.

revenues from religious service, but only made a change in the application of them; and again, he merely abolished unnecessary monasteries, that necessary Colleges might be erected. Nor did he do this without precedent, as the reader, versed in ecclesiastical history, will instantly perceive when he refers to the cases in point, of Archbishop Chichele and Bishop Waynflete, and the suppression of the Templars. And to this list of precedents we may safely add on the authority of Bishop Tanner, Bishops Fisher, Alcock, and Beckington.

Wolsey had too strong a mind and too much good sense to be overawed in the performance of what he deemed right, by the unpopularity of the measure : weaker man might have been deterred from his purpose by the lampoons which in all directions assailed his laudable undertaking. Amongst these were " Egregium opus! Cardinalis iste instituit Collegium, et absolvit popinam, in allusion to the kitchen having been first completed; and another ran thus:-

"Non stabit illa domus, aliis fundata rapinis,
"Aut ruet, aut alter raptor habebit eam :"

which lines would have come with a better grace had it not unfortunately happened for the writer, that in his zeal to abuse the Cardinal he has betrayed his ignorance of Latin by a false quantity, the penult of stabit being long.

Synopsis of Dates connected with Wolsey's Life, comprehending his Preferments, and some of the principal matters with which he was connected, mostly unnoticed by Cavendish.

Born March, 1471.

B.A. Magdalen College, Oxford, 1486.

Fellow of the same soon after.

M.A. and Master of Magdalen School.

Bursar of Magdalen College, 1498, about which time he built the tower.

Rector of Limmington, near Ilchester, Somerset, 1500. Domestic Chaplain to Henry Dean, Archbishop of Canterbury. This must have been about 1501 or 2.

Bishop Dean was translated from Salisbury to Canterbury in 1501, and died 1502-3.*

*

Chaplain to Sir John Nanfan, Treasurer of Calais, 1503. Calais then belonged to us.

Chaplain to King Henry VII. shortly after.

Rector of Redgrave, Suffolk, by dispensation from Pope Julius II. this being his 3rd living. This dispensation bears date 1508. He had before had a dispensation from Pope Alexander in 1503, to hold two, but the name of the second I find not, unless it were Torrington.

Dean of Lincoln, Feb. 1508. The same year the King also gave him two Prebends in the same Church. B.D. 1510. Wood's Fasti. Ox. 1. 29.

Almoner to King Henry VIII.

BISHOP OF TOURNAY, (Ep. Tornacensis) in Flanders,

about 1513.

Privy Counsellor and Reporter of the Proceedings in the Star Chamber.

Rector of Torrington, in the diocese of Exeter; quære which Torrington? The place is called by Chalmer, Turrington.

Canon of Windsor (Chalmer.) He does not so occur in Le Neve's Fasti.

Registrar of the Order of the Garter.

Prebendary of Bugthorp, in the Cathedral of York, Jan. 16, 1512. Willis's Cathedrals, I. 127. Dean of York, Feb. 19, 1512.

and Drake's Hist. York, p. 559.

Willis's Cath. I, 69,

He is there called Wolsie, and styled D.D. His name is frequently written Wulcie.

Dean of Hereford, 1512, resigned the same year, Le Neve's Fasti, p. 114,

Precentor of St. Paul's, 1513, collated July 8.

BISHOP OF LINCOLN, 1514, and Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.

Chancellor of the Order of the Garter.

Archbishop of YORK, and CARDINAL OF ST. CECILIA,

1514.

Pope's Legate, 1516,

Lord High Chancellor, on the resignation of Archbishop Warham, 1516.

A memoir of Archbishop Dean, as Bishop of Sarum, may be found in Cassan's Lives of the Bishops of Salisbury, part I. p. 273.

Bishop of Bath and Wells, Worcester, and Hereford, 1518, (Cavendish) i. e. he had the administration of those dioceses and their temporalties, but I find no authority for his having been consecrated to them. They were filled by foreigners, who were allowed non-residence, and received pensions. Cardinal Julius de Medicis was made administrator of Worcester, by the Pope's bull, July 31, 1521, and so continued a year. Silvester Gigles, his predecessor, died at Rome, 1521. It is therefore hard to reconcile Cavendish's date. Wolsey does not occur Bishop of Hereford in Le Neve's Fasti.

Candidate for the Papacy on the demise of Leo X. Bishop of Durham, 1523; resigned Bath and Wells. Candidate for the Papacy on the demise of Adrian. Commenced his College at Oxford, 1524 or 5.

Ditto

Ipswich School, 1526 or 7. Finished his Palace at Hampton-Court, 1528, which he had begun in 1514.

BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, 1528, when he resigned Durham.

Having incurred a præmunire, by procuring, contrary to statute, 16 Richard II. a bull from Rome, appointing him Legate, he was indicted by the Attorney-General in the Court of King's Bench, Oct. 9, 1529.

Received a free pardon Feb. 12, 1530; restored to the Archbishopric of York, and allowed 1000 marks per annum out of Winchester.

Died 1530, aged 59.

The

· Portraits.-The portraits, &c. of Wolsey, are thus noticed by Granger:-" 1. Thomas Wolsæus, Card. et Archiep. Eborac. &c. Holbein p. Faber s. one of the founders, 4to. mezz.-2. Thomas Wolsey, &c. a label proceeding from his mouth, inscribed," Ego, meus et rex;" 4to.-3. Thomas Wolsey, &c. Elstracke sc. 4to. There are two copies of the same, one of them with arms. original print is, as I am informed, before his life, by Mr. Cavendish, the founder of the Devonshire family, who was his gentleman-usher. Perhaps this has heen copied from a later edition of that book. I find in a large MS. catalogue of English Heads, by Vertue, in my possession, that there is a head of him by Loggan.-4. In Holland's "Heroologia," 8vo.-5. W. M. (Marshall) sc. small; in Fuller's Holy State."—6. Fourdrinier sc. h. len. h. sh. in his Life

86

by Fiddes, fol.-7. Houbraken. sc. Illust. Head. In the possession of Mr. Kingsley.-8. Desrochers. sc. 4to.9. Inscribed C. W. Vertue, sc. a small oval.-There is no head of Wolsey which is not in profile. That which is carved in wood, in the central board of the gateway which leads to the Butchery of Ipswich, has such an appearance of antiquity, that it is supposed to have been done when he was living; by the side of it is a butcher's knife. It is said that his portraits were done in profile, because he had but one eye."-Biog. Hist. Engl. I. p. 91.

There is also a portrait of him at Knole, (the Duke of Dorset's). See Biographical Sketches of Persons whose Portraits are at Knole, &c. p. 141.-ED.

His Character as Lord High Chancellor has been thus drawn by Hume:

"If this new accumulation of dignity increased his enemies, it also served to exalt his personal character, and prove the extent of his capacity. A strict administration of justice took place during his enjoyment of this high office and no chancellor ever discovered greater impartiality in his decisions, deeper penetration of judgment, or more enlarged knowledge of law or equity."

Shakspeare has drawn a more just and comprehensive sketch of Wolsey's perfections and failings than is to be found in any other writer;-and with this I shall close the memoirs of this celebrated and ill-used Ecclesiastic.

This Cardinal,

Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly

Was fashion'd to much honour. From his cradle,
He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one:

Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading:

Lofty and sour, to them that lov'd him not;

But, to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.
And though he were unsatisfied in getting,

(Which was a sin) yet in bestowing,

He was most princely: ever witness for him

Those twins of learning, that he rais'd in you,

Ipswich, and Oxford! one of which fell with him,
Unwilling to out-live the good he did it;
The other, though unfinish'd, yet so famous,
So excellent in art, and still so rising,
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.
His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him
For then, and not 'till then, he felt himself,
And found the blessedness of being little:
And, to add greater honours to his age
Thay man could give him, he died, fearing God.

XXV. STEPHEN GARDINER, L.L.D.

SUCCEEDED A.D, 1531.-DIED A.D. 1555.

THIS able Lawyer, learned Divine, and shrewd Statesman, who was Bishop of Winchester, and Lord High Chancellor of England, in the 16th Century, is said by some to have been the natural Son of Bishop Widville, of Salisbury, and consequently grandson of the Earl of Rivers, whose daughter Elizabeth was consort of King Edward IV.: while others call him a younger Son of Sir Thomas Gardiner, of Lancashire. He was born at Bury St. Edmund's, Suffolk, (Fox, Acts and Mon. 3, 524) in 1483.

*Few have risen higher by mere dint of abilities, few suffered greater changes of fortune, few have been more magnified or commended, few more invidiously and outrageously treated, than this famous Prelate, in his life-time and since his decease; yet, for any tolerable account of him there is none. We find no article of him in any collection of this kind, very little amongst the compliers of historical memoirs, and, though there is more in our literary and other biographical historians, it is so intermixed with other matter, or so visibly tinctured with party resentment, that it is almost impossible to know what to think, or whom to trust. In this case, the collecting his memoirs with caution, care, and candour, and reporting them fairly to posterity, is a work of equal labour and difficulty; but what then? It is necessary, useful, conducive to the bringing much truth to light, and exposing many errors which have been so often, and elegantly repeated, by those who took them to be truths, that we may reasonably hope a kind and favourable reading of what particulars are here digested concerning this great man's life, which are as copious, as exact, and as free from bias of any kind as we were able to make them. It is also to be hoped, that they will be perused with the same equal spirit, and that the reader will bring an inclination to be informed how things really happened, what were, and what were not, the actions of this famous

The following memoir is from the old edition of the Biographia Britannica.-London, 1750. vol. 3, p. 2089.