ABSTRACT
In the autumn of 1529 Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who had served as Henry
VIII’s principal minister for a decade and a half, fell from power. On 17 October
he surrendered the Great Seal, thus formally resigning as Lord Chancellor, the
position he had held since 1515. A few days earlier, on 9 October, he had been
indicted in the court of King’s Bench for offences under the fourteenth-century
statute of praemunire (which restricted papal powers within England) and on 22
October he was to acknowledge his guilt in an indenture made with the king.
Nevertheless he was not utterly destroyed. He remained Archbishop of York,
and was allowed to set off for his diocese in early 1530.
