The clamour was then given the shape of formal bills against the payments demanded by clerics for proving wills and for funerals; the clergy were also to be prohibited from holding any land on lease and from engaging in trade. It is quite clear that the royal council had inspired, if not exactly orchestrated, these complaints. It was another way of striking at the pope by reminding him that parliament would always uphold the wishes of the king. He had his people behind him. It is characteristic of the early reform of religion in England, however, that it should begin with pragmatic and financial concerns. The English instinct has always been towards practice rather than theory.
When their bills were sent to the upper house John Fisher, the bishop of Rochester, complained that the Commons were trying to destroy the Church and that they acted ‘for lack of faith’; when the Commons complained to the king, Fisher was obliged to withdraw his remarks. It was generally believed, however, that the bishops of England were too eager to defend the financial abuses that had been condemned. When they claimed that their practices were based on prescription and custom, a lawyer from Gray’s Inn remarked: ‘The usage hath ever been of thieves to rob on Shooter’s Hill, ergo, is it lawful?’ The hunt had begun.
In the autumn of this year Anne Boleyn gave to her royal master a copy of a pamphlet that had recently been issued. It has been argued that Anne was a Lutheran in all but name, but it may be that she simply wished to advise Henry on a possible extension of his powers and of his income. Simon Fish’s A Supplication for the Beggars was an anti-clerical manifesto in which the author directly addresses the king on the scandalous practices of the ‘ravenous wolves’ of the clergy who are devouring his kingdom. From the bishop to the summoner, this ‘idle ravenous sort … have gotten into their hands more than the third part of all your realm’. They had also debauched 100,000 women. What was the remedy? Make laws against them. Fish added that ‘this is the great scab, why they will not let the New Testament go abroad in your mother tongue’. It is reported that Henry ‘kept the book in his bosom three or four days’, and he is likely to have agreed with much of its contents. The bishop of Norwich wrote in alarm to the archbishop of Canterbury that ‘wheresoever they go, they hear say that the king’s pleasure is, the New Testament in English should go forth, and men should have it and read it’. Did not Anne Boleyn have a French translation of the New Testament?
Throughout the autumn and winter of 1529 the king’s team of scholars were busily investigating volumes of forgotten lore in order to find precedents for Henry’s separation from Katherine. But in the course of their work Cranmer and others came upon, or were invited to consider, material that might entirely change the relations between king and pope. In an ancient book entitled Leges Anglorum they discovered that in ad 187 a certain Lucius I became the first Christian king of England; Lucius had asked the pope to entrust him with Roman law, whereupon the pope had replied that the king did not need any Roman intervention because ‘you are vicar of God in your realm’. This of course was highly significant in the charged atmosphere of the time. By invoking ancient precedent Henry might be able to claim spiritual supremacy as well as secular power. The canons of various Church councils were scrutinized to elicit the opinions that no bishop could assume the title of ‘universal bishop’ and that no see need defer to the authority of Rome. The papers were eventually given the title of Collectanea satis copiosa, or a ‘large enough collection’.
The document was given to Henry in the summer of 1530 and he examined it very carefully; he made notes on forty-six separate points. In a conversation with an envoy from the king of France he declared that the pope was an ignorant man and not fit to be any kind of universal pastor. Henry was also well informed about the anti-clerical works coming out of Antwerp and Hamburg. After he had read William Tyndale’s The Obedience of a Christian Man, in which it is argued that the king’s authority should be extended over ecclesiastic affairs, he is reported to have said that ‘this is the book for me and all kings to read’.
In that summer the king’s ambassadors in Rome declared to the pope that no Englishman could be cited in a foreign court. When Anne Boleyn’s father, the earl of Wiltshire, came as an envoy before the pontiff he refused to kiss the pope’s foot even though it was graciously stretched out to him. In this year Henry himself wrote to the pope expostulating with him for using ignorant counsellors. ‘This truly is a default, and verily a great fault, worthy to be alienate and abhorred of Christ’s vicar, in that you have dealt so variably, yes rather so inconstantly and deceivably.’ He went on to declare that ‘never was there any prince so handled by a pope as your holiness has treated us’. The question at the English court now concerned the best path by which to advance.
The last days of Wolsey were at hand. He was harried north, to his archbishopric of York. The duke of Norfolk advised Thomas Cromwell to ‘tell him if he go not away shortly, but shall tarry, I shall tear him with my teeth’. When he was informed that his proposed school at Ipswich was being deferred, and that the construction of Cardinal College in Oxford had been diverted for the king’s purposes, the cardinal told Cromwell that ‘I cannot write more for weeping and for sorrow’. Yet he still asserted his own power. He set the date for his enthronement as archbishop of York and wrote to the king asking for his mitre and pall. Henry then spoke aloud of his ‘brazen insolence’. ‘Is there still arrogance in this fellow,’ he asked, ‘who is so obviously ruined?’ On 4 November, three days before the planned enthronement, Wolsey was arrested. It was alleged that he had engaged in secret correspondence with the pope and with the French and Spanish sovereigns. There may have been some truth in this, since in his extremity he had sought assistance wherever he could find it, but it is most unlikely that he had committed treason. It is also possible that he was trying to promote the cause of Katherine and to hinder that of the woman whom he called ‘the night crow’.
After his arrest he was taken south at a slow pace, stopping at the abbeys and monastic houses along his route. His once sturdy constitution was by now fatally undermined, and on his journey he was attacked by a violent case of dysentery. It was said to have been brought on by a surfeit of Warden pears, but there were other reasons for his dissolution. The keeper of the Tower, Sir William Kingston, was ordered to meet Wolsey at Sheffield; his destination was now in sight. When Wolsey heard of Kingston’s arrival, he clapped his hand on his thigh and gave a great sigh. His gentleman usher tried to put the best interpretation on the events, saying that Kingston had come to conduct the cardinal into the presence of the king. The cardinal was not convinced. ‘I perceive,’ he said, ‘more than you can imagine or can know. Experience of old has taught me.’
Kingston was then introduced to the prelate and knelt before him. ‘I pray you, stand up,’ Wolsey said, ‘kneel not unto a very wretch, replete with misery, not worthy to be esteemed, as a vile object, utterly cast away.’ Kingston also tried to reassure him, but the cardinal was not to be comforted. ‘I know’, he said, ‘what is provided for me.’ He knew that it would be a traitor’s death, with beheading as the best fate he could expect. His dysentery became more violent still, and by the time he reached Leicester Abbey most of his strength had gone. ‘Father Abbot,’ he said on his arrival, ‘I am come hither to leave my bones among you.’ He was laid in a bed, where he waited for his end. He spoke of the king. ‘He is a prince of royal courage, and has a princely heart; and rather than he will miss or want part of his appetite he will hazard the loss of one half of his kingdom.’ At the stroke of eight in the evening, Wolsey lost consciousness and died. He still lies buried somewhere within the ruins of Leicester Abbey, and a monument stands on the supposed site of his grave. Yet this was more than the passing of an individual life. The fall of Wolsey was intimately associated with the demise of the Church.