Thomas Wolsey
Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (1475?-1530) was an English statesman and a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was the most powerful person in England for many years.
When Henry VIII became king in 1509, Wolsey's affairs prospered. He became Canon of Windsor1511, the same year in which he became a member of the Privy Council. His political star was in the ascendant and he soon became a major controlling figure in all matters of state. In 1514, he was made Bishop of Lincoln, and then Archbishop of York. Pope Leo X made him a cardinal in 1515. Wolsey loved display and wealth. He lived in royal splendour and revelled in his power; his long-term ambition was to become pope.
Cardinal Wolsey spent his great abilities as a statesman and administrator mainly in managing England's foreign affairs for Henry VIII. Despite the many enemies his greed and ambition earned him, he held Henry VIII's confidence until Henry decided to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and marry Anne Boleyn. Wolsey disapproved of this, and was slow in arranging the divorce. The delay angered the king, and made Wolsey an enemy of Anne Boleyn and her friends.
His fall was sudden and complete. Stripped of office and property, he was permitted to remain Archbishop of York. But shortly afterward, he was accused of treason and ordered to London. In great distress, he set out for the capital. He fell ill and died on the way. "If I had served God," the cardinal said remorsefully, "as diligently as I have done the king, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs."
In keeping with his practice of erecting magnificent buildings, Wolsey had designed a grand tomb for himself, but he lost it, just as he had lost Hampton Court. Wolsey was buried in Leicester Abbey without any monument at all, and Henry VIII considered using the impressive black sarcophagus for himself, but Lord Nelson now lies in it, in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral.