The Separation from Rome

Henry had already prepared the way for the break with Rome by persuading parliament, summoned as his willing tool in 1532, to abolish the payment to the pope of annates, or first year's revenues from ecclesiastical offices. As the pope refused to be moved even by this cutting off of a source of his wealth, parliament passed another act in 1533, forbidding all appeals to Rome from the archbishop's court in England . Then Henry, without waiting longer to hear from the pope, cut the knot of controversy by marrying Anne Boleyn, late in 1532 or early in 1533, and bade Cranmer, the new archbishop, try the case in his archiepiscopal court. The court, as was to be expected, declared Henry's former marriage illegal, and immediately Anne Boleyn was proclaimed queen. In September, 1533, Anne gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, whom parliament the next year declared heir to the throne.

In the meantime Pope Clement had decided in favor of Catherine, and was threatening the king with excommunication if he did not take her back as queen. Thus the issue was sharply drawn. Up to this point Henry had possibly hoped for a favorable decision from Rome, but thenceforth that was not to be expected. He therefore proceeded to destroy the authority of the pope in England by taking to himself all the powers that the pope had hitherto exercised, and by removing the English church from under the jurisdiction of Rome. In 1534 parliament passed a general act confirming what had already been done, placing the clergy entirely at the will of the king and abolishing appeals to Rome.' Then it unconditionally repressed annates and placed the nomination of archbishops and bishops entirely in the king's hands. Then, declaring that no one except king and parliament could alter the laws of the kingdom, it transferred all dispensation to the archbishop of Canterbury, and forbade the payment of Peter's pence to the pope.' And finally it declared that the king, his heirs and successors, should "be accepted and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the church of England," and that they should have full power and authority to repress, redress, reform, order, correct, restrain, and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities, whatsoever they be, . . . any usage, custom, foreign law, foreign authority, prescription, or any other thing or things to the contrary hereof notwithstanding." This was the famous act of supremacy, and it is to be noted that in all the acts the pope was invariably styled the Bishop of Rome, and deemed to have no more authority in England than any other bishop. The separation from Rome was complete.

Persecution of 1535 and 1536: Execution of Anne Boleyn

In the main these acts were received without serious protests in England, although as far as the mass of the people were concerned, there had taken place no change in their religious faith. But there were many who spoke their minds, and against all those Henry and Cromwell proceeded without mercy. Houses of the Carthusian friars, who had been especially blunt in their comments on the king's marriage, were repressed, and ten of the monks of Charterhouse were hanged. Next, Sir Thomas More, finest of all the heroes of the time, and the noble John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, were summoned before a court at Lambeth, the archbishop's palace in London. On refusing to declare the marriage with Catherine illegal and the Princess Mary illegitimate, they were thrown into prison, and in 1535 were executed and their heads fastened on London bridge. On April 20, 1534, Elizabeth Barton, a peasant woman, dubbed the "Holy Maid of Kent," who had led a movement in favor of Queen Catherine, was executed at Tyburn, together with certain monks who had aided her.

OLD LONDON BRIDGE  

Begun 1176, completed 1207. Associated with some of the most famous events in English history. The gateway where heads were exposed is at the right of the picture. All the buildings were removed in 1757. The new London bridge was begun in 1824 and completed in 1831.

But even greater savagery was to be shown the next year (1536). Henry was confronted by many dangers. Ireland was in revolt, the northern counties were ready to rise against the king, the pope had prepared a bull of deposition, the execution of which he placed in the hands of Charles V, who had recently won a notable victory over the pirates in the Mediterranean. But at this juncture Catherine died; the emperor had no good excuse for an attack on England, and the bull was never sent. Henry now showed his baseness. Disappointed in his hope of a male heir, for Anne's only child was a daughter, he charged the queen with unfaithfulness and conspiracy. After a brutal and revolting trial, during which the king continued his revellings, Anne was convicted and beheaded. The very next day the king married Jane Seymour, destined to be the mother of Edward VI. Cranmer declared the marriage with Anne illegal and the Princess Elizabeth illegitimate; and the servile parliament passed a new act settling the succession upon the heirs of the new queen.

In the meantime Henry was showing his masterful nature in other directions also. He was beginning to concern himself with the dogma and discipline of the church and to attack the monasteries. In 1533 John Frith had been burned for denying the doctrines of transubstantiation, and during the following years others also were condemned. In 1536, with the consent of convocation, Henry sent out the Ten Articles, which were a kind of compromise creed; through Cromwell he commissioned Miles Coverdale to translate the New Testament; and having despatched commissioners the year before to inquire into the condition of the monasteries, he began to confiscate their property.