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The background of the rise of England's Protestantism and subsequent decline of Roman Catholicism is linked to King Henry VIII and a number of social, religious, and political quagmires of his day. Though Henry's break with Rome is commonly attributed directly and solely to his desire for a divorce, there are other underlying causes to consider. Henry's divorce may have been indirectly responsible for a fallout with the Pope, but it cannot shoulder the entire burden. Political and religious struggles for the power preceded, and contributed to the events that resulted in the church in England being changed to the Church of England.

In England as well as other countries long before Henry the VIII, strong Kings controlled Episcopal appointments with the agreement of the Pope.¹ Political posts were usually filled by church laymen, since they were the best educated. Humanism was becoming accepted in the major Universities and was gradually making its mark on English society. John Colet, 1467-1519, founded St. Paul's school where humanist theology and philosophy were taught. Erasmus taught in Cambridge from 1511-1514 and made many friends in England. John Fisher (1469-1535) and Sir Thomas Moore (1478-1535) were both affected by humanism and were close friends of Erasmus.² Henry VIII was sympathetic to humanism and somewhat of an intellectual himself.

Wolsey and the Church

Henry supported Thomas Wolsey when his reign began. Ruling England was not something Henry could do all by himself since the Church of Rome owned over one-fifth of the land in England and the Church men of England had special taxpaying and legal privileges. Henry needed an authority figure in order to dominate both church and state.³

After his appointment of the church in England, Wolsey completely ran England for the next few years. During this period, he received many reports of sexual malpractice as well as financial mismanagement from notable people such as Archbishop Morton who claimed that the clergy of England were a group of misfits involved in sacerdotal concubinage, adultery, drunkenness, and crime.⁴ Richard Foxe informed Wolsey that the clergy in the diocese of Winchester were so depraved and corrupt that the despaired of any reformation in his life time.

The Priest knew their promotion depended on collections so they exacted tithes, a tenth of each years peasant's, chickens, eggs, milk, cheese, fruit, and

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even the wages paid to help on the farms. Any person who left no money was denied a Christian burial.⁵ Since the church controlled much of the wealth in England, nobility envied the position. One of these noble people was Henry the VIII. There was clergy that was appointed by the state but also clergy not appointed by the state. Those not appointed were more like bureaucrats. They were basically raised in the church. The state appointed clergy did not like the non-appointed clergy and considered them to be trouble makers. The non-appointed were censored by the state but the appointed were very unpopular with the public.

In 1529, Eustance Chapuys, an ambassador for Charles V to England, wrote his master that “nearly all the people here hate the priest.”⁶ When priests were accused of wrongdoing, Wolsey was begged not to have them tried by the civil courts.

Several anti-Catholic ideas were considered heresy and thus were punishable by death: the sacraments were not necessary for salvation, prayers for the dead are worthless, and prayers should only be addressed to God.⁷ Forty-five men were charged with heresy before the Bishop of London in 1506; forty-three recanted and two were burned. In 1510 the Bishop of London tried 40 heretics, burned two and in 1521, he tried forty-five and burned five. The records state that there were 342 trials in 15 years. All of this was done with the full support of Wolsey.⁸

Since Henry held sympathies for the humanist, by early 1521 young rebels imported news that there was a revolution in Germany. By 1525, Cambridge University harbored many of the refugees from Germany as well as future trouble makers for the Catholic church in England. William Tyndale, Miles Coverdale, Hugh Latimer, Thomas Bilney, and Thomas Cranmer finally left England but proceeded to send anti-Catholic literature back across the waters to England. In the meantime, Wolsey was becoming more unpopular with the clergy.

Wolsey drew revenues from the Archbishop of York and from the wealthy Abbey of St. Albans, though he never visited any of his dioceses until after his fall from power.⁹ He took bribes and flaunted his wealth to the world.¹⁰ He closed down some monasteries and levied extremely high taxes on others. Wolsey talked about reforming the church in public, but his private life left much to be desired.

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Wolsey was more inclined to owe loyalty to the state as opposed to the Pope, and as a consequence he w as unpopular with the clergy. Since the King appointed the bishops, monks, and other important churchmen, much of the public was beginning to view the state as the agent responsible for the corruption of the church, more so than the Pope. In Spain, Ferdinand recognized the church was corrupt. On his deathbed, Ferdinand encouraged Henry to reform the church because reform ought to bring peace to warring nations.¹¹

Wolsey ruled England as Henry's right hand man from 1518 to 1529. He is said to have ruled England while Henry was only a figurehead, which is to be expected, since Henry was only eighteen years old when he can to power. Wolsey composed documents of international business and had Henry sing or recopy them in his own handwritings.¹²

Henry's enjoyment of theology was encouraged by Wolsey, but the Cardinal was probably more interested in keeping the King out of politics than trying to further his spiritual development. It was Wolsey who urged Henry to write a book repudiating Luther for his heresy.¹³

Henry reigning while Wolsey governed did not last throughout the Kingship of Henry VIII. After 10 years of a puppet government, Henry began to take over his own responsibilities, “and nobody in the kingdom counted for much but the king.”¹⁴

Henry's theological interest can be traced back to his childhood when Arthur was still alive. As the oldest son, Arthur was considered to be the candidate for kingship. Henry intended to go into the clergy, but he was forced into the kingship after the death of his brother. This is probably another reason why Henry allowed Wolsey to run England for several years. Henry was trained and interested in the clergy.¹⁵

All of the corruption in the church might have brought things to an end sooner, but Henry's theological dissertation, The Assertion of the Seven Sacraments, was published as a defense against Martin Luther. Many suspect that Wolsey actually did the writing because Henry considered writing an arduous task. Other think that Erasmus wrote the attack on Luther for Henry,¹⁶ while some maintain that Erasmus authored Luther's reply.¹⁷ Henry dedicated his book to Pope Leo X, which endeared Henry to the church and to Leo.¹⁸

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Pope Leo called Henry “ defender of the faith”¹⁹ for writing the dissertation.

Luther was unknown in England before the posting of his thesis.²⁰ He should have considered it an honor to be noticed by Henry VIII, even if in a negative way. The controversy between Henry and Luther made many Englishmen interested in Luther's work.

Luther's reply to Henry's book took time but the answer was what one might have expected from Martin Luther, since he referred to Henry as that “lubberly ass, that frantic madman, the King of lies, King Heinz, by God's disgrace, King of England.²¹ The King never forgave Luther despite Luther's later apology, but because Luther's reply was very well known to the English population, Luther's works spread across England like a wildfire.

In 1525, the Association of Christian Brothers' paid agents to go about England distributing Luther's works and other forms of heretical literature, including copies of Wycliffe's Bible, in spite of a prohibition against such activities by the Archbishop of England.²² When Hugh Latimer suggested to Wolsey that one way to reform the corrupt church was to close the unscrupulous monasteries and levy fines on other Catholic monasteries caught in corruption, the good intentions were lost and ended up providing Henry with an excellent income, which made him even more unpopular with the Catholic clergy.²³

THE DIVORCE

Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, was sent to England to marry Henry's older brother Arthur. The marriage was political strategy from the beginning.²⁴ “Royal children were dynastic pawns” in the hands of parents hungry for power and a world of peace.²⁵ Arthur died and Catherine was left unable to return to Spain. Though the English could have sent Catherine back to Spain, political advisers did not choose that option because the alliance which brought Catherine to England was still in effect.²⁶ Catherine is reported to have been mistreated by the English after the death of Arthur. The dowry for her had only been half paid, and as a result, Henry VII

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would not give her any money and hassled her about the dowry payment.²⁷

At the beginning of Henry's reign he married his brothers widow. Before the marriage could take place, Pope Julius II had to grant a papal dispensation because Catherine had been married before. Though her husband was dead, there was the question whether Henry could marry the wife of his deceased brother. Such a marriage was not viewed with favor by the majority of Christendom at this period in history.²⁸

There are conflicting reports about how many children Catherine had. Some works say she had three sons who were either still-born or died shortly after birth.²⁹ Others make a reference to several miscarriages and four sons being either still-born or dying several days after birth.³⁰ After the birth and death of three or four sons, Henry was threating divorce. Catherine conceived again and Mary was born. Though Henry wanted a male heir, the birth and strength of Mary gave him hope that healthy males might soon be born.³¹

But, by 1547 Henry was discontent with his marriage and claimed to have problems with it on religious grounds. The War of Roses came to an end and Henry realized there was no male heir for the throne. Hillerbrand presents the mat tor of divorce as a whim of Henry's, that he simply wanted another wife.³² Parker presents the opposite view, stating that “the issues at stake were even more complicated than has hitherto been known.”³³ Most historians doubt Henry's motives for his discontentment with Catherine and attribute it to the lack of a male heir or just politics.

There was an overwhelming pressure on Henry to continue the Tudor line as successors to the throne. Any speculation that Henry's desire for Anne Boleyn was the overriding cause of the divorce from Catherine is denounced in view of Henry's overwhelming desire for a legitimate heir to the throne. A legitimate heir would not be contested, but a child other than the Queen's could easily be deposed, leading the country into civil war and anarchy.³⁴

Anne Boleyn was a young woman from an aristocratic background who lived in Henry's court. Catherine was five years older than Henry and was almost past child bearing age. There was the threat that if Henry died without a male heir there might be civil war.

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Now Henry claimed that that Pope Julius II who originally authorized his marriage to Catherine was wrong. The Pope did not have the authority to do so and lacked biblical authority, therefore the marriage was not valid. Henry did not seek a divorce as we moderns understand it but wanted the marriage to be annulled, as if it had never happened, as if he had been residing with Catherine all those many years in an illegal marriage.³⁵

Henry used two passages from the bible to support his claim that he and Catherine should never have been married. Leviticus 18:16 and Leviticus 20:21:

'Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife: it is thy brother's nakedness,' and again, 'if a man shall take his brother's wife it is an impurity: he hath uncovered his brothers nakedness: they shall be childless.³⁶

Henry's argument was that because he married his brothers wife he as having problems producing a male heir. Many people in England began to view the miscarriages, still-births, and deaths of English royalty as a punishment from God. England needed a strong male heir to maintain her position in the world. “Never before had an English King married his brother's widow” and never before had so many of royal birth died. “Such a striking coincidence could be only the relation of cause and effect.³⁷ Though scholars today may thing of this line of reasoning as superstition, the English were highly conscious of God and interested in theological study.

Supporters of Queen Catherine found evidence for their side of the case from the biblical text. Deut. 25:5, commands the brother of a deceased husband to marry his brothers wife. This left Henry in a quandary and it became very clear that this paradox had to be resolved.

Henry summoned the best known scholars in the world to defend his Levitical interpretation while the supporters of Queen Catherine rallied to justify the Deuteronomy passage. Divorce turned the nation into a national debate if not a world wide debate.³⁸ Henry published pamphlets and distributed them all over England. His literature was marked “For the Friends of Henry.” Henry's interpretation and attack on Deut. 25:5 turned out to be allegorical, and allegorical interpretations were not well accepted at this point in history.

One of the proposed solutions to the problem was that Catherine would go to convent, but she was unwilling to do this unless, “Henry would take monastic vows.”³⁹ Surprisingly, Henry was agreeable to this arrangement but he wanted to make sure that he prearranged the conditions with the Pope so at a right time, he might renounce his vows while Catherine would have to maintain her convent lifestyle as long as she lived.

THE STRUGGLE WITH THE POPE

Henry's case was not as strong as one might think. In the first place his opponents had much going for them. The Vives were the authors of a long winded book written on behalf of Catherine.⁴⁰ John Fisher, famous for reputing Luther, and other renowned Catholic theologians all allied themselves against Henry.⁴¹ Fisher wrote a commentary several years before in which he used Henry's marriage to show how a Papal dispensation fit into the current thinking and now Henry was challenging the dispensation. Vives, Fisher, Cajetan, all wrote on behalf of Catherine. Fisher wrote several books alone exposing misquotations and misrepresentations advanced by Henry's team.

The history of interpretations favored Catherine. The problem of reconciling Leviticus and Deuteronomy had a long history of discussion. Almost every notable theologian of the past treated the same passages in other cases. the marriage laws for the Church were to be found in the Corpus Iuris Canonici, and a vast body of research and laws grew out of this material.

1. Augustine pointed out that Leviticus only forbade intercourse with a brother's wife when the brother was still alive, while leaving the Deuteronomy passage intact for a younger brother to take the wife of a deceased elder brother. In did not forbid the marriage to the wife of a dead brother.

2. Leviticus forbade a second brother to marry while the first brother was still alive in the case of a wife who had been put away for adultery.

3. Leviticus could be interpreted to forbid a brother from marring another brother's wife period, except when he other brother was deceased.⁴²

All of this was bad news for Henry. Faced with complete poverty of support for his case, Henry's lawyers talked at length about differences between natural law and positive law, moral law and judicial laws with little effect. Worse than that, they used the church fathers as proof of Henry's case but misquoted nearly all of them. Jerome, Basil, Tertullian, and Gregory the Great were all used in Henry's arguments though greatly misrepresented leaving an opening for

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Catherine's defenders to embarrass Henry and his team.⁴³ The key defense was the rebuke by John the Baptist to Herod for marrying his brothers wife, but when the actual writings of the church fathers were examined they came much closer to supporting Catherine than they did Henry. Catherine's backers had the better argument to debate.⁴⁴

The dispensation granted Henry by Julius II was not common place though it was not a rarity either.

1. Martin V was ready to let a man marry a sister-in-law against all the arguments of popular opinion but won based on Henry's exact argument.

2. Alexander VI allowed a king of Portugal, Emmanuel II to marry in turn to marry two daughters of Ferdinand and Isabella (the sisters of Catherine). The same Pope allowed the King of Naples to marry his Aunt.

3. Clement VII allowed at least two noblemen to marry the sister of a previous wife, but he most serious of all threats to Henry's divorce was an oder staked out by Pope Innocent III. Three hundred years before Henry, Innocent had given a ruling to the hierarchy of Lavonia that pagans who in obedience to the law of Moses had married the widows of deceased brothers were not to be separated from their wives upon reception to the church.⁴⁵

The Corpus was bad news for Henry. He attacked it claiming it was not being represented in context since there was such a small body of material in the document. Fisher's lawyers found additional material that made conditions even worse for Henry. As the argument continued for another five years, Clement proposed that Henry did not need a divorce and should be allowed to commit bigamy. Both the Pope and Martin Luther considered bigamy to be as sinful as divorce.⁴⁶ Henry would have not of that. He could not allow Rome to license bigamy since he had already trapped himself and was in another marriage. Henry married Anne Boleyn in secret before divorcing Catherine because he was concerned about siring a successor, not because he considered bigamy a better choice then divorce.⁴⁷

There are numerous theories advanced pondering the reason as to why the Pope did not allow the annulment of Henry's first marriage to Catherine. The Pope was in a terrible position since he could not grant a divorce because of theological implications mentioned above. Another factor involves the rules regarding papal decisions. Pope Julius II who allowed Henry's marriage died and no living Pope can nullify the work of a predecessor.⁴⁸ Clement was reluctant to nullify the marriage because to do so would admit that Popes made errors. The authority of the Pope was already being questioned by Lutherans and the Pope did not want to give them fuel to add to the flames of Protestantism.⁴⁹

The Pope had political and personal reasons fro refusing to grant the annulment. The armies of Charles V sacked Rome only two years prior and took the Pope captive. Because Charles V was Catherine's nephew, Clement feared further repercussions if he did Henry a favor by granting the annulment against Catherine's wishes.⁵⁰

Henry was looking at the situation from his own point of view. The Pope authorized the divorce of two other prominent couples only a few years before, but neither of them had a powerful nephew awaiting the Pope's next move. Henry must have been enraged that the Pope granted other divorces, but refused his plea⁵¹. Henry had the idea that because he had done the Roman Catholic Church a favor, the Pope would return the favor by granting his divorce. But this was not Pope Leo, who Henry was fond of and who found Henry a friend of the Catholic church. It was Henry's idea that the new Pope was playing politics with the future of England.⁵²

The Break with Rome

When Leo x was Pope, Henry had no thought that he would ever sever ties with Rome. His allegiance and devotion were to the Roman Catholic church and the Pope. Throughout history, Henry VII has been represented as an arrogant bigot who did whatever he pleased, but his early devotion to the Pope went so far that he would humble himself before the Pope to the point of kissing his feet.⁵³ Henry wrote the book repudiating Luther because he thought the Roman Catholic Church was the only church and Martin Luther was not just wrong but a heretic.

Henry sent Wolsey to talk to the Pope and try and persuade him to allow the annulment. Wolsey worked to get the Pope to grant Henry's annulment with the thought that Henry might marry a daughter of Louis XII, which would place Cardinal Wolsey in a more secure and powerful position with the wealth of two countries at his disposal. Wolsey did not know that Henry already planned to marry Anne Boleyn.⁵⁴ The process was taking entirely too long to suit Henry, so

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he finally gave up on the Pope and fired Wolsey in 1529.

Henry decided to try and evade the requirement of having the Pope's approval for his divorce. Thomas Starkey, a conciliarist in Henry's court encouraged the King to appeal to the conciliarist council for permission to divorce instead of going to the Pope. This council promised Henry a great sum of money if he would give them the case instead of going to the Pope. The conciliarist movement grew out of a council in the Roman Catholic church wanting to have authority over the Pope and for a while they did in some matters. The Popes reluctance to give Henry a speedy answer played right into the hands of the council.⁵⁵

Eventually, “an ecclesiastical court declared Henry's marriage to Catherine null and void.” in 1533.⁵⁶ The Pope was enraged and counted the new move by excommunicating Henry from the church. At this point, Henry had little respect for the Pope and his position, so his response was to remove papal authority form all England.

Henry created “a National Church true to medieval doctrine, hierarchy, and ritual,and yet independent of the Pope.”⁵⁷ One of the doctrinal points that Henry vehemently opposed was reforming the rules about clerical marriage. He wanted to maintain the Catholic church tradition of refusing the clergy the right to marry, while many Protestant reformers wished to legitimize the relationships of the clergy.⁵⁸ In effect Henry had kept the Roman Catholic church and installed himself as Pope. He declared that he was the head of the Church of England.⁵⁹

Henry later justified this move by explaining that monarchs rule by divine authority.⁶⁰

Since Germany was already successful in excluding Papal powers from state business, Henry thought it might work for him. In 1531, Henry turned the lawyers lose on the church clergy and charged them with Praemunire, since they had all administered Roman law in their courts.⁶¹ Henry said that “none can fathom the mysteries of that law. The interpretation is only in the Kings head and he applies it at his good pleasure to whom he pleases⁶². The church offered a stiff resistance by paid fines to Henry for the forgiveness of their sins.

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In 1523 Henry petitioned parliament to prepare a draft giving exclusive power to the King. In the same year he ordered all money that was being sent to Rome to be sent to the state. Eventually Henry managed to collect ten times more money from the churches of England than they had previously been sending to Rome.⁶³ The clergy were made to sign a statement pledging loyalty to Henry instead of the Pope. Government authority expanded during the reign of Henry VIII. The state increasingly took control of areas over which it had no jurisdiction in preceding years.⁶⁴

Wolsey was charged with treason for failure to secure a divorce. Almost one year later the King's soldiers came with order to conduct Wolsey to the trial. Wolsey fell sick and was committed to be while on the journey. “In Licester Abby, November 29, 1530, Wolsey died at the age of 55.⁶⁵ Thomas Cranmer was next in line for Wolsey's job and he turned out to be a very competent aid for Henry. Cranmer was consecrated on March 30 and on May 23 he declared Henry's marriage to Catherine void.⁶⁶ After Catherine died in 1536, Henry wished to have a marriage that was less questionable than his marriage to Anne, so he charged her with adultery and she was beheaded two days later. Cranmer declared there marriage to Henry void. Elven days later Henry married Jane Seymor, who bore Edward. Henry finally had an heir to the throne, though Edward was sickly throughout his life.

Henry's break with Rome was the beginning of the breakup of the Roman Catholic church of England. The church was already breaking up in Germany and other European nations. Though Henry still held the the same ecclesiastical hierarchical structure of the Roman Catholic church, his moves were a major step in the end or Roman Catholic dominance around the world.