Henry VIII Part 1: Breaking Away

Henry also started to follow the more radical path, cautiously to begin with. The Bishop of Hereford, the Archbishop of Cantebury, and Thomas Cranmer composed the “Collectanea satis copiosa,” which used ancient manuscripts and Anglo saxon chronicles to support the idea of Royal Supremacy. Henry’s curiosity had been sparked.

Henry also fined the clergy (churchmen) for supporting Wolsey’s papal posts, with the total money raised from this mass-prosecution reaching  £118,000, a huge amount for the period (to estimate the value in modern terms, multiply the Tudor value by 70 – which means that in today’s terms Henry rose around £8,260,000!). Henry was clearly exercising his authority, and making a threatening point to Rome. To make matters even more sincere, he demanded that he be titled: “Sole Protector and Supreme Head of the English Church and Clergy”. The less radical men at court were horrified, and as an afterthought “as far as Christ’s law allows” was added to the title. This prevented an immediate break from Rome, but Henry’s intentions appeared to be beginning to favour radicalism.

As a result of ‘The Submission of the Clergy’ Henry’s pious Lord Chancellor, Thomas More, resigned from his post as a result of his torn loyalties. Cromwell jumped eagerly into his place, having clawed his way up the social ladder from being the mere son of a dishonorable brewer in Putney, Surrey. Just like Wolsey, the Lord Chancellor before More, Cromwell was of low birth and ambitious and rapacious character, which deeply offended the nobility and almost every man to meet him. With Cromwell’s daring influence, Henry was on the path towards cutting himself off from Rome entirely.

In March 1532 the Reformation Parliament, which was more prestigious than the Parliament before the 1530s, passed an Act which restricted the previously compulsory ‘annates’, which were large payments made to the Pope by bishops assuming their new posts. Part of the statute was that if the Pope refused to consecrate the bishop as a result of the lack of payment, the English church would consecrate them instead. This clearly undermined papal authority, and the more traditional bishops voted against the statute, despite the annates being extremely unpopular across Europe. Henry was cautious however, as his radical move to assert his authority above the Pope went against centuries of tradition, and he could all too easily cause widespread rebellion or even a crusade against England.

Ultimately, by 1532 Henry had become more and more susceptable to radical ideas, and had all but given up on obtaining an annulment through Rome. His daring moves against the Pope’s authority just go to prove this, as a decade or so ago he would not have dreamt of half the actions he took, for fear of offending the Pope irretrievably, and not getting what he wanted. Henry VIII, however, always got what he wanted… [to be contined with part II]