Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Wolsey
- UPBRINGING
- Son of a butcher
- Went to Magdalen College, Oxford
- Career in church
- JOBS
- 1509 - Almoner to Henry
(distributed money to poor) +
member of King's council (under
Patronage of Richard Fox)
- 1512-14 Helped co-ordinate
war effort in France - pleased
the king with admin skills
- 1514 - Archbishop of York
- 1515 - Pope made him cardinal +
became Lord Chancellor of
England (in charge of judicial
system)
- 1518 - Legate a latere
(representative of pope, given
full powers to act on his behalf)
- 1525 - Relationship with King declining
- 1529 - Accused of
praemunire (suspected of
appealing to foreign
powers) and banished
from court.
- SUCCESSES
- Organisational abilities
- Allowed Henry to afford
foreign war and then
place international
peacemaker
- Subsidy
- Allowed King to collect
more money from
subjects
- Attempts of legal,
social and economic
reform
- Improve admin of justice
by prosecuting Star
Chamber local officials
who were corrupt
- E.g 1519 - Prosecuted a
prominent member of
the Cheshire gentry, Sir
John Savage - using local
influence to rid his son
of murder charges
- Pardoned, but lost many local
offices and fined 4,000 marks to
the Crown
- Teach "New law of Star Chamber"
- Used the Star Chamber
to encourage ordinary
men to voice their
grievances
- Led to huge increase in workload
- 1517-18 - launched a national
enquiry to investigate illegal
enclosure by landlords
- 264 landlord prosecuted / 188 verdicts reached
- Foreign Policy
- Treaty of London
- Treaty of London in 1518 was a non-aggression pact
between the major European nations.
- The signatories were Burgundy, France, England, the
Holy Roman Empire, the Netherlands, the Papal
States and Spain, all of whom agreed not to attack
one another and to come to the aid of any that were
under attack.
- The Field of the Cloth of Gold
- site in Balinghem – between Ardres in France and Guînes in the
then-English Pale of Calais – that hosted a summit from 7 to 24
June 1520, between King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of
France.
- arranged to increase the bond of friendship between
the two kings following the Anglo-French treaty of
1514.
- These two monarchs would meet again in 1532 to arrange
Francis's assistance in pressuring Pope Clement VII to pronounce
Henry's first marriage as illegitimate.
- FAILURES
- Held multiple church offices
- Archbishop of York, Bishop of Lincoln and Tournai
- Large profits = Grand style
- Household numbered 500 men
(nearly as much as king's)
- His building at
Hampton Court so
magnificent = 'Alter
rex'
- Schemes too ambitious
- Star Chamber reform
led to backlog which
he couldn't clear (war
and diplomacy)
- Used power and position for personal feuds
- Sir Robert Sheffield (speaker
in House of Commons) had
been critical of him - W had
him sent to the Tower and
fined £5,333 for 'opprobrious
words'
- Upset support of nobility and gentry
- 1523 - had to reverse his policy of enclosure
as part of a deal with parliament
(represented the interests of landed elites)
- Mismanaged financial crisis of 1522-23,
haranguing parliament in an attempt to
get more tax - turned this into the
non-parliamentary Amicable Grant
- RELATIONSHIP WITH HENRY VIII
- Didn't usurp power from
Henry, only allowed to have
it as long as he was useful
- Modern critics use his social
background to accuse him of
undermining the power of trad
nobility e.g Duke of Buckingham,
because he resented them
- Buckingham executed - appeared to be
plotting treason and raising a private army
- Henry said "Make good watch .. on the Duke
of Buckingham.. and others which you might
suspect"
- Had rivals for his power, particularly from the
members of Privy Chamber
- 1519 - W expelled the 'minions' from the
household (too much influence)
- 1526 - Eltham Ordinances control
Chamber as rival source of power
- From 1527 - W unable to
give Henry his divorce
that his position came
under threat