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In the midwinter of 1499 spring came unexpectedly, it seems, for Thomas Wolsey. Until comparatively recently the privileged sons of England’s elite had usually been spared the soggy tedium and vexations of university life; as long as they had mastered the intricacies of courtly manners and were skilled in sport and war, their fathers invariably considered them more than adequately prepared for the narrow world of power and privilege in which they were to move. Indeed, the bristling contempt for study and contemplation so prevalent among many men of high rank was vividly captured by one contemporary scholar who recorded with resignation how he had heard a certain gentleman proudly airing his scorn for the written word. ‘By the body of God,’ the man is said to have declared, ‘I would sooner have my son be hanged than a bookworm. It is a gentleman’s calling to be able to blow the horn, to hunt and to hawk. He should leave learning to the clodhoppers.’
Change was in the air, however, and for three of the seven sons of Thomas Grey, first Marquess of Dorset, things would be very different. All had been sent to Oxford to acquire precisely that subtlety of mind which others of their class were still so ready to despise. Nor did their arrival within Magdalen’s high stone walls go unnoticed by the masters immured with them: no ambitious teacher, after all, could fail to realise that a marquess stood only below a duke and the king himself in terms of rank. The opportunities for preferment and patronage that might suddenly open up, if the right services were rendered and the proper signals sent, were plain for all to see.
On this occasion, however, the good fortune on offer was to be all Thomas Wolsey’s, since the three young Greys had been given over wholly to his personal care and tuition. Faced with what he surely now considered the tepid possibilities of academic life and soon to be embarrassed by his falling short as college bursar, opportunity had therefore knocked loudly for the newly fledged schoolmaster and was not to be lightly ignored.
None could deny that the Marquess of Dorset was a well-known figure at court who boasted considerable influence in the country at large. Not only was he widely regarded as ‘a good and prudent man’, but as Elizabeth Woodville’s son he was also the half-brother of Henry VII’s queen, Elizabeth of York. Moreover, as a stepson of Edward IV he had fought alongside the king at Tewkesbury and received his current title four years later.
There had, it is true, once been venomous rumours about his loyalty at the time of Lambert Simnel’s treason, but his rehabilitation had since been complete and from that time forth he had received various tokens of royal confidence. He had been present, for instance, at the christening of Prince Arthur, the heir to the throne, and in 1492 he had taken part in a difficult expedition to extricate the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian from a fruitless campaign against the French. At home, too, he had been busily loyal, serving in the forces assembled by Henry VII in 1497 to quell an ominous rebellion fomented by the men of Cornwall. For some time, then, his reputation had been high and he now enjoyed the firmest confidence the king could repose in him – a royal commission to have troops under his personal command.
But, as the marquess well knew, loyalty and courage were only two of three essential qualities required of a worthy lord. Generosity was also a crucial hallmark of true nobility, and this was the best of news for Thomas Wolsey, for now his efforts on his students’ behalf were to be fittingly rewarded. He had, we are told, attended his three noble charges so dutifully and exercised such diligent care in all respects that at the start of the Christmas vacation of 1499 he received an invitation from the marquess to accompany his pupils on their journey back to Bradgate Park, 7 miles to the west of Leicester.
The passage from Oxford to the Grey country seat involved a round trip of more than 100 miles and the presence of the tutor was therefore of considerable reassurance to the father. But if it was a comfort to the marquess, it would prove nothing less than a heavenly deliverance to Wolsey himself, for here, it seemed, was the perfect chance to pose and profit. By now he was a more than becoming young man – hearty, eloquent and personable – for whom the great house at Bradwell Park might well prove the gateway to greater things. And in spite of first appearances to the contrary, the opportunity which was about to come his way would ultimately have undreamt-of consequences.
Some 150 miles away in Somerset lay the parish church of Limington, near Ilchester, the income and profits of which were in the gift of Wolsey’s host. To all intents and purposes, such a parish was typical of the kind that slowly consumed the energies of so many packhorse priests throughout England at this time, and until his recent death it had been a certain John Borde who tended the simple needs of his flock there. When not preaching and administering the sacraments, it was Borde who taught local children and adults alike the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary, as well as the Ten Commandments. It was he, too, who ensured that common folk knew how to cross themselves appropriately and comport themselves with due reverence at Mass. There were baptisms for him to conduct, petty confessions to hear and trifling wills to write, while the government in its turn would have expected him from time to time to read out bulletins from his pulpit. And then, of course, there were the more practical chores of everyday survival for Borde to attend to; chores which involved, among other things, the farming of his so-called ‘glebe’, as well as the many tasks associated with the everyday upkeep of his humble parson’s dwelling.
With all its remoteness and inconveniences, not to mention the wearisome routine of its parish life, the church of St Mary at Limington was therefore hardly the most attractive of destinations, especially for a fellow of Magdalen who was currently serving as college bursar and would soon turn down the opportunity to become dean of divinity there. A thirteenth-century construction of sturdy stone with a nave measuring 87ft by 24ft and a chantry on its north side, St Mary’s remains to this day a handsome enough edifice, possessing to the west a perpendicular tower with six bells which continues to impress as a miniature imitation of something vast. But, in spite of the building’s brave attempt to proclaim itself, the more humdrum truth could not be altogether obscured.
Even as a first appointment, and taking into account the importance of the benefactor who controlled it, this would remain an unlikely outpost for anyone of real ambition. Yet, however humble the living it might have offered, Limington was a living all the same and one, moreover, which now presented both freedom and opportunity to the newly liberated tutor from Oxford. When, therefore, the Marquess of Dorset offered Wolsey this quiet parish in a remote part of the kingdom – ‘in reward for his diligence’ – he did not hesitate to accept. And, as always, he would prove more than capable of squeezing advantage from the most unlikely of circumstances.
It was, in any case, a good time to be gone from Magdalen, and not simply because Wolsey’s term as senior bursar was about to end unhappily. He had already defended the president of the college, Richard Mayhew, when his leadership was called into question, and he had also taken the president’s side against detractors in a dispute between the colleges of Magdalen and Merton over the ownership of a mill. But Mayhew’s administration had nevertheless ended in disorder and confusion. There had been other internal controversies involving charges and counter-charges, and it was in the midst of the petty sniping and bickering which now consumed the place that Wolsey was finally accused of improperly diverting funds to the completion of the college’s new tower.
Worse still, these troubles marked only the beginning of Magdalen’s steady descent into acrimony and disrepute. Indeed, when the college was formally inspected in 1507, a number of its members were rebuked and told to reform, while others suffered penalties for various breaches of statutes, including sleeping in chapel, keeping ferrets and perjury. On the other hand, more serious complaints against members included charges of adultery and receiving stolen goods, and in one case a charge of concealing a thief was also successfully upheld. Another member, meanwhile, was charged with baptising a cat in order to discover by occult means the whereabouts of a treasure. In all likelihood, then, Wolsey had read the writing on the wall long before this and was more than ready for a fleeting sojourn in far-off Somerset before the call to better things arrived.
Besides which, if the new rector of Limington did not care to minister to his bumpkin flock, there would be ample opportunity for him to employ a vicar or curate to perform his duties. Absentee rectors, no less than absentee bishops, were commonplace at this time; indeed, such arrangements had become almost the norm in most outlying parishes of the day. A wretched stand-in could usually be employed for a modest sum of around £5 per year and might even be persuaded to swear that he would not ask for a larger stipend during his tenure. So although the church of St Mary at which Thomas Wolsey was duly instituted on 10 October 1500 still houses a plaque proudly displaying his name as rector there until 1509, it seems that for at least eight of those years he came nowhere near the place. Indeed, in little more than a twelvemonth he had gone, leaving his cipher on the panels of the parish pews and his initials on some parsonage windows, which remained intact until the eighteenth century.
But within that time he had once again pushed his luck, it seems, and according to tradition paid a price far more galling than the one he had already incurred at his old college. Quite apart from the mediocrity of his everyday routine, the parish priest of a backwater parish like Limington also had other more worrying things to press upon his mind, for although the Roman Catholic Church was still a massive institution claiming universal sway, the reality in such far-flung outposts was altogether different, and vulnerable, exposed priests might not always be treated with anything like due deference. On the contrary, most parishes were corporations in which clergy had to be ever-mindful of secular patrons and local bigwigs of all kinds. In theory at least, no lords of the manor or political personages were intended to hold any power or authority over the serving priest. But in times of change and in specific situations, long-honoured principles were sometimes subject to challenge and though mighty prelates were still, for the time being at least, secure enough in their palaces, assaults like the one now made on Wolsey by Sir Amyas Paulet in 1501 were by no means unheard of.
Paulet was a knight and local worthy who lived 10 miles from Limington at Hinton St George. He had been a Lancastrian in the intermittent Wars of the Roses, and after Buckingham’s rebellion at the beginning of the reign of Richard III he had been attainted by his Yorkist foes. After the triumph of Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth, however, he had been duly rewarded for his support by being appointed sheriff of both Dorset and Somerset – an area of personal suzerainty that should have been adequate even for a man of his bristling temperament. But Paulet’s star was still rising, it seems, for after the Battle of Stoke Field he had been knighted.
At the same time, the scope of his operations was also beginning to expand as the king, with an ever-peeled eye for easy income, looked for willing henchmen to levy fines upon those who had dared espouse the cause of Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the throne. Revenues gained from Somerset and the four adjoining counties equalled an amount sufficient to run the royal household for well over a year, and those who might yield moneys for their transgressions in the Warbeck affair were therefore ruthlessly hunted down by the king’s collectors. Foremost among those prowling the country and ferreting out fines – sometimes by rough means – had been Sir Amyas Paulet.
Not altogether surprisingly, the arrival of pastor Wolsey in a local parish – fresh from Oxford and the protégé of a marquess – will have attracted the attention of this puffed-up, nosy knight soon enough. But what is supposed to have followed in the summer of 1501 was truly extraordinary, since, according to George Cavendish, Paulet ‘took an occasion of displeasure’ against Wolsey and ‘was so bold to set the schoolmaster by the feet during his pleasure’. In other words, the future Lord Chancellor of England apparently suffered the indignity of being confined in the stocks at Paulet’s behest.
Naturally enough, in the reign of Elizabeth I, Wolsey’s detractors made much of this alleged incident. Sir John Harrington, for instance, would claim that Wolsey had been involved a drunken fray and paid the price accordingly. Yet from all we know of the man – his intense application, not to mention his desire to stand well with those in positions of power – such a tale does not ring altogether true. Not least, it seems highly unlikely that Wolsey would have compromised himself in this way within only a few months of obtaining the favour of so influential a patron as the Marquess of Dorset. Furthermore, at no time before or after this event was the charge of drunkenness ever brought against him, even by the bitterest contemporary critics.
Nor is another explanation, originating with Sir Roger Wilbrahim, Master of Requests to Queen Elizabeth, much more convincing. Writing some eighty years after the event, Wilbrahim would claim that Wolsey was punished for fornication. But although this particular story is not altogether implausible, a courtier of Anne Boleyn’s daughter like Wilbrahim was hardly more likely than Harrington to advance a wholly disinterested explanation. In any event, it would have been most unusual and irregular for a parish rector to be placed in the stocks for this or any other offence – and particularly at the order of some secular authority. The rural dean of Bath and Wells, it should be remembered, had full authority to refer all clerical misdemeanours to the bishop’s consistory court. Equally significantly, Wolsey’s numerous enemies once again made no attempt to produce the charge against him while he was alive. Later on, indeed, even John Skelton, his most scathing of detractors, made no mention of it whatsoever in any of his foul-mouthed tirades.
There is certainly much about the whole episode that is, at the very least, both mysterious and surprising. The stocks were regularly used as a punishment for members of the lower classes who had committed some comparatively minor misdemeanour not sufficiently serious to warrant a prison sentence. By 1501, however, Wolsey was no longer ‘a poor scholar of base condition’, but a person of some substance in his own right who enjoyed the patronage of the queen’s half-brother, and the marquess himself could hardly have overlooked the matter if Wolsey had actually been punished in the way described. There can be little doubt either that Dorset would surely have heard about the incident from Paulet or from Wolsey himself, if it had indeed occurred, and thereafter he would have had no choice but to take the part of one or other. The result could only have been disgrace for Wolsey, or the kind of almighty clash between powerful personages that was unlikely to have gone entirely unrecorded in the way it did.
So where does the truth lie? It needs to be remembered, above all, that although Cavendish states on several occasions how incidents reported by him were told by Wolsey himself, he makes no such claim on this occasion. On the contrary, the story may well have been gleaned from idle gossip current in Wolsey’s own household, to which Cavendish, as gentleman usher, would doubtless have been privy.
Yet there is still no reason to disbelieve that an incident of some sort may indeed have occurred back in Somerset and that both its causes and consequences are likely to have been of genuine significance. From the scanty evidence available, we can only infer that Wolsey, with characteristic independence and self-assertiveness, had in some way or other raised the hackles of a notoriously touchy and pompous local magnate, resulting possibly in a threat from Paulet to place his enemy in the stocks. Years later, members of Wolsey’s household – well acquainted with his haughty manner, his mistress and his bastards – may then have seen fit to embroider the story with a trumped-up tale of their low-born master’s final comeuppance.
However, even if Wolsey’s discomfiture did not extend as far as outright public ridicule, the clash itself may well have confirmed him once and for all in his lifelong belief that the secular authorities should not be allowed to over-assert themselves in their dealings with the clergy. They must be met head-on and faced down strenuously, if need be. Nor was the victim prepared to turn the other cheek even in the long term, it seems, for years later, with one of those delectable ironies that life sometimes produces, he would gain and take his opportunity to be avenged.
In 1515, while Lord Chancellor, Wolsey is said to have sent for Paulet ‘and after many sharp and heinous words enjoined him to attend upon the Council until he were by them dismissed, and not to depart without license upon urgent pain and forfeiture’. In all fairness to Wolsey he was far too prudent to stir up muddy waters, if he had, indeed, been guilty of some shameful misdemeanour or other back in 1501. But by this time Paulet had nevertheless become treasurer of the Middle Temple at the Inns of Court and was thus wholly at the Lord Chancellor’s mercy.
According to Cavendish, therefore, Wolsey coolly confined his former adversary to the Inn over some five or more years during which time Paulet was said to have been so chastened that he saw fit to supervise the building of a splendid gatehouse there – duly adorned with Wolsey’s arms and cognisances – in hope of forgiveness. ‘Now may this be,’ wrote Cavendish, ‘a good example and precedent to men in authority, who will sometimes work their will without wit, to remember in their authority how authority may decay.’ ‘Who would have thought,’ he added, ‘that when Amyas Paulet punished this poor scholar, that ever he should have attained to be Chancellor of England, considering his baseness in every condition?’ Who indeed? And who would have thought, too, that Wolsey’s memory of old scores might have stretched so far and lead ultimately to such flagrant abuse of his authority?
For the time being, however, if the incident back in Limington had jarred Wolsey, it by no means checked the momentum of his rise. Preparing the way for what would eventually become a flood of extra benefices, he had already applied for the necessary papal dispensation, which was duly granted on 3 November 1500. Moreover, Wolsey had been making a string of additional contacts through the Marquess of Dorset, and when the marquess died in September 1501 what might have been a blow to the priest’s hopes proved nothing of the kind, for very soon afterwards he was appointed as one of two chaplains to Henry Deane, the new Archbishop of Canterbury – a post of much influence and a definite stepping-stone for any man of genuine promise. The clear implication is that Limington’s new rector was already thinking far beyond his parish’s limited horizons from the moment he arrived there.
Archbishop Deane, for his part, enjoyed a solid reputation as a man of clear principles and firm loyalties, although he was without flair and rarely, if ever, asserted himself. Descended apparently from the ancient family of Dene in the Forest of Dean, he had been a reforming prior of the house of Austin canons at Llanthony Abbey near Gloucester until Henry VII had sent him to Ireland as deputy governor, providing him with the modest revenues of the see of Bangor between 1496 and 1500. And here, to his credit, he had embarked on the refurbishment of the cathedral and restitution of a diocese which had lain devastated for the greater part of a century since the rising of Owain Glyn Dŵr.
Thereafter, in the last year of the century, he had been translated to the diocese of Salisbury, only to be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury almost at once as Cardinal Morton’s successor. But he was never officially installed, either for lack of funds to meet the huge expense involved or because he wished to save his money for what he took to be his impending demise. He was, after all, around 70 years of age by this time and had grown infirm during his long period of service to the Crown. Indeed, he had already prepared minute directions for his funeral, intending, it seems, that it should be the biggest event of his life.
Yet if Canterbury held little attraction for Deane, it was most definitely a glimpse of the Promised Land for his new chaplain. Administratively, Canterbury held sixteen dioceses under its control, while the junior archiepiscopal province of York contained only three: York, Durham and Carlisle. And, as if this was not enough to confirm the gulf in status between the two archbishoprics, it had long been established by custom that the man appointed primate of all England should also serve ex officio as Lord Chancellor and Keeper of the Great Seal, thereby embodying the key offices of both Church and State. Any individual serving on the staff of such a man would therefore have every chance to observe at close hand the methods by which the crucial business of the kingdom was conducted. And if his mind were sufficiently alert and open, he might well become an apprentice to power in his own right.
For the eighteen months of Deane’s tenure, then, Thomas Wolsey resided at Lambeth Palace and soaked up the full authority of the great institutions of the day. It was during Wolsey’s stay at Lambeth, for instance, that the archbishop entertained Catherine of Aragon on her way to London after her stormy passage from Spain to marry Prince Arthur. And it was Henry Deane, too, who conducted the marriage ceremony of Catherine and Arthur in November 1501. Henceforth, whenever grand ceremonial was called for Wolsey would be in close attendance and he would also have his first taste of weightier political affairs, accompanying the archbishop to Edinburgh, for instance, in order to negotiate the Treaty of Perpetual Peace with Scotland, which resulted in the marriage of Princess Margaret and James IV.
No less importantly, Wolsey could now savour to his heart’s content the full pomp and glory that made Canterbury so much more than a mere administrative centre within the English Church. Not least of all, the cathedral boasted one of the great sights and wonders of the Christian world. The tomb of St Thomas Becket, said one Italian visitor, ‘notwithstanding its great size, is entirely covered with plates of pure gold’, and the same awe-struck witness noted, too, that ‘the gold is scarcely visible from the variety of precious stones with which it was studded’. ‘These beauties of nature,’ he concluded, ‘are enhanced by human skill, for the gold is carved and engraved in beautiful designs …’
Nor was such extravagance misplaced, since Becket was England’s most revered saint – one in whose life and death the whole drama of Church–State rivalry had been played out in most spectacular fashion. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that in the martyrdom and canonisation of Thomas Becket the ultimate pre-eminence of the clergy had never been embodied more emphatically. And when pilgrims made their slow and tortuous journey to Canterbury in their thousands, they were reminded continually of the transcendent authority of any prelate backed by the moral power of the Church. By the same token, no clergyman seeking high state office would ever find a fitter subject for solemn reflection.
But wherever Wolsey was concerned, events always seemed to move too fast for lengthy contemplation of any kind and in February 1503 the old archbishop died, only one week after the king’s wife, Elizabeth of York, had also breathed her last. Once again, however, what might have seemed a serious setback would prove to be another rich opportunity for advancement. Indeed, even the funeral itself was turned to good advantage by the man who would so often refashion adverse circumstances to suit his own ends.
Having been appointed one of Deane’s executors, Wolsey now served as chief mourner and duly helped to carry out the elaborate instructions for his master’s final journey. In fact £500 had been laid aside in anticipation by the deceased archbishop, who had even written a play to commemorate his own passing. With no trouble spared, it was arranged that the body be carried by water from Lambeth to Faversham by thirty sailors, all dressed in black, and then taken on a hearse to Canterbury to be buried with great pomp in the cathedral. Following hard upon the queen’s funeral, this particular send-off therefore called for surpassing skill in management and the fact that Wolsey executed all with such solemnity and pomp could not have gone unnoticed in high places.
By the time that Archbishop Deane was snugly interred, therefore, his favourite chaplain had already secured another valuable position. And any claim that Thomas Wolsey’s next appointment represented some kind of downgrading in his status could not be more misleading. He had already seen both Church and State in operation at close hand and now it made perfect sense to gain a grasp of business and diplomacy. As such, his appointment to the staff of Sir Richard Nanfan, Deputy Lieutenant of Calais, was merely one more remarkable opportunity. Indeed, it represented nothing less than the finishing touch in his preparation for royal service.
The Deputy of Calais had always served, in effect, as the gatekeeper to the kingdom of England from the time that Edward III had wrested the old town and harbour from the French following the Battle of Crécy in 1346. Having besieged the town for eleven months, the English had swiftly expelled the native French inhabitants, and though by 1503 foreigners – especially Flemish traders – were once again numerous, a high proportion of the town’s population of 1,200 was still descended from the first settlers of a century and a half ago. Now, moreover, the English were as determined as ever to hold the place at any cost. ‘When shall the Frenchman Calais win?’ ran the inscription above one of the town’s gates. ‘When iron and lead like cork will swim’, the same inscription concluded stridently.
Calais was at the hub of English affairs, both commercially and diplomatically, as well as militarily. Known as ‘the brightest jewel in the English crown’, it was the portal to the Netherlands and the rest of Europe for England’s tin, lead, cloth and wool trades, and its customs revenue alone amounted to no less than a third of the English government’s income. Not surprisingly, therefore, it was duly represented in Parliament and also formed part of the diocese of Canterbury, a fact which may explain Wolsey’s transfer there upon the death of Archbishop Deane. Furthermore, since 1453 it was the only territory in France which was still in English hands and its continued possession by English kings was a crucial justification for their claim to the title ‘King of France’.
Stretching along the coast for about 25 miles and inland for some six, the so-called ‘Pale of Calais’ encompassed the fortress of Guisnes on the French border, along with a number of scattered villages. To the south and west, meanwhile, it was surrounded by France, and in the east by the Holy Roman Emperor’s territories in the Netherlands, which extended as far as the imperial border towns of Gravelines and St Omer. There was also a permanent military garrison, both in the town of Calais itself and in Guisnes, and there was frequently tension with the rival French garrison in Ardres just across the border. Most significantly of all, however, every local government body within the Pale of Calais was subordinated to the King’s Deputy – a fact which would now offer limitless opportunities for Wolsey.
No matter was so minor that it could be allowed to escape official attention. But, in the words of Cavendish, Sir Richard Nanfan soon appears, on account of his ‘great age’, to have ‘committed all the charge of his office’ to his assistant, while he himself spent more and more time at home on his Worcestershire estates. This meant that in his superior’s absence Wolsey would now be called upon to assume every aspect of the deputy’s duties, however grave or trivial. On the one hand, he might well find himself arranging for nothing more than the transfer of two prime stags under diplomatic privilege, if the Archduke of Austria had them to spare for one of the King of England’s hunting parks. Very frequently, too, there were routine complaints to be heard about tolls levied by imperial officials at Gravelines on all boats passing between Calais and Flanders. But he might also be called upon to assist the transit of English, French, Spanish and imperial ambassadors, or to supervise any one of a host of other crucial activities or events.
Meanwhile, Wolsey was expected to monitor daily reports from the various keepers of lodging houses about the number and type of guests being accommodated, along with the continual flow of information about seditious utterances within the town’s confines. Likewise, details about the condition of the nearby French garrisons were continually processed, alongside information from English spies further afield in France or operating in Flanders. Yet his most pressing task was to examine further daily reports on the state of the town’s defences. A fort possessing sluice gates to the sea, which allowed for flooding of the surrounding countryside in the event of French attack, commanded the only road by which Calais could be approached from the south and south-west. And not surprisingly, the maintenance of this fort occupied a special place in the deputy’s attention, as did control of the keys of Calais’ mighty gates. Each night the keys were received by him and handed over to the night porter, who was told the number of gates to be opened in the morning.
All this, however, was still only part of the workload involved. The king’s government in London had, for example, to be reminded constantly of the need to make money available in Calais to pay the soldiers’ wages. And when the harvests in England were bad, it was up to the deputy lieutenant to ensure that food supplies were sufficient for the town’s garrison and civilian population. In the meantime, the merchants who operated the wool trade had to be pressed to pay their customs dues, and twice a year in May and November the Deputy of Calais received the instalments, amounting to some 25,000 francs, on the king’s pensions from France.
The four years that Wolsey spent in such a hive of bureaucratic activity between 1503 and 1507 therefore gave him the ideal opportunity to learn about each and every aspect of government administration. But Calais was more than a training ground, since it also gave Wolsey the perfect platform to parade his efficiency. Now, indeed, he found himself in his natural element: recording, intervening, easing, cajoling and making himself invaluable all the while to the ageing Sir Richard Nanfan, who as early as 1505 was making ready to leave his exacting post and return to England, ‘intending to live more at quiet’.
Even so, it was not until January 1507 that Nanfan was finally released from his labours – and only then by death. Nor was it any surprise when Wolsey was appointed his executor, or that any small labour involved should prove such a meagre price to pay. For, prior to Nanfan’s demise, he had commended his tireless assistant to the special favour of the king himself, and now at last the world was truly Wolsey’s oyster.