SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
249
honouis fell upon him in a den^ree equal to his ambition. " He was lapacious," say8 Sir James Mackintosh ; " but it was in order to be prodigal in his household, in his dress, in his retinue, in his palaces, and, it must be added, in justice to him, in the magnificence of his literary and idigions foundations. The circumstances of his time were propitious to his passion of acquir- ing money. The pope, the emperor, the kings of Fiance and Spain, desirous of his sovereign's alliance, ontbade each other at the sales of a minister^ influence; which change of circum- stances, and inconsistency of connection, ren- dered, during that period, more frequent than in most other times. His preferment was too atonnons and too rapid to be forgiven by an enWons worlds"
In 1514 he was advanced to the bishopric of Lincoln ; and the same year he was made arch- bishop of York. In 1515 he succeeded arch- bishop Warham in the office of lord chancellor : the king obtained for him the same year a cardinalship ; and, in 1519, he was made the pope's legate in England, with the extraordinary power of suspending the laws and canons of the church. He made every possible effort to ob- tain the triple crown of his holiness the pope ; and was near succeeding, but for the prepon- derating influence of the emperor, Charles V.
Wolsey's "passion for shows and festivities — not an uncommon infirmity in men intoxicated by sudden wealth — perhaps served him with a master, whose ruling folly long seemed to be of the same harmless and ridiculous nature. He encouraged and cultivated the learning of his age ; and his conversations with Henry, on the (fectrines of their ^eat master Aqumas, are represented as one of his means of pleasing a monarch so various in his capricious tastes. He was considered as learned; his manners had ac- quired the polish of the society to which he was raised; his elocution was fluent and agreeable; his air and gesture were not without dignity. He was careful, as well as ma^ificent, in ap- parel. As he was chiefly occupied in enriching and aggrandizing himself, or in displaying his wealth— objects which are to be promoted either by foreign connections or by favour at court — it b iinpossible to what share of the merit or deme- «it of internal legislation ought to be allotted to him." As his revenues were immense, his pride and ostentation were carried to the greatest height : for he had five hundred servants: among whom were nine or ten lords, fifteen knights, and forty esquires.
Vt^olsey's administration continued, seemingly with unabated sway, till 1527, when those who were opposed to him in the council, together with his opposition to Henrv's divorce from queen Cathenne, soon worked his downfall. Crimes are easily found out against a favourite in dis- gtace, and his enen>ies did not fail to blacken bis good deeds, or to increase the catalogue of his errors. On the 17th of October, 1529, he was deprived of the great seal, which was given to Sir Thomas More. He was soon afterwards de-
prived of his ecclesiastical and temporal wealth, and only suffered to remain at Esher, in Surry, a country house of his bishopric of Winchester. Such was the state of this discarded minister, that the king left him without provisions for his table, or furniture for his apartments. In Feb. 1530, Wolsey was pardoned, and restored to his see of Winchester, and to the abbey of St. Albans, with a grant of £6,000, and of all other rents not parcel of the archbishopric of York. Even that great diocese was afterwards restored. He arrived at Cawood castle in September, 153(J, where he employed himself in magnificent pre- parations for his installation on the aichiepisco- pal throne ; but at that moment his final ruin seems to have been resolved upon, and the earl of Kortliumberland was chosen to apprehend him for high treason. Wolsey at first refused to comply with the requisition, as being a cardinal ; but finding the earl bent on performiug his com- mission, he complied, and set out by easy jour- neys to London, to appear as a criminal, where he had acted as a king. He was carried first to lord Shrewsbury's castle at Sheffield, where he was compelled by sickness to rest, and afterwards to the abbey of Leicester, where he died at the age of fifty-nine. His dying words were most memorable, and highly instructive to all classes of hypocritical professors of religion — " If I had served God as diligently as I have done the king, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs. This is the just reward that I must re- ceive for the pains I have taken to do him service, not rerarding my service to God !"
Shakspeare so correctly draws the character of this great churchman ; and paints his virtues and his vices so impressively, in the following lines, that we cannot refrain from quoting them : —
He was a man Of an unbounded stoiuach, ever ranking Himself with princes i one, that by suggestion Tr'd all the kingdom : simony was foil play ; His own opinion was his law. 1* th' presence He would say nntmths, and be ever doable Both in his words and meaning. He was never. Bat where he meant to rain, pitiM. His promises were, as he then was, mighty i Bat his performance, as he now is, nothing. Of his own body he was 111, and gave The clergy ill example.
This cardinal, nunigb from an humble stock, undoubtedly Was fashion'd to much honour, firom his cradle i ' He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one ; Exceeding wise; <Ur spoken, and persuading I lofty, and soar to them that loVd him not : But to those men that sought him, sweet aa sommer. And though be was unsatlsiyd in getting, (Which was a sin) yet in bestowing, madam. He was moat princely. Ever witness for him Those twins of learning that be rais'd in yoo, Ipswicb and Oxfbrd I one of which feU with him. Unwilling to outlive the good be did it . The other, thoagb un8nish*d yet so famooa. So excellent in art, and still so rising, That Christendom shall ever speak his virtoe.
Wolsey founded Christchurch college in Ox- ford, and intended to call it Cardinal college ; and also to enrich its libraty with copies of all manuscripts that were in the Vatican at Rome. Upon his fall, which happened before he had finished his scheme, the' king seized all tlic revc-
2 K
VjOOQ IC
