King Henry VIII’s desire for a male heir led to his request for an annulment from Pope Clement VII, which sparked the English Reformation. Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon produced only one surviving child, Princess Mary, and he fell in love with Anne Boleyn. Henry’s insistence on an annulment led to his break with the Catholic Church, the establishment of the Church of England, and the Protestant Reformation. The religious sea change had its problems, including persecution of Protestants under Queen Mary, but ultimately led to England becoming a Protestant country and profoundly affected Europe and the fate of the American colonies.
In the annals of history, England’s King Henry VIII and his desire for a “male heir” should hardly have caused a ripple. However, because he was a powerful king, willing to clash with the religious authorities of his time, he ended up changing the fate of his country, as well as that of Western Europe. It was Henry’s stubborn insistence to Pope Clement VII for an annulment that lit the fuse for the English Reformation.
Henry married in 1509 at the age of 17 to Catherine of Aragon. The Spanish princess had previously been married to Henry’s older brother Arthur, who had died in 1507, possibly of tuberculosis. Arthur was a sickly individual and Catherine maintained that their marriage was never consummated. Papal dispensation was obtained, paving the way for a legal marriage between her and Henry.
Henry was willing to match, but when he was crowned king in June 1509, pressure mounted for Catherine to produce a male heir to the throne. Princess Mary, born in 1517, was the only of Catherine’s children to live beyond infancy, but Henry, wanting to avoid the kind of civil war that brought his father Henry VII to the English throne, wanted a prince. Also, Catherine was six years his senior and beginning to look like the middle-aged woman she was becoming. Henry had a roving eye, to say the least, and was ready for a new queen.
Sociable, outgoing and a womanizer, “Bluff King Hal” as he was called, he found himself ill-matched with a woman who cared little for the elaborate amusements of the English court. Henry had also fallen in love with the dark, mysterious and intelligent Anne Boleyn. The idea of an annulment might have brewed in Henry’s brain earlier, but meeting Anne has brought it to life.
The idea that he was king by God’s divine will was still the popular opinion in Henry’s day, and he decided that the lack of a male heir must be enough to obtain an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In his plea to Pope Clement VII, he stated that God had not blessed their marriage with a son because it was not legal in God’s eyes. Therefore, it should be annulled.
However, Pope Clement had a less flexible view of the situation, since according to canon law, he could not annul a marriage based on a situation that had a previously issued papal approval dispensation upon it. Clement was also worried about Catherine’s nephew, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, whose troops had sacked Rome earlier and briefly taken the pope prisoner. Canceling Catherine and Henry’s marriage could cause Charles to fall apart again. But not canceling it would surely piss off Henry. He was hesitant to make a decision, so Henry took over from him.
King Henry’s first action was to deprive the papal legate and Thomas chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, of his governing office. At Anna’s urging, Henry had Wolsey arrested for high treason, as she suspected him of delaying the annulment matter with the pope. Wolsey died on the way to London, a broken man. Member of Parliament Thomas Cromwell also rose to prominence at this time.
This man, and others like him in Parliament, who had Lutheran leanings and problems with authority and the widespread corruption of the Catholic Church, supported Henry in his annulment request and in his marriage to Anne Boelyn. Finally, in 1531, Henry, through virtual blackmail, forced the clergy to support the king, not the Pope, as supreme head and protector of the Church of England. Several Acts of Parliament followed, further establishing Henry’s authority as Supreme Head of the Church, including those declaring England a fully independent nation and that Henry’s status as Supreme Head was not to be challenged by any foreign authority.
In 1533, Henry married a pregnant Anne Boelyn, with the support of Parliament, and had her crowned queen. Catherine had long since been banished from court and was living in exile. Thomas Cranmer had been made Archbishop of Canterbury and ruled that Henry’s marriage to Catherine was null and that his marriage to Anne Boelyn was legal and just. Anne gave birth to a princess, Elizabeth, in September 1533. Henry was excommunicated by the Pope, but when Parliament decreed Henry’s marriage legal, Henry went about his usual business of hunting, attending court functions and womanising. Further diplomatic problems with Rome followed, but Parliament addressed these difficulties by passing Acts declaring treason not to recognize Henry’s status as supreme head of the Church, as well as the Peter’s Pence Act, which stated that England had no supreme authority but God and the King.
One would think that a decision such as the repudiation of Church and Pope authority would have caused more government upheaval in Parliament than it did. However, since the scholarly priest John Wycliffe had expressed his disgust at the corruption of the Church in the fourteenth century and at the more recent activities of Martin Luther in Germany, all of Europe was abuzz with debate over the power of the Church, its priests and on its structure. The Catholic Church was slowly losing its primacy among Christians. Italy and Spain in particular remained staunchly Catholic nations, and later problems with Spain had their roots in this English betrayal of the Church. Many members of Parliament were at least suspicious of the prerogatives of the Catholic Church and others were openly hostile to the authority it assumed.
When a country as powerful as England turned its back on the Catholic Church, more nations were sure to follow, and within 150 years much of Europe was more Protestant than Catholic. The Church had by no means lost all of its support or membership, but the scales were more balanced.
However, this religious sea change did not come without its problems. England regularly faced serious problems with Spain, whose ambition was to conquer England and turn its back on the Church. When Henry and his son Edward VI died, their successor, Queen Mary, married King Philip of Spain and attempted just that. Mary was a devout Catholic and she wanted her country to be Catholic. About Her Her persecutions of Protestants earned her the nickname “Bloody Mary”.
Mary left her Protestant sister Elizabeth in a bad way when Elizabeth took the throne. However, the new queen, she said, “she had no desire to open windows into the souls of men,” and as long as her subjects were loyal to her, she didn’t care where they went to church. However, she was forced to deal with Mary, Queen of Scots and her Catholic supporters. Mary’s execution put down most of the Catholic wave against Elizabeth, and when Mary’s son James (a staunch Presbyterian) took the throne, she further consolidated the authority of the Protestant Church. However, anti-Catholic sentiment had grown in England, largely due to the activities of Queen Mary, and people were deeply suspicious of a Catholic monarch. Thus it was that the Hanoverians ascended the throne in 1700, after the House of Stuart lost its Protestant heirs.
England would probably have become a Protestant country anyway. However, Henry’s actions hastened the day. England’s turn to the Protestant faith profoundly affected Europe, and also the fate of 13 small colonies founded a few years later across the Atlantic Ocean.
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