How successful, in your view, was Wolseys domestic administration between 1515 and 1529?

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Thomas Wolsey was a man who gained so much power, that the only person that he would answer to was the king alone. He became the leading minister in 1515 when he was appointed Lord Chancellor of the judiciary. Wolsey served under the king directly, and handled matters of such importance; they were linked to the main aims of Henry VIII. In turn, Wolsey developed five policies to support Henry’s aims, they were to: improve the system of criminal justice; improve the system of civil justice; campaigning against enclosing and engrossing; attacking profiteering and antisocial behaviour and to establish the Tudor ‘subsidy’ tax. Wolsey took a firm stand when improving the criminal justice system, examples were made of people from the higher classes of the population, even those given the titles of such as ‘Sir’ and ‘Earl’. Sir Robert Sheffield was an individual who dissatisfied Wolsey as a speaker of parliament in 1512 – Wolsey made an example of him by issuing a fine of £5333 and sending him to the tower. Another individual of distinguished background who was punished was the Earl of Northumberland, he was sent to the fleet prison and then there was also Sir William Bulmer who was prosecuted as an illegal retainer. An additional method Wolsey used to improve the criminal justice system was by accepting feedback from certain members of the public and assize judges, based on the information he gained, he could either summon the offender to the ‘star chamber’ or assign ‘oyer et terminer’ commissioners to the various cases. Though he took various steps to improve the criminal justice system, it cannot be said that this policy was successful, as there is no facts or figures to clarify how much was really achieved with these new methods. The second policy Wolsey came up with – to improve the system of civil justice – was not quite successful as he may have hoped. The main

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