biography
| name: |
Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal
|
pronunciation:
[wulzee]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (c.1475–1530)
|
| biography:
| English clergyman and statesman, born in Ipswich, Suffolk, E England, UK. He studied at Oxford, was ordained in 1498, appointed chaplain to Henry VII in 1507, and became Dean of Lincoln. Under Henry VIII, he became Bishop of Lincoln, Archbishop of York (1514), and a cardinal (1515). Made Lord Chancellor (1515–29), he pursued legal and administrative reforms, and became Henry VIII's leading adviser, in charge of the day-to-day running of government. He aimed to make England a major power in Europe, and also had ambitions to become pope, but his policy of supporting first Emperor Charles V (1523) then Francis I of France (1528) in the Habsburg–Valois conflict was unsuccessful, and high taxation caused much resentment. His despotism and personal ambition (he had begun the demolition of Christ Church cathedral in Oxford in 1525, to replace it with ‘Cardinal College’) contributed to the anti-clericalism of the times. When he failed to persuade the pope to grant Henry's divorce, he was impeached and his property forfeited. Arrested on a charge of high treason, he died while travelling to London. |
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