A. K. Chidgzey

Welcome to another episode of the Isms and Schisms Podcast and this week we are continuing our story of the English Reformation. We left the Tudor family with Henry, with the help of Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell and inspired by Luther, declaring himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, effectively separating the English Church from the Pope.

Henry’s marriage to his first wife Catherine had now ended and Anne Boleyn was now his wife. She was pregnant and as you can tell from this episode’s opening, she will give birth to a daughter. But more on that in a second.

Other benefits of the separation from the pope, aside from stroking his own ego, included a lot of money. Cash that would normally be sent to the pope was now funneled straight into the royal coffers. The land that was once owned by the Catholic Church was confiscated and now owned by the English crown. This amounted to a total one third of the land in England. One third! Much of the land and property was sold off. He would of course go on to spend this money on futile wars and face bankruptcy, but at the moment, he was very wealthy.

So let’s return to the Tudor court. It’s best not to leave Henry waiting.

In the last episode, we were introduced to Anne Boleyn. Prior to becoming one of Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting, she had spent much of her childhood in the Netherlands and in France. She had been a maid of honour to Mary Tudor, not the daughter of Henry and Catherine, but Henry’s cousin who had been married off to the French King Louis XII. Anne then became a maid of honour to Queen Claude. While she was in France, she learnt a great deal in terms of fashion and art, but also in theology. It was in France that she was exposed to some of the reformation ideas. Which was actually quite dangerous in France at the time.

She used what she had learnt in France to gain influence in England. And it’s likely that she encouraged Henry’s reformation ideas.

But she came back to England to marry…her cousin…as you do. But this fell through and so went to join Catherine’s household. Her sister Mary was already in the court, having married one of Henry’s gentlemen. Mary then became Henry’s mistress.

Anne secretly got married to Henry Percy. But when word got out, this was shut down but her father and Cardinal Wolsey. Because she had not married who they had wanted her to marry. Because women were basically chess pieces to be traded, tools to be used in negotiation. But because the church had not blessed this marriage, even though they were supposedly madly in love with one another, it simply didn’t count. Which is very convenient. The patriarchy always wins.

But it didn’t take long for Anne to get Henry’s attention. Not that she really wanted it. She apparently refused his advances, at least at first. She didn’t want to be one of his mistresses, like her sister, but the wife of King Henry had a nice ring to it. And in 1527, several years before his marriage to Catherine formally ended, she agreed to marry him. They both thought that an annulment would come very soon. But it dragged on.

But eventually, Catherine was out of picture, and Henry married Anne, first in secret, and then publicly. However, this did not go down well with the general public. Catherine had been very popular, much loved by the people. So Anne was not received especially warmly. And this also put a bad taste in people’s mouths about this idea of reformation. The Pope excommunicated Henry and Cranmer and condemned the marriage.

But she became pregnant and everything was starting to fall into place.

Meanwhile, the First Succession Act was pushed through Parliament, which demanded that everyone swear an oath that recognized Anne as queen. Most were fine with this, but not Thomas More, Henry’s old friend and advisor. He had refused to attend Anne’s coronation and was now refusing to acknowledge her as queen. He was charged with high treason and was thrown into the Tower of London. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, the standard punishment for treason and just utterly horrible, but Henry changed this to be a beheading. Supposedly, the executioner asked for More’s forgiveness, which More gave with a kiss. This was in 1535.

Meanwhile, Thomas Cranmer became the ambassador to the Holy Empire and so followed Charles V around Europe for several months where he witnessed the reformation on the continent. He liked what he saw, especially Lutheranism. But he returned to England, having been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury where he helped with the annulment. He declared Henry’s marriage to Catherine unholy and invalid. 

In 1533, Anne gave birth. Everyone was convinced that it would be a boy. They were sorely disappointed. They named their daughter after Anne’s mother and Henry’s mother, both named Elizabeth. Because seriously, no one could think of new names.

Over the next few years, Anne suffered from several miscarriages, and Henry was becoming more and more frustrated. Their relationship was tense. He also started paying some attention to one of Anne’s maids-of-honour. We’ve been down this road before and Anne knew exactly where this was headed and she was not happy about it. But what could she do?

In the background, Cranmer had started to define what the new church actually looked like. He was constrained by a number of factors, including Henry’s desire to not really change much, Cromwell’s political concerns, and his own developing Lutheranism. He published some work including the creatively titled Ten Articles and The Institution of a Christian Man, where, by and large, things were not really all that different to Catholicism except for a few key points. First, instead of seven sacraments, they only recognized three – the eucharist, baptism, and penance. Second, they adopted a Lutheran view of justification, that is, justification by faith alone. But things like the doctrines of transubstantiation (which I’ll probably explain in a later episode), the role of the saints, purgatory, and so on were still retained. Nevertheless, Henry didn’t love it and these new reformed ideas took a while to actually get out there.

In 1536, a series of tragedies occurred. First, Catherine died, possibly from cancer of the heart, but which was unknown at the time and people thought she had died from a broken heart. Kinda like Padme Amidala in Star Wars. Although, some people also thought she had been poisoned by Anne. Henry’s response was one of jubilation, which didn’t really help the whole poison theory. He threw a festival and he wore yellow, which in England was a colour of joy.

And then Henry fell from his horse in a jousting tournament and was seriously injured. It’s likely that this caused significant health problems later in life. When Anne heard of this accident she miscarried and it was a boy, and this happened on the day of Catherine’s funeral.

This was like a bomb going off for Henry. It was divine judgment…again. Maybe he shouldn’t have annulled his marriage to Catherine. Maybe he shouldn’t have separated the church from the pope. No. That can’t be it either. Whatever it was, he just had to keep trying.

Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s lawyer and advisor, who had been involved in getting the annulment, was given the task of ending Henry’s marriage to Anne. Cromwell heard of an accusation of adultery, and Anne, along with several men were arrested, including a musician who was in Anne’s household, who only confessed after being tortured, Henry Norris, Francis Weston, William Brereton, and Anne’s own brother George Boleyn. Anne was charged with high treason and incest, despite Cranmer’s insistence that she was innocent. The trial was a bit of a sham and the charges really were trumped-up, they were unanimously found guilty, even though Henry Percy, the man to whom she was once secretly betrothed, sat on the jury.

They were subsequently beheaded. As Anne stood on the scaffolding awaiting her death, she prayed that God would save the king and have a long reign, “for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never, and to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord.” Why did she pray this? Probably to protect her daughter Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was 3 years old when her mother was executed, but Elizabeth was at the country estate Hatfield House when it happened, where she spent much of her childhood. But we’re going to return to Elizabeth in the next episode.

After Anne’s execution, it took Henry all of 11 days before he remarried, marrying Jane Seymour. She was known for being gentle and had visibly shown her sympathy toward Catherine and Mary, so she was loved by the general populace, who were generally relieved by Anne’s execution. The extravagant and expensive fashions and entertainment that Anne had introduced were rolled back. She didn’t meddle in politics, holding no particular allegiance to either Catholicism or to the reformation. If she had any personal convictions, she did not express them. But best of all, she quickly fell pregnant.

On the 12^th October 1537, Jane gave birth to what Henry had been hoping for for so long. A son. They named him Edward and both Mary and Elizabeth were present at Edward’s christening. Henry was over the moon and the world was good again. Everything was finally working out in Henry’s favour and all of his hopes were finally being fulfilled.

At least for a short while. Jane died only 12 days after giving birth to Edward, possibly from a pulmonary embolism or an infection caused by difficulties in labour.

The euphoria that Henry felt quickly turned to despair. He would go on to have three more wives, but he when he died years later he was buried next to Jane.

But he finally had his son.

Three years later, it became clear that it was time to marry again. Thomas Cromwell recommended Anne of Cleves, for political reasons, mainly to ally England to a more Reformed country, and had a complimentary portrait sent to Henry. Henry agreed and they were married in 1540. However, upon seeing her in the flesh, he was disappointed in her physical appearance, stating, “I like her not.” They never consummated the marriage.

Within half a year, the marriage to Anne of Cleves was dissolved and he had married Catherine Howard. But, Henry felt that Cromwell had deceived him, for making Anne seem much more attractive than he thought she was in reality. Cromwell was charged with treason and a whole bunch of other trumped up charges and was beheaded. Henry later regretted this.

And then a couple of years later his latest wife Catherine Howard was also beheaded, for adultery.

Around the same time, Cranmer was accused of heresy, but these accusations failed because Henry supported him and the accusers met a grisly end. So the tide turned toward Cranmer and he capitalized, publishing a church service in English, which like I said in the last episode, was a big deal. It’s the first official authorized service in English.

Following Catherine Howard, Henry married Catherine Parr, and again, why does everyone have the same name? Catherine Parr was wealthy and educated, even publishing a few books, which was not only rarely in general but extremely rare for a woman. She had reformation sympathies and taught Protestant ideas to Edward and Elisabeth. She helped get the Third Succession Act through parliament, which restored Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession, behind Edward. She would go on to be Elizabeth’s guardian, but as we shall see, this got a little bit weird.

Meanwhile, Henry was at war, not just with the pope or with his wives, but literally at war. He joined Charles – remember, the Emperor of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor, and Catherine of Aragon’s nephew – in a war against France and the Ottomans. Or is that Ottomen?

He planned to invade France and Scotland, but planned to have his son Edward marry the Scottish queen Mary – another fascinating and tragic story – but it was ultimately rejected. This precipitated a long, expensive, and futile war against the Scottish. At the same time, he invaded France, another long, expensive, and futile war. Remember all that money he had at the beginning? The money he didn’t have to send to the pope? Well now it was all gone, and he was forced to sign a treaty.

Physically, he was not doing so great. He put on a great deal of weight and became unwell, much of which can be traced to his jousting accident. Historians have made many guesses at what illnesses he may have had, from syphilis to various chromosomal syndromes to scurvy to some sort of degenerative neurological disease which may have been the result of falling on his head. We can really only guess, but whatever the case, his health seriously deteriorated in the latter part of his life.

For someone who used to pride himself on his physical ability, this would have been difficult. When he was rebuffed by the pope he was at least able to take things into his own hands, but this wasn’t so simple when he was constantly rebuffed by the Scottish and the French and then ultimately his own body. He died, at the age of 55, in 1547.

Nevertheless, the English Reformation was far from over. In fact, it’s really only just begun.