Causes of Wolsey's Fakk

It is possible to argue that the main cause of Wolsey’s fall was opposition from ‘an aristocratic party’. The line that reads ‘There can be no doubt that for long an aristocratic party, led by the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, had been hoping to… dispossess him’ clearly supports the above statement. Both Norfolk and Suffolk come from nobility, and at that time it was the nobles who had a lot of influence. However, following Wolsey’s rise to authority, he did not hesitate to use his power against the nobles. This resulted in him having many enemies along the way, with the majority being those from noble backgrounds. On the other hand, it is possible to argue that Wolsey’s failure to secure the annulment of Henry’s marriage with Catherine of Aragon also contributed to his fall. Source 6 consists of a letter written by Anne Boleyn to Wolsey that explains how he couldn’t live up to his ‘fine promises about divorce’, and she ends it by expressing how it brought her ‘much sorrow’. This is a significant factor as it was this that led Henry to the realization that Wolsey cannot actually give him everything he wanted, and made him appear inefficient. Furthermore his inability to annul the marriage angered Anne Boleyn, resulting in her disliking Wolsey even more than she did before. This was highly unbeneficial for Wolsey as at the time she had a lot of power over Henry’s decisions.
A main cause of Wolsey’s fall was opposition from ‘an aristocratic party’. The poem by John Skeleton in Source 4 highlights Wolsey’s arrogance through lines such as ‘Duke, early, baron nor lord, But to his sentence must accord; Whether he be knight or squire, All men must follow his desire.’ John Skeleton who also comes from a noble background aims to criticize the church through this satire, but even further aims to criticize the man behind it; Wolsey. This is supported by Source 7 which elaborates further on Skeleton’s poem, stating how he was ‘savaging him for allegedly ousting the