Henry VIII Revision Timeline
1485
Battle of Bosworth
Field
Henry Tudor defeats Richard III at the battle. This begins the
reign of the Tudors. Henry VII is a very competent but arguably
not popular King.
o He reorganises the country’s nobility so that they are much
less of a threat to his personal and dynastic security. Nobles
are put under bonds and recognizances to ensure their good
behaviour. Also, the nobility are moved away from their
traditional power bases.
o Henry VII suffered three major attempts on his throne by
Lambert Simnel, Perkin Warbeck and Edmund de la Pole.
o Financially, Henry VII was a miserly King. He amassed a
fortune of over £1 million by his death and increased the
King’s income dramatically during his reign.
o Henry VII’s biggest failure was in war. He had never been
able to win a glorious war to establish his legacy.
1491
Birth of Prince
Henry
Henry is born. As second son, he is not educated and raised to
be King, but instead by his mother.
1502
Death of Prince
Arthur & Papal
Dispensation
Death of Prince Arthur six moths after his marriage to
Catherine of Aragon. Henry now becomes the only chance for
Henry VII’s Tudor dynasty to continue. Henry VII manages to
obtain a papal dispensation to enable his second son Henry to
marry Catherine of Aragon. This stated that the marriage had
never been consummated, and thus it was perfectly legal for
Henry to marry Catherine in the future.
1503
Death of Henry’s
mother
Henry had been raised by his mother and this seems to have
affected him greatly.
1509
Henry VIII
becomes King
Less than two weeks before Henry becomes King, he married
Catherine of Aragon. One of his first acts as the new King was
to release many of the “political prisoners” of his father’s reign.
In particular, he had Henry VII’s financial administrators
Empson & Dudley arrested on charges of treason the day after
his accession to the throne. They were both executed in the
next year.
Immediately, Henry VIII desires to be a glorious King. He
models himself on Henry V (the King who won at Agincourt) and
will seek military glory as one of his major policies as King.
1511
Death of first child
Movements towards
war
Katherine of Aragon gives birth to Prince Henry at Richmond
Palace. Henry only lived for 52 days and died on 22nd/23rd
February. Henry VIII was devastated.
Henry VIII joins the Holy League against France. This was a
good move for Henry as it showed his intentions to be a glorious
King.
1512
England joins with
Spain to attack
France
In April, 12,000 troops were sent to invade France along with
Spain in a two-fronted war. Henry had been betrayed by
Ferdinand of Spain who only wanted to use the English troops
as a diversion so that he could capture Navarre.
Dysentery and drunkenness engulfed the troops and they were
eventually recalled. The expedition had been a complete disaster
and Henry had found out the hurtful truth of international
politics and alliances.
1513
The Battle of the
Spurs (vs France)
The Battle of
Flodden Field (vs
Scotland)
Henry arranges an alliance with Maximillian (HRE). They agree
to invade France together. Henry personally led this invasion of
France with 30,000 men. The campaign met with very little
French resistance and resulted in the capture of two towns,
Therouanne and Tournai. The battle was called the “Battle of
the Spurs” in recognition of the speed at which the French had
retreated. The English army was provided by Cardinal Thomas
Wolsey and was his first major step into the hierarchy of
English politics. Because of the success, he was appointed Bishop
of Tournai.
Whilst Henry was away fighting in France, the Scots attacked
under James IV. The remains of the English army was left under
the control of the Earl of Surrey and Catherine of Aragon! King
James and many of his lords were slain, along with perhaps
5000 of his men. This was important as it greatly reduced the
power of the nobility in Scotland. Catherine gave King James’
bloodstained cloak and dismembered head as a present to her
husband! Henry’s own sister (Margaret) now became regent of
Scotland. There should now be very little problems from North
of the border for the rest of Henry’s reign. However, the wars
had been very costly, approximately £960,000.
1514
The Anglo-French
Treaty
Henry was essentially forced into making peace with France.
Both Ferdinand and Maximillian had lost interest in attacking
France and the new Pope, Leo X, favoured peace over war.
England got possession of Tournai and Louis XII agreed to pay
the arrears of the English pension granted to Henry VII in the
1490s. The treaty was sealed with the marriage of Henry’s
younger sister Mary to the elderly Louis XII.
1515
Death of Louis XII
Act of Resumption
Wolsey imprisons
Vergil
Francis I now becomes the new King of France. He is a very
determined young King who desires military glory and power. He
immediately starts causing trouble, sending the Scottish
claimant, the Duke of Albany, to try and overthrow the regency
of Henry’s sister, Margaret.
Wolsey introduces an act that allows Henry to gain back land
that was previously given to Nobles at no cost. Although not
greatly used, it was still incredibly unpopular.
Vergil was imprisoned because Wolsey intercepted an
unflattering letter to the Pope about Henry and Wolsey. It was a
trivial affair, but Wolsey made an enemy of Vergil (who would
later publish the Anglica Historia in 1534 which tore the
character of Wolsey apart.
1516
Death of Ferdinand
Birth of Mary
He was succeeded by his Grandson, the archduke Charles.
Charles was keen to avoid conflict with France and so made a
peace with them at Noyon. (Treaty of Noyon)
Mary was the first and ultimately only child of Henry’s marriage
to Catherine of Aragon that would survive. She had already been
preceded by a still-born girl and three short-lived brothers.
1517
Martin Luther’s
Protestant
Reformation begins
Peace of Cambrai
(without England)
The Protestant Reformation begins when Martin Luther nails his
"95 Theses" against the Catholic practice of selling indulgences,
on the church door at Wittenberg.
Charles’ other grandfather, Maximillian, joined the treaty
between France and Spain to create the new Peace of Cambrai.
Despite Henry and Wolsey’s efforts, England had been left out
of international politics and was now humiliated.
1518
The Treaty of
London
Since the beginning of 1518, Pope Leo X had been calling for a
European crusade against the Turks. Wolsey took the plans and
adapted them to suit the European powers and to put England at
the centre of the diplomatic peace negotiations.
The treaty guaranteed non-aggression between the major
European powers and built in the principle of collective
security (if one was attacked, all would come to their aide).
The treaty heaped prestige on Henry and Wolsey. An AngloFrench treaty was signed that gave back Tournai in return for
further French pensions and Henry’s infant daughter, Mary, was
now betrothed to Francis I. Wolsey also profited greatly. He
refused to allow Cardinal Campeggio to enter the country
until he had been given the title of Legate a latere.
1519
Death of
Maximillian
This set up a power struggle between Charles and Francis I. The
seven electors of the Empire chose Charles to become the new
Holy Roman Emperor, completely upsetting the power balance in
Europe. However, England now became an important potential
ally for both France and Spain/HRE.
1520
The Field of the
Cloth of Gold
This was a chance for both France and England to show off their
Renaissance credentials. It was mostly funded by England
(cost millions of pounds). Each camp occupied about 2.5 acres (1
hectare) of land, and included a large pavilion to serve as a great
hall, another for a large chapel, and numerous gilded tents to
house the kings’ enormous retinues (which numbered in the
thousands at both camps). Some idea of the size of Henrys
following may be gathered from the fact that in one month 2200
sheep and other dishes in a similar proportion were consumed.
Despite the splendor of the occasion, little of diplomatic value
was achieved. Though Henry and Francois agreed in principle to
an alliance, it was just two weeks later that Henry met with
Charles V himself in England. By the terms of this new treaty
between England and the Empire, each agreed to not sign any
new treaties with France for two years.
The previous betrothal of Henry’s daughter Mary was also now
broken. She was originally betrothed to the son of Francis I, but
a new betrothal to Charles V himself was established.
1521
Henry writes the
Defence of the
Seven Sacraments.
King Henry VIII receives the title "Defender of the Faith"
from Pope Leo X for his opposition to Martin Luther. Henry
wrote Assertio Septem Sacramentorum, the Defence of the
Seven Sacraments, a book that defended the rituals of the
Catholic Church such as Baptism and the taking of the Eucharist
(body and blood of Christ)
1522
Wolsey breaks up
Anne Boleyn &
Henry Percy’s
proposed marriage
Anne Boleyn met and fell in love with Henry Percy, a member of
the Cardinal Wolsey entourage. The couple were betrothed but
split up by Cardinal Wolsey on the orders of King Henry VIII.
Anne Boleyn blamed Cardinal Wolsey and swore to take revenge
on him.
1523
The Tudor Subsidy
War vs France
1523-24
This was quite a new system of taxation, by which Parliament
granted taxes of stated amounts on property and incomes, based
on direct and realistic assessments of the wealth of
individual taxpayers. Under Wolsey it was not fully exploited,
but it did increase the King’s income. In 1516, the subsidy
yielded £44,000 and in 1525 this had increased to £64,000.
The 1523-25 campaign saw Henry VIII allied with the Emperor
Charles V against Francis I. Henry's army came within reach of
Paris and yet was forced to turn back because of Charles's
failures elsewhere. Despite some short term gains, the war
proved costly in both time and money (£430,000).
1525
The Battle of Pavia
The Amicable Grant
This was the decisive military engagement of the war in Italy
between Francis I and Charles V, in which the French army of
28,000 was virtually annihilated and Francis himself,
commanding the French army, was taken prisoner. Francis was
sent to Madrid, where, the following year, he concluded peace
and surrendered French claims to Italy.
This was an important turning point in international politics for
England, as Charles V had no interest in allowing Henry to
share in the spoils. England would now have to change its
alliance permanently to control the power of Charles V. They
would have to become friends with France!
The Amicable grant was a tax imposed on England in 1525 by the
Lord Chancellor Thomas Wolsey. Called at the time "a
benevolance", it was essentially a forced loan that was levied
on one-third of both the clergy and laity's incomes. The
Amicable Grant should have been levied with Parliamentary
authority, but was not, and so the legal framework for its
collection was extremely weak. There was a lot of resistance
to the tax and it provoked an open rebellion in Suffolk and a
taxpayer strike. Wolsey was forced to abandon the Grant within
a year. Wolsey's attempts to bypass parliament further ruined
his relations with this key body and Henry's wish to attack
France had to be shelved (the Treaty of the More, 1525).
1526
Henry is obsessed
with Anne Boleyn
King Henry VIII becomes totally obsessed with Anne Boleyn
and he falls madly in love.
1527
King's Secret
Matter
Treaty of
Westminster
“The King's Secret Matter" was no longer a secret. It became
publicly known that Henry was seeking a divorce from Queen
Catherine of Aragon and Henry looked to Cardinal Wolsey to
achieve this.
Wolsey attempts to unite France and England against Charles V.
They declare war on Chares in 1528 but it all comes to nothing
due to public unrest in England. Henry is forced into negotiating
a truce.
1528
A sort of war
against Charles V,
but not really!
England and France declare war on Charles V. Since Wolsey
wanted to avoid military action he determined on a trade
embargo as the means to force Charles into negotiations,
following the example of Henry VII. However, the combination
of the third worst harvest of the sixteenth century in 1527,
with widespread unemployment resulting from the cessation of
the cloth trade, led to widespread trouble in the south-west,
the south-east and East Anglia between March and May. The
embargo was ended and Wolsey and Henry were forced into
another humiliating climb-down
1529
Catherine fights
Trial at Blackfriars
Catherine lodged an appeal to Rome against the authority of
the Legatine Court and the ability of Wolsey and Campeggio to
try the case.
Wolsey and Campeggio opened court at Blackfriars. Henry and
Catherine appeared before the court on 18th June. Catherine
challenged that authority of the Court and the qualification of
the two legates to hear the cast. She stated her wish for the
case to be heard in Rome, but this was denied. On 21st June
Henry told the court of his fears that his lack of a male heir was
due to his marrying his brother's wife. Catherine, in reply made
a very moving speech asserting the validity of her present
marriage. She stated that she did not recognise the authority
of their court and wanted the case referred to Rome. When
permission was refused she left the court. Catherine did not
attend the court hearing again. On 16th July the Pope decided
that the divorce case should not be heard in England but
should be heard in Rome. Wolsey had failed to obtain the
Wolsey is arrested.
Treaty of Cambrai
Reformation
Parliament
annulment for Henry and had made Henry look foolish.
Henry charges Wolsey with “praemunire” (acknowledging a
foreign power above the King) and strips him of all his major
titles except Bishop of York. Politically he is now ruined. Thomas
More succeeds Thomas Wolsey as Lord Chancellor.
In august, Charles V and Francis I sign the Treaty of Cambrai
establishing peace between the two countries. England is once
again isolated from international politics.
November—Henry opens the “Reformation Parliament”. This
lasts for 7 years and assesses the anti-clerical feeling in the
country. The major work is the Probate, Pluralities and
Mortuaries Act.
1530
Henry seeks the
approval of scholars
Collectanea satis
copiosa
Death of Wolsey
Henry commissions some of the major European Universities to
assess the “Great Matter”. Several universities replied
favourably.
Henry’s leading supporters put together the Collectanea satis
copiosa - a collection of old manuscripts that supported the
concept of the King as head of state and church.
November: Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was arrested on false
charges of treason and died at Leicester on his way to
London, some say of a broken heart. His last words were:
“if I had served God as diligently as I have done the King, he
would not have given me over in my grey hairs.”
1531
The Church is fined
The Church was fined for endorsing Wolsey’s Papal posts.
Ordered to pay £118,000. The clergy were then pardoned. In
the Pardon of the Clergy, Henry insisted that he be referred
to as the Sole Protector and Supreme Head of the English
Church and clergy.
1532
Cromwell reduces
the power of the
Church
Act in Conditional
Restraint of
Annates
Cromwell introduces a petition against the church having legal
jurisdiction. He convinced parliament that it
contravened their power.
Henry introduces the “Act in Conditional Restraint of
Annates”. This stated that bishops who were not consecrated by
Rome (in exchange for a considerable payment) would be
consecrated by the English Church instead.
Thomas More
resigns
Thomas More resigns as Lord Chancellor in protest to the
attacks on the Church and the demand that he acknowledges
Henry as “Supreme Head” above all others.
Submission of the
Clergy
Anne is pregnant
Henry introduces the “Submission of the Clergy”. Clerical
courts could now only meet with the King’s permission, new canon
laws had to be approved by Henry and existing laws were to
be inspected and any that undermined royal authority were to
be removed.
Henry had given up on getting a positive result from Rome. Anne
was now pregnant. Henry had to move very quickly to ensure
that his child would not be a bastard and therefore illegitimate
for the throne. The Great Matter had to be sorted once and for
all.
1533
Henry and Anne
marry in secret
Act in Restraint of
Appeals
Annulment secured
More snubs Anne’s
coronation
Elizabeth is born
Pope’s authority
completely
overhauled
Shortly before dawn on 25th January, in the presence of four or
five witnesses, sworn to secrecy, Henry and Anne were married
in the King's private chapel at Whitehall.
Parliament passes the Act in Restraint of Appeals. This
effectively negates any appeals that Catherine of Aragon
could make to the Pope and thus makes the issue over her
marriage’s legitimacy firmly in the hands of the English Court.
On the 13th May, Thomas Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury)
declared Henry's marriage null and void on the grounds that it
was contrary to divine law.
More refused to attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn as the
new Queen.
A daughter, Elizabeth, was born to Henry VIII and Anne
Boleyn. Henry was obviously disappointed that the baby was not
a boy and blamed both God and Anne for denying him the heir he
so desired.
An order was issued that stated that the Pope had no more
authority in England than any other bishop. From now on he
would be referred to as the Bishop of Rome. The break with
Rome had happened so gradually that there was very little
opposition to the move.
1534
The Act of
Supremacy &
Treason Law
Act of Succession
Execution of
Elizabeth Barton
(The Mad Maid of
Kent)
This declares that Henry is the Supreme Head of the English
Church. The Treason Law also made it an executable offence to
speak out against the King or his Queen.
This Act was introduced to exclude Mary from the succession
and settle it instead on the children born from his marriage to
Anne.
She was a nun and friend of Bishop John Fisher. She openly
spoke out against Henry, especially against the marriage to Anne
Boleyn. She claimed that Henry would soon die due to his evil
marriage to the Protestant Anne. She was executed!
More is arrested
The Tudor Subsidy
The Oath of
Succession
More was asked to appear before a commission and swear his
allegiance to the parliamentary Act of Succession. He
steadfastly refused and was arrested and placed in The Tower
four days later.
Cromwell re-establishes the Tudor Subsidy as an annual
peacetime tax for the continued defence of the country.
The King's councillors were to take the oath first, after which
they would supervise their inferior officers. The sheriffs would
ensure that the Justices of the Peace took the oath and they in
turn would ensure that all house-holders took the oath. Refusal
to take the oath would be tantamount to treason.
Soon after, Henry wanted to be sure that his subjects knew
that Papal supremacy had been replaced by royal supremacy. He
ordered all parish priests to erase all references to the Pope
from the prayer books. All preachers were told that their
parishioners must be left in no doubt that the King, and only the
King, was Head of the Church.
1535
Bishop Fisher
executed
Execution of
Thomas More
John Fisher, aged 76 years, was beheaded on Tower hill at 10 am
on June 15th.
The execution took place on July 6, 1535. On the scaffold, he is
widely quoted as saying to the executioner is that his beard was
completely innocent of any crime, and did not deserve the axe;
he then positioned his beard so that it would not be harmed.
Beginning of the end Anne Boleyn was prematurely delivered of a stillborn child.
for Anne
Henry was devastated by this and began to question whether he
should have made the marriage with Anne in the first place. She
had not been the dutiful, obedient wife he had hoped for. Also,
one of Anne’s maids, Jane Seymour, had succeeded in attracting
Henry and was being openly courted by him
Valor Ecclesiasticus Cromwell ordered investigations into the monasteries of England.
1536
Death of Catherine
of Aragon
In January, Catherine of Aragon died. Henry and Anne
celebrated by wearing yellow around the Court.
Act for the
Dissolution of the
Lesser Monasteries
A bill was presented to Parliament by Cromwell which would,
when passed, authorise the closure of all monasteries with a
revenue of less than £200 per year. About 376 monasteries fell
into this category.
The smaller monasteries were dissolved due to being full of
“manifest sin, vicious, carnal and abominable living is daily
used and committed among the little and small abbeys, priories,
and other religious houses of monks, canons, and nuns”.
Court of
Augmentations
The speedy downfall
of Anne
The Court of Augmentations was established along with three
lesser courts (those of General Surveyors, First Fruit and
Tenths, and Wards and Liveries) following the dissolution of
the monasteries. Its primary function was to gain better control
over the land and finances formerly held by the Catholic Church
In April, Henry signed an order that authorised commissioners
to enquire into any kind of treason committed by his wife.
Within 3 weeks, Anne Boleyn was arrested, sent to The
Tower and charged with having committed adultery with some
half dozen men including her brother George. She was charged
with plotting her husband's murder and with promising to marry
one of her lovers when the King was dead. At the trial, her
previous lover, Henry Percy, and her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk,
were amongst the judges. She was found guilty of high treason
and sentenced to die either by beheading or burning, whichever
was the King's choice.
Execution of Anne
On May 19th Anne was executed behind closed doors in The
Tower, possibly due to Henry’s fear of what she might say
publicly. However, she spoke no ill of the King and simply stated
that she had been judged “by the law”.
Henry marries wife
No 3.
On the 30th of May 1536 Henry and Jane Seymour were
married.
Act of Union
Wales was enfranchised under the Act of Union, given the right
to send 24 MPs to Parliament. This made it much more under the
control of the Parliament in London. English was also enforced
as the official language.
These were a series of injunctions introduced by Cranmer and
Cromwell to improve the conduct of the clergy and the worship
of the people. Sermons were to be preached at stated periods
against Rome. Relics were not to be exhibited for gain. A good
home life was deemed preferable to pilgrimage. Children were to
learn the Lord's Prayer, The Holy Creed and The Ten
Commandments in English among other things. This was a big
move towards Protestantism in England.
The Act of the Ten
Articles
The Lincolnshire
Rebellion
The first of the uprisings occurred in Lincolnshire in October
1536 and lasted about two weeks – from the 2nd to the 18th.
While it did not last long, the revolt did represent a major
threat to the government. This was because those in the
rebellion were not just the ‘common’ people. Nobles were also
involved in the Lincolnshire Uprising – a group of people whom
the government had usually been able to rely on to support it.
Pilgrimage of Grace
The Pilgrimage of Grace – was very similar to the one in
Lincolnshire. ‘Commoners’ made up the bulk of the numbers while
nobles were also in its ranks. However, one major difference was
that the Yorkshire rebels were well led. Robert Aske, an able
lawyer from an important Yorkshire family, became the accepted
leader of the Yorkshire rebels.
The rebels wanted Henry to stop his attacks on the Church and
the monasteries and return the country to following the Pope.
Aske believed that Henry himself was not at fault as he was
thought to be a decent and well-meaning king. Aske lay the
blame on ‘evil’ advisors, especially Thomas Cromwell.
 Henry was a clever politician. He received the rebel demands
– but failed to give a reply to them for several weeks. In this
time he hoped that the rebel organisation would start to
show weaknesses. It would be a tall order for Aske to keep
all 35,000 men organised. Henry bought more time by asking
the pilgrim envoys to clarify certain points that he failed to
fully understand. He suggested that the leaders should meet
up to construct a clearly written and detailed set of demands.
At the same time Norfolk was ordered to end the rebellion in
whatever way he thought necessary.
 The ’24 Articles’ were presented to Norfolk at Doncaster on
December 6th. It was agreed that if the rebels disbanded:
1) The king would receive the demands.
2) A freely elected Parliament would discuss them.
3) All pilgrims would be pardoned for their part in the
rebellion.
 Aske and the 300 other rebel leaders at Doncaster
believed that they had won a great victory. He travelled
to London at the king’s request to meet Henry who had
asked to be briefed about the feelings of the people so
that any future problems could be avoided. Aske saw this
as a sign that the king was a decent person and that it was
advisors who were failing the country. In fact, Henry was
simply buying time. He had already determined that the north
had to be taught a military lesson. However, he wanted from
Aske as many names as was possible so that individuals
could be brought to account.
 By now the pilgrims were in disarray while the army of
Norfolk was poised to strike when it chose to do so. With no
chance of successfully fighting Norfolk’s army, the leaders
of the Pilgrimage of Grace agreed to Henry’s order that they
should come to London to answer questions. By early May,
fifteen of the main leaders were under arrest despite the
Council of the
North
promise of a pardon. Two juries were established in
Yorkshire to decide whether the men should stand trial in
London. The juries were made up of the friends of those
arrested. This process was known as indictment. It was a
heartless procedure as those who best knew the likes of
Aske and Danby were now asked to essentially sign their
death warrants as no trial in London would spare them. All
the accused unsurprisingly were found guilty of treason.
Most were executed in London but Aske was taken back to
Yorkshire where he was executed. This was meant to be a
gesture of how much in control of the events Henry was.
After the Pilgrimage of Grace, Cromwell strengthened the
Council of the North, and undermined the influence of local
noble families. This further brought the North under the
control of London and Henry. The control of the council was
given to Henry’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy.
1537
Birth of Edward but
death of Jane
The Bishops’ Book
In January, Jane Seymour dies 12 days after the premature
birth of a son, the future King Edward VI. Henry is absolutely
devastated. He will eventually be buried next to Jane in St.
George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle.
Princess Elizabeth and Princess Mary are soon declared
bastards by Henry.
This was an attempt to outline what the English Church believed
in. It was drawn up by the Bishops and it restored the four lost
sacraments (but with a reduction in their importance). A draft
was sent to Henry but he didn’t have time to read it. His later
revisions in the King’s Book f 1543 suggest that he was not happy
with the result.
1538
Attacks on the
religious shrines and
Excommunication
Execution of John
Lambert
Henry now turned his attention to religious shrines in England.
For hundreds of years pilgrims had visited shrines that
contained important religious relics. Henry decided that the
shrines should be closed down and the wealth that they had
created given to the crown. The Pope and the Catholic church
in Rome were horrified when they heard the news that Henry
had destroyed St. Thomas Becket's Shrine. On 17 December,
the Pope announced to the Christian world that Henry VIII had
been excommunicated from the Catholic church.
Lambert was a priest, but was very protestant in beliefs. He was
tried and executed for refusing to recognise the real
presence of Christ in the Eucharist (transubstantiation).
The Matthew Bible
This was the first official English translation of the Bible to
be published.
1539
The Second Act of
Dissolutions
Act of The Six
Articles
This dissolved a further 552 monasteries.
Henry puts forth the Act of The Six Articles, a religious
stature, was passed at the 'instance' of Henry VIII. It set
forth the position of the English Church on six fundamental
points in an effort to stem the growth and influence of the
English Protestants. It undermined Cromwell’s previous
reforms.
1540
Wife No 4: Anne of
Cleves
They were married for political reasons; in fact, Anne was
chosen by Thomas Cromwell, the Lord Chancellor. This marriage
was politically convenient, as Henry needed a strong political
alliance with Lutheran Germany to establish ties between
England and the other protestant countries so that England
would not become totally isolated. Their marriage soon became
a political embarrassment when the alliance between the
Catholic powers failed. The marriage was annulled on July 9,
1540.
Court of the First
Fruits and Tenths
The Court of First Fruits and Tenths was set up in 1540 to deal
with the income derived from clerical taxation.
Right of Sanctuary
abolished
The right of sanctuary was largely abolished too in 1540,
meaning that there could be no refuge from the forces of law
and order in churches. Previously, criminals could claim sanctuary
in a church for 40 days and then leave the country without
prosecution.
Downfall and
execution of
Cromwell
The disaster of the king's marriage to Anne of Cleves was all the
opportunity that Cromwell's opponents, most notably the Duke
of Norfolk, needed to press for his fall from grace. Whilst at a
Council meeting on 10 June 1540, Cromwell was arrested and
imprisoned in the Tower of London. Cromwell was subjected to
an Act of Attainder and was kept alive by Henry VIII until his
marriage to Anne of Cleves could be annulled. Having been
discredited by his enemies and betrayed by his master, Cromwell
was beheaded on Tower Hill on 28th July. After his execution,
Cromwell's head was boiled and then set upon a spike on London
Bridge, facing away from the City of London.
Wife No 5:
Catherine Howard
Henry and Catherine were secretly married on July 28.
Catherine had been previously engaged to her cousin, Thomas
Culpepper. She was thought to have had affairs with him and
two others; Henry Mannock, a music teacher, and Francis
Dereham. In November 1541, the King learned of these supposed
affairs and became irate. He allowed Parliament to pass a bill of
attainder declaring it treason for an unchaste woman to marry
the king. On February 14, 1542, two days after the bill was
passed, Catherine was beheaded in the Tower of London for
crimes of treason.
Likely exam questions:
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How successful was English Foreign Policy in the 1510s and 1520s?
How far do you agree that English Foreign Policy was largely driven by Wolsey’s own
personal ambitions and interests?
Do you agree with the view that Scotland / France / Spain remained a threat to
England between the years 1509-40?
Do you agree with the view that Henry VIII’s foreign policy in the years 1514–25
failed because he lacked the resources to fulfil his aims?
How successful were Wolsey’s domestic policies?
How far do you agree that it was Wolsey not Henry who was in charge of
government?
Do you agree with the view that, although Wolsey appeared the dominant figure in
the government of England in the years 1515–29, in reality he merely followed
Henry’s bidding?
Do you agree with the view that, in his years as Lord Chancellor, Wolsey
strengthened Henry VIII’s control of his kingdom?
Do you agree that the main reason for Wolsey’s fall from power was his failure to
secure the annulment?
Do you agree with the view that the Reformation of the 1530s was caused mainly by
Henry’s desire for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon?
Do you agree with the view that the main reason for Henry’s failure to obtain the
annulment of his marriage in the years 1525–29 was the determined opposition of
Katherine of Aragon?
Do you agree with the view that the most significant changes of the 1530s were
political rather than religious?
Do you agree that the main cause of the English Reformation was the character and
influence of Anne Boleyn?
Do you agree with the view that the decisive influence in shaping the Reformation of
the 1530s was Thomas Cromwell’s idea of a nation state?
Do you agree with the view that the break with Rome was brought about primarily by
Henry’s desire for a male heir?
Do you agree with the view that the main cause of the Pilgrimage of Grace was a
widespread dislike of religious changes?
Do you agree with the view that, in 1536–37, opposition to religious changes posed a
serious threat to Henry VIII’s rule?
Do you agree with the view that the dissolution of the greater monasteries was
largely driven by financial motives?