Thomas Wolsey as the Key Figure in Church Essay

Thomas Wolsey as the Key Figure in Church - Essay Example Wolsey was very much a man in the right place at the right time. The new King was young, fun-loving and, truth be told, rather lazy. His conception of Kingship was embodied in all-action heroes like King Henry V rather than frugal administrators like his own father, Henry VII. Nevertheless, he was not prepared to leave the affairs of state in the hands of his father's great servants, whom he found (typically enough for a teenager) old, boring, and behind the times. Empson and Dudley, his father's hated tax collectors, were executed; Foxe and Warham were rapidly reaching retirement age and were encouraged out of court with a series of withering insults by Wolsey. By 1519, the Venetian ambassador, Giustinian, was summing up the situation well when he told Francis I of France `that King Henry devoted himself to pleasure and ease and left the cares of the State to the Cardinal'. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Wolsey made the most of the opportunities given to him. He had the grea t ability to gauge his audience, to flatter and to be entertaining. He had a `special gift of natural eloquence' (Cavendish) which the likes of Castiglione in the Book of the Courtier had stressed as being so important in the age of Renaissance diplomacy. Wolsey was a man who enjoyed the fine things of life. He was sociable, witty and convivial, a sponsor of musicians and artists. Polydore Vergil, the Tudor historian, gives us a glimpse into his tactics when he tells us that whenever the Cardinal wanted something from Henry, he `brought out some small present or other ... and while the King was admiring it intently, Wolsey would adroitly bring forward the project on which his mind was fixed'.