03/05/2007 S.Masterson
Did Wolsey Achieve Anything As A Judge
To judge how effective Wolsey was as a judge we must know what he was trying to achieve, his aims. The all pervading factor, or aim through out his career, and in its many different branches (domestic, foreign, law and order etc) was the need to please Henry. The need for him to do this is obvious, if he displeased Henry he would loose his power and position. The king was sovereign. The were other motives behind Wolsey, he was a humanist, he was ambitious, vengeful, he had class prejudices (he was the son of a butcher, and had on numerous times been treated badly by the noble and gentle classes).
Clearly the most important drive behind his actions was providing what the king wanted, so to judge his success we must see how effective he was in satisfying the king, and there for must look at what the king wanted. The king wanted many things, however the things that he wanted that could be achieved through the scope of the law (i.e. as Wolsey being a judge) are relatively small. He needed to keep control of the nobles, a rising by the peasants and commoners would have been easy to put down, a revolt by the nobility could loose Henry the throne and at the very least cause civil war, Henry’s father had usurped the throne and the Tudor era was relatively new and as such fragile. This meant that Henry was very concerned with keeping the nobles in order. He not only needed the Nobles not to revolt but he relied on them for his armies to satisfy his foreign policy objectives and to control law and order within their sphere of influence. He also relied on the nobles for his largest part of his tax revenue. All this meant that the nobles had to be kept in place but at the same time not feel subjugated by Henry.
