history henry vii

• Wolsey


  Lord Chancellor and a cardinal by 1515, strengthening his power to exert influence over the king and the Church
• Reasons for Wolsey's rise to power

  • Henry did not involve himself in day-to-day government, increasing Wolsey's power
  • Wolsey's appointment as Royal Almoner in 1509 gave him access to the king and opportunities to exert influence
  • Henry disliked many of his father's advisers, removing potential rivals and easing Wolsey's path to power
  • Wolsey's skills in organising the army during the war with France in 1512-1513 demonstrated abilities Henry later relied on
  • Wolsey's persuasive personality and ability to flatter enabled him to exert influence over the king, while his ruthlessness deterred challenges to his position
• Wolsey carried out a series of important reforms, including laws against enclosure and the reform of the finance and justice systems
• Enclosure


  Using fences to divide land into fields, often used to graze sheep, reducing land available to tenant farmers and the poor
• Wolsey's enclosure reforms


  Set up an inquiry in 1517 to investigate enclosure and reduce its effect on ordinary people, resulting in 260 court cases against landowners
• Wolsey's justice system reforms

  Strengthened the Star Chamber, encouraged the poor to bring cases to court, increased the court's work rate, supported cases of the poor against the rich, oversaw cases himself
• Wolsey's enclosure and justice system reforms achieved very little as enclosures continued and they angered many landowners
• Eltham Ordinances


  A list of rules 79 chapters long compiled by Wolsey to tackle misspending and bad management of the palaces, including cutting spending on meals and servants, laying off sick or unneeded servants, reducing expenses, and reducing the number of gentlemen in the Privy Chamber
• The Eltham Ordinances were largely unsuccessful, mainly because Wolsey lost interest in them once he had reduced the size of the Privy Council
• Subsidy


  A tax on incomes, a progressive tax where the more you earned the more you paid
• Fifteenths and tenths


  Taxes on moveable goods, 1/15th of their value in rural areas and 1/10th of their value in urban areas
• Crown lands


  Wolsey recovered Crown lands from the nobility, increasing the income to the government
• Forced loans


  Wolsey forced major landowners to lend the government money in 1522 and 1523
• Clerical taxation


  A voluntary gift made by the Church to the king
• The Amicable Grant was a tax of a third on the property of priests and of a sixth on the property of ordinary people, introduced to help pay for an invasion of France
• Reasons for the Amicable Grant being controversial

  It had not been approved by parliament, people only had 10 weeks to pay, and many people resented the demand and could not afford to pay
• The Amicable Grant failed

  Wolsey was humiliated and his reputation badly damaged, he was unable to raise any further taxes, Henry began to doubt Wolsey's judgement, the position of Wolsey's enemies was strengthened, and it demonstrated limitations on the king's power to raise taxes without parliament's consent
• Wolsey's foreign policy aims

  • To create better relationships with both France and the Habsburg Empire, to play the major powers off against each other, to provide opportunities for Henry to gain military glory, to allow Henry to be seen as a peacemaker
• Wars were expensive and required taxes that undermined the king's popularity, and the king's reputation could be at stake if armies were defeated and land lost
• Wolsey's successes 1514-1522


  The Battle of the Spurs, the Treaty of London, the 'Field of the Cloth of Gold'
• After 1522, Wolsey's diplomacy ran into difficulties


  The French war and alliance with Charles V failed, the alliance with France to fight Charles V failed, and Francis I negotiated a peace deal with Charles V without consulting Wolsey
• Henry and Wolsey faced difficulties in foreign affairs with France and the Holy Roman Empire
• 1522-25 French war and alliance with Charles V


  1. Wolsey's support for Charles V against France in the Treaty of Bruges was based on the idea that Charles would help him seize French territory and the French throne, but this did not happen

  2. Charles gave Henry little military support

  3. After the Battle of Pavia, Charles ignored Henry's suggestion that France be divided between England and the Holy Roman Empire with Henry getting the French throne, and instead released Francis from captivity

  4. The war was unpopular, cost £430,000 and achieved little
• 1525-29 Alliance with France to fight Charles V


  1. The French were again defeated by Charles and received little help from England, damaging Henry's reputation as a reliable ally

  2. In 1529, Francis I negotiated a peace deal with Charles V in the Treaty of Cambrai, only notifying Wolsey of the negotiations when it was too late, which was a snub to Wolsey and Henry and left them diplomatically isolated
• The unreliability of Francis I and Charles V was a key factor in Wolsey's disastrous foreign policy
• Initially, Wolsey's foreign policy was successful, but after 1522 it began to run into difficulties
• Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon


  Initially worked well, but Catherine's failure to provide him with a son meant that Henry became uncertain of his marriage
• Henry and Catherine's marriage

  • Henry was a loving and affectionate husband
  • Catherine was a popular queen due to her charitable work
  • Catherine was supportive of Henry, acting as regent when he was fighting the French
  • It strengthened Henry's relationship with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire
• Catherine's failure to provide Henry with a son


  It reflected badly on Henry's manhood and reputation, threatened the succession as the absence of a male heir encouraged others to claim the throne, and by 1527 Catherine was unlikely to have another pregnancy
• Henry blamed Catherine for not giving him a healthy son, even though he had an illegitimate son with his mistress Bessie Blount
• Henry had lost interest in Catherine and turned his attentions to younger women, including Anne Boleyn
• Henry thought God was punishing him by not giving him a male heir, as in the Old Testament it states that if a man takes his brother's wife they shall be childless
• Annulment


  The only way Henry could end his marriage, but this was a problem as only the pope could approve it, it would upset Catherine's nephew Charles V, and Catherine would resist as it would imply she was just the king's mistress
• The issue of the succession was important to Henry VIII because the failure to provide him with a son had consequences like the prospect of invasion and civil war
• Attempts to gain an annulment


  1. In 1527, Henry instructed Wolsey to persuade Pope Clement VII to grant an annulment on the grounds that the marriage was ungodly and the original papal dispensation was incorrectly worded

  2. In 1528, Wolsey proposed that he and the pope's representative Cardinal Campeggio would rule on the case, but this failed as Campeggio dragged out proceedings

  3. In July 1529, the case was adjourned without a decision being reached
• Pope Clement VII was reluctant to grant the annulment as he did not want to offend Charles V whose troops were close to Rome
• Opposition to the annulment


  • Catherine was resolutely opposed to the annulment and had the support of John Fisher and Thomas More
  • Catherine was popular with ordinary people due to her charitable work, making it difficult for Henry to make a convincing case for annulment without papal approval
• Wolsey's fall from power

  1. Wolsey's failure to secure the annulment angered Henry and made him believe Wolsey was siding with the pope

  2. The Boleyn family gained increasing influence at court and plotted against Wolsey

  3. Wolsey's reforms and foreign policy failures had made him many enemies at court who conspired with the Boleyns

  4. Wolsey's decision to introduce the Amicable Grant tax in 1525 damaged his reputation and undermined his power
• Cromwell


  • He was capable of great loyalty, had a vibrant personality and could be witty, charming and persuasive
  • His ruthlessness meant the king was prepared to rely on him to manage violent and controversial acts
• How Cromwell managed the annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine

  1. Cromwell realised Pope Clement VII was not willing to annul the marriage, so he argued the power to grant an annulment should be taken from the pope and given to Henry

  2. Henry and Anne Boleyn were secretly married in January 1533 as Anne was already pregnant

  3. Parliament passed the Act in Restraint of Appeals in March 1533, asserting England was an empire not subject to foreign rule and that Henry, not the pope, could annul his marriage

  4. A divorce hearing in May 1533 announced the pope's dispensation was invalid, Henry and Catherine had never been legally married, and Henry's marriage to Anne was valid