This early 16th century oak panel is not only an extraordinary survival – it constitutes one of the most significant recently rediscovered artworks that date from the reign of Henry VIII. The panel, which is constructed of two pieces of Baltic oak and has been dendrochronologically dated to have been felled in around 1520, is carved with Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s coat of arms. It is the only known contemporary wood-carved example and one of only two known sculptural treatments of his arms to survive from Wolsey’s lifetime.

Cardinal Wolsey (1473 – 1530)

Born in 1473 to a middle-class family of traders, Thomas Wolsey received his ordination in 1498. Wolsey quickly rose through the ranks of the church in England and, by 1507, he was employed by King Henry VII who appointed him as royal chaplain. When Henry VIII succeeded his father two years later, he gave Wolsey the role of Royal Almoner and a position on the Privy Council. Wolsey was created a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church by Leo X in 1515 and in the same year was appointed Lord Chancellor by Henry. In this position, he was the king’s principal councillor and administrator and would, until being stripped of his title in 1529, advise Henry on all matters of state, both domestically and foreign. His meteoric political rise along with his vast accumulation of clerical appointments (not only was he a cardinal, but he was also Archbishop of York and Bishop of Durham, to name only a few such positions) was met not only with great power, but huge wealth and estates too. Wolsey’s downfall would come in 1529 when he unsuccessfully petitioned Pope Clement VII to annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. His failure to do so, and his position as a Catholic Cardinal in the face of an impending Protestant reformation in England, led to him being stripped of his political posts and having charges of treason levelled at him. It was these charges he was travelling to London to answer when, in November 1530, he died whilst suffering from dysentery.

Wolsey’s arms and their proliferation

Thomas Wolsey’s arms were granted to him by the College of Arms on 4th August 1525, marking the zenith of the cardinal’s career as Lord High Chancellor of England. The escutcheon is blazoned as follows:

Sable, on a cross engrailed argent a lion passant gules between four leopard's faces azure on a chief or a rose gules barbed vert seeded or between two Cornish choughs proper

His arms were, typically, full of symbolism. The silver cross comes from the arms of the Earls of Suffolk and the leopards’ faces were taken from the de la Pole Earls and the Dukes of Suffolk (Wolsey was born in Ipswich). The red lion passant refers to his patron Leo X and the two Cornish choughs, sometimes called ‘beckets’ are a nod to Wolsey’s namesake the great English martyr and saint, Thomas Becket. The red capello romano and tassels denote his rank of cardinal.

Arms, once granted, were a potent symbol, widely used not only by holders, but also by their allies and supporters as a way of boasting connection to great personages or by way of flattery. They also acted as a visual cypher for their holder and were incorporated into paintings, tapestry, manuscripts, furniture and architecture. This is best shown in a document dating to c. 1530 called The Wriothesley Garter Book. The most famous page is an illuminated depiction of the state opening of parliament in 1523. This illustration depicts Henry VIII enthroned in Parliament at the head of his Lords Spiritual and Temporal. To his proper right are three bishops, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London and Wolsey, the Archbishop of York. Of all the people depicted in this page, only Wolsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the King have the honour of having their arms shown above their heads. As if to make doubly sure that Wolsey’s identity be known, he is depicted with a further capello romano and tassels above his bishop’s mitre. In this instance, Wolsey’s arms have been impaled with those belonging to the Archbishopric of York.

In a 1520s household inventory of Wolsey’s moveable goods and possessions at various properties, including Hampton Court, York Place and Westminster, there are large numbers of items listed as having been decorated with his arms. 

There are listed 82 tapestry pieces all ‘bordered with my lord’s armes’.[1] Elsewhere in this inventory there are mentions of chairs, quilts and cloths embroidered with his arms as well as multiple andirons ‘euery pair of them having my lords Armes and Cardinalles hattes in the tops’.[2] Dr Elizabeth Goldring has explained that, given how ubiquitous this decoration with arms clearly was, it is ‘virtually inconceivable’ that Wolsey did not have his arms painted or set into, the wood panelling of his palaces.[3]

These sundry items all appear to have vanished, most of them most likely immediately after his dramatic fall in 1529. Non-moveable depictions of Wolsey’s arms were destroyed or, in one special case, covered up. It was long thought that no large-scale sculpted depictions of Wolsey’s arms had survived his fall and the subsequent Protestant reformation. That was until 1845 when, at Hampton Court, a large masonry coat of arms belonging to Henry VIII was removed for conservation. Once these were removed, an older, terracotta coat of arms belonging to Wolsey and dated 1525 was revealed:

‘When King Henry the Eighth took possession of Wolsey’s noble palace at Hampton, […] his arms were placed over those of the Cardinal in the centre court. These were of terracotta, portions of which were cut away for the purpose of inserting the arms of the King […]. The royal supporters were placed very ingeniously between those of the cardinal; and, to conceal everything belonging to that prelate, the hat was covered by a crown worked in wrought iron.’[4]

These arms have two putti supporters (ours have griffins) and it appears that since the publication of a drawing of the Hampton Court arms in The Gentleman’s Magazine, it has lost the segmental pediment – dated MDXXV and inscribed with Wolsey’s initials – that once sat above the terracotta architrave.

Whilst Wolsey evidently displayed his arms and insignia widely, so too did his supporters and admirers. At Baron Sandys house The Vyne, there exists, carved into his panelled long gallery, Wolsey’s initials and capello romano. Sandys was the King’s Lord Chamberlain and to flaunt his extensive connections, his long gallery contains the arms of many of England’s most powerful magnates at the time. The lack of Wolsey’s arms means that his panel was probably carved before they were granted to him in 1525.

Wolsey’s most famous and consequential disciple, and the man who would ultimately replace him as Henry’s chief minister, was Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell was a merchant, lawyer and parliamentarian. In 1524 he entered Wolsey’s household, initially as his lawyer. By 1527 he was one of Wolsey’s personal councillors. We can see in an inventory of Thomas Cromwell’s household effects, dated 26th June 1527, that Cromwell prominently displayed his connection to his cardinal patron, then at the apex of his power and influence. In his parlour, probably at Austin Friars (the house is not specified), Cromwell had a ‘table of my lorde cardynalls Armes paynted and gylted’, and in his hall ‘my lorde cardynalls armes gylted in canaus’.[5] These two items were, in modern English, a wooden panel (table) depicting the Cardinal’s arms, painted and gilded, and a canvas painted with Wolsey’s arms. It is impossible to know from this perfunctory description whether this ‘table’ is the same as our panel. What it does demonstrate, however, is that Cromwell owned two coats of arms, one sounding identical to ours, that were displayed publicly in his home.

Wolsey’s fall can be traced in the documentary records of Cromwell’s possessions. Elizabeth Goldring has pointed out that a second inventory of Cromwell’s, dating to between 1530 and 1540, describes the same rooms as the 1527 inventory as having virtually identical items listed.[6] The only notable differences are in the parlour and hall, where the two Wolsey arms have disappeared without trace. Interestingly, a new panel not mentioned in 1527 has appeared: a ‘goodly tabill of the kinges armes’.[7] It would therefore seem that Cromwell, with characteristic politically expediency, removed Wolsey’s arms in or around 1529 and replaced them with the King’s arms, just as happened at Hampton Court.

Christ Church College

Wolsey founded what is now Christ Church College, Oxford in 1525. It was called Cardinal College until Wolsey’s fall when it was reformed by Henry VIII as King Henry VIII’s College in 1531. It was reconstituted once again in 1546 as Christ Church. Today, Christ Church uses the arms of its original founder, Wolsey, which were first recorded in the 1574 Heraldic Visitation to Oxford University. These visitations were inspections intended to record and regulate the use of arms throughout England. It seems exceptionally unlikely that the college used Wolsey’s arms after it had been reformed by Henry. The fact that Wolsey’s arms were first recorded as being used by the College in 1574 and the felling date of c. 1520 both demonstrate that if these arms were made for the College, they must have been made for the short-lived Cardinal College of 1525-31.

Scientific Analysis

Our panel is made of two vertical panels, both from the same Baltic oak tree. These two panels have been placed within a contemporary, integral frame. Dendrochronological examination tells us that the tree was felled at some time after c. 1500 and before c. 1534, exactly the timeframe we would expect, given the short period between Wolsey’s arms being granted and his disgrace and death five years later.[8]

The panel is expertly carved in relief. It is evidently not the work of a provincial artisan, rather the creation of a skilled sculptor, and something intended to be displayed in opulent surroundings. Although it might have, at some point, been set into a wainscot, the panel functions as a singular artwork. This would have raised its status as an artwork in its own right (as opposed to an element in a decorative architectural scheme) and as a moveable object, undoubtedly ensured its survival. Its high status is again demonstrated by the care the sculptor has taken in including the two attending griffins, whose claws hold up the capello romano and touch the escutcheon. These details set the panel apart from other, more perfunctory carvings which no doubt existed in the Cardinal’s day.

Provenance

As mentioned above, Thomas Cromwell was in possession of a wood panel coat of arms that exactly matches the description of ours. The first secure record of ownership comes from an inscription on the reverse of the panel. This inscription, now rather faded, reads: Arms of Cardinal Wolsey / of Christ Church Oxford / died 29 Novr 1530 / P.B. D. Cooke. Philip Bryan Davies Cooke (1793-1853) was the son of Frances Puleston, the heir to Gwynsaney Hall, near Mold and Bryan Cooke, heir of Owston Hall in Yorkshire. The union of these two families meant that Philip was the first to inherit both houses. Gwynsaney Hall had belonged to the Davies family, Philip’s ancestors through his mother. The family had also owned Llannerch Hall, near St. Asaph, which had been inherited by Philip’s great-aunt Letitia Davies.

During the 18th century and much of the 19th century, Gwynsaney had been leased to tenants and was only once again lived in by the Davies Cooke family when Philip’s son, also called Philip, took up residence in the second half of the 19th century. He clearly took this panel, which had belonged to his father, and was presumably kept at Owston, with him to Gwynsaney, where it remained until 2025.

Conclusion

This panel is the only known carved depiction of Wolsey’s coat of arms to date from his lifetime. Indeed, the only directly comparable sculpted example is the terracotta arms fixed to the wall of the central yard at Hampton Court. Not only is it a record of a highly significant figure in Tudor history, but it also serves as a telling reminder of the febrile religious and political environment at the time it was carved - an environment that killed not only Wolsey but Thomas Cromwell, the man who may well have been this panel’s first owner. It is remarkable that this panel survived the tumult and changing of allegiances so associated with Henry VIII’s reign and the English Reformation he ushered in.

[1] British Library, Harley MS 599, An inventory of Cardinal Wolsey’s household goods, fols. 2v, 3r, 3v, 4r, 10v.

[2] Ibid., fol. 76v.

[3] E. Goldring, report prepared for Simon C. Dickinson Ltd., 5th August 2025.

[4] E. Jesse, ‘Arms of Cardinal Wolsey’, in The Gentleman’s Magazine, London, December 1845, p. 593.

[5] National Archives, SP 1/42, fol. 108r, 107r.

[6] E. Goldring, report prepared for Simon C. Dickinson Ltd., 28th July 2025.

[7] National Archives, SP 1/162 fol. 88v.

[8] I. Tyres, Dendrochronological Consultancy Report prepared for Simon C. Dickinson Ltd., July 2025.