Henry VIII,the Reign

Wolsey,the Road to His Fall
Westminster to Leicester Abbey

Introduction

For two decades Cardinal Thomas Wolsey had governed England with the power invested in him by King Henry VIII. He had governed everything from the king’s daily domestic routine to foreign affairs and political intrigue with the ruling dynasties of Christendom.

Wolsey was not born with royal blood, but for him that was no obstacle to his lust for authority, fortune of birth did not preclude him from occupying the office at the pinnacle of power in the Christian world, that of pope.

Thwarted in his ambition for that office by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Wolsey, through a series of treaties had switched England’s dynastic allegiance to France, and because she was Charles’s aunt he wanted rid of Catherine of Aragon and so replace her with a French queen.
 
In 1527, during the Sack of Rome, Pope Clement was taken prisoner by a marauding Imperialist army. Wolsey seized on the opportunity to grasp the power and authority of the papacy for himself, in the summer of 1527 he left England in regal style to claim it.

In this commentary we begin to follow the course of events that ended for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey three years later, ignominiously, at Leicester Abbey.

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey

Pope Clement VII

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In Six Parts Wolsey,the Road to His Fall