The Henrician Reformation

The course of the Henrician Reformation

Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon in 1509, but twenty years later only one child of their union (Mary ) had survived infancy. Henry had fathered one illegitimate son by Elizabeth Blount; this son, Henry Fitzroy (1519-36) was created Duke of Richmond 1525.

Henry had grown increasingly attracted to Anne Boleyn. He wanted to make her his mistress (as he had her sister Mary) but Anne insisted on marriage. Henry developed conscientious scruples about his marriage to Catherine - reasoning that God was punishing him with childlessness for his sin of marrying his brother's widow.

Thomas Wolsey had been unable to persuade Pope Clement VII to grant Henry a divorce, so Henry decided that an attack on the English Church might twist the pope's arm.

Henry VIII called Parliament to help him achieve his ends. The Reformation Parliament (1529-36) began by lodging a charge of praemunire against the English clergy. Praemunire was a lesser form of treason, committed when an attempt was made to exercise an illegal jurisdiction that rivaled that of the crown. The whole clergy was accused of committing this crime by its independent exercise of jurisdiction in the ecclesiastical courts.

In January 1531, the clergy paid £100,000 to buy a pardon for their "crime," but Henry VIII then demanded more. In particular, he insisted that the clergy recognize that they held no jurisdiction independently of the crown.

	Henry continued his attack on the clergy, complaining that their allegiance to the pope made them "but half our subjects, yea, and scarce our subjects." In the "Submission of the Clergy" (May 1531) they acknowledged that no ecclesiastical laws could be made without royal authority.
	The Act in Conditional Restraint of Annates (1532) ended the practice of bishops making payments to the pope on receipt of their sees. This was rapidly followed by the Act in Restraint of Appeals (1533) outlawing appeals to Rome in ecclesiastical cases.
	The appeal that Henry VIII was particularly keen to prevent was the one he feared would be made by Catherine against an English court's grant of a divorce to Henry.
	The Erastian cleric Thomas Cranmer had suggested deciding the case in England without regard to Rome. His suggestion elicited Henry's approving remark "This man has got the right sow by the ear," and helped gain him appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury (March 1533.)

(Image © The Art Archive/Civiche Race d’Arte Pavia Italy/Dagli Orti)

In January 1533, Henry VIII married the pregnant Anne Boleyn, and in May Cranmer dutifully declared the marriage to Catherine invalid. A daughter, Elizabeth, was born in September 1533.

	Parliament framed a number of statutes from 1534 to 1536 that completed the jurisdictional breach with Rome and institution of the king as head of the English Church.
	The Act of Supremacy ousted Mary from the succession to the throne and put Elizabeth in her place. The Treasons Act instituted the severest penalties for questioning these changes: Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher were two of the eminent men who would die under its provisions.

Hard on the heels of the break with Rome followed the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The Valor Ecclesiasticus (1535) totted up the value of ecclesiastical lands and property. First the smaller (1536) and then the larger (1539-40) monasteries were dissolved and their assets stripped. Royal income was doubled and a monastic tradition dating back to the 6th Century ended.

Fountains Abbey,
stripped of its lead roof by Henry's agents and left to ruin

	One contributing cause of these momentous changes - Anne Boleyn - barely outlasted the time it took to pass the Reformation legislation. When in January 1536 she suffered a miscarriage, Henry decided that God was against this marriage too. She was beheaded 19 May 1536. Two days later, the compliant Cranmer declared that the marriage had never been valid in the first place.
	By the end of May, Henry VIII had married again. This time to Jane Seymour, a lady-in-waiting at court. In July 1536, Henry's illegitimate son (the Duke of Richmond) died, but in October 1537, Jane gave birth to a son, Edward, finally establishing the succession in the male line.

The causes of the Henrician Reformation

The kings of France and the Hapsburg rulers also had their differences with Rome, but they were far better placed to bully the Papacy than was Henry. The Concordat of Bologna (1516) allowed the French king virtually complete control of major appointments in the French Church. The Hapsburgs' domination of Italy left the pope little freedom of action against them - especially as they were the main champions of the Church against Protestantism.

Lutheran anti-papal image
(Ego sum Papa = I am Pope)

Henry, in contrast, had to bring pressure by threats of schism, and at some point decided to put these threats into practice. Henry and his advisors knew that the secular rulers of Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia had successfully subjected to the church to lay control and seized its property.

	It is not clear whether the break with Rome was masterminded by Thomas Cromwell, who rose to power as Henry's chief minister in 1532, or whether Henry had decided on the policy earlier, but concealed his plans until the extent of opposition became clear.
	In fact, this momentous breach faced very little overt opposition, although much of England seems to have dragged its feet rather than embraced the changes enthusiastically.
	Some aspects of the reformation in England had popular support - in particular, anticlerical moves. Hostility to the clergy for its worldliness, idleness and ignorance had been the stuff of literary satire since the time of Chaucer. Works such as Simon Fish's Supplication of the Beggars (1528) presented these themes in terms comprehensible to the ordinary people.
	Hunne's case bears witness to how such anticlericalism could erupt.
	However, it is far from clear that there was more hostility to the clergy in the 1530s than in earlier centuries. Nor did Henry's "reformation" do much to reform the clergy: a few corrupt monasteries were dissolved and their revenues pocketed by wealthy laymen, but most bishops and priests remained in their posts - just as worldly (or spiritual) in their lives as before.

Henry VIII did reorganize the English dioceses, creating a number of new bishoprics (Bristol, Chester, Gloucester, Oxford, and (briefly) Westminster:)

	The Christian humanism of Desiderius Erasmus and Thomas More did create an atmosphere in educated circles highly critical of the church's many failings. But these men wanted to preserve - not destroy - the unity of Western Christendom. Thomas More was one of the few men willing to give his life rather than bow before Henry's "reformation."
	Protestants - who did object to papal supremacy on principle - were few and far between in England at the time of Henry's breach with Rome. Lollard beliefs survived amongst a small number of artisans in South and Eastern England, but these humble folk played no part in determining Henry's policies.
	Henry VIII showed no sympathy for such Lutheran doctrinal beliefs as justification by faith alone, and continued to hold a very sacramental view of religion.
	Protestant ideas had begun to spread amongst some clerics. Henry found willing agents amongst these men - especially William Tyndale, Robert Barnes, Miles Coverdale, Hugh Latimer and Thomas Cranmer (though in the early years of the Henrician Reformation Cranmer was an Erasmian humanist rather than a Protestant.) A number of the early Protestants met at the White Horse Tavern in Cambridge.