This piece of legislation would later give him the power to over through Catholicism and would which later make him ‘Supreme Head’ of the Church in England. The Dissolution of the Monasteries still, to this day, represents the largest legal transfer of land, property and assets in English history, since the Norman Conquest in 1066. But to what extent can the Dissolution of the Monasteries be considered a landmark? The Dissolution of the Monasteries is down to two occurrences, public and private intensions. Within the public intensions the king wanted to bring the clergymen into the sphere of his subjects.
Although, Charles was not entirely to blame. Parliament played a role in all of this. For example, Parliament was partly to blame for money because they had made King Charles come back every year to collect the taxes instead of just coming once because they did not trust him with the money because they thought that
Henry also needed to control the nobility because if he didn’t, or only managed to control a minority, he could have a revolution, and Nobles, together, had a lot more money and power than the king himself. Firstly he gave the Earl of Surrey his lands back, bits at a time to ensure his loyalty, while having him as a key figurehead in the north to stop rebellions, since the north largely supported Richard and Henry needed to find a way of controlling them. Also Henry didn’t get rid of all the Yorkist nobles in the council, only those who thought against him. He did this so that he wouldn’t have a full scale Yorkist rebellion on his hands, but he couldn’t have people who wanted him dead and had fought against him on his council. As well as this, Henry needed to be effective at getting England onto a secure financial footing.
There were many factors that created a base for the reformist groups to flourish at that time in Russia which in turn created a Revolution. Alexander III was determined to upkeep Russia’s image as a major European power, unlike his father; however he was a conservative, believing that his father’s reforms were a mistake and took to reverse them as much as he could. The counter-reforms initially may have looked like a success due to the period of stability during Alexander III’s reign; however with the Revolution a few years later it seems to be that the counter-reforms were not as successful as they may have seemed. The political oppression resultant of these counter-reforms meant Russia politically was behind its major European counterparts, whilst England and France by now had a form of democracy, Russia was still being ruled by total autocracy, and this increased the resentment against the government and added to the growth of reformist groups. Because of the political structure in place in Russia at the time, without a revolution the only way change was possible was from the Tsar being willing to change things, the Tsar was not willing and he clearly demonstrated this through the counter-reforms, leaving an angry population
However after Karakazov attempts to assassinate the Tsar in 1866, he becomes much more autocratic, revealing that he had no intention of significantly developing politics, his use of the Zemstvas were in fact to help sustain autocracy, through making local administration more efficient. It can be suggested from this that Alexander II had put the Zemstva Act in place to appease the nobles angered by the Emancipation Act. Alexander III was much more of a successful autocrat. His reactionary attitude led to the reversal of many of his father’s liberal reforms, and was in some cases angered by them. Alexander III re-implements Tsarist form, through the use of repression and terror.
The manifesto offered free speech, the right to form political parties and it created a “democratic” elected house of parliament – called a Duma. Despite the fact the Tsar promised all of these things for the people, after he had crushed the revolution he actually did very little to promote what he had promised. This is because he issued the Fundamental Laws, meaning the Tsar's ministers could not be appointed by the Duma, therefore denying the Duma a lot of what had been originally suggested. Furthermore, the Tsar had the power to dismiss the Duma and announce new elections whenever he wished, this further undermined democratic elements in government which showed that Nicholas II was untrustworthy and didn’t keep his promises. The Tsar’s ability to make false promises to the people was a reason for him being able to survive the revolution of 1905 but not of 1907 as people knew by then that he was untrustworthy.
Therefore by reforming the English Church and removing the Pope and making Henry VIII the Supreme Head of the Church in England, there was a revolution in the relationship between Church and State. Also as Thomas Cromwell, who masterminded this manoeuvre, had used parliament to enforce the reformation the principle that King-in-parliament was the highest form of authority. This sat very well with Henry VIII and appealed far more to those who lent to the positive and idealistic though secular form of anti-clericalism. This is one reason why the English Church did need to be reformed in the 16th century. Another reason the English Church may have needed reforming would be that many people lost enthusiasm for religious orders and religious images in the 16th century.
Oliver Cromwell rose to power by being a member of Parliament. Although he was merely a Gentleman farmer, he was wealthy enough to become an MP. He achieved a more important role when he was asked to help parliament fight the King. The main reasons for civil war braking out were King Charles I being stubborn and selfish. For example, he re-introduced Ship tax, and believed in Divine Right.
It was The Catholic Church and its leader was The Pope who lived in Rome. By 1600 there was TWO Christian Churches - Roman Catholic and Protestant. He made himself head of the church. Henry also made himself head of the English Church because the monasteries were worth a lot of money; the Pope took a lot of English taxes and the church owned about a quarter of English land. Henry had spent a lot of money on wars in Europe, expensive clothes and food so he wanted to make up the loss by being head of the church.
When Henry VIII became king of England in 1509, Wolsey became the King's almoner. Due to the nature of the primary counsellors whom Henry VIII inherited from his father, Wolsey quickly rose to power. Richard Foxe and William Warham were cautious and conservative, advising the King to be a careful administrator like his father. A young, ambitious warrior king Henry did not agree with them, therefore he rapidly disposed of them, leaving their positions open to an upcoming Wolsey. Some might say that Wolsey’s rise to power was based solely on luck however the strongest argument suggests that it wasn’t solely based on luck and that Wolsey was a skillful man.