Walsey thomas

The son of a butcher from Ipswich . Studied at Oxford . In 1498 he took the rank of.

Thanks to connections in the court environment, he fell into the circle of Henry VII's close associates, and in 1507 he became his confessor. After accession to the throne, Henry VIII encouraged his passion for entertainment, concentrating in his own hands the main threads of government. In the two decades of being in favor, Cardinal Walsi has made a fabulous fortune.

In foreign policy, Walsy saw England as the “arbiter” overseeing the situation in continental Europe. After successful military operations in France (1513), the cardinal tried to reconcile the French monarch with the English, for which he arranged their meeting on the Golden Brocade Field in June 1520.

In the same 1520, he accompanied his king to a meeting with Emperor Charles V , and three years later he sent detachments of English knights to help the latter in his military operations against France.

In 1528, he opposed the emperor on the side of the French. Such unscrupulousness ultimately led to the diplomatic isolation of England in continental Europe.

Wolsey was so carried away by diplomatic intrigues that he significantly entrusted the reform of the English Church to his advisers. In order to finance the hostilities on the Continent, he imposed a number of unpopular taxes (in particular, ) and closed 29 monasteries, and built Hampton Court Palace from excess income and laid Christ Church in Oxford . Nor did rumors about the far from pious details of his personal life add to his popularity: despite celibacy , Walsey did not hide the presence of illegitimate son and daughter.

The voluntarism of the artistic cardinal provoked extreme discontent not only among the commoners, but also from the upper strata of the nobility, who convinced the king that Walsy was on the content of the French government. The cardinal fell into disgrace in connection with the Pope's refusal to authorize the dissolution of the king’s marriage with Catherine of Aragon , lost his titles and was taken into custody, but he died before meeting with the king. Its unpopularity among different classes facilitated the spread of Protestantism in England.

Walsey was replaced by his former secretary, Thomas Cromwell, as the king’s first adviser.

• Cardinal Walsey is the central character in William Shakespeare's play Henry VIII .
• Walsy’s biography and his relationship with King Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell formed the basis of the novel English writer Hilary Mantel , as well as the BBC mini-series “The Wolf Hall ” based on them.

• Orson Welles in the movie Man for All Times (1966)
• Anthony Quayle in the movie " A Thousand Days of Anna " (1969)
• John Bascomp in the movie Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972)
• John Gilgud in the movie "Man for All Times" (TV, 1988)
• David Suchet in the mini-series Henry VIII (2003)
• Sam Nill in the television series "The Tudors " (2007—2010)
• Jonathan Price in the mini-series "The Wolf Hall " (2015)
• Blai Llopis in the television series Carlos the King and the Emperor (2015-2016)
• Mark Edel Hunt in the television series White Princess (2017)

• The Wolsey Britannic article