Thomas Cardinal Wolsey

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the life of Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (1475-1530) who was the Lord Chancellor to King Henry VIII. It provides a brief outline of his life from his childhood, education, rise in the church and finally to his position under the King. It looks at how Wolsey was treated as a trusted and capable, if ambitious, man who carried out the King's will but often did so in ways that he devised himself and not infrequently, developed strategies of his own that were sanctioned by the King. It analyzes whether Wolsey's eventual disgrace and fall and Henry's willingness to treat him as a scapegoat merit the term pawn and how Wolsey's status as his own man, rather than a pawn of the King, must be judged in terms of what he wished to accomplish rather than by current standards.

From the Paper:

"Wolsey was the son of a prosperous grazier and his brilliance secured him a place at Magdalene College Oxford. He was ordained in 1498 and began his relatively slow climb to eminence by serving various influential men until, in 1507, he became chaplain to Henry VII and, in 1509, was appointed almoner and counselor to Henry VIII. From that point on Wolsey's rise proceeded at great speed--in both the ecclesiastical and secular realms. In 1514 he was appointed archbishop of York and in 1515 he was elevated to cardinal and to Lord Chancellor. Wolsey always coveted the position of archbishop of Canterbury, who was usually the effective head of the English church since the only other archbishopric in England, York, took in only the impoverished northern reaches. Gaining the cardinal's hat helped him achieve greater prominence in the church but it was not until, in 1518, Wolsey achieved the unusual status of papal legate (legatus a latere), or papal viceroy, that the cardinal became "as supreme over the English Church as Henry's favor made him over the English state" (Bindoff 83)."

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