Cardinal Wolsey: Material and the Man

hello and welcome back to the channel if you're new here hi you're very welcome this is reading the past and i'm dr cat and i've often asserted just how important i think material items are for helping us to read the past in that i'm talking about buildings texts paintings and also textiles but can i prove that assertion well i think i can and today i'm going to try because i think that by looking at a small and comparatively overlooked material item a little piece of textile that we can gain insight into the personality of one of the most powerful and influential figures in the formative years of the henrison regime i'm talking about thomas woolsey let's go [Music] thomas woolsey was born in 1470 or 1471. he was famously derided during his lifetime by those who were displeased by his elevation as the butcher's boy from ipswich from this we get the idea i think that woolsey came from nothing to one of the highest offices in the land as henry viii's friend confidante and advisor however that somewhat simplifies matters in painting his life as a rags to rich's tale certainly woolsey's background was markedly different from the majority of those who he would come to work and live alongside at court however evidently his family was in a financial position to allow him to attend school and university there was someone on hand to pay for this equally his family were in a position to allow him to go down this path rather than setting him on a different journey where he could more rapidly become financially useful to them for example as another set of hands in the family business as it was woolsey was able to make use of whatever advantages came his way from ipswich school he would eventually end up studying at maudlin college oxford it seems he was a precocious intellect and came to be known as the boy bachelor he obtained his ba at just 15 in 1486. he remained at oxford to get his m.a and also to fill the role of first junior and then senior bursa he was made master of mortal in school and in 1500 he was made the dean of divinity woolsey had previously been ordained as a priest on the 10th of march 1498. many would no doubt consider woolsey's position to be an excellent one however as we will soon find out woolsey was not done the holding of more than one religious benefits or ecclesiastical office is known as pluralism and it is a questionable undertaking in canon law however woolsey wanted the benefits on the 3rd of november 1501 he was successful in his application and was granted a papal bull or license to do just that his first position was the rectory of limington obtained on the 10th of october 1500. the month after obtaining the papal bull he was made vicar of lid in kent the living of redgrave suffolk came in 1506 and then great torrington in devon in 1511. woolsey would strive higher still and so he chose to enter the household of the archbishop of canterbury to act as a chaplain from 1503 to 1507 he worked for the treasurer of calais sir richard namphan indeed namfon is credited with recommending wolsey for royal service he became a royal chaplain in the household of henry vii the king put him to work and was clearly satisfied enough to see him rewarded with the role of dean of lincoln cathedral in february 1509 however woolsey's patron would not be long-lived within months on the 22nd of april 1509 the new king henry viii would ascend to the throne woolsey had clearly endeared himself here too because in the november of that year henry viii made woolsey his armoner as long as wolsey had the love of the king he was to all intents and purposes untouchable and he was evidently very good at making himself irreplaceable to his royal master wolsey's gentleman usher and later biographer george cavendish tells of his master skill at keeping the boring work of kingship away from henry viii he explains how wolsey could be found quote putting the king in comfort that he shall not need to spare any time of his pleasure for any business that should necessarily happen in the council as long as he being there all his endeavor was only to satisfy the king's mind knowing right well that it was the very vain and right course to bring him to high promotion he daily attended upon the king in the court being in his especial grace and favor who had then great suit made unto him as councillors most commonly have that be in favor in whom the king conceived such a loving fantasy especially for that he was most earnest and readiest among all the council to advance the king's only will and pleasure without any respect the case the king therefore perceived him to be a meat instrument for the accomplishment of his devised will and pleasure called him more near unto him and esteemed him so highly that his estimation and favor put all other counsellors out of their custom favor that they were in before this account of woolsey has the merit of being written by a contemporary of his someone who knew him well however george cavendish is also known to be a staunch supporter of thomas woolsey and so we should probably assume that where he was able he would be looking to sand down any of the rougher edges in his former masters reputation nevertheless what i think this narrative shows is that walls he was able to clearly see what his employer wanted and how he could fill that role wonderful right except perhaps when that employer is a young king who wants to enjoy the perks but sharp the responsibility what might the nobles around henry think of both him and his servant if they saw as the venetian ambassador saw in 1519 that the king left quote everything in the charge of cardinal woolsey as amina woolsey proved himself to be a master of planning when supporting henry and his troops during their battles in france which included the famous battle of the spurs that took place on the 16th of august 1513. apparently at this time woolsey's skill meant that the soldiers never ate so well nor slept so dry woolsey continued to accumulate ecclesiastical offices he reached the height of archbishop of york on the 5th of august 1514 and then the following year lept still higher being made a cardinal on the 10th of september 1515. in 1518 woolsey was made papal legate able to represent the pope in england at the same time he was becoming more and more entrenched in both the henrishan government regime and the personal favor of the king his work and skill was integral to the successful planning of that diplomatic set piece the field of cloth of gold which occurred in 1520 all the while he was still striving further reaching higher after the death of pope leo the tenth in 1521 woolsey or at least people speaking on his behalf were putting him forward as an ideal replacement despite his promotion and his evident favor with the king woolsey still had a number of allegations levelled against him both during and after his lifetime for example he is commonly accused even today of acting as some sort of procurer or pimp in the apparent harem of henry viii's court evidence for this is presented in his intervention that prevented anne boleyn from marrying henry percy the implication being that he did this in order to free anne up to be henry's mistress however this story is massively reliant on the notion of henry as being far more promiscuous than the evidence supports the percy affair occurred in around 1523 when henry was potentially romantically entangled with anne's sister mary instead wolves's intervention was most likely down to the large gap between the pair's social stations perhaps pressure was being applied to him or he himself felt that anne was overreaching however if this was woolsey's motivation then it is hypocrisy in the extreme considering how far he had managed to leap up writing in 1542 so more than a decade after woolsey's fall and death edward hall asserted that wolsey was quote double in both speech and meaning he would promise much and perform little he was vicious of body and gave the clergy evil example woolsey is often denounced as being a man of pronounced flaws many of which would be unbecoming in a cardinal in fact he was arguably guilty of enacting a number of the seven deadly sins despite the roman catholic requirement for clerical celibacy and the connected prohibition on priests marrying woolsey became a father on two occasions by his longtime mistress their relationship seems to have been a poorly guarded secret hence an accusation of his lustfulness the danger of woolsey's wrath was also alleged there were some among the upper echelons of the nobility that took umbrage that there as they saw it divinely intended place beside the monarch as advisors were being usurped by this upstart take the duke of buckingham a man with royal blood in his veins who might expect by birth and bloodline to be at his king's right hand privileged among advisors but with woolsey that role had been filled the great chain of being god's divine order had been subverted there is a tale of the duke of buckingham waiting upon his king with a basin and newer of water so the king could wash his hands despite the duke's high birth this was a privilege to serve the king in this way but on one occasion this was happening while henry was in conversation with wolsey and woolsey apparently felt his hands needed to wash as well and so he took the opportunity now buckingham felt he was being asked to serve woolsey and that would never do woolsey might be a prince of the church but buckingham his birth was far higher so the story goes buckingham in a fit of peak spills the water over woolsy shoes embarrassing him in front of the king and members of the court woolsey does nothing but apparently he doesn't forget and he slowly works towards buckingham's destruction eventually according to some woolsey would be successful and would see to it that buckingham was executed on tower hill in 1521 which if this is true it seems like a massive overreaction for a bit of spilled water in addition to his displeasure apparently threatening the nobility with death woolsey may have further irritated by his apparent inability to show deference to anyone but the king and even then he may only have shown that to his face woolsey wore his education and intellect with pride as well he might but it seems he did more than that it looks like he used it to out-think and embarrass those who were born above him but apparently without his intellectual gifts woolsey was a show-off and he would not reserve his skill at displaying magnificence for his king alone parts of hampton court palace represent a great architectural legacy being left to us by cardinal thomas woolsey specifically base court the first court you enter when you come to hampton court and go through this marvellous gatehouse hampton court palace is built in red brick which when wolsey was constructing it was the most fashionable material of the day the gate house itself today is spectacular but in woolsey's day it would have been even more so being two stories higher the gates house had to be lowered for safety in the 18th century passing underneath and through the gates house you enter into base court and in it in its shape and also in its ornamentation woolsey is following a manual one from 1510 that was designed to tell you how to be a cardinal and how to build as one when building your cardinals palace you are told that quote from the vestibule and entrance leads into the courtyard which should be arranged like a forum it should be square in plan in the courtyard where all can see it should be the deeds performed by emperors in a christian manner so far so good it seems that wolves is engaged in a kind of paint by numbers of building work but he has gone one step further for the comfort of his guests because in his square forum the rooms do not give directly out into the air rather there is a covered walkway while rooms giving out directly into the square forum may be fine in italy where the weather is pleasant not so much in england if you are wearing fine furs and velvets and silk the last thing you want on your way to breakfast or dinner is to be rained on and woolsey has thought about this for the deeds performed by emperors in a christian manner we need look no further than miano's terracotta roundels in woolsey's day these would have been painted and gilded and they would have looked utterly fabulous indeed all of the brickwork would have been painted we can still see traces of the diaper work but what you would have seen in woolsey's day was the red brick painted red the black diaper work painted an even clearer color of black and even the cement in between the bricks painted white in short hampton court palace would have been a visual feast perhaps one that may even be a little bit too bright for our tastes were the works at hampton court palace and his other home of york place a sign of his pride proof of his sin perhaps however woolsey is a prince of the church and he also sits at the heart of the henrischen government it could be argued therefore that he best served his two masters henry and the pope by displaying magnificence is he in fact doing the expected just with incredible style if we do choose to read these houses as evidence of woolsey's sin of pride then it doesn't stop there because arguably he displayed his pride in his person too george cavendish tells us how wolsey would comport himself when away from home quote apparelled all in red in the habit of a cardinal which was either a fine scarlet or else of crimson satin taffeta damask or kapha the best that he could get for money we are told that woolsey would parade around clutching a hollowed out orange stuffed with a vinegar sponge as a pamanda against miasma this also acts as a display of wealth because it requires the use of the expensive orange perhaps his conspicuous consumption in this way may also be placed under the heading of the sin of greed however his target attempts to obtain a collection of benefices from which his profile and profit would increase could and perhaps should also more properly come under that banner gaining the archbishopric of york was quite the promotion the only higher church office was that of canterbury but wolves didn't seem to have much interest in actually doing the job indeed he only went to yorkshire for the first time once he had fallen from favor in this he is the poster boy for the problem of pluralism woolsey's distractions at court and from his other benefices led to his seat in york this powerful seat being physically unattended for 15 years in the meantime woolsey lived well spending his ever accumulating wealth on his own pomp and magnificence he augments his residences of york place and hampton court to be some of the finest buildings in the land if not in europe he purchased plates and jewels he bought fine cloths and tapestries the venetian ambassador writing about what he experienced when he visited woolsey's hampton court explained that quote one has to traverse eight rooms before one reaches his audience chamber and they are all hung with tapestry which has changed every week during his lifetime woolsey amassed an extraordinary amount of goods including more than 600 tapestries each one being incredibly expensive this number of tapestries was around 10 times the amount that was owned by the richest members of the nobility at the same time indeed only henry viii owned more in thinking of tapestries i am brought back to what i was talking about at the start of this video the way that material objects can help us to read the past because i believe that this tapestry fragment might offer insight into the kind of man woolsey was it is one of a group of tapestry fragments that are today held by the royal collection however it is logical to me that originally it was part of woolsey's own collection it's on display at hampton court but if you don't know to look for it it's really easy to miss in fact it's only because a friend pointed out to me that i even saw it in the first place it's in the great watching chamber above the door to the corridor that heads towards the royal chapel currently hampton court is closed and there's a lot of travel restrictions in place for all of us but when we open up when the world opens up and when hampton court can reopen its doors perhaps this might be a fun activity for you to go in search of this piece of tapestry because i think this is a really exciting piece that is worthy of far more attention than it gets in this fragment woolsey is presenting facts alongside ambitions in these embroidered arms we see angels holding woolsey's cardinal's hat above a shield the right half of that shield is for the archbishop rick of york which is also shown in the carving that sits below the great astronomical clock in clock court in this tapestry piece however the arms of the shield are impaled with those of canterbury it would appear that wolsey was expecting to mourn a colleague and then celebrate another personal promotion the position of archbishop of canterbury represented and still represents the highest ecclesiastical office in the land william warren was appointed to the role in 1503 when he was already in his 50s it seems that wolsey was hopeful that he would not live much longer and he clearly hoped even expected that he would be the natural choice to succeed him woolsey has been preemptive here it looks very much like he has paid somebody to embroider what was at this time only in aspiration but one that he had enough hope in that he thought it would be realized woolsey i think expected that he would be able to hold the two most prominent ecclesiastical appointments for himself as it was the aged warren would outlive woolsey by two years cardinal thomas woolsey had enjoyed incredible wealth authority and position he had moved in circles that his birth should have prohibited while there he had carried himself as the equal if not the superior of those around him henry viii's favor had raised him to be recognized by the pope and made into a prince of the church unfortunately for woolsey he would find that the pope's protection was hard to make use of at a distance and that henry's love could not be called unconditional woolsey eventually wrote a check he would not be able to cash when he failed to get henry viii his annulment from catherine of aragon almost at once henry withdrew both his favor and his protection throughout his career woolsey had amassed enemies and committed transgressions of varying degrees of severity but it looked like now they may have combined and potentially could be the death of him on the 4th of november 1530 henry percy who was by then 6th out of northumberland but maybe better known as ann berlin's former suitor had arrived at york to take woolsey into custody he was being arrested on a charge of treason for allegedly entering into talks with foreign powers in secret that were aimed at securing his own place and damaging the king's own purposes it was decided that wolsey should be taken to london to face the consequences of betraying his king while traveling back to london woolsey's health declined rapidly understandable abject terror appears to have given way to dysentery woolsey managed to escape the executioner by dying on route at leicester on the 29th of november 1530 as is so often the case i'm left with questions principle among them i think is why does woolsey fall is it something that could have been avoided was there a crossroads a fork in the road if you will where if woolsey had acted in a different way taking a different course then things may have turned out better for him or was his fall caused by something more innate within him a quirk or flaw that if he had been able to remedy it he might have been protected perhaps if he had shown more deference to those around him i also wonder if thinking about this if you agree with me about the value of that piece of tapestry because i stand by the fact that it might be small but it provides a really vital key a way in to the internal world of the man that was woolsey that we get a glimpse of his psychology what motivates him therefore we can perhaps start to extrapolate why he makes some of the choices he makes and ultimately what might contribute to his downfall but what do you think as always i'm looking forward to reading your conversation in the comments section underneath this video or you can find me over on my social media i'll leave links to my instagram and twitter in the description box follow me there and we can continue this conversation i do hope you enjoyed this video and found it useful if you did please let me know by hitting the thumbs up please also subscribe to this channel and while you're there hit the notification bell beside the subscribe button so that youtube tells you when i've next uploaded i hope you're gonna have a great day whatever you're doing and i look forward to speaking short in my next video take care of yourselves bye for now [Music] you

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Views: 33,734

Rating: 4.9722018 out of 5

Keywords: Wolsey, Tudor, Tapestry, Hampton Court Palace, Material Culture, Object History, Cultural History, Education, Literature, Culture, History, Early Modern, Renaissance

Id: FYbHN4_zX9M

Length: 24min 43sec (1483 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 20 2020