THOMAS WOLSEY (c. 1475-1530), English cardinal and statesman, born at Ipswich about 1475, was son of Robert Wolsey (or Wulcey, as his name was always spelt) by his wife Joan. His father is generally described as a butcher, but he sold other things than meat; and although a man of some property and a churchwarden of St Nicholas, Ipswich, his character seems to have borne a striking resemblance to that of Thomas Cromwell's father. He was continually being fined for allowing his pigs to stray in the street, selling bad meat, letting his house to doubtful characters for illegal purposes, and generally infringing the by-laws respecting weights and measures (extracts from the Ipswich records, printed in the Athenaeum, 1900, i. 400). He died in September 1496, and his will, which has been preserved, was proved a few days later.
Thomas was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford; but the details of his university career are doubtful owing to the defectiveness of the university and college registers. He is said to have graduated B.A. at the age of fifteen (i.e. about 1490); but his earliest definite appearance in the records is as junior bursar of Magdalen College in 1498-1499, and senior bursar in 1499-1500, an office he was compelled to resign for applying funds to the completion of the great tower without sufficient authority (W. D. Macray, Reg. of Magdalen College, i. 29-30, 133-134). He must have been elected fellow of Magdalen some years before; and as master of Magdalen College school he had under his charge three sons of Thomas Grey, first marquess of Dorset. Dorset's beneficent intentions for his sons' pedagogue probably suggested Wolsey's ordination as priest at Marlborough on March 10, 1498, and on October 10, 1500, he was instituted, on Dorset's presentation, to the rectory of Limington in Somerset. His connexion with Magdalen had perhaps terminated with his resignation of the bursarship, though he supplicated for the degrees of B.D. and D.D. in 1510; and the college appears to have derived no advantage from Wolsey's subsequent greatness.
At Limington he came into conflict with law and order as represented by the sheriff, Sir Amias Paulet, who is said by Cavendish to have placed Wolsey in the stocks; Wolsey retaliated long afterwards by confining Paulet to his chambers in the Temple for five or six years. Dorset died in 1501, but Wolsey found other patrons in his pursuit of wealth and fame. Before the end of that year he obtained from the pope a dispensation to hold two livings in conjunction with Limington, and Archbishop Deane of Canterbury also appointed him his domestic chaplain. Deane, however, died in 1503, and Wolsey became chaplain to Sir Richard Nanfan, deputy of Calais, who apparently recommended him to Henry VII. Nanfan died in 1507, but the king made Wolsey his chaplain and employed him in diplomatic work. In 1508 he was sent to James IV. of Scotland, and in the same year he pleased Henry by the extraordinary expedition with which he crossed and recrossed the Channel on an errand connected with the king's proposal of marriage to Margaret of Savoy. His ecclesiastical preferments, of which he received several in 1506-1509, culminated in his appointment by Henry to the deanery of Lincoln on February 2, 1509.
Henry VIII. made Wolsey his almoner immediately on his accession, and the receipt of some half-dozen further ecclesiastical preferments in the first two years of the reign marks his growth in royal favour. But it was not till towards the end of 1511 that Wolsey became a privy councillor and secured a controlling voice in the government. His influence then made itself felt on English policy. The young king took little pains with the government, and the control of affairs was shared between the clerical and peace party led by Richard Fox and Archbishop Warham, and the secular and war party led by Surrey. Hitherto pacific counsels had on the whole prevailed; but Wolsey, who was nothing if not turbulent, turned the balance in favour of war, and his marvellous administrative energy first found full scope in the preparations for the English expedition to Biscay in 1512, and for the campaign in northern France in 1513. He brought about the peace with France and marriage between Mary Tudor and Louis XII. in 1514, and reaped his reward in the bishoprics of Lincoln and Tournai, the archbishopric of York, which was conferred on him by papal bull in September, and the cardinalate which he had sent Polydore Vergil to beg from Leo X. in May 1514, but did not receive till the following year. Nevertheless, when Francis I. in 1515 succeeded Louis XII. and won the battle of Marignano, Wolsey took the lead in assisting the emperor Maximilian to oppose him; and this revival of warlike designs was resented by Fox and Warham, who retired from the government, leaving Wolsey supreme. Maximilian proved a broken reed, and in 1518 Wolsey brought about a general pacification, securing at the same time his appointment as legate a latere in England. He thus superseded Warham, who was legatus flatus, in ecclesiastical authority; and though legates a latere were supposed to exercise only special and temporary powers, Wolsey secured the practical permanence of his office.
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This article is from the 1911 edition of an encyclopedia, which is out of copyright here in the U.S. See the encyclopedia main page for disclaimer and copyright information.
