Thomas Wolsey: Significant Places

The most interesting thing about Wolsey's journeys, is not the actual locations, but the ceremony and pageantry that followed him as he went. Wherever he was, Wolsey would make the most of his appearance to strike awe and wonder into the watching crowds. As became a Prince of the Church, he rode a mule, but the mule would be trapped with gold, and his retinue in red satin.

Whilst he was residing at York Place in the period after 1514, he would visit the King at Greenwich each Sunday. Setting out early in the morning, he would descend the new water steps he had had built, into his painted and gilded barge, attended by a liveried retinue. He would be rowed downstream as far as either Queenhithe (now Cannon Street) or St Paul's.

Once arrived, he would leave the barge and be met by horses which would carry him past the treacherous rapids at London Bridge, then some 100 ft (30 metres) further downstream than now. Shooting the bridge, as it was called, when a vessel passed downstream under it, was a dangerous undertaking and avoided where at all possible. Past London Bridge, he would enter another barge to continue to Greenwich.

All the other days of the week, when he was in London, Wolsey would travel to Westminster to undertake his duties in the Star Chamber and in Chancery. Leaving York Place at 8am he would be preceded by two great silver crosses, one each for his roles as Papal Legate and Archbishop. These would be followed by two pillars of state, the Lord Chancellor's Sergeant-at-arms and a page, bearing the Great Seal in a silk bag. Wolsey would come next on his mule, his four footmen bearing silver poleaxes and a peer or a gentleman usher bearing his red cardinal's hat. To clear the crowds, ushers marched ahead, crying

"On, my Lords and Masters. Make way for my Lord's Grace. The Cardinal Legate of York, Lord High Chancellor of this realm."

The most magnificent trip of all was Wolsey's foray toward the French camp at the Field of Cloth of Gold, when he left the English camp to arrange the details of the two Kings' meeting.

He set forth on his mule, with fifty mounted gentlemen preceding him, gowned in red velvet and a further fifty ushers bearing gold maces as "large as a man's head".In front of him was borne his great gold cross, with a jewelled crucifix. Behind the Cardinal rode a phalanx of bishops and other clergy, including the Grand Prior of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem. Bringing up the rear, were 100 mounted archers of the King's Guard.

It is not hard to see why Henry's nobles considered Wolsey an arrogant upstart.