СНАР. XXVIII. Wolsey causes death of Duke of Bucking ham. in vain, only observed, "Know ye not that this man is drunk with too much prosperity." But the Judge of his Legatine Court, whom, for a private purpose, he had appointed with a knowledge that he had been guilty of perjury,—having been convicted of some gross malversation, the King himself expressed such displeasure to the Cardinal as made him ever after more cautious in exerting his authority. These follies would have left no lasting stain on the memory of Wolsey, but he was now instrumental in the violent death of a rival through the forms of law. The Duke of Buckingingham, representing the ancient family of Stafford, and hereditary High Constable of England, stood the first in rank and consequence among the nobility. He viewed with envy and jealousy the elevation of the butcher's son, who was at no pains to gain his good will, and on several occasions they had passed affronts on each other. Buckingham's character was marked by levity and indiscretion, as well as by ambition and arrogance. Being descended through a female from the Duke of Gloucester, youngest son of Edward III., he pretended that he had a right to the Crown if the King should die without issue, forgetting the claims of the King's sisters, the dowagers of Scotland and France, and their descendants. Wolsey worked upon Henry's hatred of all collaterally connected with the blood royal, which he showed during the whole course of his reign, and caused Buckingham to be arrested and brought to trial for high treason. The evidence against him consisted almost entirely of idle and vaunting language held with servants who, if they spoke true, betrayed his confidence, and of certain dealings with soothsayers, who had foretold that he should be King. The apologists of Wolsey have insisted that the sentence against Buckingham was just, because it was unanimously pronounced by a Court consisting of a Duke, a Marquis, seven Earls, and twelve Barons,-forgetting that in that age, and for long after, no one charged by the Crown for high treason was ever acquitted, and that trial before a jury, and still more before the Lord High Steward and a selection of Peers, was an empty form. Buckingham, who was a great object of affection with the vulgar, was considered a victim to the resentment of the XXVIII. Cardinal. After the Duke of Norfolk, with hypocritical CHAP. tears, had condemned him to suffer the death of a traitor, he was ordered to be carried by water from Westminster Hall to the Tower; but owing to the state of the tide at London Bridge, he was landed at the Temple Stairs, and conducted through the city. On this occasion, as well as at his execution, the curses were loud and deep upon the “ venommouthed cur" who was alleged to be the cause of his death. But in those days slight account was made of the heads of men*, and legal murders were so usual that they were not long remembered against those who perpetrated them. The Cardinal's power was rather greater than before, by thus intimidating the great families from whom so much disquietude had formerly been experienced, and his popularity soon revived. the pope The excitement of a new object of ambition extinguished Aims at any feeling of remorse which might have disturbed his own dom, bosom. He now aimed at the triple crown. The Emperor May, 1520. Charles V., when visiting England, suggested to him his fitness to be the successor of St. Peter, and promised him his interest on a vacancy,—with the less scruple as Leo X., the reigning Pope, was in the flower of his age. Francis I. tried to do away the effects of this intrigue by June, 1520. contriving the famous interview with Henry in "the field of the cloth of gold," "When those suns of glory, those two lights of men, Met in the vale of Ardres." But Wolsey was invited to visit Charles at Bruges, and went thither in the character of ambassador from England. Cavendish is eloquent in describing the splendour of his train and the sumptuousnesss of his reception: -" His gentlemen being in number very many, clothed in heavy coats of crimson * I may mention, as an instance of the levity with which cutting off heads was talked of, the manner in which Henry raised the supplies when there was some reluctance to grant them. He sent for Mr. Montague, an opposition leader in the Commons, and said to him, "Ho, man! will they not suffer my bill to pass?" and laying his hand on the head of Montague, who was then on his knees before him, "Get my bill passed by to-morrow, or else to-morrow this head of yours shall be off." This bill was passed, or some trumped-up charge of treason might have cost him his life, and made a nine-days' wonder. XXVIII. CHAP. velvet of the most purest colour that might be invented, with chains of gold about their necks, and all his yeomen and other mean officers were in coats of fine scarlet guarded with black velvet a hand broad. Also the Emperor's officers every night went through the town from house to house, where as any Englishmen lay or resorted, and there served their liveries for all night, which was done after this manner:— first, the Emperor's officers brought into the house a cast of fine manchet bread, two great silver pots, with wine and a pound of fine sugar, white lights and yellow; a bowl or goblet of silver, to drink in, and every night a staff-torch. Thus the Emperor entertained the Cardinal and all his train for the time of his embassy there; and that done he returned home again into England with great triumph." Charles on this occasion again encouraged Wolsey to aspire to the tiara, and the sincerity of his promise of support was soon unexpectedly put to the test by the sudden demise of his Holiness. Wolsey was immediately in the field with high hopes of success, as the Imperial party was decidedly the strongest in the conclave. Charles wrote a friendly letter to Wolsey, inclosing the copy of one he had written to his ambassador at Rome, enjoining him to urge the Cardinals to elect Wolsey to the papal chair. There were twenty votes for Wolsey, and twenty-six would have been sufficient to carry the election in his favour; but there can be no doubt that he was trifled with, and, to save appearances the Conclave having sat an unusual length of time, the Emperor's own tutor was raised to the Popedom, under the title of Adrian VI. Charles, dreading the loss of the English alliance from Wolsey's disappointment, immediately after made him another visit in this country, augmented his pension, and renewed the promise of aiding his pretensions on the next vacancy, an event which, from Adrian's age and infirmities, could not be far distant. Wolsey suppressed his resentment, adhered to the Imperial party, and devoted himself to measures for strengthening his interest with the College of Cardinals at Rome. Adrian died in about a year and a half after his elevation. Wolsey again entered the lists with his characteristic zeal. Henry, at his request, wrote in the most urgent terms to the XXVIII. Emperor, reminding him of his repeated promises, and calling CHAP. upon him now to fulfil them, as he valued his friendship; -and the English ambassadors and agents at Rome were instructed Sept. 1523. to spare among the members of the conclave neither bribes nor promises. But Wolsey was again deceived, and Cardinal Giulio de Medici, with the concurrence of the imperial party, was elected Pope, under the title of Clement VII. * He secretly resolved to be revenged of the perfidy of Charles, by for ever forsaking his alliance; but, meanwhile, he concealed his disgust; and, after congratulating the new Pope on his promotion, applied for a continuation of the legatine powers which the last two Popes had conferred upon him. Clement, knowing the importance of gaining his friendship, granted him the commission for life; and Wolsey was thus reinvested with the whole Papal authority in England. He now showed, in a striking manner, that devoted love of His love of learning and ardour for good education which distinguished education. him through life, and by which his memory has been redeemed from the failings and vices he exhibited. Though ashamed of his low origin if girded by the ancient nobility, he looked back with satisfaction on that part of his career when he was master of Magdalen school at Oxford, and tutor to the sons of the Marquess of Dorset; and he was at all times willing to render available the experience he then acquired. He superintended, with assiduous care, the training of the Earl of Richmond, his godson (natural son of the King); and in his own handwriting drew up, with the Wolsey's letter on this occasion to Lord Bath, ambassador at Rome, very undisguisedly exhorts him to exert himself to the utmost among the Cardinals, "not sparing any reasonable offers, which is a thing that amongst so many needy persons is more regarded than per-case the qualities of the person; ye be wise, and ye wot what I mean. The King thinketh that all the Imperials shall clearly be with you, if faith be in the Emperor. The young men, which for the most part being needy, will give good ears to fair offers, which shall be undoubtedly performed. The King willeth you neither to spare his authority or his good money or substance.' - Fidd. Coll. 87. The letter is still preserved in which Wolsey informs the King of his disappointment, which he ascribes entirely to intimidation. After stating the threats of violence held out to the Cardinals, he says, "Albeit they were in manner principally bent upon me, yet for eschewing the said danger and murmur, by inspiration of the Holy Goste, without farther difficulty, the xixth day of the last month, in the morning, elected and choose Cardinal de Medicis, who immediately was published Pope, and hath taken the name of Clement VII."— Fidd. Coll. 82. CHAP. utmost minuteness, a plan for the household and for the tuition of the boy when entering his sixth year. XXVIII. A new April, 1523. The domestic education of the Princess Mary was likewise under the care of the Prime Minister; and in the height of his power and ambition, after deciding a great cause in Chancery, or dictating a treaty which was to change the face of affairs in Europe, he stooped to determine whether or not the Princess should have "spice plates and a ship of silver for the almes dish ;" and whether "a trumpet and rebeks were a fitting toye for her pastime hours at the solempne fest of Christmas." He framed the regulations for St. Paul's School, founded by Dean Collet; and he caused a new Latin Grammar to be composed, to which he himself wrote an introduction. He revised and remodelled the statutes of his own and several other colleges at Oxford; and he likewise introduced very salutary reforms at Cambridge, under a power conferred upon him by the senate of that University. Having suppressed a number of smaller monasteries, instead of appropriating their revenues to himself, or bestowing them on some rapacious courtier, he employed them in endowing splendid establishments, which he hoped would spread the blessings of knowledge, with his own fame, through distant generations. After an interval of seven years a parliament was called, parliament, as the irregular modes of filling the Exchequer, which had been resorted to, had proved ineffectual. On the first day of the session, on the King's right side, at his feet, sat the Cardinal of York; and at the rail behind stood Tunstal, Bishop of London, who made an eloquent oration to the parliament on the office of a King. Wolsey, it seems, had thought it more for his dignity to depute the task of delivering the speech to another; but he took the lead in all the subsequent proceedings.* 1 Parl. Hist. 484. |