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Passage Illustrated: Come not between Henry Tudor and the object of his Wrath

At the appointed hour, the two cardinals, proceeded to the royal lodgings. They were detained for some time in the ante-chamber, where Wolsey was exposed to the taunts and sneers of the courtiers, who had lately so servilely fawned upon him. At length, they were ushered into the presence chamber, at the upper end of which beneath a canopy emblazoned with the royal arms woven in gold, sat Henry, with Anne Boleyn on his right hand. At the foot of the throne stood Will Sommers, and near him the Dukes of Richmond and Suffolk. Norfolk, Rochford, and a number of other nobles, all open enemies of Wolsey, were also present. Henry watched the advance of the cardinals with a stern look, and after they had made an obeisance to him, he motioned them to rise.

"You have sought an interview with me, my lords," he said, with suppressed rage. "What would you?"

"We have brought an instrument to you, my liege," said Wolsey, "which has just been received from his holiness the Pope."

"Declare its nature," said Henry.

"It is a citation," replied Wolsey, "enjoining your high ness to appear by attorney in the papal court, under a penalty of ten thousand ducats."

And he presented a parchment, stamped with the great seal of Rome, to the king, who glanced his eye fiercely over it, and then dashed it to the ground, with an explosion of fury terrible to hear and to witness.

"Ha! by Saint George!" he cried; "am I as nothing, that the Pope dares to insult me thus?"

"It is a mere judicial form your majesty," interposed Campeggio, "and is chiefly sent by his holiness to let you know we have no further jurisdiction in the ' matter of the divorce."

"I will take care you have not, nor his holiness either," roared the king. "By my father's head, he shall find I will be no longer trifled with."

"But, my liege," cried Campeggio.

"Peace!" cried the king. "I will hear no apologies nor excuses. The insult has been offered, and cannot be effaced. As for you, Wolsey —"

"Sire!" exclaimed the cardinal, shrinking before the whirlwind of passion, which seemed to menace his utter extermination.

"As for you, I say," pursued Henry, extending his hand towards him, while his eyes flashed fire, "who by your outrageous pride have so long overshadowed our honour — who by your insatiate avarice and appetite for wealth have oppressed our subjects — who by your manifold acts of bribery and extortion have impoverished our realm, and by your cruelty and partiality have subverted the due course of justice and turned it to your ends — the time is come when you shall receive due punishment for your offences."

"You wrong me, my dear liege," cried Wolsey abjectly. "These are the accusations of my enemies. Grant me a patient hearing, and I will explain all."

"I would not sharpen the king's resentment against you, lord cardinal," said Anne Boleyn, "for it is keen enough; but I cannot permit you to say that these charges are merely hostile. Those who would support the king's honour and dignity must desire to see you removed from his counsels."

"I am ready to take thy place, lord cardinal," said Will Sommers; "and will exchange my bauble for thy chancellor's mace, and my fool's cap for thy cardinal's hat."

"Peace!" thundered the king. "Stand not between me and the object of my​ ​ wrath. Your accusers are not one but many, Wolsey; nay, the whole of my​people cry out for justice against you. And they shall have it. But you​shall hear the charges they bring. Firstly, contrary to our prerogative, and for your own advancement and profit, you have obtained authority legatine from the Pope; by which authority you have not only spoiled and taken away their substance from many religious houses, but have usurped much of our own jurisdiction. You have also made a treaty with the King of France for the Pope without our consent, and concluded another friendly treaty with the Duke of Ferrara, under our great seal, and in our name, without our warrant. And furthermore you have presumed to couple yourself with our royal self in your letters and instructions, as if you were on an equality with us." [Book the Fourth, "Cardinal Wolsey," Chapter XII. "How Wolsey was disgraced by the King," pp.​ 238-240]

Commentary

Ainsworth's depiction of the historical circumstances of Wolsey's fall is no more accurate, and much less poetic, than Shakespeare's. Moreover, Wolsey is arrogant, self-serving, and devious, unlike his tragic Shakespearean counterpart. The son of an Ipswich butcher, Wolsey graduated from Oxford, became a royal chaplain, and through the influence of the young Prince Henry became a member of the royal council in 1509. Upon Henry's accession to the throne, Wolsey assumed the reigns of government while Henry danced, hunted, composed music, and attended dances. His meteoric rise to power and his humble origins made him the object of aristocratic jealousy. The ultimate failure of his foreign policy was evident when the other European powers ignored English interests in the Peace of Cambrai​ (3 August 1529).​ However, Wolsey's failure to obtain a papal divorce from Queen Catherine of Arragon caused his dismissal. Ainsworth dramatizes Wolsey's being in league with Catherine, and determined to effect a reconciliation. In 1529, his fall imminent, Wolsey yielded the beautiful Thames palace, Hampton Court, begun in 1515, to Henry VIII. The scene is the audience-chamber in the Round Tower. Now, furious at the Pope's presumption in summoning the King of England to court over the royal divorce (technically, an annulment), Henry thunders at Wolsey.

Running head for Book the Fourth, "Cardinal Wolsey," Chapter XII. "How Wolsey was disgraced by the King": "The King's Explosion of Rage." With Anne Boleyn seated on the throne beside his on the dias, Henry's disdainful gesture of dismissal for the coped Cardinal signals Anne's triumph. Like Henry, she wears an ermine-trimmed surcoat to signify her royal status.​ She is under the canopy of state, glaring at Wolsey, and his ally, Cardinal Campeggio, the Pope's legate to the court of England.

The superb detailing in the fifteenth steel-engraving adds much to the viewer's enjoyment of the scene in which the plotting Wolsey finally receives his comeuppance. Henry stands at the top of the canopied dias, Tudor roses and fleurs-de-lys embroidered on the carpet and repeatedabove on the tasselled canopy. The shadow of the halberd, lower right, shows the threat under which those stand who earn Harry's displeasure, and is echoed by the halberd behind Henry and that which a Beefeater (standing between Will Sommers and Wolsey) holds. At Wolsey's feet lies the parchment "instrument," the formal injunction requiring Henry's attorney to appear before the papal court in Rome. Wolsey's gesture implies an attempt at defence as Henry accuses him of abuse of power and malfeasance. The ornate stained-glass windows behind the courtiers di not merely provide a source light; for those familiar with English history they are a subtle reminder of that the State will assume the rights and properties of the Church when Henry attains a divorce through his own ecclesiastical courts, and severs ties with Rome.​The Arms of Great Britain above Anne, with the Lion of England and the Unicorn of Scotland, are something of an anachronism in that the union of the two kingdoms did not occur until the accession of King James the Sixth of Scotland as James the First of England.

This isa formal audience in the presence chamber, with the King and Queen robed and enthroned — Anne wears a coronet, Henry a full crown. Henry's ornate robes and chain-of-office are subtly repeated in the family portraits above him. The figure in the small portrait to the right is likely Henry VIII, who died on 21 April 1509. The larger portrait is a family grouping: Henry, Catherine, Mary Tudor as a child (left), and possibly Henry's mother (Elizabeth of York, who died in February 1503). It is reminiscent of the Whitehall mural, commissioned by​ King​ Charles II​ in​ 1667, and The Family of Henry VIII, c. 1543-1547, at Hampton Court. The subject of the final portrait, immediately above Henry's head, is a matter of conjecture: it may be his older brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales, who died as a young man on 2 April 1502; another possibility is Henry's maternal Grandfather, the valiant Edward IV, as a youth. Thus, the dramatic study of Henry's formally removing​ Cardinal Thomas Wolsey from the post of Lord Chancellor in 1529 (a brilliantly concocted scene that likely did not occur as Ainsworth and Cruikshank describe it) is also a commentary on the Tudor dynasty.

Bibliography

Ainsworth, William Harrison. Windsor Castle. An Historical Romance. Illustrated by George Cruikshank and Tony Johannot. With designs on wood by W. Alfred Delamotte. London: Routledge, 1880. Based on the Henry Colburn edition of 1844.

Chesson, Wilfred Hugh. George Cruikshank. The Popular Library of Art. London: Duckworth, 1908.

Jerrold, Blanchard. The Life of George Cruikshank. In Two Epochs. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. 2 vols. London: Chatto and Windus, 1882.

Johnson, E. D. H. "The George Cruikshank Collection at Princeton." George Cruikshank: A Revaluation. Ed. Robert L. Patten. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U. P., 1974, rpt. 1992. Pp. 1-34.

Patten, Robert L. Chapter 30, "The 'Hoc' Goes Down." George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art, vol. 2: 1835-1878. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers U. P., 1991; London: The Lutterworth Press, 1996. Pp. 153-186.

Vann, J. Don. "Windsor Castle in Ainsworth's Magazine, June 1842-June 1843." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. P. 23.

Worth, George J. William Harrison Ainsworth. New York: Twayne, 1972.

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Last modified 21 December 2017