WOLSEY'S DOMESTIC POLICY
We have been following the laborious career of Wolsey in his direction
of foreign affairs. He held in his hands the threads of complicated
negotiations, by which he was endeavouring to assure England's power on
the Continent, not by means of war but by skilful diplomacy. In doing
this he had to guard the commercial relations of England with the
Netherlands, and had also to bow before the selfwill of the king, who
insisted on pursuing fantastic designs of personal aggrandisement. Still
he steered a careful course amidst many difficulties, though when he
looked back upon his labours of thirteen years he must have owned to
serious disappointment. Perhaps he sometimes asked himself the question,
if foreign policy was worthy of the best attention of an English
minister, if he had not erred in adventuring on such large schemes
abroad. There was much to do at home; many useful measures of reform
awaited only a convenient season. He had hoped, when first he began his
course, to have seen England long before this time peaceful and
powerful, the arbiter of European affairs, a pattern to other kingdoms,
dealing honestly and sagaciously with the pressing needs of the time. He
had laboured incessantly for that end, but it was as far off as ever.
The year 1527 saw England exhausted by useless wars, and Europe plunged
in irreconcilable strife. Wolsey's dream of a united Europe, cautiously
moved by England's moderating counsels, had vanished before forces which
he could not control.
Meanwhile domestic reforms had been thrust into the background. Wolsey
was keenly alive to their importance, and had a distinct policy which he
wished to carry out. He had carefully gathered into his hands the power
which would enable him to act, but he could not find the time for
definite action. Something he contrived to do, so as to prepare the way
for more; but his schemes were never revealed in their entirety, though
he trained the men who afterwards carried them out, though in a crude
and brutal shape.
England was passing through a period of social change which necessitated
a re-adjustment of old institutions. The decay of feudalism in the Wars
of the Roses had been little noticed, but its results had been profound.
In the sphere of government the check exercised by the barons on the
Crown was destroyed. Henry VII. carefully depressed the baronage and
spared the pockets of the people, who were willing to have the conduct
of affairs in the hands of the king so long as he kept order and guarded
the commercial interests, which were more and more absorbing national
energies. The nation wished for a strong government to put down anarchy
and maintain order; but the nation was not willing to bear the cost of a
strong government on constitutional principles. Henry VII. soon found
that he might do what he liked provided he did not ask for money; he
might raise supplies by unconstitutional exactions on individuals
provided he did not embarrass the bulk of the middle classes, who were
busied with trade. The nobles, the rich landowners, the wealthy
merchants, were left to the king's mercies; so long as the pockets of
the commons were spared they troubled themselves no further.
Henry VII. recognised this condition of national feeling, and pursued a
policy of levelling class privileges and cautiously heeding the popular
interests; by these means he established the royal power on a strong
basis, and carried on his government through capable officials, who took
their instructions from himself. Some of the old nobles held office, but
they gradually were reduced to the same level as the other officials
with whom they consorted. The power of the old nobility passed silently
away.
With this political change a social change corresponded. The barons of
former years were great in proportion to the number of their retainers
and the strength of their castles. Now retainers were put down by the
Star Chamber; and the feudal lord was turned into the country gentleman.
Land changed hands rapidly; opulent merchants possessed themselves of
estates. The face of the country began to wear a new look, for the new
landlords did not desire a numerous tenantry but a large income. The
great trade of England was wool, which was exported to Flanders. Tillage
lands were thrown into pasture; small holders found it more difficult to
live on their holdings; complaints were heard that the country was being
depopulated. England was slowly passing through an economic change which
involved a displacement of population, and consequent misery on the
labouring classes. No doubt there was a great increase in national
prosperity; but prosperity was not universally diffused at once, and men
were keenly conscious of present difficulties. Beneath the surface of
society there was a widespread feeling of discontent.
Moreover, amongst thinking men a new spirit was beginning to prevail. In
Italy this new spirit was manifest by quickened curiosity about the
world and life, and found its expression in a study of classical
antiquity. Curiosity soon led to criticism; and before the new criticism
the old ideas on which the intellectual life of the Middle Ages was
built were slowly passing away. Rhetoric took the place of logic, and
the study of the classics superseded the study of theology. This
movement of thought slowly found its way to England, where it began to
influence the higher minds.
Thus England was going through a crisis politically, socially, and
intellectually, when Wolsey undertook the management of affairs. This
crisis was not acute, and did not call for immediate measures of
direction; but Wolsey was aware of its existence, and had his own plans
for the future. We must regret that he put foreign policy in the first
place, and reserved his constructive measures for domestic affairs. The
time seemed ripe for great achievements abroad, and Wolsey was hopeful
of success. He may be pardoned for his lofty aspirations, for if he had
succeeded England would have led the way in a deliberate settlement of
many questions which concerned the wellbeing of the whole of
Christendom. But success eluded Wolsey's grasp, and he fell from power
before he had time to trace decidedly the lines on which England might
settle her problems for herself; and when the solution came it was
strangely entangled in the personal questions which led to Wolsey's fall
from power. Yet even here we may doubt if the measures of the English
Reformation would have been possible if Wolsey's mind had not inspired
the king and the nation with a heightened consciousness of England's
power and dignity. Wolsey's diplomacy at least tore away all illusions
about Pope and Emperor, and the opinion of Europe, and taught Henry
VIII. the measure of his own strength.
It was impossible that Wolsey's powerful hand should not leave its
impression upon everything which it touched. If Henry VIII. inherited a
strong monarchy, Wolsey made the basis of monarchical power still
stronger. It was natural that he should do so, as he owed his own
position entirely to the royal favour. But never had any king so devoted
a servant as had Henry VIII., in Wolsey; and this devotion was not
entirely due to motives of selfish calculation or to personal
attraction. Wolsey saw in the royal power the only possible means of
holding England together and guiding it through the dangers of impending
change. In his eyes the king and the king alone could collect and give
expression to the national will. England itself was unconscious of its
capacities, and was heedless about the future. The nobles, so far as
they had any policy, were only desirous to win back their old position.
The Church was no longer the inspirer of popular aspirations or the
bulwark of popular freedom. Its riches were regarded with a jealous eye
by the middle classes, who were busied with trade; the defects of its
organisation had been deplored by its most spiritually-minded sons for a
century; its practices, if not its tenets, awakened the ridicule of men
of intelligence; its revenues supplied the king with officials more than
they supplied the country with faithful pastors; its leaders were
content to look to the king for patronage and protection. The traders of
the towns and the new landlords of the country appreciated the growth of
their fortunes in a period of internal quiet, and dreaded anything that
might bring back discord. The labouring classes felt that redress of
their grievances was more possible from a far-off king than from
landlords who, in their eyes, were bent upon extortion. Every class
looked to the king, and was confident in his good intentions. We cannot
wonder that Wolsey saw in the royal power the only possible instrument
strong enough to work reforms, and set himself with goodwill to make
that instrument efficacious.
So Wolsey was in no sense a constitutional minister, nor did he pay much
heed to constitutional forms. Parliament was only summoned once during
the time that he was in office, and then he tried to browbeat Parliament
and set aside its privileges. In his view the only function of
Parliament was to grant money for the king's needs. The king should say
how much he needed, and Parliament ought only to advise how this sum
might most conveniently be raised. We have seen that Wolsey failed in
his attempt to convert Parliament into a submissive instrument of royal
despotism. He under-estimated the strength of constitutional forms and
the influence of precedent. Parliament was willing to do its utmost to
meet the wishes of the king, but it would not submit to Wolsey's
high-handed dictation. The habits of diplomacy had impaired Wolsey's
sagacity in other fields; he had been so busy in managing emperors and
kings that he had forgotten how to deal with his fellow-countrymen. He
was unwise in his attempt to force the king's will upon Parliament as an
unchangeable law of its action. Henry VIII. looked on and learned from
Wolsey's failure, and when he took the management of Parliament into his
own hands he showed himself a consummate master of that craft. His skill
in this direction has scarcely been sufficiently estimated, and his
success has been put down to the servility of Parliament. But Parliament
was by no means servile under Wolsey's overbearing treatment. If it was
subservient to Henry the reason is to be found in his excellent tactics.
He conciliated different interests at different times; he mixed the
redress of acknowledged grievances with the assertion of far-reaching
claims; he decked out selfish motives in fair-sounding language; he led
men on step by step till they were insensibly pledged to measures more
drastic than they approved; he kept the threads of his policy in his own
hands till the only escape from utter confusion was an implicit
confidence in his wisdom; he made it almost impossible for those who
were dissatisfied to find a point on which they could establish a
principle for resistance. He was so skilful that Parliament at last gave
him even the power over the purse, and Henry, without raising a murmur,
imposed taxes which Wolsey would not have dared to suggest. It is
impossible not to feel that Henry, perhaps taught in some degree by
Cromwell, understood the temper of the English people far better than
Wolsey ever did. He established the royal power on a broader and securer
basis than Wolsey could have erected. Where Wolsey would have made the
Crown independent of Parliament, Henry VIII. reduced Parliament to be a
willing instrument of the royal will. Wolsey would have subverted the
constitution, or at least would have reduced it to a lifeless form;
Henry VIII. so worked the constitutional machinery that it became an
additional source of power to his monarchy.
But though Wolsey was not successful in his method of making the royal
power supreme over Parliament, he took the blame of failure upon
himself, and saved the king's popularity. Wolsey's devotion to his
master was complete, and cannot be assigned purely to selfish motives.
Wolsey felt that his opinions, his policy, his aspirations had been
formed through his intercourse with the king; and he was only strong
when he and his master were thoroughly at one. At first the two men had
been in complete agreement, and it cost Wolsey many a pang when he found
that Henry did not entirely agree with his conclusions. After the
imperial alliance was made Wolsey lost much of his brilliancy, his dash,
and his force. This was not the result of age, or fatigue, or
hopelessness so much as of the feeling that he and the king were no
longer in accord. Like many other strong men, Wolsey was sensitive. He
did not care for popularity, but he felt the need of being understood
and trusted. He gave the king his affection, and he craved for a return.
There was no one else who could understand him or appreciate his aims,
and when he felt that he was valued for his usefulness rather than
trusted for what he was in himself, the spring of his life's energy was
gone.
Still Wolsey laboured in all things to exalt the royal power, for in it
he saw the only hope of the future, and England endorsed his opinion.
But Wolsey was too great a man to descend to servility, and Henry always
treated him with respect. In fact Wolsey always behaved with a strong
sense of his personal dignity, and carried stickling for decorum to the
verge of punctiliousness. Doubtless he had a decided taste for splendour
and magnificence, but it is scarcely fair to put this down to the
arrogance of an upstart, as was done by his English contemporaries.
Wolsey believed in the influence of outward display on the popular mind,
and did his utmost to throw over the king a veil of unapproachable
grandeur and unimpeachable rectitude. He took upon himself the burden of
the king's responsibilities, and stood forward to shield him against the
danger of losing the confidence of his people. As the king's
representative he assumed a royal state; he wished men to see that they
were governed from above, and he strove to accustom them to the pomp of
power. In his missions abroad, and in his interviews with foreign
ambassadors, he was still more punctilious than in the matters of
domestic government. If the king was always to be regarded as the king,
Wolsey, as the mouthpiece of the royal will, never abated his claims
to honour only less than royal; but he acted not so much from
self-assertion as from policy. At home and abroad equally the greatness
of the royal power was to be unmistakably set forth, and ostentation was
an element in the game of brag to which a spirited foreign policy
inevitably degenerates. It was for the king's sake that Wolsey magnified
himself; he never assumed an independent position, but all his triumphs
were loyally laid at the king's feet. In this point, again, Wolsey
overshot the mark, and did not understand the English people, who were
not impressed in the manner which he intended. When Henry took the
government more directly into his own hands he managed better for
himself, for he knew how to identify the royal will with the aspirations
of the people, and clothed his despotism with the appearance of paternal
solicitude. He made the people think that he lived for them, and that
their interests were his, whereas Wolsey endeavoured to convince the
people that the king alone could guard their interests, and that their
only course was to put entire confidence in him. Henry saw that men were
easier to cajole than to convince; he worked for no system of royal
authority, but contented himself with establishing his own will. In
spite of the disadvantage of a royal education, Henry was a more
thorough Englishman than Wolsey, though Wolsey sprang from the people.
It was Wolsey's teaching, however, that prepared Henry for his task. The
king who could use a minister like Wolsey and then throw him away when
he was no longer useful, felt that there was no limitation to his
self-sufficiency.
Wolsey, indeed, was a minister in a sense which had never been seen in
England before, for he held in his hand the chief power alike in Church
and State. Not only was he chancellor, but also Archbishop of York, and
endowed beside with special legatine powers. These powers were not
coveted merely for purposes of show: Wolsey intended to use them, when
opportunity offered, as a means of bringing the Church under the royal
power as completely as he wished to subject the State. He had little
respect for the ecclesiastical organisation as such; he saw its obvious
weaknesses, and wished to provide a remedy. If he was a candidate for
the Papacy, it was from no desire to pursue an ecclesiastical policy of
his own, but to make the papal power subservient to England's interests.
He was sufficiently clear-sighted to perceive that national aspirations
could not much longer be repressed by the high-sounding claims of the
Papacy; he saw that the system of the Church must be adapted to the
conditions of the time, and he wished to avert a revolution by a quiet
process of steady and reasonable reform. He was perhaps honest in saying
that he was not greatly anxious for the Papacy; for he knew that England
gave him ample scope for his energies, and he hoped that the example of
England would spread throughout Europe. So at the beginning of his
career he pressed for legatine powers, which were grudgingly granted by
Leo X., first for one year, and afterwards for five; till the gratitude
of Clement VII. conferred them for life. Clothed with this authority,
and working in concert with the king, Wolsey was supreme over the
English Church, and perhaps dreamed of a future in which the Roman
Pontiff would practically resign his claims over the northern churches
to an English delegate, who might become his equal or superior in actual
power.
However this might be, he certainly contemplated the reform of the
English Church by means of a judicious mixture of royal and
ecclesiastical authority. Everything was propitious for such an
undertaking, as the position of the Church was felt to be in many ways
anomalous and antiquated. The rising middle class had many grievances to
complain of from the ecclesiastical courts; the new landlords looked
with contempt on the management of monastic estates; the new learning
mocked at the ignorance of the clergy, and scoffed at the superstitions
of a simpler past which had survived unduly into an age when criticism
was coming into fashion. The power of the Church had been great in days
when the State was rude and the clergy were the natural leaders of men.
Now the State was powerful and enjoyed men's confidence; they looked to
the king to satisfy their material aspirations, and the Church had not
been very successful in keeping their spiritual aspirations alive. It
was not that men were opposed to the Church, but they judged its
privileges to be excessive, its disciplinary courts to be vexatious, its
officials to be too numerous, and its wealth to be devoted to purposes
which had ceased to be of the first importance. There was a general
desire to see a re-adjustment of many matters in which the Church was
concerned; and before this popular sentiment churchmen found it
difficult to assert their old pretensions, and preferred to rest
contentedly under the protection of the Crown.
A trivial incident shows the general condition of affairs with
sufficient clearness. One of the claims which on the whole the clergy
had maintained was the right of trial before ecclesiastical courts; and
the greater leniency of ecclesiastical sentences had been a useful
modification of the severity of the criminal law, so that benefit of
clergy had been permitted to receive large extension of interpretation.
Further, the sanctity of holy places had been permitted to give rights
of sanctuary to criminals fleeing from justice or revenge. Both of these
expedients had been useful in a rude state of society, and had done much
to uphold a higher standard of humanity. But it was clear that they were
only temporary expedients which were needless and even harmful as
society grew more settled and justice was regularly administered. Henry
VII. had felt the need of diminishing the rights of sanctuary, which
gave a dangerous immunity to the numerous rebels against whom he had to
contend, and he obtained a bull for that purpose from Pope Innocent
VIII. The example which he set was speedily followed, and an Act was
passed by the Parliament of 1511, doing away with sanctuary and benefit
of clergy in the case of those who were accused of murder.
It does not seem that the Act met with any decided opposition at the
time that it was passed; but there were still sticklers for clerical
immunities, who regarded it as a dangerous innovation, and during the
session of Parliament in 1515 the Abbot of Winchcombe preached a sermon
in which he denounced it as an impious measure. Henry VIII. adopted a
course which afterwards stood him in good stead in dealing with the
Church; he submitted the question to a commission of divines and
temporal peers. In the course of the discussion Standish, the Warden of
the Friars Minors, put the point clearly and sensibly by saying, "The
Act was not against the liberty of the Church, for it was passed for the
weal of the whole realm." The clerical party were not prepared to face
so direct an issue, and answered that it was contrary to the decretals.
"So," replied Standish, "is the non-residence of bishops; yet that is
common enough." Baffled in their appeal to law the bishops fell back
upon Scripture, and quoted the text, "Touch not mine anointed." Again
Standish turned against them the new critical spirit, which destroyed
the old arguments founded on isolated texts. David, he said, used these
words of all God's people as opposed to the heathen; as England was a
Christian country the text covered the laity as well as the clergy. It
was doubtless galling to the clerical party to be so remorselessly
defeated by one of their own number, and their indignation was increased
when the temporal lords on the commission decided against the Abbot of
Winchcombe and ordered him to apologise.
The bishops vented their anger on Standish, and summoned him to answer
for his conduct before Convocation, whereon he appealed to the king.
Again Henry appointed a commission, this time exclusively of laymen, to
decide between Standish and his accusers. They reported that
Convocation, by its proceeding against one who was acting as a royal
commissioner, had incurred the penalties of præmunire, and they added
that the king could, if he chose, hold a parliament without the lords
spiritual, who had no place therein save by virtue of their temporal
possessions. Probably this was intended as a significant hint to the
spirituality that they had better not interfere unduly with
parliamentary proceedings. Moreover, at the same time a case had
occurred which stirred popular feeling against the ecclesiastical
courts. A London merchant had been arrested by the chancellor of the
Bishop of London on a charge of heresy, and a few days after his arrest
was found hanging dead in his cell. Doubtless the unhappy man had
committed suicide, but there was a suspicion that his arrest was due to
a private grudge on the part of the chancellor, who was accused of
having made away with him privily. Popular feeling waxed high, and the
lords who gave their decision so roundly against Convocation knew that
they were sure of popular support.
Henry was not sorry of an opportunity of teaching the clergy their
dependence upon himself, and he summoned the bishops before him that he
might read them a lesson. Wolsey's action on this occasion is
noticeable. He seems to have been the only one who saw the gravity of
the situation, and he strove to effect a dignified compromise. Before
the king could speak Wolsey knelt before him and interceded for the
clergy. He said that they had designed nothing against the king's
prerogative, but thought it their duty to uphold the rights of the
Church; he prayed that the matter might be referred to the decision of
the Pope. Henry answered that he was satisfied with the arguments of
Standish. Fox, Bishop of Winchester, turned angrily on Standish, and
Archbishop Warham plucked up his courage so far as to say feebly, "Many
holy men have resisted the law of England on this point and have
suffered martyrdom." But Henry knew that he had not to deal with a
second Becket, and that the days of Becket had gone by for ever. He
would have nothing to say to papal intervention or to clerical
privilege; the time had come for the assertion of royal authority, and
Henry could use his opportunity as skilfully as the most skilful priest.
"We," said he, "are by God's grace king of England, and have no superior
but God; we will maintain the rights of the Crown like our predecessors;
your decrees you break and interpret at your pleasure: but we will not
consent to your interpretation any more than our predecessors have
done." The immemorial rights of the English Crown were vaguer and more
formidable than the rights of the Church, and the bishops retired in
silence. Henry did not forget the service rendered him by Standish, who
was made Bishop of St. Asaph in 1518.
In this incident we have a forecast of the subsequent course of
events--the threat of præmunire, the assertion of the royal supremacy,
the submission of the clergy. Nothing was wanting save a sufficient
motive to work a revolution in the ancient relations between Church and
State. Wolsey alone seems to have seen how precarious was the existing
position of the Church. He knew that the Church was wrong, and that it
would have to give way, but he wished to clothe its submission with a
semblance of dignity, and to use the papal power, not as a means of
guarding the rights of the Church, but as a means of casting an air of
ecclesiastical propriety over their abandonment. Doubtless he proposed
to use his legatine power for that purpose if the need arose; but he was
loyal to the Church as an institution, and did not wish it to fall
unreservedly to the tender mercies of the king. He saw that this was
only to be avoided by a judicious pliancy on the Church's part, which
could gain a breathing-space for carrying out gradual reforms.
The fact that Wolsey was a statesman rather than an ecclesiastic gave
him a clear view of the direction which a conservative reformation
should pursue. He saw that the Church was too wealthy and too powerful
for the work which it was actually doing. The wealth and power of the
Church were a heritage from a former age, in which the care for the
higher interests of society fell entirely into the hands of the Church
because the State was rude and barbarous, and had no machinery save for
the discharge of rudimentary duties. Bishops were the only officials who
could curb the lawlessness of feudal lords; the clergy were the only
refuge from local tyranny; monks were the only landlords who cleared the
forests, drained the marshes, and taught the pursuits of peace;
monastery schools educated the sons of peasants, and the universities
gave young men of ability a career. All the humanitarian duties of
society were discharged by the Church, and the Church had grown in
wealth and importance because of its readiness to discharge them. But as
the State grew stronger, and as the power of Parliament increased, it
was natural that duties which had once been delegated should be assumed
by the community at large. It was equally natural that institutions
which had once been useful should outlast their usefulness and be
regarded with a jealous eye. By the end of the reign of Edward I.
England had been provided with as many monastic institutions as it
needed, and the character of monasticism began to decline. Benefactions
for social purposes from that time forward were mainly devoted to
colleges, hospitals, and schools. The fact that so many great churchmen
were royal ministers shows how the energy of the Church was placed at
the disposal of the State and was by it absorbed. The Church possessed
revenues, and a staff of officials which were too large for the time, in
which it was not the only worker in the field of social welfare. It
possessed rights and privileges which were necessary for its protection
in days of anarchy and lawlessness, but which were invidious in days of
more settled government. Moreover, the tenure of so much land by
ecclesiastical corporations like monasteries, was viewed with jealousy
in a time when commercial competition was becoming a dominant motive in
a society which had ceased to be mainly warlike.
From this point of view Wolsey was prepared for gradual changes in the
position of the Church; but he did not wish those changes to be
revolutionary, nor did he wish them to be made by the power of the
State. He knew the real weakness of the Church and the practical
omnipotence of the king; but he hoped to unite the interests of the
Crown and of the Church by his own personal influence and by his
position as the trusted minister of king and Pope alike.
He did not, however, deceive himself about the practical difficulties in
the way of a conservative reform, which should remove the causes of
popular discontent, and leave the Church an integral part of the State
organisation. He knew that the ecclesiastical system, even in its
manifest abuses, was closely interwoven with English society, and he
knew the strength of clerical conservatism. He knew also the dangers
which beset the Church if it came across the royal will and pleasure. If
any reform were to be carried out it must be by raising the standard of
clerical intelligence. Already many things which had accorded with the
simpler minds of an earlier age had become objects of mockery to
educated laymen. The raillery of Erasmus at the relics of St. Thomas of
Canterbury and the Virgin's milk preserved at Walsingham expressed the
difference which had arisen between the old practices of religion and
the belief of thoughtful men. It would be well to divert some of the
revenues of the Church from the maintenance of idle and ignorant monks
to the education of a body of learned clergy.
This diversion of monastic property had long been projected and
attempted. William of Wykeham endowed his New College at Oxford with
lands which he purchased from monasteries. Henry VI. endowed Eton and
King's College with revenues which came from the suppression of alien
priories. In 1497 John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, obtained leave to suppress
the decrepit nunnery of St. Rhadegund in Cambridge and use its site for
the foundation of Jesus College. Wolsey only carried farther and made
more definite the example which had previously been set when in 1524 he
obtained from Pope Clement VII. permission to convert into a college the
monastery of St. Frideswyde in Oxford. Soon after he obtained a bull
allowing him to suppress monasteries with fewer than seven inmates, and
devote their revenues to educational purposes.
Nor was Wolsey the only man who was of opinion that the days of
monasticism were numbered. In 1515 Bishop Fox of Winchester contemplated
the foundation of a college at Oxford in connection with the monastery
of St. Swithin at Winchester. He was dissuaded from making his college
dependent on a monastery by his brother bishop, Oldham of Exeter, who
said, "Shall we build houses and provide livelihoods for a company of
bussing monks, whose end and fall we ourselves may live to see? No, no:
it is meet to provide for the increase of learning, and for such as by
learning shall do good to Church and commonwealth." Oldham's advice
prevailed, and the statutes of Fox's college of Brasenose were marked by
the influence of the new learning as distinct from the old theology.
Still Wolsey's bull for the wholesale dissolution of small monasteries
was the beginning of a process which did not cease till all were swept
away. It introduced a principle of measuring the utility of old
institutions and judging their right to exist by their power of
rendering service to the community. Religious houses whose shrunken
revenues could not support more than seven monks, according to the
rising standard of monastic comfort, were scarcely likely to maintain
serious discipline or pursue any lofty end. But it was the very
reasonableness of this method of judgment which rendered it exceedingly
dangerous. Tried by this standard, who could hope to escape? Fuller
scarcely exaggerates when he says that this measure of Wolsey's "made
all the forest of religious foundations in England to shake, justly
fearing that the king would fell the oaks when the cardinal had begun to
cut the underwood." It would perhaps have required too much wisdom for
the monks to see that submission to the cardinal's pruning-knife was the
only means of averting the clang of the royal axe.
The method which Wolsey pursued was afterwards borrowed by Henry VIII.
Commissioners were sent out to inquire into the condition of small
monasteries, and after an unfavourable report their dissolution was
required, and their members were removed to a larger house. The work was
one which needed care and dexterity as well as a good knowledge of
business. Wolsey was lucky in his agents, chief amongst whom was Thomas
Cromwell, an attorney whose cleverness Wolsey quickly perceived. In fact
most of the men who so cleverly managed the dissolution of the
monasteries for Henry had learned the knack under Wolsey, who was fated
to train up instruments for purposes which he would have abhorred.
The immediate objects to which Wolsey devoted the money which he
obtained by the dissolution of these useless monasteries were a college
in his old university of Oxford and another in his native town of
Ipswich. The two were doubtless intended to be in connection with one
another, after the model of William of Wykeham's foundations at
Winchester and Oxford, and those of Henry VI. at Eton and Cambridge.
This scheme was never carried out in its integrity, for on Wolsey's fall
his works were not completed, and were involved in his forfeiture. Few
things gave him more grief than the threatened check of this memorial of
his greatness, and owing to his earnest entreaties his college at Oxford
was spared and was refounded. Its name, however, was changed from
Cardinal College to Christ Church, and it was not entirely identified
with Wolsey's glory. The college at Ipswich fell into abeyance.
Wolsey's design for Cardinal College was on a magnificent scale. He
devised a large court surrounded by a cloister, with a spacious
dining-hall on one side. The hall was the first building which he took
in hand, and this fact is significant of his idea of academic life. He
conceived a college as an organic society of men living in common, and
by their intercourse generating and expressing a powerful body of
opinion. Contemporaries mocked and said, "A fine piece of business; this
cardinal projected a college and has built a tavern." They did not
understand that Wolsey was not merely adding to the number of Oxford
colleges, but was creating a society which should dominate the
University, and be the centre of a new intellectual movement. For this
purpose Wolsey devised a foundation which should be at once
ecclesiastical and civil, and should set forward his own conception of
the relations between the Church and the intellectual and social life of
the nation. His foundation consisted of a dean, sixty canons, six
professors, forty petty canons, twelve chaplains, twelve clerks, and
sixteen choristers; and he proposed to fill it with men of his own
choice, who would find there a fitting sphere for their energies.
Wolsey was a man well adapted to hold the balance between the old and
the new learning. He had been trained in the theology of the schools,
and was a student of St. Thomas Aquinas; but he had learned by the
training of life to understand the new ideas; he grasped their
importance, and he foresaw their triumph. He was a friend of the band of
English scholars who brought to Oxford the study of Greek, and he
sympathised with the intellectual aspirations of Grocyn, Colet, More,
and Erasmus. Perhaps he rather sympathised than understood; but his
influence was cast on their side when the opposition to the new learning
broke out in the University and the Trojans waged a desperate and at
first a successful war against the Greeks. The more ignorant among the
clerical teachers objected to any widening of the old studies, and
resented the substitution of biblical or patristic theology for the
study of the schoolmen. They dreaded the effects of the critical method,
and were not reassured when Grocyn, in a sermon at St. Paul's Cathedral,
declared that the writings attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite were
spurious. A wave of obscurantism swept over Oxford, and, as Tyndale puts
it, "the barking curs, Dun's disciples, the children of darkness, raged
in every pulpit against Greek, Latin, and Hebrew." Wolsey used the
king's authority to rebuke the assailants of learning; but the new
teachers withdrew from Oxford, and Wolsey saw that if the new learning
was to make way it must have a secure footing. Accordingly he set
himself to get the universities into his power, and in 1517 proposed to
found university lectureships in Oxford. Hitherto the teaching given in
the universities had been voluntary; teachers arose and maintained
themselves by a process of natural selection. Excellent as such a system
may seem, it did not lead to progress, and already the Lady Margaret,
Countess of Richmond, Henry VII.'s mother, had adopted the advice of
Bishop Fisher, and founded divinity professorships in the two
universities. Wolsey wished to extend this system and organise an entire
staff of teachers for university purposes. We do not know how far he
showed his intention, but such was his influence that Oxford submitted
its statutes to him for revision. Wolsey's hands were too full of other
work for him to undertake at once so delicate a matter; but he meant
undoubtedly to reorganise the system of university education, and for
this purpose prevailed on Cambridge also to entrust its statutes to his
hands. Again he had prepared the way for a great undertaking, and had
dexterously used his position to remove all obstacles, and prepare a
field for the work of reconstruction. Again he was prevented from
carrying out his designs, and his educational reform was never actually
made. We can only trace his intentions in the fact that he brought to
Oxford a learned Spaniard, Juan Luis Vives, to lecture on rhetoric, and
we may infer that he intended to provide both universities with a staff
of teachers chosen from the first scholars of Europe.
Another matter gives another indication of Wolsey's desire to remove the
grievances felt against the Church. If the monasteries were survivals of
a time when the Church discharged the humanitarian duties of society,
the ecclesiastical courts were in a like manner survivals of a time when
the civil courts were not yet able to deal with many points which
concerned the relations between man and man, or which regulated
individual conduct. Thus marriage was a religious ceremony, and all
questions which arose from the marriage contract were decided in the
ecclesiastical courts. Similarly wills were recognised by the Church, as
resting on the moral basis of mutual confidence, long before the State
was prepared to acknowledge their validity. Besides these cases which
arose from contract, the Church exercised a disciplinary supervision
over its members for the good of their souls, and to avoid scandals in a
Christian community. On all these points the principles of the Church
had leavened the conceptions of the State, and the civil jurisdiction
had in many matters overtaken the ecclesiastical. But the clerical
courts stood stubbornly upon their claim to greater antiquity, and the
activity of ecclesiastical lawyers found plenty of work to do.
Disciplinary jurisdiction was unduly extended by a class of trained
officials, and was resented by the growing independence of the rising
middle class. No doubt the ecclesiastical courts needed reform, but the
difficulties in the way of reforming legal procedure are always great.
Wolsey faced the problem in a way which is most characteristic of his
statesmanship. He strove to bring the question to maturity for solution
by getting the control of the ecclesiastical courts into his own hands.
For this purpose he used his exceptional position as Papal Legate, and
instituted a legatine court which should supersede the ordinary
jurisdiction. Naturally enough this brought him into collision with
Archbishop Warham, and his fall prevented him from developing his
policy. His attempt only left the ecclesiastical courts in worse
confusion, and added to the strength of the opposition, which soon
robbed them of most of their powers. It added also to Wolsey's
unpopularity, and gave a shadow of justice to the unworthy means which
were used for his destruction.
In fact, wherever we look, we see that in domestic affairs Wolsey had a
clear conception of the objects to be immediately pursued by a
conservative reformer. But a conservative reformer raises as much
hostility as does a revolutionist, for the mass of men are not
sufficiently foreseeing or sufficiently disinterested willingly to
abandon profitable abuses. They feel less animosity against the open
enemy who aims avowedly at their destruction, than against the seeming
friends who would deprive them of what they consider to be their rights.
The clergy submitted more readily to the abolition of their privileges
by the king than they would have submitted to a reform at the hands of
Wolsey. They could understand the one; they could not understand the
other. This was natural, for Wolsey had no lofty principles to set
before them; he had only the wisdom of a keen-sighted statesman, who
read the signs of the times. Indeed he did not waste his time in trying
to persuade others to see with his eyes. He could not have ventured to
speak out and say that the Church must choose between the tender mercies
of the royal power and submission to the discretion of one who, standing
between the king and the Pope, was prepared to throw a semblance of
ecclesiastical recognition over reforms which were inevitable. It is
clear that Wolsey was working for the one possible compromise, and he
hoped to effect it by his own dexterity. Secure of the royal favour,
secure through his political importance of the papal acquiescence in the
use which he made of his legatine power, standing forward as the chief
ecclesiastic in England, he aimed at accomplishing such reforms as would
have brought into harmony the relations between Church and State. He did
not hope to do this by persuasion, but by power, and had taken steps to
lay his hand cautiously on different parts of the ecclesiastical
organisation. With this idea before him we may safely acquit Wolsey of
any undue ambition for the papal office; he doubted whether his
influence would be increased or not by its possession.
In everything that Wolsey did he played for the highest stakes, and
risked all upon the hope of ultimate success. He trusted to justify
himself in the long-run, and was heedless of the opposition which he
called forth. Resting solely upon the royal favour, he did not try to
conciliate, nor did he pause to explain. Men could not understand his
ends, but they profoundly disliked his means. The suppression of small
monasteries, which might be useless but served to provide for younger
sons or dependants of country families, was very unpopular, as coming
from a cardinal who enjoyed the revenues of many ecclesiastical offices
whose duties he did not discharge. The setting up of a legatine court
was hateful to the national sentiment of Englishmen, who saw in it only
another engine of ecclesiastical oppression. The pomp and magnificence
wherewith Wolsey asserted a greatness which he mainly valued as a means
of doing his country service, was resented as the vulgar arrogance of an
upstart. Wolsey's ideas were too great to pay any heed to the prejudices
of Englishmen which, after all, have determined the success of all
English ministers, and which no English statesman has ever been powerful
enough to disregard.