Catherine of Aragon played a vital role in delaying the annulment from Henry VIII. Her links to Charles V, her defence and her delaying strategy ultimately prolonged the annulment from Henry. However, we also must into account other factors such as the Sacking of Rome in 1527 where the pope himself was taken prisoner. Also, Henry’s timing of the annulment and his very poor strategy meant Henry was delaying the annulment himself due to this poor strategy. Firstly, Catherine of Aragon played a vital role in delaying the annulment from Henry because her links to Charles meant that Charles himself could intervene with the annulment.
However, Wolsey wasn’t able to maintain his power and a number of factors influenced Henry’s decision to strip Wolsey of his powers in 1529. These factors included Wolsey’s failure to achieve The King’s Great Matter, opposition from The Boleyn Faction and his failure in foreign and domestic policy. Although all of these factors contributed to Wolsey’s downfall, I believe his failure to grant Henry with a divorce was the most important factor. Historians often refer to this as the nail in Wolsey’s coffin. Henry approached government about a divorce as he claimed that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was a sin as the Leviticus states that marrying your brother’s wife will be punished by remaining childless.
England for a long time had been told to hate Catholics and when James came from Scotland and became king he decided to marry Henrietta Maria, a Catholic, the people became unhappy because they did not know if their heir would be Protestant or Catholic. In 1625 England became involved in expensive foreign wars - with the Austrian Empire then in 1627 a war against France. This meant that Charles was very short of money and so he forced rich people to lend it to him. In 1628 Charles asked Parliament to let him raise custom duties on wines and many other goods. The MPs were not happy with the forced loans and foreign wars so they presented Charles with the Petition of Rights which was just parliament saying that Charles cannot raise custom duties without parliaments permission.
It was Wolsey’s job to utilize all of his demands to feasible approaches, and it was expected by Henry that he would succeed. In 1529, Wolsey failed to secure annulment of Henry and Catherine of Aragon’s marriage; the same year he fell from power. However there are other contributing factors, which secured and sped up Wolsey’s downfall such as opposition from Anne Boleyn, which pressured Henry and the King’s demanding urgency. Wolsey’s failure to secure Annulment was a contributing factor to his fall from power. Wolsey and Henry’s campaign for the annulment of his and Catherine of Aragon’s marriage failed in 1929, resultantly of the Pope’s resistance despite Wolsey’s different approaches.
How accurate is it to say that Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck were both serious threats to Henry VIII's security? Henry became king in 1485 after defeating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. His claim to the throne was weak and he took the crown at a time noblemen were constantly challenging the King's position. In view of these factors, it was no surprise for Henry’s position to be challenged. Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck both posed a threat to Henry's security for several reasons; mainly due to their explicit timing and foreign support.
For example, Alexander VI was a Borgia who gained his position by bribing of the College of Cardinals. He fathered many illegitimate children, one of whom he appointed a cardinal along with 46 others. Alexander’s daughter, Lucrezia, had an immense dowry worth 157 000, paid for by taxes. The Pope also had power to excommunicate people who disobeyed him, form laws and increase taxation. If the integrity of the Pope is lost then the Church gets a bad reputation.
This can be further broken down into two components. The first problem of church politics was the legitimacy of the Popes. This would lead to the second problem which was the refusal of the Avignon and Roman Popes to compromise with each other as they thought of themselves as being the legitimate Pope. The problem of legitimacy must now be examined. In 1378, the College of Cardinals, under pressure from an unruly Roman mob outside the Conclave elected Urban VI as Pope.1 However, after Urban’s harsh treatment of the Cardinals alienated them, they proceeded to 1 D. Hay, Europe In The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Centuries, London, 1989, p. 301. declare Urban’s election invalid and elect Clement VII as Pope.2 This created a situation without precedent as there was no clear
The play’s central conflict ascends with More’s negation to conform to the King’s wishes. In the sixteenth century it was imperative for a King to be able to produce a male heir to the throne in order to ensure the family’s control of the republic. Believing that the fault lay with his current wife, Catherine who was his brother’s widow, King Henry sought to annul his marriage when he became infatuated with the lusty and seemingly more fertile Anne Boleyn - “Catherine’s his wife and she’s barren as a brick”. He disregarded any immoral claims to his decision citing Leviticus 18: “Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife” however it is evident that his actions were not out of goodwill and was indeed immoral to the extent of going against the Catholic Church. Sir Thomas More’s “adamantine” “sense of his own self” is juxtaposed with Henry’s conniving disposition.
It has been argued that Charles I was the main reason that war broke out. I will be investigating whether this is a far accusation by looking at the long-term and the short-term causes for the English Civil War and assessing how far Charles was really to blame. Firstly, it has been argued that Charles was to blame for the long-term reasons such as wanting to make changes to religion, the power of the king and money. For example, Charles was partly to blame for money because he was trying to buy off the Scottish with £850 a day (which he could not afford) as a result from trying to make the Scottish Puritans. They rebelled and tried to attack.
By 1527 Henry VIII had decided to divorce Catherine of Aragon, leading to the Reformation and the greatest crisis of his reign. Historians disagree on Henry’s fundamental desire for a divorce, the trigger for the reformation, and thus the multiple factors of the actual reformation are even more disputed. Due to the fraught political situation in Europe, which resulted in Charles V isolating and controlling the Pope, Henry was unable to gain the divorce through the Catholic Church and so was forced to consider other means by 1529. Attempting to pressurise the Pope through Parliament and by sentencing Cardinal Wolsey, his representative, to death, Henry was still unable to achieve the desired effect and thus began his attack on the Church. He reduced clerical privileges and, by charging the clergy with Praemunire, he undermined their power as representatives of the Pope in order to strengthen his own.