TUDOR RULE

The century of Tudor rule (1485-1603) is the most glorious period in English history.
Henry VII built the foundations of a wealthy nation state and a powerful monarchy. His son,
Henry VIII, kept a magnificent court, and made the Church in England truly English by
breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church. Elizabeth brought glory to the new state by
defeating the powerful navy of Spain, the greatest European power of the time.
A less glorious view of the Tudor century. Henry VIII wasted the wealth saved by his
father. Elizabeth weakened the quality of government by selling official posts. She did this to
avoid asking Parliament for money. And although her government tried to deal with the
problem of poor and homeless people at a time when prices rose much faster than wages,
its laws and actions were often cruel in effect.
The new monarchy: Henry VII is far more important in establishing the new
monarchy than Henry VIII or Elizabeth I. Henry VII believed that war and glory were bad for
business, and that business was good for the state. He therefore avoided quarrels either
with Scotland in the north or France in the south. Henry was fortunate. Many of the old
nobility had died or been defeated and their lands had gone to the king. This meant that
Henry had more power and more money than earlier kings. In order to establish his
authority he forbade anyone, except himself, to keep armed men.
Henry's aim was to make the Crown financially independent, and the lands and the
fines he took from the old nobility helped him do this. Henry also raised taxes for wars
which he then did not fight. He created a new nobility from among them, and men unknown
before now became Henry's statesmen.
When Henry died in 1509 he left behind the huge total of .2 million, about fifteen
years' worth of income. The only thing on which he spend money freely was the building of
ships for a merchant fleet. Henry understood earlier than most people that England's future
wealth would depend on international trade. Henry VIII was cruel, wasteful with money, and
interested in pleasing himself. He wanted to become an important influence in European
politics. Henry VIII wanted England to hold the balance of power between France and Spain
two giants. He first unsuccessfully allied himself with Spain, and when he was not rewarded
he changed sides. When friendship with France did not bring him anything, Henry started
talking again to Charles V of Spain.
Henry needed money. One way of doing this was by reducing the amount of silver
used in coins. It rapidly led to a rise in prices.
The Reformation
Henry VIII’s father had become powerful by taking over the nobles' land, but the
lands owned by the Church and the monasteries had not been touched.Henry disliked the
power of the Church in England because, since it was an international organisation, he could
not completely control it. The power of the Catholic Church in England could therefore work
against his own authority, and the taxes paid to the Church reduced his own income. Henry
was not the only European king with a wish to "centralise" state authority. In 1510 Henry
had married Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his elder brother Arthur. But by 1526 she
had still not had a son who survived infancy and was now unlikely to do so. Henry tried to
persuade the pope to allow him to divorce Catherine.
The pope was controlled by Charles V, who was and also Catherine's nephew. For
both political and family reasons he wanted Henry to stay married to Catherine. The pope
did not wish to anger either Charles or Henry, but eventually he was forced to do as Charles
V wanted. He forbade Henry's divorce.
Henry was extremely angry and the first person to feel his anger was his own
minister, Cardinal Wolsey. In 1531 Henry persuaded the bishops to make him head of the
Church in England. Henry was now free to divorce Catherine and marry his new love, Anne
Boleyn. He hoped Anne would give him a son to follow him on the throne.
Like his father, Henry VIII governed England through his close advisers, men who were
completely dependent on him for their position. But when he broke with Rome, he used
Parliament to make the break legal. Through several Acts of Parliament between 1532 and
1536, England became politically a Protestant country, even though the popular religion was
still Catholic.
Between 1536 and 1539 they closed 560 monasteries and other religious houses.
Henry did this in order to make money, but he also wanted to be popular with the rising
classes of landowners and merchants. He therefore gave or sold much of the monasteries'
lands to them. Many smaller landowners made their fortunes. Meanwhile the monks and
nuns were thrown out. Some were given small sums of money, but many were unable to
find work and became wandering beggars. Henry proved that his break with Rome was
neither a religious nor a diplomatic disaster. He remained loyal to Catholic religious
teaching, and executed Protestants who refused to accept it.
Henry died in 1547, leaving behind his sixth wife, Catherine Parr, and his three
children. Nine-year-old Edward was the son of Jane Seymour, the only wife whom Henry
had really loved, but who had died giving birth to his only son.
The Protestant—Catholic struggle
Edward VI, Henry VIII's son, was only a child when he became king, so the country
was ruled by a council. All the members of this council were from the new nobility created
by the Tudors. All the new landowners knew that they could only be sure of keeping their
new lands if they made England truly Protestant. Most English people still believed in the
old Catholic religion.
Mary, the Catholic daughter of Catherine of Aragon, became queen when Edward,
aged sixteen, died in 1553. A group of nobles tried to put Lady Jane Grey, a Protestant, on
the throne. But Mary succeeded in entering London and took control of the kingdom. She
was supported by the ordinary people, who were angered by the greed of the Protestant
nobles.
She was the first queen of England since Matilda, 400 years earlier. Mary, for
political, religious and family reasons, chose to marry King Philip of Spain. It was an
unfortunate choice. The ordinary people disliked the marriage, as Philip's Spanish friends in
England were quick to notice. Popular feeling was so strong that a rebellion in Kent actually
reached London before ending in failure. Mary dealt cruelly with the rebel leader, Wyatt,
but she took the unusual step of asking Parliament for its opinion about her marriage plan.
Parliament unwillingly agreed to Mary's marriage, and it only accepted Philip as king of
England for Mary's lifetime. She then began burning Protestants. Three hundred people died
in this way during her five-year reign. At the same time, the thought of becoming a junior
ally of Spain was very unpopular. Only the knowledge that Mary herself was dying
prevented a rebellion.
Elizabeth, Mary's half sister, was lucky to become queen when Mary died in 1558.
When she became queen in 1558, Elizabeth I wanted to find a peaceful answer to the
problems of the English Reformation. She wanted to bring together again those parts of
English society which were in religious disagreement. And she wanted to make England
prosperous. In a way, she made the Church part of the state machine.
The area served by one church, usually the same size as a village, became the unit of
state administration. People had to go to church on Sundays by law and they were fined if
they stayed away. This meant that the parish priest, the "parson" became almost as
powerful as the village squire. Elizabeth also arranged for a book of sermons to be used in
church. Although most of the sermons consisted of Bible teaching, this book also taught the
people that rebellion against the Crown was a sin against God.
The struggle between Catholics and Protestants continued for the next thirty years.
Both France and Spain were Catholic. There was a danger from those Catholic nobles still in
England who wished to remove Elizabeth and replace her with the queen of Scotland, who
was a Catholic.
Mary, the Scottish queen, "Queen of Scots", was the heir to the English throne
because she was Elizabeth's closest living relative, and because Elizabeth had not married.
Mary had spent her childhood in France, and was a strong Catholic. When she returned to
rule Scotland as queen, Mary soon made enemies of some of her nobles, and to avoid them
she finally escaped to the safety of England. Elizabeth, however, kept Mary as a prisoner for
almost twenty years. During that time Elizabeth discovered several secret Catholic plots,
some of which clearly aimed at making Mary queen of England.
Elizabeth knew that France was unlikely to attack England in support of Mary. But
she was afraid that Spain might do so. So for a long time Elizabeth just kept Mary as a
prisoner and Elizabeth finally agreed to Mary's execution in 1587. In England Mary's
execution was popular. The Catholic plots and the dangers of a foreign Catholic invasion had
changed people's feelings. By 1585 most English people believed that to be a Catholic was to
be an enemy of England. This hatred of everything Catholic became an important political
force.

England and her neighbours

 During the Tudor period, from 1485 until 1603, English foreign policy changed several
times. But by the end of the period England had established some basic principles.
Henry VII had been careful to remain friendly with neighbouring countries. His son,
Henry VIII, had been more ambitious, hoping to play an important part in European politics.
He was unsuccessful. Mary allied England to Spain by her marriage.
This was politically unwise: England had nothing to gain from being allied to a more
powerful country. Elizabeth and her advisers considered trade the most important foreign
policy matter, as Henry VII had done. For them whichever country was England's greatest
trade rival was also its greatest enemy. Elizabeth's foreign policy carried Henry VII's work
much further, encouraging merchant expansion. She recognised Spain as her main trade
rival and enemy.
Spain at that time ruled the Netherlands, although many of the people were Protestant
and were fighting for their independence from Catholic Spanish rule. Because Spain and
France were rivals, Spanish soldiers could only reach the Netherlands from Spain by sea.
This meant sailing up the English Channel. Elizabeth helped the Dutch Protestants by
allowing their ships to use English harbours from which they could attack Spanish ships,
often with the help of the English.
English ships had already been attacking Spanish ships as they returned from America
loaded with silver and gold. Elizabeth apologised to Spain but kept her share of what had
been taken from Spanish ships. Philip knew quite well that Elizabeth was encouraging the
"sea dogs".
Philip decided to conquer England in 1587 because he believed this had to be done
before he would be able to defeat the Dutch rebels in the Netherlands. He hoped that
enough Catholics in England would be willing to help him. Philip's large army was already in
the Netherlands. He built a great fleet of ships, an "Armada", to move his army across the
English Channel from the Netherlands. But in 1587 Francis Drake attacked and destroyed
part of this fleet.
Philip started again, and built the largest fleet that had ever gone to sea. When news of
this Armada reached England in summer 1588, Elizabeth called her soldiers together. The
Spanish Armada was defeated more by bad weather than by English guns.
Some Spanish ships were sunk, but most were blown northwards by the wind. For
England it was a glorious moment, but it did not lead to an end of the war with Spain, and
England found itself having to spend more than ever on England's defence. Peace was only
made with Spain once Elizabeth was dead.
The new trading empire
Both before and after the Armada, Elizabeth followed two policies. She encouraged
English sailors like John Hawkins and Francis Drake to continue to attack and destroy
Spanish ships bringing gold, silver back from the newly discovered continent of America. She
also encouraged English traders to settle abroad and to create colonies.
The first English colonists sailed to America towards the end of the century. The settlers
tried without success to start profitable colonies in Virginia, named after Elizabeth, the
"virgin" queen. But these were only beginnings.
 England also began selling West African slaves to work for the Spanish in America. By
1650 slavery had become an important trade.
During Elizabeth's reign more "chartered" companies were established. A "charter"
gave a company the right to all the business in its particular region. In return for this
important advantage the chartered company gave some of its profits to the Crown.
Wales
The Tudors did their best to bring Wales, Ireland and Scotland under English control.
Henry VII was half Welsh. His first son Arthur, Prince of Wales, died early and Henry's
second son became Henry VIII. His interest was in power and authority, through direct
control. He wanted the Welsh to become English.
At that time the Welsh did not have family names. They used their own first name with
those of their father and grandfather, using ap, which meant "son of". By 1750 the use of
Welsh names had almost disappeared.
Between 1536 and 1543 Wales became joined to England under one administration.
English law was now the only law for Wales. Welshmen entered the English parliament.
English became the only official language, and Welsh was soon only spoken in the
hills.Henry VIII gave permission for a Welsh Bible to be printed, which became the basis on
which the Welsh language survived.
The gatherings of poets and singers, which had been going on since 1170 suddenly
stopped. But at the end of the eighteenth century, there were still a few who could speak
Welsh.
Ireland
Henry VIII wanted to bring Ireland under his authority, as he had done with Wales.
Earlier kings had allowed the powerful Anglo-Irish noble families to rule, but Henry
destroyed their power. He persuaded the Irish parliament to recognise him as king of
Ireland.
Henry also tried to make the Irish accept his English Church Reformation. But in Ireland,
unlike England, the monasteries and the Church were still an important part of economic
and social life. And the Irish nobility and gentry, unlike the English, felt it was too dangerous
to take monastic land.
It is possible that, without the danger of foreign invasion, the Tudors might have given
up trying to control the Irish. But Ireland tempted Catholic Europe as a place from which to
attack the English. In 1580, during Elizabeth I's reign, many Irish rebelled, encouraged by the
arrival of a few Spanish and French soldiers.
Queen Elizabeth's soldiers saw the rebellious Irish population as wild and primitive
people and treated them with great cruelty.
The Tudors fought four wars during the period to make the Irish accept their authority
and their religion. In the end they destroyed the old Gaelic way of life and introduced
English government. Ireland became England's first important colony.
This colonisation did not make England richer, but it destroyed much of Ireland's
society and economy. It also laid the foundations for war between Protestants and Catholics
in Ulster in the second half of the twentieth century.
 Scotland and England
The Scottish monarchs tried to introduce the same kind of centralised monarchy that
the Tudors had so successfully developed in England. But it was much harder, because the
Scottish economy was weaker, and Scottish society more lawless.
Knowing how weak they were, the Scottish kings usually avoided war with England.
They made a peace treaty with Henry VII, the first with an English king since 1328, and
James IV married Henry's daughter Margaret. But Henry VIII still wanted Scotland to accept
his authority. In 1513 his army destroyed the Scottish army at Flodden. It was the worst
defeat the Scots ever experienced. James himself was killed, and with him over twenty
Scottish nobles.
But Henry VIII reminded the Scots that it was dangerous to work against him.
He sent another army into Scotland to make the Scottish James V accept his authority.
James's army was badly defeated and James himself died shortly after. Henry hoped to
marry his son Edward to the baby Queen of Scots, Mary, and in this way join the two
countries together under an English king.
Ordinary Scots were most unhappy at the idea of being ruled by England. For the next
two years English soldiers punished them by burning and destroying the houses of southern
Scotland. Rather than give little Mary to the English, the Scots sent her to France, where she
married the French king's son in 1558.
Mary Queen of Scots and the Scottish Reformation
Mary was troubled by bad luck and wrong decisions. She returned to Scotland as both
queen and widow in 1561. She was Catholic, but during her time in France Scotland had
become officially and popularly Protestant.
The Scottish nobles who supported friendship with England had welcomed
Protestantism for both political and economic reasons. The new religion brought Scotland
closer to England than France. Financially, the Scottish monarch could take over the great
wealth of the Church in Scotland and this would almost certainly mean awards of land to the
nobles. The yearly income of the Church in Scotland had been twice that of the monarch.
The new Kirk (Scottish Protestant church) was a far more democratic organisation than
the English Church, because it had no bishops and was governed by a General Assembly. The
Kirk taught the importance of personal belief and the study of the Bible, and this led quickly
to the idea that education was important for everyone in Scotland. As a result most Scots
remained better educated than other Europeans, including the English, until the end of the
nineteenth century.
Mary was soon married again, to Lord Darnley, a 'Scottish Catholic'. But when she tired
of him, she allowed herself to agree to his murder and married the murderer, Bothwell.
Scottish society, in spite of its lawlessness, was shocked. The English government did not
look forward to the possibility of Mary succeeding Elizabeth as queen. In addition to her
Catholicism and her strong French culture, she had shown very poor judgement. By her
behaviour Mary probably destroyed her chance of inheriting the English throne. She found
herself at war with her Scottish opponents, and was soon captured and imprisoned.
However, in 1568 she escaped to England, where she was held by Elizabeth for nineteen
years before she was finally executed.
A Scottish king for England
Mary's son, James VI, started to rule at the age of twelve in 1578. He showed great skill
from an early age. He knew that if he behaved correctly he could expect to inherit the
English throne after Elizabeth's death, as he was her closest relative. He also knew that a
Catholic alliance between Spain and France might lead to an invasion of England so he knew
he had to remain friendly with them too.
James VI is remembered as a weak man and a bad decision-maker. But this was not
true while he was king only in Scotland. Early in his reign, in the last years of the sixteenth
century, he rebuilt the authority of the Scottish Crown after the disasters which had
happened to his mother, grandfather and great-grandfather. He brought the Catholic and
Protestant nobles and also the Kirk more or less under royal control.
These were the successes of an extremely clever diplomat. Like the Tudors, he was a
firm believer in the authority of the Crown, and like them he worked with small councils of
ministers, rather than Parliament. But he did not have the money or military power of the
Tudors.
James VI's greatest success was in gaining the English throne when Elizabeth died in
1603 at the unusually old age of 70. If Elizabeth's advisers had had serious doubts about
James as a suitable Protestant ruler, they would probably have tried to find another
successor to Elizabeth. Few in England would have liked the idea of a new king coming from
Scotland, their wild northern neighbour. The fact that England accepted him suggests that
its leading statesmen had confidence in James's skills.

Government and society

During the Tudor period the changes in government, society and the economy of
England were more far-reaching than they had been for centuries. But most farreaching of
all were the changes in ideas, partly as a result of the rebirth of intellectual attitudes known
as the Renaissance, which had spread slowly northwards from its beginnings in Italy. In
England the nature of the Renaissance was also affected by the Protestant Reformation and
the economic changes that followed from it.
Tudor parliaments
The Tudor monarchs did not like governing through Parliament. Henry VII had used
Parliament only for law making. He seldom called it together, and then only when he had a
particular job for it. Henry VIII had used it first to raise money for his military adventures,
and then for his struggle with Rome.
Perhaps Henry himself did not realise that by inviting Parliament to make new laws for
the Reformation he was giving it a level of authority it never had before.
Tudor monarchs were certainly not more democratic than earlier kings, but by using
Parliament to strengthen their policy, they actually increased Parliament's authority.
 Only two things persuaded Tudor monarchs not to get rid of Parliament altogether:
they needed money and they needed the support of the merchants and landowners. In
1566 Queen Elizabeth told the French ambassador that the three
parliaments she had already held were enough for any reign and she would have no
more. Today Parliament must meet every year and remain "in session" for three quarters of
it. This was not at all the case in the sixteenth century.
In the early sixteenth century Parliament only met when the monarch ordered it.
Sometimes it met twice in one year, but then it might not meet again for six years.
During the century power moved from the House of Lords to the House of Commons.
The reason for this was simple. The Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Commons
represented richer and more influential classes than the Lords. In fact, the idea of getting rid
of the House of Lords, still a real question in British politics today, was first suggested in the
sixteenth century.
The old system of representation in the Commons, with two men from each county and
two from each "borough", or town, remained the rule. However, during the sixteenth
century the size of the Commons nearly doubled, as a result of the inclusion of Welsh
boroughs and counties and the inclusion of more English boroughs.
But Parliament did not really represent the people, Few MPs followed the rule of living
in the area they represented, and the monarchy used its influence to make sure that many
MPs would support royal policy, rather than the wishes of their electors.
In order to control discussion in Parliament, the Crown appointed a "Speaker".
Even today the Speaker is responsible for good behaviour during debates in the House
of Commons. His job in Tudor times was to make sure that Parliament discussed what the
monarch wanted Parliament to discuss, and that it made the decision which he or she
wanted. Until the end of the Tudor period Parliament was supposed to do three things:
agree to the taxes needed; make the laws which the Crown suggested; and advise the
Crown, but only when asked to do so. In order for Parliament to be able to do these things,
MPs were given important rights: freedom of speech (that is freedom to speak their
thoughts freely without fear), freedom from fear of arrest, and freedom to meet
and speak to the monarch.
The Tudor monarchs realised that by asking Parliament for money they were giving it
power in the running of the kingdom. All the Tudor monarchs tried to get money in other
ways. By 1600 Elizabeth had found ways to raise money that were extremely unwise. She
sold "monopolies", which gave a particular person or company total control over a trade. In
1601, the last parliament of Elizabeth’s reign complained to her about the bad effect on free
trade that these monopolies had.
Elizabeth and her advisers used other methods. She and her chief adviser, Lord
Burghley, sold official positions in government. Burghley was paid about .860 a year, but he
actually made at least .4,000 by selling official positions. He kept this secret from
Parliament. Elizabeth's methods of raising money would today be considered dishonest.
England needed tax reform, which could only be carried out with the agreement of
Parliament.
 Elizabeth avoided open discussion on money matters with Parliament. There was
clearly an unanswered question about the limits of Parliament's power. Who should decide
what Parliament would discuss: the Crown or Parliament itself? Both the Tudor monarchs
and their MPs would have agreed that it was the Crown that decided.
However, during the sixteenth century the Tudors asked Parliament to discuss, law
make and advise on almost every subject.
Parliament naturally began to think it had a right to discuss these questions. By the end
of the sixteenth century it was beginning to show new confidence, and in the seventeenth
century, when the gentry and merchant classes were far more aware of their own strength,
it was obvious that Parliament would challenge the Crown. Eventually this resulted in war.

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Henry VIII
When Richard III fell at the Battle of Bosworth, the end of the War of Roses, his
crown was picked up and placed on the head of Henry Tudor. He married Elizabeth of York
and so united the two warring houses, York and Lancaster. This was the beginning of the
Tudor dynasty. Henry, the second son of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, was born on
28 June 1491 at Greenwich Palace. After the death of his elder brother Arthur in 1502,
Henry became heir to the English throne. He also presided over the beginnings of the
English Renaissance and the English Reformation. His six wives were, successively, Catherine
of Aragon (the mother of the future queen Mary I), Anne Boleyn (the mother of the future
queen Elizabeth I), Jane Seymour (the mother of Henry’s successor, Edward VI), Anne of
Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr. He alone spent his childhood in calm
expectation of the crown, which helped give an assurance of majesty and righteousness to
his willful, ebullient character.

King of England
When in 1509 he ascended the throne, great things were expected from this popular
eighteen-year-old prince, known for his love for hunting and dancing, powerfully built, and a
tireless athlete. He was dabbled in theology, poetry and musical composition. He became
King Henry VIII. He stated his reign with the wealth his father had accumulated and the
strong system of government which he had set up. He ha his father’s extortionate ministers,
 Empson and Dudley beheaded on a trumped up charge of high treason.
Soon after his accession he obtained the papal dispensation required to allow him to marry
Catherine of Aragon, Arthur’s widow.
In the first years of his reign Henry VIII effectively relied on Thomas Wolsey to rule for him,
and by 1515 Henry had elevated him to the highest role in government: Lord Chancellor,
Archbishop of York and Cardinal of the Church.Wolsey’s strength had serious drawbacks for
the king, who supported him. The country was showing increasing signs of its discontent,
and Wolsey’s efforts to remedy grievances only exasperated men of influence without
bringing satisfaction to the poor. Feelings came to the boil in the years 1523–24. The
Parliament of 1523 was called immediately after Wolsey had raised about £350,000 in
forced loans, and this naturally made its members disinclined to vote further heavy taxes.
Wolsey responded by attempts to raise the (misnamed) Amicable Grant of 1525 - a levy of
one-sixth the value of movables and income. Resistance was so widespread that Henry
prudently decided to drop the demands.
The rivalry between the Valois kings of France and the Habsburg kings of Spain soon
became more acute than ever, owning the personal jealousy of the young sovereigns who
now inherited the thrones of those countries, France I of France and Charles V of Spain, who
in 1509 became the Holy Roman Emperor as well as king of Spain. Wolsey tried to keep the
peace between them and was anxious to prevent either of them from becoming all powerful
in Europe by mastering the other. For England was still too weak to take an important part
in a war between such powerful states.
In 1520 Wolsey arranged a spectacular conference bt his master and Francis I in the
meadows near Calais, it was inevitable that if Henry was forced to take sides in the conflict it
would be on the side of Charles V as he was the King’s relative by marriage, and he ruled the
Netherlands, to which England was bound by the wool trade, and Wolsey hoped that the
would use his great influence at Rome to get him elected pope the next time there was a
vacancy.
So a second French war broke out, 1522/3 but the English troops did not fight any
important battles, the A-imperial alliance began to wear very thin. The poepdom was acant
twice without Charles making much efforts to get Wolsey elected. The imperial troops won
such an overwhelming victory over the French at Pavia, 1525 where King Francis was taken
prisoner, that it seemed as if the Emperor would henceforth dominate all Europe, and
neither Wolsey nor Henry wanted that. And another reason for the breakout of the alliance
was that Henry was now thinking of divorcing Catherine of ARagon, who was a relative of
Charles V.

Military might
Henry VIII's early military campaigns began when he joined Pope Julius II's Holy
League against France in 1511. Henry in 1512 joined his father-in-law, Ferdinand II of
Aragon, against France. Henry himself displayed no military talent, but a real victory was
won by the earl of Surrey at Flodden (1513) against a Scottish invasion. Wolsey proved
himself to be an outstanding minister in his organisation of the first French campaign and
while the Scots saw this war as an opportunity to invade England but they were defeated.
However, the war with France ultimately proved expensive and unsuccessful. Despite the
obvious pointlessness of the fighting, the appearance of success was popular. Moreover, in
Thomas Wolsey, Henry discovered his first outstanding minister.
Henry VIII is known as the 'father of the Royal Navy.' When he became king there
were five royal warships. By his death he had built up a navy of around 50 ships. He refitted
several vessels with the latest guns. He established the Navy Board. This set up the
administrative machinery for the control of the fleet.

The years from 1515 to 1527 were marked by Wolsey’s ascendancy, and his
initiatives set the scene. The cardinal had some occasional ambition for the papal tiara, and
Henry supported this; Wolsey at Rome would have been a powerful card in English hands. In
fact, there was never any chance of this happening, any more than there was of Henry’s
election to the imperial crown, briefly mooted in 1519 when the emperor Maximilian I died,
to be succeeded by his grandson Charles V. That event altered the European situation. In
Charles, the crowns of Spain, Burgundy (with the Netherlands), and Austria were united in
an overwhelming complex of power that reduced all the dynasties of Europe, with the
exception of France, to an inferior position. In 1521 Pope Leo X conferred the title of
Defender of the Faith on Henry, which affirmed the supremacy of the Pope in the face of the
reforming ideals of the German theologian, Martin Luther.
Head of the Church
There had been growing in Germany as well as in France and England a feeling that
the Church was in need of reform. The clergy exhorted high feed for performing the
sacraments and for cases in the Church courts, people resented having to send money out
of the country as tribute to the Pope, and the clergy was more concerned with politics than
with religion. Wyclif had protested against all this but it had little permanent effect. Pope
Leo X, in order to raise money for the building of St.Peter’s Rome, organised a special sale of
these indulgences and a friar named Tetzel sold them.
Martin Luther and King Henry VIII both opposed the catholic church, but for very
different reasons. Luther despised the Catholic Church’s selling of indulgences and
unquestioning acceptance of the pope’s testimony. Henry wanted more power over the
Churches in his jurisdiction after his was denied his request for a divorce in order to try
again to produce a male heir, and was enticed by the prospect of the economic
opportunities that would arise were he to have full control of the Church in England.
One motive that the two had in common was dissatisfaction with way that the
Catholic Church was being run. They were unhappy with the amount of power that the
Catholic Church had over everyone’s affairs.
Luther was born to a miner and a deeply religious mother living in the Holy Roman
Empire in 1483. As a young man, he joined the Augustinian order. After a pilgrimage to
Rome and an intense study of the Bible that led to a doctorate in Theology, Luther did not
feel that he was be saved was through the Catholic Church. One of his biggest concerns was
the selling of indulgences. People such as Johann Tetzel would offer the public the
opportunity to pay to have their sins annulled; it even got to the point where people could
purchase indulgences for deceased relatives with the intention of buying them out of Hell.
Another of Luther’s greatest apprehensions was the pope’s authority over the Bible.
Luther opposed this idea of the pope as a supreme being and proposed that anyone could
read the Bible and interpret it as they saw fit. In order to express his displeasure, Luther
composed the 95 theses to express his views. Another reformer who shared many of
Luther’s motivations was John Calvin Luther’s writings commenced a call for religious
reform; King Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire called Luther before him to defend his
faith at what was known as the Diet of Worms. As a result, Luther was exiled, but not before
his displeasure with the Catholic Church had made a significant impact. Luther was
considered a national hero.

A male heir: Henry was acutely aware of the importance of securing a male heir
during his reign. He was worried that he had only one surviving child, Mary, to show for his
marriage to Catherine, who was now in her 40s. If he died without the succession being
settled, it was likely that the system of government set up by his father and himself would
break down and the country would again be harried by civil war.
When Anne Boleyn, lady-in-waiting to his first wife, caught the king's eye somewhere
around 1526, everything for the court and Cardinal changed. Cardinal Wolsey - Henry's most
trusted and respected helper - was in charge of the annulment proceedings. The king asked
Cardinal Wolsey to appeal to Pope Clement VII for an annulment. But, unwilling to anger
Catherine of Aragon's nephew – the most powerful ruler in Europe, the Holy Roman
Emperor Charles V – the Pope refused. Thomas Wolsey's ascendancy was cut short by this
failure.
In 1533, Henry VIII broke with the church and married the now pregnant Anne
Boleyn in a secret ceremony. Henry was excommunicated by the Pope. The English
reformation had begun.
The army of Charles V, after his overwhelming victory at Pavia, had gout ut of land tit
had gone on to sack Rome, and to compel the Pope to take refuge in his castle of St Angelo,
so he was at the mercy of Charles V. So he delayed the decision as long as he could.
The Papal Legates who were sent to make a judgment on the king's Great Matter did
not hold the same opinion as the king and Cardinal did, and they stated that the king only
wanted to divorce his 'rightful' wife because of his lusty and sinful desire. Clement
appointed a special court to meet in london, this was to be presided over by Wolsey and
ampeggio, who was secretly instructed to delay judgment as long as possible, so he took 3
months over the journey to England, and then 3 months trying to persuade Catherine and
then Henry to give way. When Cardinal Campeggio arrived from Rome to make his own
decision on the matter, he delayed the proceedings so much that the case was suspended
until July 1528. At last the Legatine court met, the Queen refused to plead before it, and
appealed to the Pope, another excuse for delay and when the cot assembled to hear the
Pope’s decisions, Campeggio Announced that the case had been transferred to Rome,
whither the king was cited to appear and plead his case. This was the final straw for Henry,
and 'proved' to him that Cardinal Wolsey was not doing all that was in his power to help
him.
The sexually frustrated king had lost patience completely. In 1529, Wolsey was
arrested by order of the king and stripped of his office and property. Wolsey retreated to
York, but when he arrived in North Yorkshire he was accused of treason and ordered to
London. He was officially charged with ​premunire -​ obeying a foreign court or authority (i.e.
the Pope) rather than the English Crown. On the way to London to be tried, Cardinal Wolsey
fell ill in Leicester and died on 29 November 1530 - perhaps saving himself from a nasty and
unfair end at the king's hand.
After Wolsey's downfall, ​Thomas Cromwell became Henry's chief minister and
earned the confidence of the King by helping him to break with Rome and establish Henry
VIII as head of the Church of England. Cranmer expressed the view that the sanction of the
Pope was not necessary in such cases, the Archbishop of Canterbury had the power to grant
the required decree. Cranmer argued that it would be worthwhile to enquire the opinion of
the authorities on Canon Law in the universities of Europe on the subject. Henry made him
an archdeacon as a reward for his happy thought. Henry summoned parliament as the
houses would be eager to attack the privileges of the clergy and the power of the pope. The
king compelled the clergy to agree to the act that forbidden some of the evil practices by
which the priests had been making money by threatening them all with the penalties of
praemunire . And the clergy was forced to submit and to pay the king a heavy subsidy into
the bargain.
The opinions of the universities came in and they supported Chamber's argument
and give Henry an excuse to act on it. Henry placed Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury
for him to be in a position to carry out his policy and his right to act as ARchbishop should
be indisputable. For this it is necessary that the pope should send the bulls approving the
appointment. Yo put pressure on Clement, parliament passed an act of suspending the
payment to Rome of annotated, the first year revenue of newly appointed bishops . This
was an important part of the income of the papacy, but Henry suspended the working of the
Act and gave the Pope to understand that he would continue to do so provided to do so
provided that Cranmer's bulls were sent without delay. The new Archbishop was
consecrated, whereupon Henry allowed the Annates Act to come into force all the same.
 Cranmer at once summoned a Church court at Dunstable where the unhappy ex
queen was living, and called upon her to appear before it, she refused, saying that her case
was now before the papal courts. The Archbishop gave judgment that she had ned never
been lawfully married to the King.
Henry was only attracted to Protestant doctrine in a limited way. Between the years
1530-1534, Henry tried to secure the Pope's permission to divorce Catherine of Aragon, by
threatening first the English clergy and then the Pope's powers in England.
The Act of Royal Supremacy of 1534 stated that the Crown was reclaiming powers
that it had always possessed; powers that Rome had usurped during the previous four
hundred years. Henry's personal religious beliefs remained Catholic.
In January 1533 he married Anne Boleyn; in May a new archbishop, Thomas
Cranmer, presided over the formality of a trial that declared the first marriage annulled; in
September the princess Elizabeth was born. The pope retaliated with a sentence of
excommunication; it troubled no one. The supreme headship on earth over the Church of
England, though he had not sought it, represented Henry’s major achievement. However, it
created a real personal problem for the king: earlier, in his book, he had attacked Luther
and had expressed a profound devotion to the papacy ​and had been rewarded with the
title of ​Defender of the Faith​. ​Now he had turned against the pope​​; ​his act was equal to
encouraging the ​Protestant ​Reformation​​, a thing attractive to Cranmer and Cromwell (and
perhaps Anne Boleyn but not to Henry, who despised Luther​).
In the eyes of many in England, the monasteries had outlived their purpose and
needed to be reformed or abolished. Between 1535 and 1540 Henry VIII closed the
monasteries and confiscated their property; during the 1540s the Crown sold much of the
land. By greatly increasing the wealth of the landed gentry, the dissolution of the
monasteries amounted to a social and economic revolution.
Henry VIII did not consider himself a Protestant. The Church of England- or Anglican
Church- set up by the Act of Supremacy was in his eyes a Catholic body. Henry hoped to
retain Catholic doctrines and ritual, doing no more than abolish monasteries and deny the
pope’s position as head of the church in England. Inevitably, his policies aroused opposition,
in part from English Roman Catholics who greatly resented the break with Rome, and still
more from militant Protestants, who began to introduce within the Church of England such
Protestant practices as marriage of the clergy, use of English instead of Latin in the ritual,
and abolition of confession to priests and the invocation of saints.
Henry used force against the Catholic opposition and executed some of its leaders.
He then tried to stem the Protestant tide by appealing to Parliament. In 1539, at Henry’s
reign, Parliament passed the statute of the Six Articles, reaffirming transubstantiation,
celibacy of the priesthood, confession to priests, and other Catholic doctrines and ritual, and
making their denial heresy.
But there were now far too many heretics to be repressed. The Anglican church, was
much more Protestant than Henry had intended. Henry was really the founder of the Church
of England.

Luther was unhappy with the church selling indulgences and the pope’s absolute
power, Henry was trying to get a divorce and make some money. Luther and Henry both
played important roles in the protestant reformation, although their roles were initiated by
very different motives.

Reformation Parliament

​The Reformation Parliament ​was so-called because it was the English Parliament,
beginning in 1529, that passed and enabled the major pieces of legislation leading to the
English Reformation.
After the failure of Cardinal Wolsey to win the Court of Blackfriars, King Henry VIII of
England was frustrated. In 1529, Henry opened what would later become known as the
English Reformation Parliament. It opened in the month of October and ran until December
1529 without forming a coherent plan on what to do. Because of this, Henry used it to
discredit Wolsey. Soon after this Henry turned his attentions to the church itself.

Henry VIII's Reformation Parliament, which sat from 1529 to 1536, fundamentally
changed the nature of Parliament and of English government. The King summoned it in
order to settle his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, which the Papacy in Rome was
blocking.
 Power shift : ​In only a few short years, Parliament - under the direction and impetus
of the King - made laws affecting all aspects of national life, especially in religious practice
and doctrine, which had previously been under the authority of the Church alone. With the
ground-breaking statutes of the 1530s Parliament became omnicompetent, that is, no area
involved in the government of the realm was outside its authority.

Pope to the English Crown

It passed laws which transferred religious authority from the Pope to the English
Crown, gave the Crown control over the wealth and buildings of the old Church, settled
official religious doctrine, altered the succession by declaring various of the King's children
illegitimate, and inaugurated a wider programme of social, religious and economic reform.
Henry VIII's successors all equally used Parliament to pass their own legislation changing the
nature, doctrine and authority of the Church in England.

Constitutional change

The Reformation Parliament thus asserted the supreme authority of Parliament in

making statute, or more precisely the sovereignty of Crown-in-Parliament, the royal
authority embodied in law passed by the monarch, Lords and Commons. He realised that
royal power was at its strongest when it was expressed through parliamentary statute.

Crown and Parliament

Parliament still existed only by the monarch's will, but Henry VIII and his immediate
successors knew that they could best effect their will through the assent of Parliament in
statute. A century later the country was thrown into turmoil when the co-operation
between the King and the other two parts of Parliament catastrophically broke down.
Acts

1529 Clergy legal privilege removed​​[​edit​]

An Act passed to prevent the Clergy being subject to separate ​canonical courts​. Instead they
were now to be tried in the same way as everybody else in England was and not be looked
upon favourably by the courts.

1530 Praemunire charges reinstated​​[​edit​]

The Parliament accepted the reinstatement of the charge named ​Praemunire where
individuals could be convicted of a crime for appealing to any power outside of the realm for
resolution of a situation within England. The law was aimed at those recognising the Pope's
authority. Charges could be dropped if fines of £118,000 were paid.

1532 Rome deprived of a portion of Annates normally remitted​​[​edit​]

The first Act of ​Annates (the Act in Conditional Restraint of Annates) was passed allowing
only 5% of the money normally remitted to Rome. Annates were monies (church taxes
effectively) that were collected in England and sent to Rome. They were levied on any
diocese by Rome as payment in return for the nomination and Papal authorization for the
consecration of a Bishop. One third of the first year's revenues from the particular ​diocese
went to Rome. The king passed legislation threatening to deprive the Pope of these
revenues. During this year even more intensive work was done to try to get Pope Clement to
agree to the divorce Henry required. The Parliament threatened that if Henry did not get his
annulment​/divorce within a year, then all payments to Rome would be stopped. The
anti-clerical​ Act titled ​Supplication Against the Ordinaries​​ was also passed.

1533 All appeals to Rome, religious or otherwise forbidden​​[​edit​]

The Annates threat was carried out but not yet legalised by Parliament. Cromwell's ​Act in
Restraint of Appeals was passed, preparing the way for further praemunire charges against
leading Catholic clergy and nobles who disagreed with the King's wish to divorce.

1534 ​Act Concerning Peter's Pence and Dispensations​​[​edit​]

Payment of ​Peter's Pence (a tax collected annually from householders) to the See of Rome
was abolished. The act also eradicated Pluralism in the clergy (the right to hold more than
one parish) and forbade English clergy from attending religious assemblies abroad.

1534 Act of Succession​​[​edit​]

Declared Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon's marriage invalid and Mary as the illegitimate
product of this marriage. The Act of Succession secured the children of Henry and Anne
Boleyn to which the whole nation had to swear an oath by. To reject the oath was made
treasonous.

1534 Act of Supremacy; Annates reserved to the English Crown​​[​edit​]

The Second Act of ​Annates was passed, called the ​Act in Absolute Restraint of Annates​. The
annates were, along with the supremacy over the church in England, reserved to the crown,
and the English crown now took all revenue charged for the appointment of bishops. The
Act of First Fruits and Tenths transferred the taxes on ecclesiastical income from the Pope
to the Crown. The ​Treasons Act 1534 made it ​high treason ​punishable by death to deny
Royal Supremacy. The first ​Act of Supremacy (among other things) began the process by
which the ​dissolution of monasteries was to be undertaken. It quickly followed the receipt
of a survey called ​Valor Ecclesiasticus​, but applied only to religious houses with an income of
less than two hundred ​pounds​ a year.

The ​Crown of Ireland Act 1542​[1]

​ is an ​Act of the ​Parliament of Ireland (33 Hen. 8 c. 1) which
created the title of ​King of Ireland for King ​Henry VIII of England and his successors, who
previously ruled the island as ​lords​.

The ​long title of the Act was "An Act that the King of England, his Heirs and Successors, be
Kings of Ireland". Among the 18th-century ​Irish Patriot Party it was called the ​Act of
Annexation​​.

During the English War of the Roses, Irish leaders took the opportunity to extend their
independence. Henry VII was basically too weak in England to dominate in Ireland. Henry
VIII, was in an altogether stronger position. His break with Rome placed him at loggerheads
with the pope and much of Catholic Europe, which meant that Ireland now took on strategic
importance as a potential launch pad for a French or Spanish invasion of England. An Irish
revolt by the Kildare heir, Thomas, Lord Offaly, in 1534 was swiftly put down. Offaly was
later executed, destroying the power of the Kildare family and handing control of Ireland to
English officials and administrators Offaly had attempted to rally the Irish in the cause of a
'Catholic crusade' against the Protestant English king, introducing religion into Irish politics
for the first time. Henry went on to impose his Reformation by force creating further
religious division. In 1541, Henry VIII was declared king of Ireland by the Irish parliament.

New policies for controlling the island were attempted English settlers were given lands
confiscated from rebellious Irish families, and the native Irish were supposed to be driven
out. However, manpower shortages often made this impractical.

Henry made people oath that they upheld the royal supremacy and the validity of
the second marriage, but people died for not taking the oath. John Fisher, Bishop of
Rochester and Sir Thomas More, who succeeded Wolsey as Lord Chancellor, both declined
to take the oath and executed. The swore to be faithful subjects of the king and to
acknowledge Anne Boleyn’s children. Nothing more.

Thomas Cromwell

Thomas Cromwell served as Henry VIII’s chief minister from 1533 to 1540, gained a
reputation as an unscrupulous politician who, like Cardinal Wolsey, would do anything to
advance himself and the power and wealth of Henry. Thomas Cromwell is most associated
with the dissolution of the monasteries.

Thomas Cromwell was born around 1485. He was the son of a brewer and
blacksmith. Cromwell trained as a lawyer and by the 1520’s he was working for Cardinal
Wolsey as a general manager. When Wolsey fell from royal favour in 1529, Cromwell
managed to stay faithful to his old employer but also to remain in favour with Henry VIII. He
entered formal royal service in 1530 and by November 1530 he was a member of the Royal
Council. Within a year, Cromwell was part of Henry’s inner circle of advisors – men who had
access to the king.

Like Wolsey, Cromwell came from a non-noble family. He was not tied to old
traditional ideas as many of the king’s advisors were. Cromwell was an intelligent man who
read well. He experienced life abroad as a younger man, which gave him experience of
European commerce and business. Cromwell was influenced by the writings of Martin
Luther.

Between 1532 and 1536 Cromwell gained numerous offices. The 1530’s was a
decade of great change in England and Wales and Cromwell would have been involved in
the divorce of Catherine of Aragon, the marriage of Henry to Anne Boleyn and the
dissolution of the monasteries. However, Cromwell was also very much involved in major
reforms to government administration. Five new revenue courts were established. Cromwell
oversaw the incorporation of Wales into the English system of government. He also had a
major input into the Tudor Poor Law.

Cromwell was greatly worried by England’s isolation after the Lutheran Reformation
had taken hold in northern Germany. He was concerned that the Holy Roman Emperor,
Charles V, would cast aside his differences with the king of France, Francis I, to form an
alliance directed at any state that has turned its back on Rome. Cromwell had little choice
but to direct his attention to forming some kind of alliance with the north German princes.
He also did what he could to improve the country’s southern coastal defences, as there was
a real fear of an attempted invasion. Cromwell became convinced that France were planning
to invade England. He urged Henry to form alliances with the north German Lutheran
princes but Henry refused to bend to the will of the German princes who wanted him to
convert to the Lutheran faith before any alliance was discussed. Henry was also very wary of
getting England involved in a war in mainland Europe against the might of the Holy Roman
Empire and France. None of the north German states at the time looked as if they were able
to hold out against the Emperor.
 One of these enemies was the influential 3rd Duke of Norfolk whose niece was
Catherine Howard. Norfolk accused Cromwell of foisting Protestantism to England via the
Act of Six Articles. He also introduced Catherine to the Royal Court almost certainly in the
knowledge that Henry would fall for her.

On April 18th, 1540, Henry made Cromwell the Earl of Essex and on April 19th, 1540,
he was made Lord Great Chamberlain of the Household. Therefore, as late as Spring 1540
Cromwell was presumably in favour with Henry. Yet on June 10th 1540, he was arrested in
Westminster by the Captain of the Guard and sent to the Tower of London. An Act of
Attainder convicted him of heresy and treason (June 29th) – but it also denied Cromwell the
right to a proper trial where he could defend himself. Thomas Cromwell was executed at
Tyburn on July 28th 1540.

Henry had by now become truly dangerous, he was beginning to show paranoiac
tendencies. Convinced that he controlled everyone, he was in fact readily manipulated by
those who knew how to feed his suspicions. Full of experience—the oldest king in Europe—,
he lacked the ​comprehensive vision that would have made him a great man. His
temperamental deficiencies were aggravated by what he regarded as his undeserved
misfortunes and by ill health; he grew enormously fat. His mind did not weaken, but he
grew restless and totally unpredictable; often ​melancholy and depressed. But he was still
the king and, from Cromwell’s fall (which he regretted too late), the only maker of policy.
Policy in the hands of a sick, unhappy, violent man was not likely to be either sensible or
prosperous, and so it proved.

In 1542 the emperor and the king of France resumed hostilities. After a pretense of
independence, Henry again joined the former; the ​Scots promptly joined the French. The
Scots were routed at ​Solway Moss (1542), and their king died soon after: this opened the
possibility of subjugating that country permanently by means of a marriage alliance
between the infant heirs to the two thrones. But the Scottish dream quickly collapsed as
Henry’s crude handling of that nation gave control to a pro-French party, determined to
resist even an alliance with England; physical conquest was beyond the king’s means. The
war proved ruinous. Money had to be raised by selling off the monastic lands, which had
brought a good income; the desperate expedient of debasing the coinage, though it brought
temporary succour, led to a violent inflation that made things worse. Yet, even after the
emperor made peace with France (1544), Henry would not let go until two years later.

In 1546 it was apparent that the king had not long to live. Conscious almost to the
very end, he died on January 28, 1547. He left the realm feeling ​bereft and the government
the more bewildered because, to the last, he had refused to make full arrangements for the
rule of a boy king.

Edward (Henry's son with his 3er wife) was still young when he died in 1552 and had
not married. His successor was declared to be his cousin ​Lady Jane Grey.​ It is not known if
Edward wanted her to be Queen or if it was his ​Lord Protector whose daughter-in-law she
was. Edward was strongly anti-​Catholic and may not have wanted his older sister Mary (a
Catholic) to be Queen in case she overturned all of his reforms.

However, the English people did not want ​Lady Jane Grey and demanded that Mary,
who was the daughter of Henry VIII and ​Catherine of Aragon​, be made Queen. People
wanted her on the throne cause she was Henry VIII’s daughter.

The Duke of Northumberland, his son and ​Lady Jane Grey were all executed under
the orders of Queen Mary I

Wives
Catherine of Aragon

Catherine of Aragon was the youngest surviving child of Ferdinand and Isabella, the
joint rulers of Spain. When she was three year old, she was betrothed to Arthur, the son of
Henry VII of England. Arthur was not even quite two at the time.
Catherine and Arthur were married on 14 November 1501 in Old St. Paul's Cathedral,
London. Catherine was escorted by the groom's younger brother, Henry.
Less than six months later, Arthur was dead. Catherine was now a widow. Henry VII still had
a son. The English king was interested in keeping Catherine's dowry, so 14 months later she
was betrothed to the future Henry VIII, who was too young to marry at the time.
By 1505, when Henry was old enough to wed, Henry VII wasn't as keen on a Spanish
alliance, and young Henry was forced to repudiate the betrothal. When Henry VII died in
1509 the young king's first married Catherine. She was finally crowned Queen of England in
a joint coronation ceremony on June 24, 1509. Shortly after their marriage, Catherine found
herself pregnant. She had over 6 abortions or stillborn. On February 1516, she gave birth a
daughter named Mary, and this child lived.
Henry was growing frustrated by his lack of a male heir, but he remained a devoted
husband. By 1526 though, he had begun to separate from Catherine because he had fallen
in love with one of her ladies (and sister of one of his mistresses-Mary Boleyn): Anne Boleyn.
 Catherine was 42 years old and was no longer able to conceive. Henry's main goal
now was to get a male heir. Henry began to look at the texts of Leviticus which say that if a
man takes his brother's wife, they shall be childless. Catherine and Henry still had one living
child. But that child was a girl, and didn't count in Henry's mind. The King began to petition
the Pope for an annulment.
Catherine was at a great disadvantage since the court that would decide the case
was far from impartial. Catherine then appealed directly to the Pope, which she felt would
listen to her case since her nephew was Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor.
The political and legal debate continued for six years. Catherine was adamant in that
she and Arthur did not consummate their marriage and therefore were not truly husband
and wife. Catherine sought not only to retain her position, but also that of her daughter
Mary.
Things came to a head in 1533 when Anne Boleyn became pregnant. Henry rejected the
power of the Pope in England and had Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
grant the annulment. Catherine was to renounce the title of Queen and would be known as
the Princess Dowager of Wales, something she refused to acknowledge through to the end
of her life.
Catherine and her daughter were separated and she was forced to leave court. She lived for
the next three years in several dank castles and with just a few servants.
On January 7, 1536, Catherine died at Kimbolton Castle and was buried at
Peterborough Abbey with the ceremony due for her position as Princess Dowager, not as a
Queen of England.

Anne Boleyn

Anne's birth at 1500 or 1501, probably at Blickling (Norfolk) at the end of May or
early June. She spent part of her childhood at the court of the Archduchess Margaret. She
was transferred to the household of Mary, Henry VIII's sister, who was married to Louis XII
of France. When Louis died, Anne remained in France for the next 6 years. During her stay in
France she learned to speak French fluently.
Anne's Appearance
A sixth finger and a large mole or goiter on her neck. she had dark, olive-colored skin, thick
dark brown hair and dark brown eyes which often appeared black.
Life in England and the Attentions of the King
Her first recorded appearance at Court ​was March 1, 1522 at a masque.
Anne denied Henry VIII sexual favors. It evolved into "Queen or nothing" for Anne.
At first, the court probably thought that Anne would just end up as another one of Henry's
mistresses. But, in 1527 we see that Henry began to seek an annulment of his marriage to
Catherine, making him free to marry again.
King Henry's passion for Anne can be attested to in the love letters he wrote to her when
she was away from court. 17 letters.

The Rise of Anne Boleyn

In 1528, Anne's emergence at Court began. Anne also showed real interest in
religious reform and may have introduced some of the 'new ideas' to Henry, and gaining the
hatred of some members of the Court.
The legal debates on the marriage of Henry and Catherine of Aragon continued on.
Anne feared that Henry might go back to Catherine if the marriage could not be annulled.
The waiting continued and Anne's position continued to rise. On the first day of
September 1532, she was created Marquess of Pembroke, a title she held in her own right.
Queen Anne
1532, Anne finally gave way and by December she was pregnant. To avoid any
questions of the legitimacy of the child, Henry was forced into action. Sometime near St.
Paul's Day (January 25) 1533, Anne and Henry were secretly married. Although the King's
marriage to Catherine was not dissolved, in the King's mind it had never existed, so he was
free to marry whomever he wanted.Their marriage was not considered valid outside
England.
On the 1st of June she became a crowned and anointed Queen in a ceremony led by
Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
By August, preparations were being made for the birth of Anne's child, which was
sure to be a boy. Names were being chosen, like Edward and Henry.

But Princess Elizabeth was born. Anne now knew that it was imperative that she
produce a son. 2 miscarriages followed. She had to have known at this point that her failure
to produce a living male heir was a threat to her own life, especially since the King's fancy
for one of her ladies-in-waiting, Jane Seymour, began to grow.
The Fall of Anne Boleyn
Anne's enemies at court began to plot against her using the King's attentions to Jane
Seymour as the catalyst for action. Cromwell persuaded the King to sign a document calling
for an investigation that would possibly result in charges of treason.
On April 30, 1536, Anne's musician and friend, Mark Smeaton, was arrested and tortured
into making 'revelations' about the Queen. Then the Queen's own brother, George Boleyn,
Lord Rochford was arrested.
On May 2, the Queen herself was arrested at Greenwich and was accused of:
adultery, incest and plotting to murder the King. She was then taken to the Tower.
Sir Francis Weston and William Brereton were charged with adultery with the Queen. The
men were not allowed to defend themselves, as was the case in charges of treason. They
were found guilty and they were to be hanged at Tyburn, cut down while still living and then
disemboweled and quartered.
On Monday the 15th, the Queen and her brother were put on trial at the Great Hall
of the Tower of London. 2000 people attended. Anne conducted herself in a calm and
dignified manner, denying all the charges against her. Her brother was tried next, with his
own wife testifying against him. Even though the evidence against them was scant, they
were both found guilty, with the sentence being read by their uncle, Thomas Howard , the
Duke of Norfolk.
The Executions
On May 17, George Boleyn was executed on Tower Hill.
Anne knew that her time would soon come and started to become hysterical. She received
news that an expert swordsman from Calais had been summoned, who would no doubt
deliver a cleaner blow. It was then that she made the famous comment about her 'little
neck'.
Shortly before her execution on charges of adultery, the Queen's marriage to the King was
dissolved and declared invalid. They came for Anne on the morning of May 19 to take her to
the Tower Green, where she was to be afforded the dignity of a private execution. She made
a short speech before kneeling on the scaffold. the swordsman cut off her head with one
swift stroke. Anne's body and head were put into an arrow chest and buried in an unmarked
grave.

Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour may have first come to court in the service of Queen Catherine, but then was
moved to wait on Anne Boleyn as Anne rose in the King's favor.
In September 1535, the King stayed at the Seymour family home in Wiltshire,
England. February of 1536: By that point, Henry's waning interest in Anne was obvious and
Jane was likely pegged to be her replacement as Queen.
Some see Jane's calm and gentle demeanor as evidence that she didn't really understand
the position as political pawn she was playing for her family. Others see it as a mask for her
fear. Within 24 hours of Anne Boleyn's execution, Jane Seymour and Henry VIII were
formally betrothed. On the 30th of May, they were married at Whitehall Palace.
In 1537 Jane became pregnant. For the first time one of Henry’s wives finally produced the
son he so desperately desired. In October, a prince was born at Hampton Court Palace and
was christened on 15th of October. The boy was called Edward and he was born in 1537.
Jane Seymour died after childbirth. She was reported as very ill on October 23 and died on
October 24th, two weeks after giving birth.
Henry had already been preparing his own tomb at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.
she would be the only of Henry's six wives to be buried with him.

Anne the Cleves

Henry VIII remained single for over two years after Jane Seymour's death, possibly
because he genuinely mourned for her. However Thomas Cromwell began making inquiries
about a possible foreign bride for Henry. But the events of the split from Rome left England
isolated, and vulnerable. It was these circumstances that led Henry and his ministers to look
at the possibility of a bride to secure an alliance. Henry did also want to be sure he was
getting a desirable bride, so he had agents in foreign courts report to him on the
appearance of various candidates. He also sent painters to bring him images of these
women.
Hans Holbein, the most famous of the Tudor court painters, was sent to the court of
the Duke of Cleves, who had two sisters: Amelia and Anne. When Holbein went in 1539,
Cleves was seen as an important potential ally in the event France and the Holy Roman
Empire decided to move against the countries who had thrown off the Papal authority.
Holbein painted the sisters of the Duke of Cleves and Henry decided to have a contract
drawn up for his marriage to Anne. The marriage took place on January 6, 1540. By then,
Henry was already looking for ways to get out of the marriage.
Anne was ill-suited for life at the English court. Her upbringing in Cleves had
concentrated on domestic skills and not the music and literature so popular at Henry's
court. And Henry did not find his new bride attractive. In addition to this, there were now
political ones as well. Tension between the Duke of Cleves and the Empire was increasing
towards war and Henry had no desire to become involved. At some point, Henry had
become attracted to young Kathryn Howard.
Anne was probably smart enough to know that she would only be making trouble for
herself if she raised any obstacles to Henry's attempts to annul the marriage. She testified
that the match had not been consummated and that her previous engagement to the son of
the Duke of Lorraine had not been properly broken.
After the marriage has been dissolved, Anne accepted the honorary title as the
'King's Sister'.
Kathryn Howard
Kathryn Howard was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard, a younger brother of
Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. She was also first cousin to Anne Boleyn. Kathryn came to
court at about the age of 19 as a lady in waiting to Anne of Cleves and there the spirited
young girl caught Henry's attentions. Kathryn's uncle probably encouraged the girl to
respond to the King's attentions.
Sixteen days after he was free of Anne, Henry took his fifth wife, Kathryn Howard, on
July 28, 1540. Henry was 49 and his bride was no older than 19.
Henry had gained a lot of weight and was dealing with the ulcerated leg that was to
pain him until his death. The vivacious young girl brought back some of Henry's zest for life.
Less than a year into Kathryn's marriage, the rumors of her infidelity began.
By November 1541, there was enough evidence against the Queen that Archbishop
Cranmer informed the King of Kathryn's misconduct. At first Henry did not believe the
accusations, but he agreed to allow further investigations into the matter. Enough evidence
was gathered. She was executed on the Tower Green on February 13, 1542 and laid to rest
near her cousin Anne Boleyn.

Katherine Parr
Katherine Parr was the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Parr and his wife Maud Green,
both of whom were at the court of Henry VIII in his early reign. Katherine was born in 1512.
Her education was similar to that of other noble figures of the time, as she was fluent in
French, Latin and Italian and began learning Spanish when she was Queen.
Katherine Parr’s first marriage was to Edward Borough in 1529 when she was 17
years old. Edward died only a few years later. Katherine’s second marriage was to John
Neville, third Baron Latimer of Snape Castle in Yorkshire, whom she married in the summer
of 1534 when he was 41 and she was 22.
Latimer had two children from his previous marriages so Katherine also became a
stepmother for the first time. Katherine’s husband died in March 1543, leaving her a widow
for the second time, 31. It was around this time that Katherine was noticed by not only the
King, but also Thomas Seymour, brother of the late Queen Jane Seymour. Katherine
expressed her desire to marry Thomas Seymour, but the King’s request for her hand was
one that Katherine felt it was her duty to accept. Katherine and Henry VIII were married on
July 12th in the Queen’s closet at Hampton Court Palace in a small ceremony attended by
about 20 people.
Katherine was interested in the reformed faith. It was Katherine’s influence with the King
and the Henry’s failing health that led to a plot against her in 1546 by the conservative
faction. To gain evidence against the Queen, Anne Askew, a Protestant, was questioned and
tortured, but refused to recant her faith or give evidence against Katherine and her ladies.
However, there was enough other evidence against the Queen to issue a warrant for her
arrest. The warrant was accidentally dropped and someone loyal to the Queen saw it and
then quickly told her about it. After learning of the arrest warrant, Katherine was said to be
very ill, either as a ruse to stall or from a genuine panic attack. Henry went to see her and
chastised her for her outspokenness about the reformed religion and his feeling that she
was forgetting her place by instructing him on such matters. Katherine’s response in her
defense was that she was only arguing with him on these issues so she could be instructed
by him
 Henry VIII died in January 1547. Only a few months after Henry’s death, Katherine
secretly married Thomas Seymour, and caused a scandal.
1548 September 5th she died. Katherine was buried, in the chapel at Sudeley Castle.

He gave his nation what it wanted: a visible symbol of its nationhood. He also had
done something toward giving it a better government, a useful navy, a start on religious
reform and social improvement​​. But he was not a great man in any sense. Although a
leader, he little understood where he was leading his nation.

Edward VI

Henry made a will by which he was to be succeeded by his only son Edward. Should
Edward died childless, the Crown was to go to Mary, and if Mary had no direct heir it was to
go to Elizabeth. At the time of Henry's death, EDward was only ten years old, so the old king
had arranged that until he grew up the royal power should be wielded by a council in which
each of the various parties at the Court were fairly represented. One member, the King’s
uncle, Edward Seymour seized control into his own hands and took the office of Lord
Protector with the title of Duke of Somerset.

He, the Duke, was an incompetent ruler. He found his downfall in less than 3 years.
He was greedy for wealth which he showed in his treatment of the Church, and the
Seymours had been inclined to Protestantism. Now that Somerset has supreme power he
displayed his Protestantism in no uncertain way. He commissioned Cranmer, Archbishop of
CAnterbury, to make a Book on Common Prayer in English, this produced nothing but good,
for Cranmer translated the LAtin services of the Catholic Church into a beautiful English
prose. He got parliament to repeal the Acts by which heresy was punished by death, this did
more harm than good, for many extremes Protestants who had fled abroad from Henry’s
persecution now came back with all sorts of advanced doctrines that they had learnt in
Germany and Switzerland and Church services were disturbed by riot and bloodshed. And
he had several city churches despoiled to provide building materials for the stately home he
was having built for himself and this is an example of how greedy he was. He revived
Henry’s policy of uniting England and Scotland by a marriage bt the young sovereign of the 2
countries. The Scots dislike the project. NEvertheless, e took an army into Scotland in 1547
and laid waste sundry villages, and defeated a Scottish army in Edinburgh, near it. But the
Scottish government would not submit to his demands. So they sent the little Queen over to
France to prevent any chance of her falling into English hands. She spent the next 12 years if
her life at a French court, married the Dauphin, and became queen of France.

It was impossible for Somerset to hold Scotland down as a conquered country by a

permanent army of occupation, that would have cost far more than the impoverished
English exchequer could possibly afford. He had to return crestfallen. He cemented more
closely than ever the old anti-English alliance bt France and Scot.

More and more landowners were taking advantage of the increasing demand for
wool to turn their arable land into pasture for sheep, which require less labour than corn
growing, and was more profitable. And since much land that was too poor to bear crop was
quite useful for pasture, landlord other enclosed for their own use the was and
meadowlands. Matters were made worse by the dissolution of the monasteries, the monks
had sometimes been hard landlords, but they had usually respected the old customs,
whereas the middle class men who had bought up the monastery lands knew little and
cared less about traditions, they were eager to make their newly acquired property pay.

Somerset set up a special court of requests in his own house in London to deal with
complaints from village folks but there was no policy system and it was impossible to send
round government officials to see that the decrees of the court of requests were carried
out. And that Somerset had established the court made the member of the council hostile
to him. The climax came when a revolt broke out in East Anglia against the enclosures, the
rebels chose as their leader Robert Ket, a sympathiser with the wrongs of the peasantry.
They sent a petition to the government, and refrained from violence and attended daily
open aire services conducted by the chaplain of their little commonwealth. Somerset
realised how genuine were their grievances. The other member of the Council were not so
considerate, they feared that if the movement spread, their profitable depredations would
be stopped. So John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, took down some hired foreign troops and
depressed the commonwealth by force. Ringleaders, Ket himself, were hanged.

Warwick and his supporters had Somerset arrested and put in prison. He was
released a few months later and allowed to take part in the meetings of the Council but a
little later he was rearrested for conspiring against the new regime and beheaded.

Warwick took Somerset’s place who took the title of Northumberland, the country
went from bad to worse. But Northumberland was no statesman at all, he was just a greedy
adventurer. He pretended to be a more thoroughgoing protect that his predecessor, and
caused Cranmer to revise the Prayer book, making it more uncatholic. But this was an
excuse for feathering his own nest. Most of the Church property that could be returned to
ready cash had by this time been confiscated, but there were a number of small foundations
called chantries, which maintained priests who conducted daily services on behalf of
corporations and gilds. There were now abolished, and their funds mostly fell into the hands
of Northumberland and hi friends. Another of Northumberland’s devices was to replace
CAtholic bishops by Protestant clergymen, who were willing to perform the functions for
much smaller incomes, and to pocket the difference himself.

Edward VI was a strange morbid boy, with a brain in advance of his years. He was 13
and his chief interest was in theology. He had become and ut and put protestants. and
looked upon Northumberland as the most holy instrument of the word of god, solong as
Edwards lives, he, N, has his position secured. But at the beginning of ​1553 the king’s health
began to fail, and the Duke saw a red light ahead. If Edward died, the heir was the Princess
Mary, a grown up woman whom he could not hope to control and a devout Catholic who
detested him. So, as the king developed rapid consumption, N formen a plot by which he
would be able to keep power in his own hands. He put forward the claims of Lady Jane Grey,
descent from HVII, she was 1 and a Protestant, and N made certain of his hold over her by
marrying her to his younger son, Guildford Dudley. The dying boy on the throne, eager that
protestantism should continue, supported the scheme.

For the nation was still attached to the Catholic faith, many had acquired rapidly in
the reach with the Pope, much sympathy was felt for the Princess ;Ary over the wrongs and
insults she had suffered throughout her father’s denials of his marriage with her mother,
Above all, there was a feeling that she had a right to the throne, by birth and by H VIII's will.

The king sank into death in July 1553, Northumberland had ane proclaimed Queen,
Mary fled to the eastern countries, and thousands of nobles flocked to support her. The
Duke collecte troops and marches out of London to attack these gathering forces, but his
men hated the task in which they were engaged, and deserted. She was proclaimed Queen
in London as soon as Northumberland's back was turned. He abandoned his plan and was
taken prisoner, a few days later, Mary entered London in triumph.

Mary I (1453-1458)