(A.D. 1485–1603) [glossary}It is helpful to understand the political backstory of the formation of the Anglican Church to better appreciate the competing tensions that shaped the structure and culture of the Church of England. It began with the bloody three-decade War of the Roses, fighting over the throne of England.
King Henry VII, the father of Henry VIII, became the first of the Tudor line to become the king of England, and he made a concerted effort to secure and reinforce his family’s right to the throne. To ensure his legacy, Henry VII arranged for Henry VIII to be betrothed to Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of King Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, when Henry was only twelve years old. Because Catherine was the widow of Henry’s older brother, the marriage required a special dispensation from the Pope, which was granted.
However, after several years of marriage without a male heir and no prospect of Catherine bearing more children, the Tudor royal lineage was threatened. So, Henry VIII sought a papal annulment of the marriage so he could marry his mistress, Ann Boleyn, based on the premise that the biblical Book of Leviticus prohibited his marriage to his deceased brother’s widow. However, Catherine’s uncle, the Spanish king and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, was not in favor of the annulment because he wanted to preserve the alliance with England in his war against France, which was aligned with the pope. Charles had conquered Rome and put the pope under house arrest, so he forbade the pope from issuing the annulment. Undeterred, Henry VIII had his marriage privately dissolved by a secret tribunal without the pope’s permission.
Henry blamed his chief advisor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, for not securing the papal annulment and arrested him for treason. Wolsey was a very ambitious and corrupt cleric who had finagled his lucrative appointments to several bishoprics and as the abbot of various monasteries. He even arranged for his illegitimate son to become a bishop. His corruption became public during his trial. Anticlerical sentiment was already strong in England because of years of privilege and abuse by the clergy. Humanist scholars influenced by Erasmus were also critical of the Catholic Church and the papacy. Wycliffe’s influence had survived and was reinvigorated by the Protestant Reformation in Europe. Inspired by this movement, William Tyndale translated the Bible into English in 1522, against the order of the Church, and was executed for it in 1536. Wolsey’s trial galvanized this pent-up opposition, which was partly led by John Colet, the humanist dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London who attacked corruption in the Church. Wolsey was found guilty and executed.
Henry VIII tried to get the pope to give him control of the Church in England, similar to the control the French and Spanish kings had over the Church in their kingdoms, so he could openly dissolve his marriage to Catherine. Henry’s new Catholic chief minister, Thomas Moore, refused to support this plan, so he was arrested and eventually executed. He was replaced by Thomas Cromwell, who got Parliament to pass measures severing the Church’s ties with Rome (The Act of Supremacy), thus granting the crown supremacy over the Church in England and legitimizing Henry’s marriage to Ann Boleyn. Soon thereafter, Parliament dissolved the monasteries and the crown seized and sold all their property. The split with Rome was complete. Thereafter, the Tutor royal line ruled Great Britain and the Church of England until the Death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603.[/glossary]
