In November 1509, Henry appointed an almoner, a specialised chaplain to assist him with his prayers and oversee his charitable gifts. This was Thomas Wolsey, an urbane, artful, ingratiating, nimble, masterfully efficient genius some twenty years the king’s senior, who did what he could to train him in the art of kingship. Overcoming his humble origins as an Ipswich butcher’s son, Wolsey had studied at Magdalen College, Oxford. Graduating as a Bachelor of Arts aged fifteen, he was elected, in 1497, a Fellow and later Bursar of the college, but was severely criticised for (allegedly) overspending on the building works that ensured the completion of Magdalen tower. Ordained a priest in 1498, he acquired several parish benefices, before becoming a chaplain to Henry VII. Suitably impressed by his abilities, the king had sent him on missions to Scotland and the Low Countries, where his efforts secured his early promotion to the deaneries of Lincoln and Hereford.
As the king’s almoner, Wolsey now was attached to the Chapel Royal. Besides hearing Henry’s confession and saying Mass, he sat as a junior councillor, mainly sorting and hearing petitions, but often joining in more important discussions of policy. He rose rapidly in favour, outclassing all potential rivals. His gentleman-usher and earliest biographer, George Cavendish, reports in his Life of Wolsey, written in the 1550s, that of all the councillors, the almoner was the ‘most earnest and readiest . . . to advance the king’s only will and pleasure without any respect to the case. The king therefore perceived him to be a meet instrument for the accomplishment of his devised will and pleasure.’
Wolsey, says Cavendish, had no guiding political principles. Instead, he taught Henry how to use war, balance-of-power politics and peace in any combination. What he most had to offer was a will to serve the king and to succeed, coupled with ‘a special gift of natural eloquence with a filed tongue to pronounce the same’. By this and other means, ‘he was able with the same to persuade and allure all men to his purpose.’ His influence was pervasive. As Polydore Vergil, a resident papal tax-collector and reliable eyewitness, noted:
Every time he wished to obtain something from Henry, he introduced the matter casually into his conversation; then he brought out some small present or another . . . and while the king was admiring the gift intently, Wolsey would adroitly bring forward the project on which his mind was fixed.
Guy, john; Fox, Julia. Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and the Marriage That Shook Europe. Bloomsbury Publishin, 2023.
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