ORIGINS OF THE ROYAL
SUPREMACY
RELIGION & RELIGIOUS CHANGE IN ENGLAND,
C.1470-1558
WHAT IS THE ROYAL SUPREMACY?
• Question of how Henry VIII’s marriage to Katherine
of Aragon might be annulled as illegitimate to clear
the way for a marriage to Anne Boleyn:
• ‘The King’s Great Matter’.
• Result: challenge Papal authority:
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Establish Henry as ‘Emperor’ in England.
Destroyed monasteries
Vastly increase Royal wealth and authority
Arguably render England ‘Protestant’ for next 5 centuries.
HANS HOLBEIN, WHITEHALL MURAL
BACKGROUND/CONTEXT: DYNASTIC
POLITICS
• Obsessive desire for a
son.
Why?
• Dynasty = stability
• Wars of the Roses a fresh
memory – Henry VII
ended them.
• How ‘legitimate’ were
the Tudors?
• Births, marriage, death
ramifications for the
realm and all who lived in
it.
• Body Monarchical = Body
Politic.
• This was a time of
personal kingship.
• Henry’s chief objective was
to reconfigure his family
• Doing so made significant
changes to kingship which
had profound and
shocking implications for
the realm.
A GLASSE OF THE TRUTHE (1532)
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Henry referred bluntly to the fact that he
was: ‘childless’.
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• Neglecting the presence of Mary.
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Problem of Queens:
• Largely unprecedented, and
understood to be vulnerable.
A Glasse of the Truthe (1532) explained
his reasons for thinking his marriage to
was Katherine invalid.
Need for male heir more significant for
country at large than Henry:
• ‘For his lack of heirs male is a
displeasure to him but his life time: as
lacking that which naturally is desired of
all men….But our lack shall be
permanent so long as the world lasteth:
except that God provide’
• ‘If the female heir, shall chance to rule,
she cannot continue long without a
husband, which by God’s law, must
then be her governor and head, and so
finally shall direct his realm’.
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Problem Mary and Elizabeth would both face.
Problem: winning popular consent for either
a foreign Prince or a native subject:
• ‘And as touching any marriage within
this realm, we think, it were hard to
devise any condign and able person,
for so high an enterprise, much harder,
to find one, with whom the whole realm
would and could be contended to
have him ruler and governor’.
DISPUTE
• Ceased sleeping with Katherine of Aragon from
around 1525:
• Grew a beard – which she disliked.
• Henry’s character crucial:
• Understood blessings in life to be signs from God:
• And demanded them as his right.
• Life had led him to think that way:
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1509, good fortune of inheriting the throne
Did so peacefully
Young, healthy, handsome and beloved.
Vigorous and physically impressive – embodied majesty
EGO-GO-GO:
• Left him with the conviction that he deserved to be
blessed:
• Not accept personal misfortune
• Try to rectify it and resume his position as God’s favoured
son.
• Usually done with force; or swift revenge.
• That his ‘Great Matter’ took almost a decade to
resolve is a testament to its severity.
BIBLE
• 1526 – Henry ‘discovers’ explanation for absence of
a son in the Bible.
• Leviticus 18:16: ‘Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of
they brother’s wife: it is thy brother’s nakedness’
• 20: 21: ‘And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an
unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness:
they shall be childless’.
• Aragon marriage was clearly – in Henry’s mind – contrary to
God’s law.
• Not a divorce – marriage had never existed in the first place.
• Consequently been living in sin for 20 years: thus no sons.
A ‘HUMANIST’ MOMENT?
• Last lecture – Bible scholarship part of
humanist renewal of the Church:
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Scriptural authority over tradition
Debate about whether Papal authority
to interpret scripture sacrosanct; or
whether scripture spoke for itself.
Henry’s was an appeal to divine law,
not papal.
Tapping into new and exciting ideas;
and (implicitly at first) calling into
question papal supremacy.
THIS WAS AN
ISSUE OF
CONSCIENCE,
NOT A WHIM!
• Idea that marriage could be deemed
invalid by previous relationship with
close kin not new:
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Papacy constantly grant dispensations
allowing people to marry in this way.
Pursuing this route would have
preserved balance of power between
King and Pope as it was.
• Fact Henry based it upon the bible
tells us much about him
• Used to be thought that King relied
upon a succession of advisers in his
‘Great Matter’:
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Changed strategies with personnel.
Scripture only employed once all of
those avenues failed.
Now clear that biblical annotations – in
Henry’s hand – were there from the
beginning.
Deeply involved.
Wrote, read, debated with vigour.
‘CONVERSION’
• ‘Official’ line, cast as a conversion experience.
• Had been wallowing in sin, now seen the light through
scripture.
• Conviction: letter to his sister (1527) after the annulment of
her marriage to the Earl of Angus on the grounds of bigamy.
• Henry exhorted her to observe: ‘the divine ordinance to
inseparable matrimony’ and warned ‘what charge of
conscience, what grudge and fretting, yes, what danger of
damnation should it be to your soul, with perpetual infamy
to your renown, slanderously to distain with dishonour so
goodly a creature…namely your natural child, procreate in
lawful matrimony, as to reputed baseborn’.
HENRY VS POPE
• Renaissance & the Papacy:
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Threatened by questioning
Control over the Church historically
shaky/ perennially disputed.
Conciliarism.
• Older debates in a fresh context:
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Wealthy/ostentatious/ embodied
neglect of the gospel [the source text
which would renew the Church].
Clash with notions of 1st Christians –
simple lives/persecuted/humble/
charitable.
Hypocrisy of aggressive foreign policy/
position as a secular ruler (Papal States).
• Erasmus – Julius II excluded from
heaven:
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Julius II – ‘Warrior Pope’.
Arrives at heaven in usual magnificence
only to be shredded by St. Peter in
questions at the gate.
• Critical that ideal not live up to reality,
rather than ideal itself.
• Henry – like Reformers/Protestants –
not set out to use marriage to break
from the Church:
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Long record of loyal service to the
Papacy
1513: Holy League
1518: Treaty Of London (answering a
Papal call to Peace).
1521: in attacking Luther.
HENRY VS POPE:
• Pope Clement VII not particularly
hostile to idea of dissolving HenryKatherine’s marriage:
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Long record of good relations between
Henry VIII and the Medici Popes.
Giovanni de’ Medici, Leo X (1513-21) –
applauded Henry’s Kingship.
Giulio de’Medici, Clement VII (1523-)
viewed Henry with particular favour.
First Golden Rose of his pontificate sent
to Henry
1524, Fidei Defensor.
1527, Henry sent the Pope 30,000
ducats to help in the face of warfare.
• Problem lay in the fact that
Katherine’s nephew was the most
powerful man in Europe:
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Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
Warring in Italy – with the French – for
half a century, Papacy’s position
precarious.
1527 – Charles V’s troops sacked Rome.
Pope an imperial prisoner in all but
name.
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Henry sent Bishop Gardiner and Edward
Foxe as envoy’s to the Pope:
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Delays & procrastinations.
Two years of being rebuffed at the Papal
court.
April 1529, Gardiner reported to Henry:
‘His Holiness is in a great perplexity and agony
of mind, nor can tell what to do. He seemeth
in words, fashion, and manner of speaking, as
though he would do somewhat for your
Highness: and yet, when it cometh to the
point, nothing he doth’.
Also reported to have wished the queen
dead to ease his burden!
• Delay frustrated Henry
• Question need for Papal approval –
Leviticus burning in his mind:
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Increasingly looked to King like a
straightforward act of obedience to
divine law.
‘I am the Lord’s anointed, why wouldn’t
he give me an heir’.
• Explore alternative routes to get
around the problem.
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Wolsey tried to take over the Church
whilst the Pope was imprisoned.
Had a document of adjudication set up
– all required was the Pope’s signature.
LEGAL AVENUES: KATHERINE OF
ARAGON
• Pressure Katherine into becoming a nun:
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Would necessitate the termination of their
marriage.
• Katherine of Aragon - defence team:
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Vital that she been seen to be treated
fairly
John Fisher, Cuthbert Tunstall, Juan Luis
Vives.
She passionately believed that their
marriage was legitimate and that,
therefore, so was Mary.
Secret court from May 1527.
• Not everyone happy with the case been
staked on divine law over the papacy:
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• Debated and considered:
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Fisher debated Robert Wakefield
(Cambridge Professor of Hebrew)
Leviticus 20:21 not ‘he will be childless’ but
‘he will be without sons’.
An improvement on the Vulgate Bible:
typical of humanist scholarship of the time.
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Fisher: Old Testament was equivocal.
Henry may be arguing that marriage to
a brother’s widow was against natural
law – i.e. fundamentally wrong – but
God appeared a little confused on the
issue.
Deuteronomy: expressly commanded
marriage to a brother’s widow.
Henry’s scholars tried to dismiss this as
an aspect of Jewish ceremonial law
which was consequently not binding.
Fisher: would God have permitted
something – however temporarily –
against nature?
• ‘I’ll see your
Leviticus, and I’ll
raise you
Deuteronomy…….’
LEGAL AVENUES: KATHERINE’S
MARRIAGE TO ARTHUR
• Investigation of Katherine’s first marriage to Henry’s
brother, Arthur.
• Leviticus could only apply if Katherine-Arthur been a ‘real’
marriage: i.e. that is was consummated.
• Katherine claimed it was not.
• Henry and team dredged a mass of 20 year old gossip to
prove that it was.
PAPAL HEARING:
• September 1528, finally secured a Papal commission to investigate the case:
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Led by papal legate: Carindal Campeggio.
Katherine produced a key document: alternative version of the original papal dispensation
to marry in 1509.
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Henry’s legal case rested upon the wording of the original document.
Debate: was the new document was a forgery?
Scuppered Campeggio’s investigation for 9 months.
• Legatine court eventually met June 1529:
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Presided over by Wolsey and a reluctant Campeggio.
Spends time trying to get the case recalled to Rome; or for Katherine to become a nun.
Series of bitter court room confrontations - Katherine kneels before King and pleads with him.
Wrong to casted her as victim and he has villain – complex moral case unfolding before the
court.
Fisher: willing to lay down his life like John the Baptist in the case.
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John the Baptist died for criticising King Herod’s unlawful marriage; subtle label of Henry as tyrant.
• Katherine’s appeal reached Rome, and Pope repealed the Court’s authority.
• Summer of 1529, clear an impasse had been reached:
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Henry brutal in response.
Wolsely removed.
Indication of change of tactic: to attack the papal legate to attack the Pope he
represented.
Wolsey guilty of praemunire – offense of appealing to an outside authority in a matter under
the jurisdiction of the realm.
Traditional charge for those who put the affairs of the church above those of the king.
• Wolsey replaced by Thomas More as Lord
Chancellor – ironic: man who could not secure king
his divorce replaced by one who did not want to.
• Move towards questioning on what grounds – and
with what right – the Papacy had to intervene in a
matter of royalty in England.
PROPAGANDA & PRESSURE
• Henry recognized that he needed
to persuade population of the
rights of his case since the route of
international law was looking
bleak.
CURBING CLERICAL POWER:
• ‘Anti-clerical’ Parliament 1529:
• Not simply mobilising a wellspring
of bile against a corrupt medieval
Church, a ‘stepping-stone’ to
Reform.
• Many ‘reformers’ committed to
the Church, not against it.
• Condemnation of vices: avarice,
simony, taxation.
• Henry’s need to curtail the
Church’s co-opted by those of an
evangelical bent to try to win
favour for Lutheran thought.
• Unsuccessful: but Henry keen to
use evangelical rhetoric against
Church power where it suited him.
• Tyndale, Obedience of a
Christian
• Simon Fish, Supplication of
Beggars:
• Hyperbolic but met mood of the
time: illegitimacy of a Church so
powerful even the King could not
oppose it.
1529 Parliament decried clerical
abuses – non-residence, probate
fees, pluralism, engagement in
secular appointments.
Precedents set for the House of
Commons to pass religious
legislation, and intrusion of religious
conflict into the public sphere
PRE-EMPTING THE SUPREMACY:
• Convocation of the Church drew up a list of reforms
which Henry oversaw:
• Practicing Royal Supremacy before the theory existed to
support it.
• Wolsey had built up such a power base that he effectively
ran the Church in England.
• His patronage networks and infrastructure now belonged to
the King.
CHANGING TACTICS:
• This was still about applying
pressure on the Papacy rather
than rupturing from it.
• New initiatives to win papal
approval still being pursued.
• Different protagonists.
• Thomas Cranmer/Stephen
Gardiner canvas opinion of
Europe’s universities on legality of
King’s marriage to Katherine.
• Embassies sent abroad –
international propaganda
questioning the Pope’s
judgement/right to judge.
• 1530 – several universities found in
the king’s favour.
• Sent a letter to the Pope that year,
signed by multiple clerics and
learned men and subscribing to
the king’s cause.
• Clement VII understood that unless
he took matters into hand,
England might act alone.
• Finally heard the case at Rome.
• Irony: all of the research, debate
and activity meant that the king’s
thinking had evolved so much
from 1527 that he now questioned
the RIGHT of the Papacy to hear
the case at all.
• Conviction that anything which
acted to constrain his authority
within his realm must be wrong.
• His case being heard outside his
realm offended his sense of
majesty.
• By 1530, mass of material in the
great research project came to
fruition
• Collectanea satis copiosa.
COULD A KING BE SUMMONED TO
ROME?
Protestant or Humanist?
No higher legal authority in the realm than the
king:
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Research: Christian Emperors – Constantine:
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Luther accused Henry of being a Pope in
England.
Draw on humanist ideas – authority of the Bible.
Old Testament kings seemed to have those
powers – David.
History showed that King of England no King at
all, but an Emperor – and therefore in charge
of the Church.
1531, entire Church charged with praemunire.
Accused the Church of treason by virtue of
their being clergy – simultaneously absurd and
undeniable
Developed on the run, reactionary:
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No clear ‘Pope’ vs ‘King’ parties
Progress from 1529 erratic in absence of
Wolsey.
Only with new personnel that pathway
cleared.
Edward Lee as Archbishop of York; Gardiner as
Bishop of Winchester.
Thomas Cromwell – former servant of Wolsey.
Tudor Revolution in
Government?
• Geoffrey Elton
• Cromwell or the King?
• Cromwell: effective
administrator/strategist with
regards to Parliament.
• Pivotal management of 3rd session of
‘Reformation Parl’ in January 1532
managed at every turn.
• Needed to be – what the King was
trying to do was unprecedented,
and those being asked to decide
were not used to being asked to do
so – tense and anxious.
• Privy Councillors holding meetings
with MPs to pressure them into
agreeing that King’s marriage should
only be decided within the realm.
SUPREMACY:
• Break with Rome was given legal definition by:
• Act in Restraint of Annates (1534)
• Withdrew revenue from Rome – Church taxes to remain in
England.
• King in charge of appointments of Abbots and Bishops.
• Act of Appeals (1533)
• Ideological justification of the Supremacy which redefined
Kingship.
Act of Appeals (1533)
England an Empire –
everybody said so,
had always said so.
Meant the English
rulers had the right to
authority over
Church and State
‘without the
intermeddling of any
exterior person or
persons’.
Marriage could now
be annulled at home
Also meant that
Henry now ruled the
Church of England
‘Where by divers sundry old
authentic histories and
chronicles it is manifestly
declared and expressed
that this realm of England is
an empire, and so hath
been accepted in the
world, governed by one
supreme head and king
having the dignity and royal
estate of the imperial crown
of the same…..he hath
being also institute and
furnished by the goodness
and sufferance of Almighty
God with plenary, whole
and entire power, preeminence, authority,
prerogative and
jurisdiction’.
RAMIFICATIONS
• Was much of this new?
• Henry had been leaning towards humanism which vaunted
the authority of the Bible.
• Long been attracted by image of himself as Emperor.
• Long dominated the Church in England through Wolsey.
• Idea of dissolving ecclesiastical institutions to fund the
monarchy was not unprecedented.
• Henry’s Grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort; Cardinal Wolsey,
done same.
• Royal Supremacy gave unprecedented scope to those
ideas:
• Solidity
• Legal sanction – permanence and sanctioned by appeals to
antiquity.
Conclusion: A beginning or an end?
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Debate: is this the end of a period beginning in 1525; or the start of something new?
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Traditional accounts of Reformation: beginning of England’s march to Protestantism:
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Human behaviour rarely accords with inevitability:
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Crucial for the Reformation - marked out the context in which it would occur:
• Things determined by contingencies rather than co-ordinated plans.
• Dependent on the balance and sway of vicissitudes of European politics.
• March away from the middle ages to rule by a more ‘Enlightened’ form of
religion.
• And to the increasing presence of parliament in England’s life.
• Culminating in Civil War and Glorious Revolution.
• Developed on the run – not a leap into Protestantism.
• Henry and his supporters indebted to humanism/renaissance (like
Protestants)
• But being cut from same cloth not necessarily make for same result
• An act undertaken on religious conviction, it was a conviction about royal
power; not the process of salvation
• Monarch as the agent of renewal - appealed to as such by reformers.
• What did it mean that Rome’s authority over the Church was false?