Status Updates From Wolsey: The Life of King He...

‘Such, then, was the measure of the ‘fumes and displeasures’ between England’s proudest nobleman and the realm’s haughtiest churchman. For all their visibility they were plainly, by and large, the stuff of peevish banter rather than mortal enmity, and when Buckingham’s end came, it was the king and not his cardinal who willed it.’

Have to say the index is completely wrong, no mention of Stephen Gardiner on any of the pages cited, which is annoying

‘One had to traverse three rooms, we are told by a foreign ambassador, before the inner closet could be reached where Wolsey beavered away. And any chatterers or dalliers who might eventually pierce this protective cordon were invariably given short shrift, for at this time more than ever the man at the centre of things was exasperated by any talk divorced from action.’

‘But early in 1509, at the king’s personal prompting, a perk of an altogether higher order now came his way. It was on 2 February - the last feast of Candlemas that he would witness - that Henry VII saw fit to make Wolsey Dean of the cathedral church of Lincoln, and six days afterwards, the almoner was presented with a prebend in the same cathedral.’

‘the examination which led to the award of a bachelor’s degree was both elaborate and exacting. Under the supervision of a Master of Arts, Wolsey was made to stand before a desk for at least seven days between nine o’clock and twelve in the morning and from one o’clock until five in the afternoon. His task, quite simply, was to defend a formidable range of propositions against all corners’