William Warham
| The Most Reverend and Right Honourable William Warham | |
|---|---|
| Archbishop of Canterbury | |
| Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger (1527)
Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger (1527)
| |
| Church | Catholic Church |
| Appointed | 29 November 1503 |
| Term ended | 22 August 1532 |
| Predecessor | Henry Deane |
| Successor | Thomas Cranmer |
| Orders | |
| Consecration | 25 September 1502 by Richard Foxe |
| Personal details | |
| Born | c. 1450 Malshanger, Hampshire, England |
| Died | 22 August 1532 Hackington, Kent, England |
| Buried | Canterbury Cathedral, Kent, England |
| Parents | Robert Warham of Malshanger |
William Warham (c. 1450 – 22 August 1532) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1503 until his death in 1532.
Early life and education
Warham was the son of Robert Warham of Malshanger in Hampshire. He was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford.[1]
Legal career
After graduating, Warham practised and taught law both in London and Oxford.[2] His father was a tenant farmer,[3] but his brother, Sir Hugh Warham, acquired an estate at Croydon, which passed to his daughter Agnes, who married Sir Anthony St Leger.[4]
Bishopric
Later, Warham took holy orders, held two livings (Barley and Cottenham) and became Master of the Rolls in 1494. Henry VII found him a useful and clever diplomatist. He helped to arrange the marriage between Henry's son, Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Catherine of Aragon. He went to Scotland with Richard Foxe, then bishop of Durham, in 1497. He was partly responsible for several commercial and other treaties with Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, also Count of Flanders and Regent Duke of Burgundy, on behalf of his son Philip IV of Burgundy.
Archbishopric
In 1502, he was consecrated Bishop of London and became Keeper of the Great Seal, but his tenure of both offices was short, as in 1504, he became Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1506, he became Chancellor of Oxford University, a role he held until his death. In 1509, he presided over the wedding of and then crowned Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.
On 28 September 1511, he made a visit to the hospital at Maison Dieu, Faversham.[5]
As archbishop, Warham seems to have been somewhat arbitrary; for example, his actions led to a serious quarrel with Foxe, then Bishop of Winchester, and others in 1512. That made him gradually withdraw into the background after the coronation. He resigned the office of Lord Chancellor in 1515 and was succeeded by Thomas Wolsey, whom he had consecrated as bishop of Lincoln in the previous year. His resignation was possibly because of his dislike of Henry's foreign policy.
Warham was present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520 and assisted Wolsey as assessor during the secret inquiry into the validity of Henry's marriage with Catherine in 1527. Throughout the divorce proceedings, Warham's position was essentially that of an old and weary man. He was named as one of the counsellors to assist the queen, but, fearing to incur the king's displeasure and using his favourite phrase ira principis mors est ("the king's anger is death"), he gave her very little help and signed the letter to Pope Clement VII that urged the pope to assent to Henry's wish. Later, it was proposed that the archbishop himself should try the case, but the suggestion came to nothing.
Warham presided over the Convocation of 1531, when the clergy of the Province of Canterbury voted £100,000 to the king to avoid the penalties of praemunire and accepted Henry as supreme head of the church with the face-saving clause "so far as the Law of Christ allows".
In Warham's concluding years, however, the archbishop showed rather more independence. In February 1532, he protested against all acts concerning the church passed by the parliament that met in 1529, but that did not prevent the important proceedings which secured the complete submission of the church to the state later in the same year. Against this further compliance with Henry's wishes, Warham drew up a protest in which he likened the action of Henry VIII to that of Henry II and urged Magna Carta in defence of the liberties of the church.[6] He attempted in vain to strike a compromise during the Submission of the Clergy.
Death and legacy
Having been munificent in his public and moderate in his private life, he died on a visit to his nephew, also William Warham. He was buried in the Martyrdom (north) transept of Canterbury Cathedral. He was succeeded as archbishop by his rival, Thomas Cranmer.[7] Warham Guild was named after him.
From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia
William Warham — Archbishop of Canterbury, born at Church Oakley, Hampshire, about 1450; died at Hackington, near Canterbury, 22 August, 1532. He was educated at Winchester School and New College, Oxford, of which he became a fellow in 1475. Having taken his doctorate of laws he left Oxford in 1488, to become an advocate in the ecclesiastical courts in London, but two years later he returned to Oxford as principal of the school of civil law. His ability caused him to be employed o several foreign embassies, and his success obtained for him much ecclesiastical preferment. He became precentor of Wells (1493), rector of Barley (1495), archdeacon of Huntingdon (1497), and rector of Cottenham (1500). On 13 February, 1494, he had been appointed to the important legal office of Master of the Rolls. While absent on one of his frequent missions abroad he was elected Bishop of London (October, 1501), but was not consecrated till 25 September, 1502. In the interval he had resigned the office of Master of the Rolls, and had been appointed to the more important post of Keeper of the Great Seal. So great was his reputation for learning and ability that fresh honours followed rapidly. On 29 November, 1503, Pope Julius II nominated him as Archbishop of Canterbury, and on 21 January, 1504, the king made him Lord Chancellor of England. He received the pallium at Lambeth on Candelmas Day and was enthroned at Canterbury on 9 March. He took a leading part in all important national business, and his powers as an orator were in much demand on great occasions of state. His university of Oxford chose him as Chancellor in 1506.
In 1509 he crowned Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, and under the new king he enjoyed the same confidence as under Henry VII till he was overshadowed by the growing influence of Wolsey. In 1512 he became involved in a controversy with his suffragans, who considered that he pushed the metropolitan prerogative too far, and the matter was finally settled by a compromise. When Wolsey was created cardinal in 1515 Warham conferred the hat upon him in Westminster Abbey, and thereafter he was forced into the second place. Before Christmas he resigned the office of Lord Chancellor, as he had long wished to do, being out of sympathy with the king's anti-French policy, and Wolsey received the Great Seal in his stead. Warham's power was still further diminished in 1517 when Wolsey was appointed papal legate, and from that time forward there were constant official differences between them, though their private relations continued friendly. Wolsey as legate continually interfered with the action of the archbishop as metropolitan of the southern province and not infrequently overruled his decisions. In state affairs, especially in the raising of subsidies, he supported Wolsey, though he incurred the contempt of the cardinal's enemies for doing so. When the divorce question was first raised in 1527 he was Wolsey's assessor in the secret inquiry into the validity of the king's marriage. About this time his health began to fail, and he was no longer equal to taking an effective part in the important affairs that ensued. Being selected as the chief of the counsel appointed to assist Queen Katherine he did nothing on her behalf, but when she appealed to him for advice, replied that he would not meddle in such matters. He steadfastly refused to oppose the king's wishes, and in the summer of 1530 signed the petition to the pope begging him to allow the divorce. This course he pursued under threats from the king that unless he was complaisant all ecclesiastical authority in England would be destroyed.
On Wolsey's fall the king wished the whole case to be submitted to Warham's decision, but the pope refused on the ground that his signature of the petition made him an unfit judge. When the whole clergy of England were subjected to a praemunire for having acknowledged Wolsey's legatine authority, the king seized the opportunity to force them to declare him head of the Church. Warham proposed an amendment recognizing him as "protector and supreme lord of the Church and so far as the law of Christ will allow supreme head". This was carried in default of opposition and the clergy were allowed to purchase their pardon for a large sum. At length Warham awoke to the gravity of the position, and on 24 February, 1532, he formally protested against all Acts of Parliament derogatory to the pope's authority or the prerogatives of Canterbury. The king incited the parliament to harass the archbishop with a petition for redress of grievances against his courts. With a flash of his old spirit and ability he returned an able answer, but this did not satisfy either king or parliament, and on 15 May the "submission of the clergy" was wrung from them. Three months later Warham died, leaving his books to be divided between Winchester, and All Souls and New Colleges at Oxford. He had nothing else to leave, owing to his extreme munificence in supporting public charities, in exercising hospitality and in assisting scholars, such as Erasmus. His own private life was simple and austere, so that he died "without money and without debts". His portrait by Holbein is at Lambeth, the original drawing for it being preserved in the king's collection at Windsor.
POLYDORE VERGIL, Anglia Historia (Basle, 1555), Memorials of Henry VII, ed. GAIRDNER in R.S. (London, 1858); Letters and Papers of Richard III and Henry VII, ed. GAIRDNER in R.S. (London, 1861-3); State Papers of Henry VIII (London, 1831- 52); CAMPBELL, Materials for a history of the reign of Henry VII in R.S. (London, 1873-7); HOOK, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (London, 1860-84); CAMPBELL, Lives of the Lord Chancellors (London, 1845-60); FOSS, The Judges of England (London, 1848-64); BREWER, Reign of Henry VIII to death of Wolsey (London, 1884); LINGARD, History of England; GAIRDNER in Dict. Nat. Biog., s.v.
References
- Back to citation Waad-Warwright Pages 1550-1577 Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714
- Back to citation Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Warham, William". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 59. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 384.
- Back to citation Gwyn, Peter The King's Cardinal- the rise and fall of Thomas Wolsey 1990 Pimlico Edition p.26
- Back to citation Lee, Sidney, ed. (1897). "St. Leger, Warham". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 50. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 167.
- Back to citation Hasted, Edward (1798). "Parishes". Hospitals: Ospringe, A History of the County of Kent. 2. Institute of Historical Research: 222–224. Retrieved 14 March 2014.
- Back to citation Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Warham, William". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 325.
- Back to citation Stephen Taylor (1999). From Cranmer to Davidson: A Church of England Miscellany. Boydell & Brewer. pp. 11–. ISBN 978-0-85115-742-9.
Bibliography
- John Sherren Brewer, Reign of Henry VIII (1884)
- James Gairdner, Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Warham, William". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 58. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- James Gairdner, The English Church in the 16th Century (1902)
- W. F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (1860?1876)
- A. F. Pollard, Henry VIII (1905)
- Burton, Edwin Hubert (1912). "William Warham". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
- Scarisbrick, J. J. "Warham, William (1450?–1532)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28741. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
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