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Indiana University Studies 
from Oxford at the age of fifteen, a “boy bachelor”. He was 
maintained at Oxford by friends instead of his father, but 
his father gave him a legacy upon condition that he become 
a priest within a year. He did not become a priest for four 
years after his father’s death (1500) . He was handsome and 
free and easy in manners, and after he had obtained his first 
parish got drunk and was put in the stocks, so that he had to 
retire from the parish, but when he became chancellor he 
punished the knight who had put him in stocks by forbidding 
him to leave London. Next he became chaplain to the lord 
keeper of the Great Seal, and then to the king, Henry VII. 
Henry VII sent him on a mission to Maximilian at the time 
of the marriage of his daughter, and he was back successful 
within four days, insomuch that the king asked “why he had 
delayed going”. Then he was given the deanery of Lincoln. 
Henry VIII appointed him one of his council and then almoner. 
He meanwhile became bishop of Lincoln, archbishop of York, 
and finally cardinal in 1515, by appointment of Pope Leo 
X. All this time, tho only royal almoner, he relieved the 
monarch of his political labors and really was the chief ad- 
viser and mover in all state affairs. In 1515 the king ap- 
pointed him lord chancellor, after Wolsey had forced 
Markham’s resignation from the chancellorship so that he 
could get it. His attendance in chancery was regular and 
punctual, and his decrees equitable and just. He also sat in 
the Star Chamber, Legatine Court, and minor courts. His 
downfall was due to Anne Boleyn, who thought he had played 
her false, tho her marriage did not occur until two and a 
half years after his death. He was accused of violating, under 
legatine powers from the Pope, an old statute of Richard II, 
and he allowed judgment to go against him. Parliament 
failed to impeach him and the king pardoned him, but at the 
price of most of his possessions. But he was arrested for 
high treason by the Earl of Northumberland as he was pre- 
paring to be installed as archbishop, and on the way to Lon- 
don he fell mortally ill and died in 1530. Wolsey was vain, 
ambitious, and avaricious. His income was enormous, and 
was derived from church offices, bribes, and pensions. His 
love of ostentation was shown in his daily processions to West- 
minster. The popedom was his aspiration. He was vin- 
dictive, but not cruel, and he had a violent temper. Yet a 
