The Contested Church of England

England followed yet another path, with reform led by the king rather than by men trained as Catholic clergy. Despite a tradition of religious dissent that went back to the fourteenth-century theologian John Wycliffe, Protestantism gained few English adherents in the 1520s. King Henry VIII (r. 1509–1547) changed that when he broke with the Roman Catholic church. The resulting Church of England retained many aspects of Catholic worship but nonetheless aligned itself in the Protestant camp.

At first, Henry opposed the Protestant Reformation, even receiving the title Defender of the Faith from Pope Leo X for a treatise he wrote against Luther. With the aid of his chancellors Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and Thomas More, Henry vigorously suppressed Protestantism and executed its leaders. More had made a reputation as a Christian humanist, publishing a controversial novel about an imaginary island called Utopia (1516), the source of the modern word for an ideal community. Unlike his friend Erasmus, More chose to serve the state directly and became personal secretary to Henry VIII, Speaker of the House of Commons, and finally Lord Chancellor.

By 1527, the king wanted to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon (d. 1536), the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and the aunt of Charles V. The eighteen-year marriage had produced a daughter, Mary (known as Mary Tudor), but Henry desperately needed a male heir to consolidate the rule of the still-new Tudor dynasty. Moreover, he had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, a lady at court and a supporter of the Reformation. Henry claimed that his marriage to Catherine had never been valid because she was the widow of his older brother, Arthur. Arthur and Catherine’s marriage, which apparently was never consummated, had been annulled by Pope Julius II to allow the marriage between Henry and Catherine to take place. Now Henry asked the reigning pope, Clement VII, to declare his marriage to Catherine invalid.

Around “the king’s great matter” unfolded a struggle for political and religious control. When Cardinal Wolsey failed to secure papal approval of the annulment, Henry dismissed him and had him arrested. Wolsey died before he could be tried, and More took his place as Lord Chancellor. However, More resigned in 1532 because he opposed Henry’s new direction; Henry then had him executed as a traitor in 1535. Henry now turned to two Protestants, Thomas Cromwell (1485–1540) as chancellor and Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) as archbishop of Canterbury. Under their leadership, the English Parliament passed a number of acts that severed ties between the English church and Rome. The most important of these, the Act of Supremacy of 1534, made Henry the head of the Church of England. Other legislation invalidated the claims of Mary Tudor to the throne, recognized Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, and allowed the English crown to embark on the dissolution of the monasteries. In an effort to consolidate support behind his version of the Reformation, Henry sold off monastic lands to the local gentry and aristocracy. His actions prompted an uprising in 1536 in the north of the country called the Pilgrimage of Grace. Though suppressed, it revealed that many people remained deeply Catholic in their sympathies.

Henry grew tired of Anne Boleyn, who had given birth to a daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth I, but had produced no sons. He ordered Anne beheaded in 1536 on the charge of adultery. The king would go on to marry four other wives but father only one son, Edward. When Henry died in 1547, much would now depend on who held the crown. Henry himself held ambiguous views on religion: he considered himself Catholic but would not accept the supremacy of the pope; he closed the monasteries and removed shrines but kept the Mass and believed in clerical celibacy.