How effective a servant was Thomas Wolsey to Henry VIII?
Thomas Wolsey was the most loyal and dedicated servant to Henry and, early in Henry’s reign, one of the king’s best friends. In the first years of Henry’s reign when the king was a young, carefree and vigorous man, newly freed from the shackles of being the codled sole heir to the hrone, he preferred to hunt, build his elaborate houses and play with his court friends to doing the work of a king. Wolsey shouldered the responsibility of the kingdom, wokring tirelessly on the necessary work Henry thought “boring”. Not that Wolsey was noy as corrupted by power as anyone else – he had an over-onflated sense of his own importance and was perfectly capable of crushing the hopes and aspiratiuons of courtiers he did not approve of – for example he was the one who vetoed Heny Percy’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, dexlaring her unfit for such a man. In doing so he created the woman who was to become his most deadly enemy. Wolsey had many enemies, men and women jealous of his power and his closeness to
