Use sources T, U and V and your own knowledge. Do you accept the view in Source V that Wolsey’s domestic policies were disappointing?
Thomas Wolsey was Henry VIII’s chief minister from 1514 when Henry VIII was making his rise into power up until 1529 when Wolsey had his fall from grace. Many people have argued that Wolsey made many radical changes to the country and how it was run. This essay will argue whether Wolsey’s domestic policies were disappointing or not.
One of the main categorical policies that brought up a lot of criticism for Wolsey was the way that he dealt with finances, which ultimately brought a huge amount of disappointment to Wolsey’s reign. During his reign as Chancellor Wolsey failed to ensure that the revenue that was brought in was the same as what the King was spending which did damage the country’s finances. Wolsey also brought in many different taxation policies (which included the Amicable Grant) this sparked outrage within both the laity and the clergy, it also caused many riots in Suffolk. In Source T it says that he ‘aroused against himself the hatred of the whole country’ and this was being spoken about when it came to his arrogance. In contrary to this, it can be argued that Wolsey’s financial policies were not all a disappointment as it says in source U ‘He favours the people exceedingly, and especially the poor’ Wolsey started to levy taxes so people paid taxes in accordance to what they earned. This helped Wolsey financially with the people as he made taxes affordable to everyone, but it particularly made the poorer people of the country happy as before they were unable to pay taxes. From my own knowledge, I can tell that the view that Wolsey received in Source T outweighs what was said in Source U, the reason for this is because I know that Wolsey did receive a lot of hatred from the country, however, it was in his best intentions to do what was good for the country but it came out bad for Wolsey and the people of the country. He did receive mixed support from the country however because, some of the financial policies that he came up with (e.g. levying taxes) were very successful, although other (e.g. the Amicable Grant) were very disappointing. Source T supports source V’s claim that Wolsey was disappointing as it tells us that he ‘aroused the hatred of the country’ and in source V it says that Wolsey ‘carried an air of disappointment’. Source T can be interpreted as being very unreliable, this is mainly because it was written by Polydore Vergil who had a personal grudge against Wolsey as Wolsey sent Vergil to prison because he wrote an imprudent letter that reflected badly against the King and the Cardinal. Also, this can be interpreted as unreliable because it was written four years after the death of Cardinal Wolsey therefore it was a lot easier for Vergil to send a negative message around the country about Wolsey now that he wasn’t alive to do anything about it.
Another policy that Wolsey came up with that brought upon him a lot of criticism was his strict treatment of the Nobles. As the amount of power that Wolsey had increased, the amount of hate that he received from the people also increased. This is apparent in source T in the quote ‘by his hostility towards the nobility’, this statement and quote also link in well with source V because it says ‘his creativity promised more than was delivered’ this shows us that Wolsey may have promised a lot of things to the nobles but actually never delivered them and this caused outrage from the nobles which led to the ‘hostility’ that he received and also gave to them. Although Wolsey’s hostility to the nobles was not good for his popularity with them or the people it was quite a success for himself as it stopped anybody else with some power trying to take his power and it made him and Henry VIII the most powerful people in Britain at the time. Although Wolsey had a strict approach towards the nobles, most of the nobles seemed to be in favour of Wolsey’s policy as they believed that a ‘smaller’ royal government was better for them. So, while Wolsey had many different enemies for different reasons, he was liked by the majority of the nobles even though he didn’t treat some of them very well, some of the nobles however, took a vast disliking towards Wolsey and what he believed in. Source U was written by Venetian ambassador Guistiniani which leads us to believe that this source could be unreliable, the reason for this is that Guistiniani was a devote Catholic like Wolsey so he would of favoured Wolsey more than others due to being part of the same religion. You could also say that this source could have been reliable as it was written as a report, this means that some people would have depended on this report being accurate so he may have actually written it as accurately as he possibly could.
The final policy that I will be talking about is the introduction of enclosure by Wolsey which is where he took land away from the powerful nobles and distributed it out equally between the laity. This could be seen as a success for Wolsey as the laity would have liked getting the land as it would be better for them financially and also got them more land. You can link this statement with source U as it says ‘he favours people exceedingly, especially the poor’ this shows us that Wolsey distributing the land out to the common people may have been a success for him and the laity and proved to us that he did favour the people. However, this may not have been a success for Wolsey because this distribution of the land would have increased the amount of hostility that was shown towards him by the nobles and more powerful/richer men in the country. In source V it says that ‘criticise Wolsey’s domestic policies is also to criticise Henry for his lack of involvement’ this shows us that it may not have been totally Wolsey’s fault for some of the disappointing policies that were introduced and it may of also of been the King and because he was so disappointing it was impossible for Wolsey to be more than disappointing. I believe that Source V is the most reliable out of all of the sources because it was written by Ian Dawson who was a well-educated person in the Tudor period, so he would have had good knowledge of Wolsey, however, it would not have been specifically Wolsey that he had a focus on but the period in a whole and also he would of gone into a lot of depth and research to do with the whole period so he will know more than most at this current time with the era.
To conclude, I believe Wolsey was disappointing because not much changed and if they did the majority of them were disappointing. However, Wolsey wasn’t entirely to blame when it came to the policies as Henry limited the policies that Wolsey could bring into place and because Henry was so disappointing it was impossible for Wolsey to be any more satisfactory than what Henry was.