Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/675

Rh W O L S E Y 635 his history becomes entwined with the annals of his country, where all that concerns the statesman must be sought. On the 20th November 1511 his signature as a privy councillor first occurs. The council was composed of two parties, the old officials, chiefly ecclesiastics and headed by Fox, who favoured peace, and the old nobility, led by Surrey, who advocated a spirited policy, even at the risk of war. Friendship and his cloth naturally attached Wolsey to the former, thereby giving rise to that family hatred of the Howards which pursued him to the end of his life. Fox had long been anxious to withdraw from political life, and he now gradually shifted his state duties on to the willing, able, and younger shoulders of Wolsey. Nor was Wolsey s opportunity of distinguishing himself long in coming. An expedition against Guienne in 1512 had effected nothing and returned in disgrace. This only roused Henry s pride and persistence, and he resolved to invade France from the north in the following year. The organization of the necessary force he committed to Wolsey. Churchman though he was, Wolsey succeeded to admiration. The royal army crossed the Channel, fought what French wit styled the Battle of Spurs, and took The&quot;rouanne and Tournai, while at home Surrey won the bloody battle of Flodden. Success had crowned Wolsey s labours and covered his royal master with glory. Wolsey s favour with Henry was confirmed. Rewards came thick and fast. On the capture of Tournai, Henry named Wolsey to the bishopric of that see, which just then fell vacant; but the English nomination was never ratified by the pope, who in the end issued bulls promoting the French nominee Guillard. Despite this miscarriage Wolsey was not long in being a bishop. In the succeeding January (1514) the see of Lincoln lost its episcopal head, and next month the new pope Leo X. confirmed Wolsey s appointment to it. The preferment proved but temporary ; for in July Cardinal Bainbridge, archbishop of York, was poisoned at Rome, and on the 5th August Wolsey was raised to his place. Two days later Wolsey brought to a triumphant ter mination his first great effort in diplomacy, and made with Louis XII. of France a treaty which really undid the notorious league of Cambrai, defeated Ferdinand of Spain Avith his own weapons, and left England^ for the moment, the first power in Europe. Wolsey thereby began a new era in English politics. Since its origin with the Norman Conquest English foreign policy had been bounded by the horizon of France. It had been dynastic and insular. AVolsey made it European by taking the empire, Italy, and Spain into his calculations. He deliberately set himself to preserve the balance of power in Europe as a means of raising his country from a third to a first rate state. And that end he accomplished solely by diplomacy founded on the successes of 1513, which impressed on Continental statesmen a sense of England s power and thus gave to Wolsey s succeeding diplomacy a weight it would not otherwise have commanded and which it never after wards lost. The character of the policy accounts for its fluctuations : as the scales turned, so was Wolsey com pelled to vary his pressure. The year 1515 brought him two new honours. For years Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, had desired to be released from the lord chancellorship, and Henry had repeatedly urged Wolsey to accept it. Wolsey naturally shrank from adding to his already arduous duties ; but both Warham and the king became so urgent that he at last yielded. By patent dated 21st December he assumed the post, and at once threw himself into its work with his accustomed vigour, dispensing justice and introducing reforms with fearless impartiality. The second dignity, the cardinalate, was obtained through the active interven tion of Henry himself, and only by the most threatening arguments did the king overcome the fears and reluctance of Leo. On the 10th September Wolsey was elected cardinal sole. The bearer of the red hat and ring arrived in London in November, and on Sunday the 18th Wolsey was installed amidst all the ceremonial magnificence which he valued not only for his own sake but for his king s. By similar strong measures was Avrung from Leo the legateship, an office Wolsey sought in order to carry out ecclesiastical reforms. In 1518 Leo, ostensibly on account of a crusade, sent legates to the four chief courts of Europe. Campeggio, the legate to England, was allowed to reach Calais, where his further progress was stopped till the pope had joined Wolsey with him. Next year Wolsey was appointed sole legate for a year, and, finally, in 1524, following several extensions, he became legate for life, after receiving unusual powers. In virtue of this commission he erected a court and instituted reformations by which he incurred much odium. In 1518 he received the see of Bath and Wells in commendam, which in 1523 he resigned for Durham, replaced in turn by Fox s bishopric of Win chester in 1529. At the conclusion of the Calais con ference in 1521, Henry recompensed him with the rich abbacy of St Albans, held, like the episcopates, in com mendam. From these and other sources he received immense revenues, which were almost entirely devoted to state purposes or national objects. He was prime minister of Henry, and in his income as in his master s there was no distinction between public and private money. Vast sums were used in founding his college at Ipswich and Cardinal College at Oxford, now known as Christ Church, which formed but part of a splendid scheme of national education, a scheme ultimately ruined by the greed of the king. Even what was expended on his own resplendent establishment redounded to the honour of his king and country. His was an age when power and pomp were more closely connected than they are now, and Wolsey s power was extraordinary. &quot;He is in great repute,&quot; reported the unfriendly Venetian ambassador Giustinian ; &quot; seven times more so than if he were pope.&quot; No wonder, then, that he cared but little to fill the papal chair. When, in 1522, and again in 1523, his candidature for the papacy came to nothing, he was not disappointed. And, if in 1529, on the illness of Clement VII., he showed himself seriously anxious on the subject, it was in all likelihood that he might compass Henry s will respecting divorce from Catherine, and prevent that rupture with the apostolic see which he foresaw would result from papal opposition. Wolsey s favour with the king had been founded on success, and it fell by failure. In the region of politics one diplomatic victory had followed another. The balance had been firmly held between Francis I. and the emperor Charles V., an enterprise rendered memorable by the splendours of the Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520), planned and directed by Wolsey, and amidst which the Middle Ages passed away. Suddenly across his minister s diplomatics Henry dragged the question of the divorce, and everything had to be sacrificed to its accomplishment. Seeing too clearly how much, both personal and national, depended on attaining Henry s desire, Wolsey strove his very utter most to further a design to which he was himself opposed, stooping to the most discreditable and unworthy means. But the decision lay with Pope Clement, who was in the power of Charles V., Catherine s nephew, and all Wolsey s efforts were in vain. Vain, too, were all attempts to intimidate Catherine herself. A collusive suit was begun before Wolsey by which she was to be condemned unheard; she got word of it and thwarted the plan by demanding counsel. A commission was obtained from the pope for Campeggio and Wolsey to try the cause in England (1529); she appeared before the legatine court at Blackfriars only