Thomas Cromwell: The Rise And Fall Of Henry VIII's Most Notorious Minister (7 page)

Norfolk, their chief protagonist, was painfully aware that if the Cardinal ever succeeded in clambering back to office, he would probably be the first to end up in the Tower of London to avenge his prime role in Wolsey’s disgrace. Therefore, the Duke successfully conspired with his court allies to ensure that the prelate should ‘go home to his benefice’, to live out his days as a pious churchman as remotely as possible from the intrigues of the court or any hope of restoration to power. When Cromwell informed Wolsey of the decision, he answered ingenuously: ‘Well then, Thomas, we will go to Winchester.’ This was still too close to London and the Cardinal should immediately have perceived that it was his own political exile, pure and simple, that lay behind the pronouncement. Cromwell, the realist, understood this only too well and sought guidance from Norfolk. The Duke, resolute that his defeated opponent should live out his remaining days far from a still sympathetic Henry, insisted on York being Wolsey’s final destination. Not a man for the polite nuances of diplomatic language, he told Cromwell bluntly: ‘I think that the Cardinal your master makes no haste to go northward. Tell him if he go not away shortly but shall tarry, I shall tear him with my teeth. I would advise him to prepare himself as quickly as he can, or else he shall be sent forward.’
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Wolsey protested that he had no money for the journey and the King’s Council grudgingly agreed to advance him a thousand marks (£670) from the pension due to him from the bishopric of Winchester. The King generously added a further £1000 (or £350,000 in modern spending power) out of his own Privy Purse. He handed the cash over to Cromwell to pass on to Wolsey, adding, reassuringly, that the Cardinal should be of good cheer. By now, Wolsey had unwisely recovered some of his old arrogance and pride, and demanded that he should travel in the style properly befitting an Archbishop of York. Cromwell therefore had to scurry around officials and reluctant donors, seeking loans to top up Wolsey’s funds.
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On 5 April, the Cardinal left Richmond for York at the head of a procession of 160 horsemen, with a convoy of ships taking his remaining possessions up from London by sea. It was probably the last time that Cromwell met him face to face. On 28 April, Wolsey arrived at Southwell, Nottinghamshire, entering for the first time the church province he had ruled as metropolitan since August 1514.
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He was not a happy man and wrote to Henry with more pleas for money: ‘I have come into my diocese unfurnished, to my extreme heaviness, of everything that I and my poor folks should be entertained with … I have neither corn nor cattle, nor anything to keep household with.’ Moreover, his houses were ‘despoiled … and in such ruin and decay … that a great part of the portion assigned to me to live with for one year will scantily, in a very base and mean fashion, repair and make the same … to be inhabited.’ He complained of being ‘wrapped in misery and need on every side; not knowing where to be succoured or relieved but only at your highness’ most merciful and charitable hands’.
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Henry did not deign to reply. Mercy and compassion were qualities held in very limited stocks by the Tudors. The court was alive with rumours, some clearly malicious, about Wolsey’s return to extravagance. Sir John Gage told Cromwell on 13 April ‘that he rode in such sumptuous fashion that some men thought he was of as good courage as in times past and that there was no impediment but lack of authority’. Cromwell wrote a stern letter to Wolsey advising him to ‘quiet yourself’ and be patient.

Sir, there be some that allege that your grace do keep too great a house and family [household] and that you are continually building.

For the love of God … as I often times have done, [I] most heartily beseech you to have respect to everything and considering the time, to refrain yourself for a season [from] all manner [of] buildings than mere necessity requires, which I assure your grace shall cease and put to silence some persons that speak much of the same.

Cromwell was now more confident of his future and his letter assumed an astonishingly presumptuous, impertinent tone as he lectured Wolsey on the realities of his exile. Forget the vain trappings of wealth, he urged, and concentrate on achieving those greater gifts bestowed by enjoying a simple, devoutly religious existence. Cromwell’s conceited words must have been unbearable to read for a man who once aspired to wear the triple papal tiara of St Peter:

I do reckon your grace right happy that you be now at liberty to serve God and to learn how to experiment how you shall banish and exile the vain desires of this unstable world, which undoubtedly does nothing else but allure every person therein …

In studying and seeking, besides the great travails and afflictions that men suffer daily, most persons [having] been driven to extreme repentance and, searching for pleasure and felicity, find nothing but trouble, sorrow, anxiety and adversity.

Wherefore, in my opinion, your grace being as you are … [can] win a hundred times as much as ever you were possessed of.

His audacious hectoring over, Cromwell thanks the Cardinal ‘for the geldings’ sent to him, and apologises for not visiting him at Southwell because of ‘importune business’: ‘Be assured I am and during my life shall be with your grace in heart … spirit, prayer and service to the uttermost of my poor and simple power. As Our Lord knows, whom I most heartily beseech to preserve your grace long life, good health and the increase of your heart’s desire.’
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These were silver-tongued words from a man now comfortably in the King’s service. Wolsey could hardly complain about Cromwell’s insolence as he was the only friend he now
had at court. That so-called friend, always the opportunist, was now making money out of his misfortune.

Cromwell actively assisted the King in diverting revenues from the suppressed monasteries, originally granted to Wolsey’s two colleges, to the purses of Henry’s cronies at court. He also arranged for incomes from the see of Winchester and the monastery of St Alban’s to be redistributed amongst the King’s favourites. Wolsey wrote to the King’s new secretary Stephen Gardiner, who had formerly worked for him, complaining that ‘he did not deserve to have lost Winchester and St Alban’s, having done no offence to the king’.
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It made no difference. George Cavendish reported:

Both noblemen and others who had any patents of the king … do make earnest suit to Master Cromwell to solicit their causes to my lord [Wolsey] to get out of him his confirmations.

And for his pains therein sustained, they promised, every man, not only to worthily reward him but also to show him such pleasures as should lie at all times in their several powers …

Cromwell perceived an occasion given him by time to enrich himself … and having a great occasion of access to the king for the disposition of diverse lands, whereof he had the order and governance, by means whereof and by his witty demeanour, he grew continually in the king’s favour.
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Wolsey could only bleat to Cromwell: ‘I am greatly desirous to understand and hear from you how affairs stand and proceed, not only concerning my colleges but also my own poor estate, in the relief whereof my own undoubted trust is that you will, in all places and times, show yourself … my assured friend and only comfort.’
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Cromwell’s skills at conveyancing had taken on a new meaning. A generous gratuity here, a small token of esteem there, and Cromwell had sorted out his affairs to the benefit of his new friends at court and the satisfaction of all except that sick old discarded servant of the crown, safely ensconced out of harm’s way in the North.

Henry later suppressed Wolsey’s college at Ipswich, dispersed its students and staff and appropriated its possessions and rents. Cardinal’s
College, Oxford, continued but, with a characteristic twist of the royal knife, he decreed that its name should be changed to ‘King Henry VIII’s College’. Wolsey’s personal heraldry was removed from the stained-glass windows and from over the doorways. In 1546, the foundation was reorganised and it became Christ Church, Oxford. Wolsey was grief-stricken, telling Cromwell in July 1530 that he was ‘disposed and put from my sleep and meat in consequence of the news of the dissolution of my colleges … I cannot write [more] for weeping and sorrow’.
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He must have heard suggestions that his former solicitor was not entirely honest in dealing on his behalf. With typical bare-faced effrontery, Cromwell’s last surviving letter to his former master, dated 18 October 1530, dared him to openly make any accusations of double-dealing. His words then become threatening:

I am informed your grace [holds] me in some diffidence, as if I did dissemble with you, or procure anything contrary to your profit and honour. I much muse that your grace should think or repeat it secretly, considering the pains that I have taken.

I beseech you to speak without feigning, if you have such conceit, that I may clear myself. I reckoned that [you] would have written plainly to me of such a thing, rather than secretly to have misrepresented me.

But I shall bear your grace no less good will. Let God judge between us.

Truly, your grace in some things over-shoots yourself. There is regard to be given [to] what things you utter and to whom.
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His warning about loose talk and unwise actions was perhaps timely. Wolsey was preparing at last to be enthroned as Archbishop of York on 7 November. He had summoned ‘all the lords, abbots, priors, knights esquires and gentlemen of his diocese to be at his manor of Cawood
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the 6 of November and so bring him to York with all manner of pomp and solemnity’.
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It was plain he still yearned for his lost riches and the trappings of past glories and wrote to Henry, seeking ‘the mitre and pall which he had formerly been accustomed to use in celebrating the divine office’. When he read this letter, the King marvelled greatly at Wolsey’s ‘brazen insolence’, adding, ‘Is there still arrogance in this fellow, who is so obviously ruined?’
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There were yet more serious charges to lay at Wolsey’s door. His enemies claimed he was in secret communication with the Pope and was engaged in ‘sinister practices made to the court of Rome for restoring him to his former estate and dignity’,
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as the King claimed in a letter to Sir Francis Bryan, his ambassador in France. Moreover, a papal brief had been issued against Henry at Bologna, forbidding, under pain of excommunication, his marriage to Anne Boleyn and ordering him to expel her from court. The brief could well be published during Wolsey’s enthronement at York. Enough was enough, as far as Henry was concerned. Wolsey must now face a charge of high treason.

He was arrested at Cawood Castle, 12 miles (19 km) from York, as he sat down to dinner on Friday, 4 November and was moved to the Earl of Shrewsbury’s home at Sheffield Park. There, Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower of London and Captain of the Guard, with twenty-four men, arrived on 22 November to take him into custody and escort him to the capital – and certain imprisonment, if not death. Wolsey laboured under a curious superstition about the name Kingston as, years before, he had been told by a fortune-teller that he would meet his end there. When in royal service he had always avoided the Surrey town on the banks of the Thames ‘even though it was the nearest way for him to use to [go to] the court’. Now he saw the constable and blanched at his surname. ‘“Master Kingston,” said he, rehearsing his name once or twice and with that clapped his hand on his thigh and gave a great sigh.’
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Adversity loosened Wolsey’s tongue. He cautioned Cromwell that if ever he became a member of Henry’s Council, ‘I warn you to be well advised and assured what matter you put into his head, for you shall never put it out again … I have often kneeled before him in his Privy Chamber on my knees the space of an hour or two, to persuade him from his will and appetite, but I could never … dissuade him.’
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The sombre party with its corpulent, disconsolate prisoner proceeded south by easy stages and reached Leicester Abbey on Saturday, 26 November, where Wolsey fell sick. As he lay on what was to become his death bed, a messenger from the King arrived seeking information about the sum of £1500 reportedly missing from the inventory of his
possessions rapidly taken at Cawood Castle. Despite his failing health, the Cardinal was enraged. Rather than defraud Henry of just one penny, he declared, ‘I would rather it were molten and put into my mouth.’ Kingston added his voice to the enquiries about the lost cash. ‘I will not conceal it from the king,’ said Wolsey, ‘but will declare it to you or I die, by the grace of God. Take a little patience with me, I beseech you.’
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The Constable returned for his answer at six o’clock the next morning, 29 November 1530. Clearly, Wolsey was dying. He told Kingston, his words tinged with wry bitterness:

I see the matter makes you much worse than you should be against me. How it is framed I know not.

If I had served God as diligently as I have the king, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs.

This is my just reward that I must receive for my worldly diligence and pains that I have had to do his service, only to satisfy his vain pleasure, not regarding my godly duty.
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Wolsey gave up the ghost about two hours later, still silent on the whereabouts of the missing £1500. He probably died from dysentery, although some ‘reckoned he killed himself with purgations’.
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He was aged around sixty. His body was quickly placed in a wooden coffin, dressed in fine vestments, a mitre on his head and a crosier across his body. The lid was left off, and the Mayor of Leicester was summoned to view the corpse, ‘to avoid false rumours that might happen to say that he was not dead, but still living’.
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Other dignitaries trooped in to confirm, in a macabre ritual, that Wolsey was not feigning death. His body was buried in the Lady Chapel of St Mary’s Abbey, Leicester, at about four o’clock the next morning, amid a thunderstorm.