The town of Ipswich was transformed in 1538. Wolsey had intended his native borough to be a showcase of a reformed humanist Catholicism, its wonder-working Marian shrine nestling amid a dozen and more parish churches. Around this ensemble in stately guardianship would stand the three friaries and surviving Augustinian priory, alongside the greatest institution of all, Cardinal College. Instead, thanks to close co-operation between the Lord Privy Seal and Thomas Lord Wentworth, Ipswich became a model borough of the continent-wide Protestant Reformation.
