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charge of his aspiring, and of his revenging himself for the disappointment, more heavily on him.

The king and the cardinal continued in a good correspondence, both with that pope and the emperor, till the battle of Pavia, that Francis's misfortune changed the face of affairs, and obliged the king, according to his constant and true maxim, to support the weaker side, and to balance the emperor's growing power, that by that accident was like to become quickly superior to all Christendom. It has been suggested, that the emperor wrote before to Wolsey in terms of respect, scarce suitable to his dignity, but that he afterwards changed both his style and subscription: but I have seen many of his letters, to which the subscription is either your good or your best friend; and he still continued that way of writing. His letters are hardly legible, so that 1 could never read one complete period in any of them, otherwise I would have put them in my Collection.

But having looked thus far into Wolsey's correspondence with the king, I shall now set him in another light from a very good author, the Lord Burghleigh, who in that memorial prepared for Queen Elizabeth against favourites, probably intended to give some stop to the favour she bore the earl of Leicester, has set out the greatness of Wolsey's power, and the ill use he made of it. "He had a family equal to the court of a great prince. There was in it one earl and nine barons, and about a thousand knights, gentlemen, and inferior officers. Besides the vast expense of such a household, he gave great pensions to those in the court and conclave of Rome; by whose services he hoped to be advanced to the papacy. He lent great sums to the emperor, whose poverty was so well known, that he could have no prospect of having them repaid (probably this is meant of Maximilian). Those constant expenses put him on extraordinary ways of providing a fund for their continuance. He granted commissions under the great seal, to oblige every man upon oath to give in the true value of his estate; and that those who had fifty pounds or upwards, should pay four shillings in the pound. This was so heavy, that though it had been imposed by authority of parliament, it would have been thought an oppression of the subject: but he adds, that to have this done by the private authority of a subject, was what wants a name. When this was represented to the king, he disowned it; and said, no necessities of his should be ever so great, as to make him attempt the raising money any other way but by the people's consent in parliament. Thus his illegal project was defeated; so he betook himself to another not so odious, by the way

of benevolence and to carry that through, he sent for the lord mayor and aldermen of London, and said to them, that he had prevailed with the king to recall his commissions for that heavy tax, and to throw himself on their free gifts. But in this he was likewise disappointed; for the statute of Richard the Third was pleaded against all benevolences the people obstinately refused to pay it; and though the demanding it was for some time insisted on, yet the opposition made to it being like to end in a civil war, it was let fall." All this I drew from that memorial. (Cott. Libr.) I found also a commission to the archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Calham, and others, setting forth the great wars that the king had in France, in which the duke of Bourbon, called one of the greatest princes in France, was now the king's servant: they are by it required to practise with all in Kent, whose goods amounted to four pounds, or above, and whose names were given to a schedule to anticipate the subsidy granted in parliament. This is all that has occurred to me with relation to Wolsey's ministry. I will in the next place set out what he attempted or did in ecclesiastical matters, with the proceedings in convocation during this period. When King Henry called his first parliament, by a writ tested October 17, 1509, to meet at Westminster the 21st of January following, he did not intend to demand a supply; so there appears no writ for a convocation: but the archbishop of Canterbury summoned one, as it seems, by his own authority yet none sat then at York. The house of lords was sometimes adjourned by the lord treasurer; because the chancellor (Warham) and other spiritual lords were absent, and engaged in convocation: but it does not appear what was done by them.

In the year 1511, on the 28th of November, a writ was sent to Warham to summon a convocation, which met the 6th of February: they had several sessions, and gave a subsidy of 24,000l. but did nothing besides with relation to matters of religion. There was some heat among them on the account of some grievances and excesses in the archbishop's courts. A committee was appointed of six persons, the bishops of Norwich and Rochester, the prior of Canterbury, the dean of St. Paul's, and an archdeacon; but without addition of his place; these were to examine the encroachments made by the archbishop's courts, and the inhibitions sent to the inferior courts: but especially as to the probates of wills, and the granting administrations to intestate goods, when there was any to the value of five pounds in several dioceses: an estimate first settled by Warham, for which he had officials and apparitors in every

diocese, three or four in some, and five or six in others, which was looked on by them as contrary to law. Cardinal Morton is said to be the first who set up this pretence of prerogative: against these the bishops alleged the constitutions of Ottobonus, and of archbishop Stratford: it is also set forth, that when Warham was an advocate, he was employed by Hill, bishop of London, in whose name he appeared against them, and appealed to Pope Alexander against these invasions made by the archbishop on the rights of his see. And when Warham was promoted to the see of London, he maintained his claim against them, and opposed them more than any other bishop of the province, and sent his chancellor to Rome to find relief against them. But when he was ad vanced to be archbishop, he not only maintained those practices, but carried them further than his predecessor had done. All this, with thirteen other articles of grievances, were drawn up at large in the state of the case between the archbishop and the bishops; and proposals were made of an accommodation between them about the year 1514; but the event showed that this opposition came to nothing. This must be acknowledged to be none of the best parts of Warham's character. In the year 1514 they were again summoned by writ; they met and gave subsidies, but they were not to be levied till the terms of paying the subsidies formerly granted were out. In the year 1518, Warham summoned a convocation to meet at Lambeth, to reform some abuses; and in the summons he affirmed, that he had obtained the king's consent so to do *. At this Wolsey was highly offended, and wrote him a very haughty letter; in it he said, "It belonged to him, as legate a latere, to see to the reformation of abuses: and he was well assured, that the king would not have him to be so little esteemed, that he should enterprise such reformation to the derogation of the dignity of the see apostolic, and otherwise than the law will suffer you, without my advice and consent." And he in plain words denies that he had any such command of the king, but that the king's order was expressly to the contrary t. So he orders him to come to him, to treat of some things concerning his person. This it seems Warham was required to send round to his suffragan bishops: so he recalled his monitions in expectation of a legatine council the pestilence was then raging, so this was put off a year longer; and then Wolsey summoned it by a letter, which he transmitted to the bishops: that to the bishop af

*Reg. Heref. Booth, fol. 37.

+ Wake's State of the Church, appendix, p. 208.

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Hereford is in his register. He desires him to come to a council at Westminster for the reforming the clergy, and for consulting in the most convenient and soundest way, of what we shall think may tend to the increase of the faith." He hoped this letter would be of as much weight with him as monitories in due form would be.

It appears not by any record I could ever hear of, what was done in the legatine synod thus brought together, except by the register of Hereford, in which we find, that the bishop summoned his clergy to meet in a synod at the chapterhouse, to consult about certain affairs, and the articles delivered by Wolsey as legate in a council of the provinces of Canterbury and York, to the bishops there assembled, to be published by them. All that is mentioned in this synod is concerning the habits of the clergy, and the lives and manners of those who were to be ordained; which the bishop caused to be explained to them in English, and ordered them to be observed by the clergy: and these being published (May 4, 1519), they proceeded to some heads relating to those articles; and he gave copies of all that passed in every one of them.

The next step he made was of a singular nature. When the king summoned the parliament in the fourteenth year of his reign, Warham had a writ to summon a convocation of his province, which did meet five days after, on the 20th of April (1523). The cardinal summoned his convocation to meet at York, almost a month before, on the 22d 'of March ;' but they were immediately prorogued to meet at Westminster the 22d of April. The convocation of Canterbury was opened at St. Paul's: but a monition came from Wolsey to Warham, to appear before him, with his clergy, at Westminister on the 22d; and thus both convocations were brought together. It seems he intended that the legatine synod, thus irregularly brought together, should give the king supplies: but the clergy of the province of Canterbury said, their powers were only directed to the archbishop of Canterbury, and these would not warrant them to act in any other manner than in the provincial way so the convocation of Canterbury returned back to St. Paul's, and sat there till August, and gave the supply apart, as did also that of York †. But Wolsey, finding those of Canterbury could not act under him, by the powers that they had brought up with them, issued out on the 2d of May monitory letters to the bishops of that province, to meet at Westminster the 8th of June, to deliberate "of the reformation of the clergy, both of seculars

Reg. Heref. Booth. fol. 41.

Reg. Hereford. fol. 84.

and regulars, and of other matters relating to it." In this he mentions Warham's summoning a convocation, which he had brought before him; but upon some doubts arising, because the proctors of the clergy had no sufficient authority to meet in the legatine synod, he therefore summoned them to meet with him, and to bring sufficient powers to that effect by the 2d of June: but it does not appear that any assembly of the clergy followed pursuant to this: so it seems it was let fall. This is the true account of that matter*. gave it indeed differently before, implicitly following some writers that lived in that time: more particularly that account given of it by either Archbishop Parker, or Josceline, a book of such credit, that the following it deserved no hard censure. The grant of the subsidy is, indeed, in the name of the province of Canterbury; but the other relation of that matter being too easily followed by me, it seemed to me that it was a point of form, for each province to give their subsidy in an instrument apart, though it was agreed to, they being together in one body. It was indeed an omission not to have explained that; but now, upon better evidence, the whole matter is thus fully opened. I find no other proceedings of Wolsey's as legate on record, save that he took on him, by his legatine authority †, to give institutions at pleasure into all benefices in the dioceses of all bishops, without so much as asking the bishop's consent. In the register of London, an institution given by him to South Wickington, on the 10th of December, 1526, is entered, with this addition, that the cardinal had likewise given seven other institutions in that diocese, without asking the consent of the bishop: and on the margin it is added, that the giving and accepting such institutions, by the legate's authority, being papal provisions, involved the clergy into the premunire, from which they were obliged to redeem themselves. Wolsey did also publish a bull, condemning all who married in the forbidden degrees; and he sent mandates to the bishops to publish it in their several dioceses; he also published Pope Leo's bull against Luther §, and ordered it to be everywhere published: he also required all persons, under the pain of excommunication, to bring in all Luther's books that were in their hands he enumerated forty-two of Luther's errors; and required a return of the mandate to be made to him, together with such books as should be brought in upon it, by the 1st. of August. The date of the mandate is not set down; and this is all that I find in this period relating to Wolsey.

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* Antiq. Brit.
Fisher's Register, fol. 127.

Reg Tonstal. fol. 31.
Reg. Hereford. fol. 66.

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