Wolsey, not Wellesley

Two models of advancement

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The past can be jarring and it does not always follow a linear path of progress. In ancien régime France, public offices were sold by the French kings as a means of raising money that avoided direct taxation. If you were hauled before a judge, rather than being confident that he had passed a rigorous set of examinations rendering him competent for the role, you would be aware that his job had been purchased, or perhaps handed down from his father.

When we complain about meritocracy, we need to be aware of what the tried-and-tested alternatives are.

The ancien régime came to an end with the French Revolution and it is tempting to see the venal system as a contributing factor that led to this revolution. If we travel forward 25 years or so to the Battle of Waterloo, we encounter a British army led by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, defeating the imperial ambitions of a new French regime. Perhaps less well known is the fact that Wellesley advanced his career by purchasing a succession of commissions - a process that was common and accepted at the time.

How odd this seems. How alien.

And yet perhaps surprisingly, in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, we find a more modern and recognisable model of advancement in the career of Thomas Wolsey. Wolsey’s critics liked to point out that he was the lowly son of a butcher, although this may be an exaggeration and certainly did not place him on the bottom of the late medieval social hierarchy. Nevertheless, he would have been a nobody as far as the gentry of the day were concerned, yet he worked his way up the ranks through educational achievement and merit, eventually becoming King Henry VIII’s top advisor - the ‘alter rex’ or ‘other king’ - and the pope’s representative.

Things did not work out well for Wolsey in the end, partly as a result of overachievement: The clash between serving both the king and the pope proved too much. But let’s gloss over that part.

Which leaves us with two archetypes of advancement: Wellesley versus Wolsey. Money versus merit. How do they speak to the contemporary world?