Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1471–1530) was Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York. He became Cardinal in 1517 and was for many years very close to the King. As the King’s chief advisor, he was a controlling figure in virtually all matters of state and was extremely powerful within the church. Wolsey and Henry VIII were patients of the physician Thomas Linacre, the founder of the Royal College of Physicians. It was probably through Linacre’s close relationship with Wolsey, and in turn Wolsey’s influence with the King, that the grant to found the College was obtained from Henry VIII. This portrait is one of many similar portraits, all copied from an original probably painted during Wolsey’s lifetime that is now lost. This version, probably painted early in the seventeenth century, is unusual because Wolsey faces to the right and not the left like the others.