The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (Pimlico) (95 page)
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Authors: Peter Gwyn
4
From this point Wolsey will usually be referred to just as legate rather than more correctly legate
a latere
.
5
Cavendish, pp.15-16. Cavendish writes that this disagreement took place before Wolsey became cardinal, but if it occurred at all, it could only have done after, when there were genuine reasons for disputing who legally had precedence. In a parallel case, Eugenius
IV
had ruled that Cardinal Kemp had precedence over Archbishop Chichele, despite the fact that Kemp was then only archbishop of York. For the disagreement see M.J. Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’, pp.150-1.
6
Visitations made following the death or translation of a bishop and before the consecration of his successor. See Register of Henry Chichele for the best account of Canterbury’s powers.
7
Cavendish’s version; see Cavendish, p.91; Hall, p.758.
8
A rather composite picture of Wolsey’s ecclesiastical reputation, but see Dickens,
English Reformation
, pp.38-41, and more recently Haigh’s comment: ‘But while no charge against Wolsey was too gross to be impossible, Wolsey was not the Church’ (
History
, 68, p.394).
9
Rymer, xiii, pp.621-2.
10
LP
, ii, 4170.
11
GRO, MS 9531/9/fo.136;
Registrum Caroli Bothe
, p.65.
12
Richard Fox, pp.114-17.
13
LP
, iii, 63.
14
LP
, iii, 77.
15
LP
, iii, 162.
16
Richard Fox, pp.114-17.
17
Ortory, pp.255-9.
18
Ibid, p.258.
19
Ibid, p.255.
20
In fact if conflict at the 1523 convocation is discounted, for which see pp.286 ff. below, there is no evidence that the two men did not get on, and when Wolsey had his important conversation with Fisher about the divorce in 1527, he began by saying: ‘My Lord, you and I have been of an old acquaintance, and the one hath loved and trusted the other’; see
St. P
, i, p.198 (
LP
, iv, 3231). Of course, Wolsey was intending to please Fisher in beginning thus, but if his remarks were blatantly untrue, it would have hardly have been a very intelligent opening gambit.
21
Owst, pp.210-86.
22
Harper-Bill,
JEH
, 29, p.12.
23
Printed in Lupton, pp.293-304; for Kelly’s redating to 1510 from 1512 see Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’, p.112. Harper-Bill in
History
, lxxiii, p.191 retains the traditional dating without comment.
24
Kelly, ‘Canterbury jurisdiction’, p.114.
25
Registrum Caroli Bothe
, p.66.
26
Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln
, xxxiii, pp.148-52; see also Bowker,
Secular Clergy
, pp.124-6, though the implication that the contents of the legatine constitutions are known is misleading.
27
For Ely see EDR B/2/l/fos.18 ff.; discussed in Heal, ‘Bishops of Ely’, pp.51-3.
28
Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln
, xxxiii, 148.
29
Rymer
, xiii, p.740, from the legatine commission of April 1521 which greatly increased the scope of Wolsey’s powers.
30
Williamson, p.164. I have found this article to be the most useful work on the general issue of the role and authority of papal legates.
31
Lyndwood
, pp.11, 154.
32
Bowker,
Secular Clergy
, pp.125-6.
33
Wilkins, iii, pp.662-82.
34
Registrum Caroli Bothe
, p.66: ‘
de habitu clericorum deque vita moribusque ordinandorum . . alia capitula et articulos prelotos tangentes
’.
35
Wilkins, iii, p.661; Richard Fox, p.122 (
LP
, iii, 414) in which he accepts Wolsey’s arguments for postponement.
36
Pantin (ed.),
English Black Monks
, pp.118-19 for the Benedictines;
Butley Priory
, pp.36-9 for the Augustinians;
LP
, iii, 475 for the Cistercians.
37
Together the three orders comprised about 80 per cent of all monastic houses. For a useful summary of facts and figures see Hughes, pp.31 ff.
38
Knowles,
Religious Orders
, iii, pp.33-8. For Richard Redman’s visitations of the Premonstratensians see ibid, pp.39-51.
39
Burne, pp.1-35.
40
See especially Haigh,
Reformation and Resistance
, pp.118 ff.
41
Bowker,
Henrician Reformation
, pp.44-f., 122-3. In Chichester the bishop presented to 23 out of 278 benefices, though during his long episcopate Sherborne was able to increase that number to 32; see Lander, ‘Diocese of Chichester’, pp.191 ff.
42
Richard Fox, p.95 (
LP
, iii, 2207).
43
Ibid, pp.150-l.(
LP
, iv, 3815).
44
Ibid, pp.86 ff.
45
Ibid, pp.79-80 (
LP
, ii, 730).
46
Visitations c.1515-1525
.
47
S. Thompson, ‘The bishop in his diocese’, p.75.
48
Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich
.
49
Lander, ‘Diocese of Chichester’, pp.163 ff.
50
Longland.
51
Bowker,
Henrician Reformation
, pp.12, 17-28.
52
Perry, p.712 for the abbot’s authorization, and for transcripts of all the documents see ibid, pp.704-22; also
Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln
, xxxv, p.209.
53
Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln
, xxxv, p.214.
54
For Longland’s request to Wolsey for help in appointing a new abbot see
LP
, iv, 5189, though there dated 1529; see also Knowles,
Monastic Orders
, iii, pp.70-2.
55
Knowles,
Religious Orders
, iii, pp.91-9 for portraits of both men.
56
Pantin (ed.),
English Black Monks
, pp.117-22.
57
Hughes, p.67 for this translation; Latin text in Pantin (ed.),
English Black Monks
, pp.123-4.
58
Knowles,
Religious Orders
, ii, pp.182-4.
59
William More, p.108. More’s journal contains further evidence of the 1520 general chapter.
60
Wilkins, iii, pp.683-8; see also
Chapters of the Augustinian Canon
, pp.xxxv-viii.
61
Wilkins, 688: ‘Et si quid religiosis huiusmodi onerosum nimis et importabile, sive aliquid addendum vel minuendum in eisdem statutis compertum ficerit, id tune moderare et reformare, ac eisdem addere vel diminuere, secundum quod res expostulare videbitur curabimus’.
62
For the history of this order during this period see Colvin, pp.227 ff; Knowles,
Religious Orders
, pp.39-52.
63
Knowles and Hadcock, pp.135-6, 194-9.
64
For the lower figure see Hughes, p.70, for the higher Knowles,
Religious Orders
, iii, p.52.
65
Knowles,
Religious Orders
, iii, p.52.
66
CWM
, 4, pp.83-4, 347.
67
See p.47 above.
68
Scarisbrick, in
Reformation
, p.6 says one in five gave money to friars, while Bowker, in
Henrician Reformation
, p.48, suggests 22 per cent for the archdeaconry of Lincoln but in the archdeaconry of Buckingham nothing was given. See also Whiting, SH, 5, p.70.
69
For the Franciscan Observants in England K.D. Brown is now the major work. Sadly it was not available to me when I was writing this chapter, but I am grateful for the author’s comments on my own treatment of the order. See also Knowles,
Religious Orders
, iii, pp.10-13, 206-11.
70
King’s Works
, pp.96 ff.
71
Knowles,
Religious Orders
, pp.206-11.
72
LP
, iv, 477, 478.
73
LP
, iv, 610.
74
LP
, iv, 759.
75
Monumenta Franciscana
, p.190 for an account of the visitation.
76
It was K.D. Brown who suggested I reconsider my rather over-optimistic remarks about the choice of Standish.
77
LP
, iv, 587, 1777. I remain sceptical about the illegality, if only because in most cases Wolsey showed a great concern to act within the law and the gaps in the evidence make any certainty impossible.
78
Monumenta Franciscana
, pp.190-1.
79
Roth, pp.431 ff for the whole episode.
80
LP
, iii, 2163. Dowman acted as auditor in Wolsey’s court of audience; Wolman was Wolsey’s vicar-general at Bath and Wells 1518-22, and also presented the case against the validity of Henry
VIII
’s marriage to Catherine when the matter appeared before Wolsey’s legatine court in 1527.
81
Registrum Statutorum et Consuetudinem Ecclesiae Cathedralis Sancti Pauli Londiniensis
, pp.249-63.
