The King’s Great Matter

Henry VIII and the English Reformation

Henry VIII, c. 1509 Thomas Wolsey

Catherine of Aragon, 1502

In 1509, Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon, the 24 year-old widow of his brother, Arthur.

Arthur, Prince of Wales

When Catherine married Arthur, he was 14 and whe was 15. Catherine swore that her marriage to the frail Arthur was never consummated.

Princess Mary, c. 1544

Catherine bore three children, one stillborn and two who died within months of their birth. In 1516, she gave birth to the Princess Mary. Two additional miscarriages followed Mary’s birth.

Henry VIII in his early 30s

Henry VIII “united such corporal and mental beauty as not merely to surprise but to astonish all men.”

--a Venetian

ambassador

Henry VIII jousting, while Catherine looks on.

Thomas Wolsey

1514: Archbishop of York

1515: Cardinal

1515: Lord Chancellor

1524: Papal Legate

Who made policy—King or minister?

Most historians agree that the King made policy but that his minister (Wolsey) implemented that policy.

Henry VIII, Defender of the

Faith

Francis I, Most Christian King

of France

Charles V, Most Catholic

Majesty of Spain and Emperor of

the Holy Roman Empire

Three Rival Princes

Henry was at a disadvantage in European diplomacy!

• England had less population and wealth than did Spain or France.

• Geographically, England was far from the center of continental rivalry.

• Scotland remained a problem.• Emperor Charles controlled the Low

Countries—essential ports for English wool.

The Holy Roman Empire is outlined in red.

Yellow areas are Spanish dominions.

Areas under the control of Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor

Wolsey and Henry favoured a Spanish alliance.

• Economic necessity—Charles could terminate English wool exports at will.

• Habit—France was England’s traditional enemy.

• Dynasty—Charles V was the nephew of Henry’s wife, Catherine of Aragon.

• Personal—Charles could ensure Wolsey’s election as Pope.

Pope Clement VII

Control of the Papal States and influence over the Pope was the principal goal of France and Spain.

1525: troops of the Emperor Charles captured Francis I.

1527: imperial troops sacked Rome.

Miniature portrait of Catherine of

Aragon

A critical situation!

Just when the Pope became a prisoner of the Emperor Charles, Henry demanded what only an independent pope could grant—an annulment of his marriage to his 42-year-old wife.

Anne Boleyn, 1534

Henry wanted to marry Anne Boleyn for both personal and dynastic reasons.

Pope Clement VII

Clement proposed several possible compromises—but Henry was determined that the legitimacy of his heir could not be questioned.

For this, he needed a legal annulment and a legal wife!

Cardinal Wolsey

Wolsey’s failure to secure an annulment for Henry caused his downfall.

In 1529, he was accused of treason (for violating the ancient Statute of Praemunire).

On his way to the Tower, Wolsey died of a heart attack.

Henry VIII and the Reformation Parliament

•Met for seven years

•Enacted 137 statutes, 32 of which were of vital national importance.

From 1529 to 1532, Parliament enacted a series of acts aimed at

church reform:

• Mortuaries Act: ended church income from arranging funerals

• Probate Act: ended church income from probate of wills

• Charged the Convocation of Bishops with treason for recognizing Wolsey as the Pope’s representative

• Statute of Annates: abolished traditional payments to the Pope.

Sketch of Anne Boleyn, done while she was pregnant in 1533

On January 25, 1533, Henry and Anne Boleyn were secretly married—she was already pregnant.

Thomas Cranmer

Henry appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury a 43-year-old Cambridge University professor—Thomas Cranmer.

Henry VIII, by Hans Holbein

Henry and Cranmer agreed—Henry, not the Pope, spoke for God in England!

Sketch of Anne Boleyn, by Hans Holbein

Henry searched his conscience and found the solution to his trouble in a passage in Leviticus:

“. . . If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing. . ., they shall be childless.”

(Leviticus 20:21)

April 1533: Act in Restraint of Appeals

--all spiritual cases would henceforth be determined within England and “not elsewhere”—including that of Queen Catherine’s marriage.

The marriage of Henry and Catherine was annulled by order of Archbishop

Thomas Cranmer in May, 1533.

Henry VIII rests his foot on the prostrate body of Pope Clement VII.

Miniature portrait of

Anne Boleyn

June, 1533:

Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen of England

Princess Elizabeth,

c. 1546-47

But, “to the great shame and confusion of physicians, astrologers, witches, and wizards, all of whom affirmed the child would be a boy,” the child born at three in the afternoon on September 7, 1533, was a girl, Elizabeth Tudor.

More Parliamentary statutes:

•All clerical appointments were now made solely by the King.

•No further papal taxes—now redirected to the King’s treasury.

•The Pope’s name was removed from the services of the English Church.

March 1534: Act of Succession

•Required all church and state officials to accept the King’s marriage to Anne and the declaration that “The Lady Mary” was now a bastard.

Medallion showing Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the

Church

November, 1534:

The Act of Supremacy

Henry VIII is acknowledged as “Supreme Head of the Church of England.

1536: Act Against Papal Authority

All church and state officials must take an oath that the King was the “only Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England.”To refuse was treason!

International monastic foundations were an anomaly in a national

church.

The monastery of Jarrow

Between 1536-1539, land worth £2 million was nationalised—1/4 of all cultivated land in England.

Woburn Abbey

Sale of monastic lands to the “new men” of Tudor England committed the governing elements of the realm to the ideal of a national church!

Thomas Cromwell

Cromwell’s goal was an efficient and effective government.

•Rearranged the collection of royal revenue

•Required all parish priests to keep a register of births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths.

The Church of England remained Catholic and orthodox in every way

but one—it was English and Henrician, not Roman and papal.

Henry II and Thomas à Becket

The Reformation in England created the modern sovereign national state.

Henry VIII achieved what Henry II had failed to do—subjugate an international priesthood that followed a legal jurisdiction above the crown.

Preamble to the Act in Restraint of Appeals:

• “This realm of England is an empire . . . governed by one supreme head and king,” and the monarch in endowed with “plenary, whole and entire power, preeminence, authority, prerogative and jurisdiction to render justice and yield justice and final determination to all manner of folk.”

Martin Luther

In England, the Reformation began through an accident of marriage and not through the hearts of believers.

Catholicism without the Pope was a “Via Media” or middle way.

What was the English Reformation?

• An act of governmental coercion?

• The result of a long debate over the role of the church and state and the product of a growing anti-clericalism?

• The result of religious apathy on the part of the English people?

The Reformation as a act of state:

• Without Henry’s determination to rid himself of his first wife, the Reformation would never have happened!

Catherine of Aragon

The Reformation as a process:

• The roots of religious change lie in England’s past—Henry VIII succeeded where Henry II had failed.

John Wycliffe and the Lollards

The Hunne Case, 1515

•In a controversy over “benefit of clergy”, Henry VIII declared that “Kings of England have never had any superior but God above.”

•This was in 1515—twenty years before the Act of Supremacy!

Cardinal Wolsey was an example of a corrupt priest:

•In 1527, Wolsey was Cardinal, Papal Legate, Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop of York, and Abbot of St. Albans (the richest monastery in England).

•His church revenues equalled £10,000, while bribes from foreign and domestic sources increased that revenue to £50,000.

Hampton Court, the west end (part of Cardinal Woolsey’s original palace)

Anne Boleyn’s Gate, at Hampton Court

H and A—for Henry and Anne

Martin Luther and his followers challenged the Catholic balance between faith and good works.

Luther was haunted by the fear that he did not deserve God’s mercy.

His solution came from a belief that it was not necessary or even possible to “earn” or “deserve” salvation—God’s grace was a free gift.

Henry VIII did not approve of the new “protestants”, but he did use the English Protestants to publicize the abuses of priests and prelates to other Englishmen.

The Reformation as a result of apathy!

• If 16th C. faith was so strong, why were there not more martyrs ready to die for their faith?

• If the process of institutional and spiritual change was so embedded in English history, why did Protestantism spread so slowly among the English public?

Religious indifference!

• Tradition of deference to authority.

• A practical concern for their own safety!

Sir Richard Riche:•Perjured himself to convict Sir Thomas More

•Helped to torture the Protestant martyr Ann Askew

•Became a “hot gospeler” during the reign of Edward VI

•Returned to Catholicism during the reign of Mary

•Resumed the Protestant creed under Elizabeth.

Henry used terror to ensure the success of his new church—”it was

better for edicts to be written in blood than in water.”

The Act of Succession —a loyalty test!

The Act of Treason —treason now included “the malicious willing, or desiring a king’s death. . ., calling him a heretic, tyrant, or usurper. . ., or seeking to deprive the royal family of their royal estate.”

Sir Thomas More was the most famous victim of these acts.

Sir Thomas More

More objected to Henry’s determination that the king and state were all-powerful.

He believed that Henry’s actions violated the common heritage of all Western Europe.

329 were executed during the last years of Henry’s reign.

Some were Catholics who questioned the royal authority in religious matters.

Some were Protestants who questioned the beliefs of the Catholic Church of England.

The Via Media of Catholicism without the Pope faced peril from both sides!

Rebellions arose in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire in support of the Old Religion.

The Dissolution of the Monasteries was the starting point for the Pilgrimage, but the revolt expressed antagonism to every aspect of Tudor politics.

The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536

The Ten Articles of Faith, July 1536

•Reduced the traditional seven sacraments to three (baptism, Holy Communion, confession).

•Rejected concept of Purgatory and prayers for the dead.

•But affirmed belief in Transubstantiation, Communion in one kind, clerical celibacy, and confession.

Badge of Catherine of Aragon

On January 8, 1536, Catherine of Aragon died.

The old queen’s death was the signal for the death of the new queen, Anne Boleyn.

With both queens dead, Henry could marry again, and no one could question the legitimacy of his new marriage and any children it might produce!

Anne Boleyn’s grave, St. Peter ad Vincula, Tower of London

On May 29, 1536, after a reign of only three years, Anne Boleyn was executed by a swordsman imported from France.

Tower Green, where Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard were executed, with the Church of St.

Peter ad Vincula in the background.

Jane Seymour, 1537

On May 30, 1536, Henry married Jan Seymour, a former lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon.

Prince Edward, c. 1539

On October 12, 1537, Jane Seymour gave Henry VIII the male heir he had sought for so long.

She died a week later from a blood infection.

Peace between Francis I and the Emperor Charles V meant that England needed a

new ally.

Anne of Cleves

Henry agreed to an alliance with the Protestant princes of Germany—an alliance cemented by his marriage to Anne of Cleves.

Anne of Cleves

Their marriage was a disaster!

Thomas Cromwell

For pushing the Lutheran alliance and the marriage to Anne of Cleves, Thomas Cromwell paid with his head!

Katherine Howard

Henry married the 16-year-old Katherine Howard, his “rose without a thorn” on July 28, 1540.

Their marriage lasted only 18 months!

Katherine Parr

Katherine Parr was Henry’s last wife—a dutiful, if not romantic, spouse.

Henry sought consolation and distraction in war with the Scots.

At the battle of Solway Moss, Nov. 1542, an English army defeated James V of Scotland.

Tradition holds that James died of shame, leaving a six-day-old infant daughter as his only heir.

That child would become Mary, Queen of Scots, a thorn in the sides of the later Tudors.

Henry VIII in old age

In the King’s Book of 1543, Henry presented his final opinion on religious matters.

•Catholic in doctrine, but anti-papal in sentiment.

•Placed heavy emphasis on obedience: “God had ordered some sort of men to teach others, and some to be taught.”

Henry VIII on his deathbed

Henry VIII, in 1512

Miniature of Henry VIII, c. 1526

Henry VIII at age 40

Henry VIII in 1536

Henry VIII, c. 1542

Henry VIII, c. 1545

Henry VIII, c. 1546

Armour of Henry VIII from 1515

The armour of Henry VIII from his early 20s

Armour from 1540

King Edward VI, c. 1547

“The time for worry had arrived for a new generation was about to take control.”

The Lady Mary

Edward, Henry VIII, Jane Seymour The Lady Elizabeth