The Fall of Cardinal Wolsey

It is sufficiently well known to the general reader of history that the cause of Wolsey's fall was his failure to obtain for Henry VIII. a divorce from Katharine of Arragon. Wolsey had certainly done his utmost in that bad cause, however unwillingly he engaged himself to it in the first instance; for it was a matter of life or death to him to give the king satisfaction. For years the old nobility of England, who were councillors by right of birth and standing, had resented his monopoly of the king's confidence. Several of them were related to Anne Boleyn, and others who were not personally interested backed the king's wishes in the divorce—unpopular as it was in the country generally—as a means of securing the downfall of the Cardinal. Even the Duke of Suffolk, no less an upstart than Wolsey himself, and whom Wolsey had saved at the outset of his career from the vengeance of the other nobles, now most ungratefully turned against him; and when the Legatine Court was prorogued by Campeggio, gave a great rap on the table and said with haughty mien, ‘It was never merry in England whilst we had Cardinals among us.’