Government and parliament

• Succession crisis led to a major overhaul of relations between Crown and Parliament


  1509-40
• Functions of Parliament


  • Pass laws
  • Grant extraordinary revenue to the Crown
• Frequency of Parliament summoned before 1529


  • 1510
  • 1512
  • 1515
  • 1523
• Wolsey's view of Parliament

  Regarded with distaste
• During Wolsey's dominance (1514-29) Parliament was only called in 1523
• Use of Parliament in first part of Henry VIII's reign

  Followed Henry VII's pattern
• Primary reason for calling Parliament

  To secure revenue
• Cromwell exploited Parliament's legislative possibilities much more thoroughly
• Parliament therefore met much more frequently in the second half of Henry VIII's reign
• Governance via councils


  Broke down because of the king's own impulsive personality and his more conservative councillors
• Wolsey's role


  Provided the effective management of government which was required
• Conciliar approach


  Lasted 1509-14
• Henry became disenchanted with the reluctance of some of his father's senior councillors


  To support a war with France
• Henry evolved to assert his undoubted right to control decision-making
• Henry surrounded himself with like-minded young courtiers who reinforced his suspicions of the 'old guard'
• Henry became particularly impressed by Thomas Wolsey's effective management of the French campaign
• Privy Chamber


  Before 1519 it was the one area of government outside of Wolsey's immediate control
• Role of Privy Chamber


  Extended when the king's 'minions' became Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber
• The minions distrusted Wolsey


  Wolsey tried to neutralise their influence
• In 1519 Wolsey secured the removal of the minions and replaced them with his own supporters
• Most of the minions managed to recover their positions
• The Privy Chamber remained perpetually outside of Wolsey's immediate control
• Court of Chancery


  • Wolsey as Lord Chancellor oversaw the legal system
  • Had the right to preside over the court and apply the principle of equity rather than through a strict reading of the common law
  • Used the court to deal with problems relating to enclosure, contracts and land left in wills
  • Became too popular and justice was slow
• Court of Star Chamber

  • Wolsey's most distinctive legal contribution
  • Established by Act of Parliament in 1487
  • An offshoot of the king's Council
  • Became the centre of both government and justice under Wolsey
  • From 1516 it was used to increase cheap and fair justice
  • Used for private lawsuits
  • Became too successful and Wolsey was forced to set up a series of 'overflow tribunals' to deal with the pressure
  • A permanent committee which he set up in 1519 became the ancestor of the later court of requests, whose job was to deal with cases involving the poor
• The 'Tudor subsidy'


  Instead of using local commissioners to assess taxpayers' wealth, Wolsey set up a national committee which he himself headed
• Extraordinary revenue raised for war in France was insufficient
• The 'Amicable Grant' of 1525


  To raise unparliamentary taxation, Wolsey implemented
• The 'Amicable Grant' led to widespread resistance amounting almost to rebellion
• The 1523 subsidy and Parliament's resistance to Wolsey

  • John Guy described Wolsey as "arrogant and insensitive"
  • Insensitivity shown in the 1523 Parliament, called to grant the subsidy to finance the renewal of war against France
  • Parliament grumbled about Wosley's financial demands, so much that he proved unable to secure all he wanted
  • The Speaker of the House of Common, Sir Thomas More felt obliged to ask the king's forgiveness for the boisterousness of some of the members
• The Eltham Ordinances


  • 1526
  • To reform the finances of the Privy Council
  • In the guise of pushing forward proposals for a reduction in the number of the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, the one area of government over which he did not have control
  • He secured the removal of Henry's Groom of the Stool, Sir William Compton, replacing him with the more compliant Henry Norris
  • Peter Gwyn argued the purpose was primarily financial
  • Several Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber lost their posts
  • David Starkey said the issuing of the Eltham Ordinances reflected Wolsey's fear that the Amicable Grant might make him so unpopular that he would be in danger of losing his political influence over Henry VIII
• The 'King's Great Matter'


  Problems of the 'King's Great Matter' led to Wolsey's fall from grace and the establishment of the royal supremacy
• By the mid-1520's Catherine was past childbearing age
• Henry considered legitimising his bastard son Henry Fitzroy (Bessie Blount)
• Henry had a love affair with Anne Boleyn who refused to be his mistress
• Henry required Wolsey to secure a papal dispensation for the annulment of his marriage to Catherine
• Henry's justification for annulment


  • He found the biblical justification in the book of Leviticus which prohibited a man marrying his brother's widow
  • Argued the papal dispensation issued by Julius II to marry Catherine was invalid
• Catherine claimed her marriage to Prince Arthur had never been consummated
• Wolsey's actions regarding the 'King's Great Matter'


  1. May 1527 Wolsey used his power as papal legate to bring Henry in front of a fake court to 'accuse' him of living in sin with Catherine which Henry readily confessed to

  2. Catherine refused to accept the court's verdict and in accordance with canon law appealed to the Pope
• The fall of Wolsey


  • Pope sympathised with Wolsey's impossible situation
  • After two years of fruitless diplomacy (1527-29) the Pope sent an envoy, Cardinal Campeggio to hear the case along with Wolsey
  • Hearing opened in London on 15 June 1529 but Campeggio adjourned it on 30 July, sealing Wolsey's fate
  • Wolsey already unpopular for forcing the 1523 subsidy through Parliament and imposing the Amicable Grant
  • October 1529 Wolsey was charged with praemunire (prevented papal interference in the rights of the Crown) and surrendered himself, with all his possessions i.e. Hampton Court
  • 4 November 1530 Wolsey arrested
• Historiography of Thomas Wolsey


  • Polydore Vergil said he "aroused himself the hatred of the whole country"
  • John Skelton claimed that "Hampton Court hath the pre-eminence" i.e. it was more important than the king's court and thus a monument to Wolsey's arrogance
  • John Guy considers him England's most gifted administrator for over 300 years