolsey took it upon himself to open letters addressed to the King (_Ibid._, iii., 2126).]

[Footnote 290: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 1215.]

[Footnote 291: It will be found in _Ven. Cal._, iii., p. 43; Shakespeare, _Henry VIII._, Act III., Sc. ii.]

His arrogance does not rest merely on the testimony of personal (p. 111) enemies like the historian, Polydore Vergil, and the poet Skelton, or of chroniclers like Hall, who wrote when vilification of Wolsey pleased both king and people, but on the despatches of diplomatists with whom he had to deal, and on the reports of observers who narrowly watched his demeanour. "He is," wrote one, "the proudest prelate that ever breathed."[292] During the festivities of the Emperor's visit to England, in 1520, Wolsey alone sat down to dinner with the royal party, while peers, like the Dukes of Suffolk and Buckingham, performed menial offices for the Cardinal, as well as for Emperor, King and Queen.[293] When he celebrated ma.s.s at the Field of Cloth of Gold, bishops invested him with his robes and put sandals on his feet, and "some of the chief n.o.blemen in England" brought water to wash his hands.[294] A year later, at his meeting with Charles at Bruges, he treated the Emperor as an equal. He did not dismount from his mule, but merely doffed his cap, and embraced as a brother the temporal head of Christendom.[295] When, after a dispute with the Venetian amba.s.sador, he wished to be friendly, he allowed Giustinian, with royal condescension, and as a special mark of favour, to kiss his hand.[296] He never granted audience either to English peers or foreign amba.s.sadors until the third or fourth time of asking.[297] In 1515 it was the custom of amba.s.sadors to dine with Wolsey before presentation at Court, but four years later they were never served until the viands had been removed from the Cardinal's table.[298] A Venetian, describing Wolsey's (p. 112) emba.s.sy to France in 1527, relates that his "attendants served cap in hand, and, when bringing the dishes, knelt before him in the act of presenting them. Those who waited on the Most Christian King, kept their caps on their heads, dispensing with such exaggerated ceremonies."[299]

[Footnote 292: _Ven. Cal._, iii., 56.]

[Footnote 293: _Ibid._, iii., 50.]

[Footnote 294: _Ibid._, vol. iii., p. 29.]

[Footnote 295: _Ibid._, iii., 298.]

[Footnote 296: _L. and P._, ii., 3733.]

[Footnote 297: Giustinian, _Desp._, App. ii., 309.]

[Footnote 298: Giustinian, _Desp._, App. ii., 309.]

[Footnote 299: _Ven. Cal._, iii., p. 84.]

Pretenders to royal honours seldom acquire the grace of genuine royalty, and the Cardinal pursued with vindictive ferocity those who offended his sensitive dignity. In 1515, Polydore Vergil said, in writing to his friend, Cardinal Hadrian, that Wolsey was so tyrannical towards all men that his influence could not last, and that all England abused him.[300] The letter was copied by Wolsey's secretary, Vergil was sent to the Tower,[301] and only released after many months at the repeated intercession of Leo X. His correspondent, Cardinal Hadrian, was visited with Wolsey's undying hatred. A pretext for his ruin was found in his alleged complicity in a plot to poison the Pope; the charge was trivial, and Leo forgave him.[302] Not so Wolsey, who procured Hadrian's deprivation of the Bishopric of Bath and Wells, appropriated the see for himself, and in 1518 kept Campeggio, the Pope's legate, chafing at Calais until he could bring with him the papal confirmation of these measures.[303] Venice had the temerity to intercede with Leo on Hadrian's behalf; Wolsey thereupon overwhelmed Giustinian with "rabid and insolent language"; ordered him not to (p. 113) put anything in his despatches without his consent; and revoked the privileges of Venetian merchants in England.[304] In these outbursts of fury, he paid little respect to the sacrosanct character of amba.s.sadors. He heard that the papal nuncio, Chieregati, was sending to France unfavourable reports of his conduct. The nuncio "was sent for by Wolsey, who took him into a private chamber, laid rude hands upon him, fiercely demanding what he had written to the King of France, and what intercourse he had held with Giustinian and his son, adding that he should not quit the spot until he had confessed everything, and, if fair means were not sufficient, he should be put upon the rack".[305] Nine years later, Wolsey nearly precipitated war between England and the Emperor by a similar outburst against Charles's amba.s.sador, De Praet. He intercepted De Praet's correspondence, and confined him to his house. It was a flagrant breach of international law. Tampering with diplomatic correspondence was usually considered a sufficient cause for war; on this occasion war did not suit Charles's purpose, but it was no fault of Wolsey's that his fury at an alleged personal slight did not provoke hostilities with the most powerful prince in Christendom.[306]

[Footnote 300: _L. and P._, ii., 215.]

[Footnote 301: _Ibid._, ii., 491, 865, 1229.]

[Footnote 302: _Ibid._, ii., 3581, 3584; _Ven.

Cal._, ii., 902, 951.]

[Footnote 303: _L. and P._, ii., 4348.]

[Footnote 304: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 951, 953, 978; _L.

and P._, ii., 3584.]

[Footnote 305: _L. and P._, ii., 2643.]

[Footnote 306: _Sp. Cal._, iii., pp. 50, 76, 78, 92.]

Englishmen fared no better than others at Wolsey's hands. He used the coercive power of the State to revenge his private wrongs as well as to secure the peace of the realm. In July, 1517, Sir Robert Sheffield,[307]

who had been Speaker in two Parliaments, was sent to the Tower for complaining of Wolsey, and to point the moral of Fox's a.s.sertion, (p. 114) that none durst do ought in opposition to the Cardinal's interests.[308]

Again, the idea reflected by Shakespeare, that Wolsey was jealous of Pace, has been described as absurd; but it is difficult to draw any other inference from the relations between them after 1521. While Wolsey was absent at Calais, he accused Pace, without ground, of misrepresenting his letters to Henry, and of obtaining Henry's favour on behalf of a canon of York;[309] he complained that foreign powers were trusting to another influence than his over the King; and, when he returned, he took care that Pace should henceforth be employed, not as secretary to Henry, but on almost continuous missions to Italy. In 1525, when the Venetian amba.s.sador was to thank Henry for making a treaty with Venice, which Pace had concluded, he was instructed not to praise him so highly, if the Cardinal were present, as if the oration were made to Henry alone;[310] and, four years later, Wolsey found an occasion for sending Pace to the Tower--treatment which eventually caused Pace's mind to become unhinged.[311]

[Footnote 307: _L. and P._, ii., 3487.]