Thomas Wolsey

Sarah Barker Wolsey’s Fall

Thomas Wolsey fell from his extreme height of power in 1529, but how? Wolsey had famously grown from a butchers son to one of the most powerful people in England at that time so what brought him to be accused of treason. Henry VIII trusted Wolsey as his right hand man for a long time and it has been argued that he saw him as his personal trust worthy servant but there have also been different opinions stating that Wolsey was the one who was manipulating the King to get what he wanted as he had an extreme amount of power, some argue even more than the King. "Wolsey was destroyed because he had become a liability in the eyes of the king and was expendable. This has fundamental implications for reassessing his relationship with Henry." (John Guy).
When Wolsey wasn’t able to get a divorce for King Henry and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, he become angry and disappointed with him as he had not been able to do what he requested, even though Wolsey did offer a different solution to the problem Henry refused to listen and demanded that he was to get it done his way. As Wolsey wasn’t able to give the king what he demanded and was unable to change his mind on how to address the subject, he lost a lot of Henrys respect and trust. Peter Gwynn argues that Wolsey’s disappointing the king was the main reason that he fell as he states ‘the real architect of Wolsey’s fall is Henry himself: outraged at his Cardinals failure to secure an annulment of the Aragon marriage he brought his servant down in a fit of pique.’ The Kind had always blamed Wolsey for the failure to be able to get a divorce and so he had something against him, it is easy therefore to believe that it was in fact Henry VIII who made Wolsey plummet from his statue of power to having almost nothing.
There were also other factures in Wolsey’s life that should be considered, such as the fact that Anne Boleyn has been proven to dislike Wolsey and she had a great deal of control over Henry and was continuously trying to influence his opinion on him. This argument also revolves around the marriage and divorce of Catherine but from Anne Boleyn and her family’s view. As the divorce of Henry and Catherine and the marriage of Anne and Henry would make Anne and her family extremely more powerful and as high up as you can be without being in the royal family it is obvious that they wanted Henry to get the divorce sop that they could have this height in power. As Wolsey was the one Henry told to get this done they would have blamed him when it didn’t happen. This means that the Boleyn Family now dislike Wolsey; this is proven when Anne Boleyn writes a letter to Cardinal Wolsey in 1526 stating ‘the wrong that you have done me has caused me much sorrow.’ (Taken from source Y Pg. 53). Eric Ives, Her biographer, call’s Wolsey’s fall ‘First and foremost Anne’s success’. Her obvious dislike toward him should be taken into account. David Starkey also argues that there were battles between the Council and the court (‘minions’). Wolsey was often sending ‘The Gentlemen of the chamber’, who were the Kings close friends, away on foreign diplomatic trips and was able to get then expulsion from court in 1519. These factors would have helped the anti-Wolsey propaganda and therefore fuelling Anne Boleyn’s attempts to turn Henry against him. Although all of these factors should be considered in the overall opinion of how Thomas Wolsey fell from power it doesn’t seem that those alone are enough to destroy a smart man such as himself, therefore this is considered but it was not the main factor.
John Guy (historian) thinks that it Wolsey that made himself fall. He believes that Wolsey got to arrogant and obsessed with the amount of power that he had, he started by taking every order the King gave but then, over time, started advising the king and then simply telling him what was best. This behaviour was noted in as early as 1519 by the Venetian ambassador. The actions of Wolsey would have seemed treacherous to some and so it was his own fault that he was thought of in a negative view and got pushed down to have no authority at all, in Guy’s view.
There were many against Wolsey for many different reasons and it seems that as soon as they saw there change to, they would try to bring him down. It is obvious that a lot of people didn’t like him from comments such as ‘thus Wolsey, with his arrogance and ambition aroused against himself the hatred of the whole country’, written by Polydore Vergil in 1534. Polydore Vergil was an Italian humanist who disliked Wolsey as he sent him to the Tower of London and so was always to write unkind things about him but even though Vergil did have a personal grudge against him his words should still be taken into consideration as he was not the only one to write bad things about Wolsey as Ian Dawson wrote ‘any conclusion on Wolsey seems to carry out a air of disappointment’, in 1993. It is therefore fair to say that Wolsey was reasonably unpopular and had a few people who would gladly vote against him, also including Anne Boleyn and her family. As Wolsey was unable to get the divorce for Henry he did not just let down Anne Boleyn and her family but the King himself and as Henry’s ego was quite large he decided to blame the failure of being able to get a divorce on Wolsey even though he had given him an alternative answer that would get him the result that he wanted. As Wolsey upset the king he settled his fate and so when he started to fall all the people he had used his power on pushed him down even more. It is hard to say what specific thing it was that made him plummet from his height of power but it is easy to see how it happened.