HENRY VIII., AND THE BREACH WITH ROME.
1509-1536.
The young king who succeeded to the cautious and politic Henry VII. was
perhaps the most remarkable man who ever sat upon the English throne.
He guided England through the epoch of change and unrest which lay
between the middle ages and modern history, and his guidance was of
such a peculiar and personal stamp that he left an indelible mark on
the land for many succeeding generations. All Europe was transformed
during his time, and that the transformation in England differed from
that on the continent in almost every respect, was due to his own
strange combination of qualities.
[Sidenote: =Character of Henry VIII.=]
Henry's character was a very complex one, mingling qualities good and
bad in strange confusion. In many things he showed the traits of his
grandfather Edward IV., his selfishness, his love of display, his
sensuality, his outbursts of ruthless cruelty. But Edward had been
nothing more than a soldier and a man of pleasure; he had no love of
work, no power to read the character of others. Henry VIII. was a
student, a statesman, a deep plotter, a keen observer of other men. He
chose his servants--or rather his tools--with a clear-headed sagacity
which no king ever surpassed, and he could break them or fling them
away when they became useless, with a coolness that was all his own.
Love of power, love of work, love of pleasure, love of show and pomp,
did not distract him the one from the other, but blended closely
together into one complex impulse--the determination to have his own
will in all things. Such a state of mind bespeaks the tyrant, and a
tyrant Henry became; but a tyrant whose brain was as strong as his
will--who knew the possible from the impossible, who could discern
how far it was safe to go, and could check himself on the edge of any
dangerous precipice of foreign or internal politics. He kept, as it
were, a finger on the nation's pulse, and could restrain himself for
a space if ever it began to beat too excitably. He did his best to
court popularity with the English by an affable bearing and a regard
for their prejudices. He strove to make them look on him as the
nation's representative, and to flatter them into believing that his
resolves were really in accordance with their own will and interests.
He represented to them not only law and order, but national feeling
and national pride. It was this clever acting that made it possible
for him to manipulate England according to his wishes. He appeared to
take the people into his confidence, and they replied by believing
his statements even when they were most unfounded and misleading.
Thus it was that Henry was able to rule despotically for forty years
without having a serious quarrel with his Parliament, and without being
compelled to raise a standing army--the tool which all contemporary
despots were forced to employ.
[Sidenote: =His popular qualities.=]
Henry VIII. was very young when he came to the throne--he had only
reached the age of eighteen. His character was still undeveloped,
though he was known to be both clever and active. All that the nation
knew of him was that he was a bright, handsome youth, fond of horse
and hound, but equally fond of his books and his lute. He had from the
first an eye for popularity, and did all that he could to please the
people by shows and pageants that forced him to dip deeply into his
father's hoarded money.
[Sidenote: =Executions of Empson and Dudley.=]
Yet the first act of Henry's reign was ominous of future cruelty and
ruthlessness. Knowing the unpopularity of his father's harsh and
extortionate but faithful servants, Empson and Dudley, he cast them
into prison, and had them attainted by Parliament on a preposterous
charge of treason. They were well hated, and the people saw their
heads fall with joy, not reflecting on the character of a king who
could deliberately slay his father's councillors merely to win popular
applause.
[Sidenote: =Foreign policy.--The Holy League.=]
Henry retained most of his father's old ministers in office, but he
instantly reversed his father's policy of non-intervention in the wars
of the continent. He had not long been seated on the throne when he
joined the "Holy League," a confederacy formed against France by Pope
Julius II., in which both those old intriguers, the Emperor Maximilian
and King Ferdinand of Aragon, were already enlisted (1511). Henry might
have left them to fight their own battles for the mastery of Italy and
Flanders, but he was burning to assert his power in Europe and to win
military distinction. His arms were fairly fortunate. A first attack
on the south of France failed, but he met with considerable success
in 1513, when he landed at Calais with 25,000 men, took the towns of
Tournay and Térouanne, and routed the French army of the North at an
engagement called "the Battle of the Spurs," from the haste with which
the French knights urged their horses out of the fray. Finding his
armies losing ground both in Italy and in Flanders, King Lewis XII.
sought peace from Henry, and obtained it at the cheap price of paying
100,000 crowns, and marrying the Princess Mary, the young English
monarch's favourite sister (1514). These easy terms were granted
because Henry found that his two wily allies, Ferdinand and Maximilian,
had no intention of helping him, and were bent purely on their own
aggrandisement. The alliance with Lewis was not to have much duration,
for within a year he was dead--killed, as the chroniclers assert,
by the late hours and high living which his gay young English queen
persuaded him to adopt. His widow soon dried her tears, and married Sir
Charles Brandon, one of her brother's favourite companions, whom Henry,
to grace the match, decorated with the ill-omened title of Duke of
Suffolk, the spoil of the unhappy de la Poles. From this union sprang
one who was to sit for a brief moment on the English throne.[31]
[Sidenote: =Scottish war.=]
Ere the French treaty had been made, a short stirring episode of war
had taken place on England's northern frontier. King James IV. of
Scotland had certain border feuds to settle with the English, and
thought he might best take his revenge while Henry and his army were
over-seas in Flanders. So he suddenly declared war, and crossed the
Tweed into Northumberland.
[Sidenote: =Battle of Flodden.=]
Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, son of John of Norfolk, who fell at
Bosworth, was in charge of the Border at the time. He raised the levies
of the northern counties, and marched to meet the Scots. By throwing
himself between King James and his retreat on Scotland, he forced the
enemy to fight. On Flodden Field, between the Till and the Tweed, the
armies met and fought a fierce and doubtful battle which lasted far
into the night. Though victorious on one wing, the Scots were beaten in
the centre, and their king and most of his nobles fell in a desperate
struggle around the royal banner. In the darkness the survivors of the
struggle dispersed and fled home. The death of their warlike sovereign,
and the slaughter which had thinned their fighting men, kept the Scots
quiet for many a day. During the long and troublous minority of James
V. King Henry need fear no danger from the north. As a reward for his
victory, Surrey was restored to his father's dukedom of Norfolk (1513).
[Sidenote: =Wolsey.=]
In these early years of his reign, King Henry had already taken as his
chief minister the able statesman who was for twenty years to be the
second personage in England. Thomas Wolsey, Dean of Lincoln, was the
son of a butcher of Ipswich, who had sought advancement in the Church,
the easiest career for an able man of low birth. He had served Foxe,
Bishop of Winchester, one of Henry VII.'s chief advisers, and from his
service passed into that of the king. He was an active, untiring man,
with a great talent for work and organization of all sorts. Henry made
him Bishop of Tournay, then Archbishop of York, and finally Chancellor.
In this capacity he served for no less than fourteen years, and was
the chosen instrument of all his master's schemes. His dignity was
increased when, in 1515, the Pope made him a cardinal, and afterwards
appointed him his legate in England--an office which seemed to trench
over-much on the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury as head and
primate of the English Church.
It suited King Henry to have a minister who could relieve him of
much of the toil and drudgery of government, who did not fear
responsibility, and who was entirely dependent on his master. As
long as he was well served, and granted plenty of spare time for his
pleasures and enjoyments, he allowed Wolsey a very free hand. The
cardinal's head was somewhat turned by his elevation, and he indulged
in a pomp and state such as almost befitted a king, never moving about
without a sumptuous train of attendants. This arrogance made him much
disliked, especially by the old nobility; but the king tolerated it
with all the more ease because he preferred that his minister should be
less popular than himself. It was always convenient to have some one
on whom the blame of royal failures might be laid, and Wolsey, with
his ostentation of power and pride, made an admirable shield for his
master. Henry allowed him, therefore, the prominence in which his soul
delighted, gave him his way in things indifferent, but was ready to
check him sharply when he began to develop any tendency to act contrary
to his own royal will.
[Sidenote: =Charles V. and Francis I.=]
In the earlier days of Wolsey's ministry, the face of Europe was
profoundly changed by the deaths of the three old monarchs who had
been the contemporaries of Henry VII. Lewis XII. of France died in
1515, Ferdinand of Aragon in 1516, the Emperor Maximilian in 1519.
The successors of these old diplomatists were two young men, each
slightly junior to the young King of England. In France the reckless
and warlike Francis I. succeeded his cousin Lewis XII. In Spain and in
the dominions of the house of Hapsburg, Ferdinand and Maximilian were
followed by their grandson, Charles V., the child of the emperor's son
and the king's daughter. Charles, being already King of Spain, Duke of
Burgundy, and Archduke of Austria, was elected Emperor by the Germans
in succession to his grandfather Maximilian.
[Sidenote: =Policy of Henry.=]
Now Francis of France and Charles of Austria were rivals from their
youth, and their rivalry was the main source of trouble in European
politics for a whole generation. England had to choose between them
when she sought an ally, but Henry found it by no means easy to make
up his mind. France was his hereditary enemy, but, on the other hand,
Charles, by uniting Spain, the Netherlands, and Austria, and acquiring
in addition the position of Emperor, had built up such a vast power
that he overshadowed Europe, and seemed dangerous by reason of his
over-great dominions and wealth.
THE KIN OF CHARLES V.
Charles the Rash, = (1) Isabel of Portugal.
Duke of Burgundy, | (2) Margaret of York.
Holland, and Brabant, |
Count of Flanders, |
Luxemburg, and Namur, |
slain 1477. |
|
+------------------+
|
(1)
Mary of = Maximilian of Ferdinand, = Isabella,
Burgundy | Hapsburg, Archduke King of | Queen of Castile,
| of Austria, and Aragon, | 1474-1504.
| Emperor, 1493-1519. 1479-1516. |
| |
| +--------------------+--+
| | |
Philip, = Joanna. Catherine = (1) Arthur,
Archduke | | Prince of
of Austria, | | Wales.
died 1506. | | (2) Henry VIII.
| |
+------------+-------------+ Mary,
| | Queen of England,
Charles, Ferdinand I., 1553-1558.
King of Spain, Emperor,
1516; Emperor, 1556-1564.
1519-1556.
|
Philip II., = Mary,
King of Spain, Queen of England.
1556-1598.
[Sidenote: =The balance of power.=]
Henry and Wolsey, therefore, fell back on the idea that a balance
of power in Europe was the best thing for England. It would be a
misfortune if either Francis I. or Charles V. should grow so powerful
as to dominate the whole continent. England accordingly would do well
to see that neither obtained complete success, and to make a rule of
helping the weaker party from time to time. For the next ten years,
therefore, Henry was always trimming the scales, and transferring his
weight from one side to the other. Such a policy made him much courted
by both parties, and won him much flattery, and an occasional subsidy
or treaty of commerce. But, on the other hand, it prevented either
Francis or Charles from looking upon him as a trustworthy ally, or
dealing fairly with him in the hours of their success. For they argued
that there was no object in serving a friend who might turn into an
enemy at the shortest notice. Thus Henry and Wolsey, with all their
astuteness, got no profit for England or for themselves, for they
were never trusted, and promises made to them in the hour when their
help was needed were never fulfilled when their aid was no longer
necessary. There was something false, insincere, and degrading in
this trimming policy. It is disgusting to read how Henry greeted his
neighbour Francis in 1520 at the celebrated "Field of the Cloth of
Gold" near Calais, with all manner of pomp and pageantry, and profuse
protestations of brotherly love, and then within a month had met
Charles at Gravelines, and concluded a secret treaty of alliance with
him against the friend whose kiss was yet upon his cheek.
[Sidenote: =Heavy taxation.--Benevolences.=]
From all the negotiations and fighting which accompanied the changes
of English policy, only one definite result was reached--England was
beginning to grow poorer and more discontented. The hoarded treasure
of Henry VII. had long been exhausted, and the taxation which his
son was compelled to levy was growing more and more heavy. Henry had
fallen into the evil habit of dispensing with parliamentary grants;
from 1515 to 1523, and again in 1527 and 1528, he never summoned the
two Houses to assemble. The money which he ought to have asked from
them, he raised by the illegal devices of "benevolences" and forced
loans. Wolsey got the credit of advising this tyrannous extortion, and
gained no small hatred thereby, but his master was in truth far more
responsible for it than he.
[Sidenote: =Wolsey aims at becoming Pope.=]
The cardinal, however, bore the blame, and it was said that all the
chaotic changes in England's policy were inspired by Wolsey's desire to
attain the position of Pope, by the aid of whichever of the two powers
of France and Austria had the advantage for the moment. There is no
doubt that there was some truth in the charge; the cardinal's ambition
was overweening, and he would gladly have become Pope, because he had
conceived great schemes of Church reform which the possession of the
papacy alone would have enabled him to carry out. It is certain that
Charles V. twice deluded Wolsey into aiding him, by the tempting bait
of the papal tiara. But on each occasion the Emperor used his influence
at Rome to get some surer partisan elected.
[Sidenote: =Condition of the Church.=]
[Sidenote: =Depravity of the Popes and Clergy.=]
Wolsey's scheme of reforming the Church was no doubt suggested to him
by the discontent against the clergy which was at this moment beginning
to break out all over Europe. Since the days of Wicliffe, religious
matters had not been taking any very prominent place in English
politics, but a storm was now at hand far more terrible than that which
had swept over the land in the days of the Lollards. The condition of
the church of Western Christendom had become more and more deplorable
of late. The worst example was set at head-quarters: bad as the Popes
of the fourteenth century had been, those who were contemporary
with the Tudors were far worse. Rome had seen in succession three
scandalous Popes, the first of whom--Alexander VI., the celebrated
Rodrigo Borgia--was a monster of depravity, a murderer given up to
the practice of the foulest vices; the second--Julius II.--was a mere
secular statesman with no piety, but a decided talent both for intrigue
and for hard fighting; the third--Leo X.--was a cultured atheist, of
artistic tastes, who used to tell his friends that "Christianity was a
profitable superstition for Popes." Under such pontiffs all the abuses
of the mediaeval Church came to a head. Ill living, corruption, open
impiety, reckless interference in secular politics, non-residence,
neglect of all spiritual duties, greed for money, were more openly
practised by the clergy than in any previous age. Even the better sort
of ecclesiastics could see no harm in obvious abuses;--Foxe, Bishop of
Winchester, a man of great virtue, absented himself for twenty years
from his see. Wolsey held three sees at once, and never went near any
of them.
[Sidenote: =The Renaissance.--Printing.=]
The lamentable state of the Church would have provoked murmuring in
any age, but in the sixteenth century it led to open rebellion in
all those countries of Europe which still retained some regard for
religion and morals. The revival of arts and letters, which men call
the Renaissance, was now at its height, and Europe was for the first
time full of educated laymen who could criticize the Church from
outside, and compare its teaching with its practice. The multiplication
of books, owing to the discovery of printing, had placed the means of
knowledge in every man's hands, and the revived study of Hebrew and
Greek was setting the learned to read the Scriptures in their original
tongues. All the elements of a violent outbreak against the papacy, its
superstitions and its enormities, were ready to combine.
[Sidenote:=Martin Luther.=]
In 1517 a German friar, Martin Luther, had first given voice to the
universal discontent, by opposing the immoral practice of selling
"indulgences," or papal letters remitting penances for sins, in return
for money. He had followed this up by preaching against many other
papal abuses, and, when Leo X. replied by excommunicating him, he began
to attack the whole system of the mediaeval Church--inveighing against
the Pope's spiritual supremacy, the invocation of saints, the celibacy
of the clergy, the adoption of the monastic life, and many other
matters. He was supported by his prince, Frederick, Elector of Saxony,
and a great part of Germany at once declared in his favour (1517-21).
[Sidenote: =The Church in England.=]
England was not at first very much affected by the revolt of Germany
against the papacy. The English Church was far less corrupt than those
of France or Italy, and though full of abuses, was not really unpopular
with the nation. It still retained much of the old national spirit,
and was not the mere slave of the Pope. Neither king nor people showed
any signs of following the lead of the Germans. Henry wrote a book to
prove Luther's views heretical, and received in return from Leo X.
the title of Defender of the Faith, which English sovereigns still
display on their coinage. Wolsey devoted himself to practical reforms,
leaving doctrine alone. His first measure was to suppress many small
and decayed monasteries, and to build with their plunder his great
foundation of Cardinal's College, afterwards known as Christ Church, in
the University of Oxford.
[Sidenote: =Henry and Queen Catherine.=]
It was not till about 1527 that England began to be drawn into the
struggle which was convulsing all continental Europe, and then the
cause of quarrel came from the king's private affairs, and not from any
doctrinal dispute. It will be remembered that Henry had been affianced
by his father to Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his brother,
Arthur Prince of Wales. Marriage with a deceased brother's wife being
illegal, a papal dispensation had been procured to remove the bar,
and Henry had married Catherine on his accession, so that he could
not plead compulsion on the part of his father. The marriage was not
a wise one, for the queen, though a very gentle and virtuous woman,
was six years older than her husband, had no personal attractions,
and was delicate in health. All the children whom she bore to Henry
died in infancy--except one, the Princess Mary. By 1527 Catherine was
a confirmed invalid, and showed all the signs of premature old age,
though she was only forty-two.
[Sidenote: =Henry desires a divorce.=]
Now Henry VIII. was morbidly anxious for a son to succeed him; he was
the only surviving male of the house of Tudor, and could not bear the
thought of leaving the throne to a sickly girl. It was obvious that
Catherine would bear him no more children, and, regardless of the duty
and respect that he owed to her, he began to think of obtaining a
divorce, and marrying a younger wife. His project took a definite shape
when his eye was caught by the beautiful Anne Boleyn, a niece of the
Duke of Norfolk, and one of the maids of honour. Becoming desperately
enamoured of her, he resolved to press for a divorce at once. Wolsey,
who saw that the kingdom needed a male heir, undertook to procure the
Pope's consent to the repudiation of Catherine.
[Sidenote: =Attitude of the Pope.=]
But this task proved more difficult than he had expected. Popes were
generally indulgent enough to kings who would pay handsomely for their
heart's desire. But the reigning pontiff, Clement VII., was in an
unhappy position: he was completely at the mercy of the Emperor Charles
V., whose troops had lately taken and sacked Rome. Charles was resolved
that his aunt Catherine should not be divorced, and Pope Clement was
mortally afraid of offending him. Instead, therefore, of granting the
demand of Henry VIII., he temporized, and appointed two cardinals,
Wolsey himself and Campeggio, the Italian bishop of Salisbury, to
investigate the question. Henry and Wolsey hoped to force on a prompt
decision: but Campeggio deliberately hung back, and the Pope finally
recalled him, and summoned the king to send his case to be tried at
Rome (1528). Henry wrongly thought that this check was due to some
bungling or reluctance on the part of Wolsey, not seeing that the
Pope's fears of the Emperor were the real cause.
[Sidenote: =Unpopularity of Wolsey.=]
He at once withdrew his support from the great minister, though Wolsey
needed it more at this moment than ever before, for he was in great
disfavour with the nation, both for his arrogance and for the heavy
taxation which he had imposed on the land. He had actually demanded
from Parliament the unprecedented tax of 4_s._ in the pound on all
men's lands and incomes, and, though the House plucked up courage to
resist this extortionate claim, had obtained as much as 2_s._ In 1529
the cardinal, fearing to meet another Parliament, had recourse to the
old device of benevolences, on a larger scale than ever. This led to
rioting and open resistance. Then the king, to the surprise of all men,
suddenly declared that Wolsey's action was taken without his knowledge
and consent, and dismissed him from the office of Chancellor, which he
had held since 1515.
[Sidenote: =His disgrace and death.=]
His place as the king's chief counsellor fell to the Duke of Norfolk,
the uncle of Anne Boleyn. The king immediately proceeded to treat the
cardinal with great ingratitude. Wolsey's harsh deeds had always been
wrought for his master's benefit rather than his own, but Henry chose
to ignore this fact, and to win a cheap popularity by persecuting his
old and faithful servant. Probably Anne Boleyn and her uncle Norfolk,
exasperated by the delay in the king's divorce, stirred up Henry to the
attack. The cardinal was impeached for having accepted the title of
legate from Rome, without the king's formal leave, many years before.
Henry had made no objection at the time, and it was pure hypocrisy
to pretend indignation now. But Wolsey was declared to have incurred
penalties under the Statute of Praemunire, which forbad dealings with
Rome conducted without royal leave. He was condemned, deprived of all
his enormous personal property, and sent away from court, to live in
his archbishopric of York. A year later Henry again commenced to molest
him, and he was on his way to London, to answer a preposterous charge
of treason, when he died at Leicester, as much of a broken heart as of
any disease. He had been arrogant and harsh in his day of power, but
had served his master so faithfully that nothing can excuse Henry's
ingratitude. Unfortunately for England, he had taught the king the
dangerous lesson that he could go very far in the direction of absolute
and tyrannical government, and escape from the consequent unpopularity
by throwing over his ministers. Henry used this knowledge to the full
during the rest of his reign.
[Sidenote: =Cromwell and Cranmer.=]
Meanwhile Wolsey's disgrace, and the complete failure of the attempt to
win a divorce from the Pope, had been leading the king into new paths.
He had taken to himself two new councillors. In secular matters he gave
his confidence to Thomas Cromwell, a clever, low-born adventurer, whom
Wolsey had discovered and brought to court. In matters religious he
was beginning to listen to his chaplain, Thomas Cranmer, a man with a
curious mixture of piety and weakness, one of the few Englishmen who
had as yet been touched by the doctrines of the Continental Reformers.
It was not, however, as a Reformer that Cranmer commended himself
to his master; indeed, he kept his Lutheran opinions very secret.
But he had suggested to the king a new method of dealing with the
divorce question, which Henry considered not unpromising. It might be
urged that marriage with a deceased brother's wife was so strictly
and definitely forbidden in the Scriptures, that the Pope had no
authority to sanction it, and so the permissory bull of Julius II.
might be scouted as so much waste paper. Henry eagerly swallowed the
idea, and sent round the question, stated as a moot point, to all the
universities of Europe. About half of them answered, as he wished, that
the marriage was illegal from the first. Armed with this authority, he
resolved to go further.
[Sidenote: =Attack on the clergy.=]
But first Henry was resolved to show the English clergy that he was
determined to stand no opposition from them on this point. He opened
a campaign against all manner of Church abuses, with the object of
winning for himself popularity with the nation, by the cheap expedient
of a pretended zeal for purity and piety. He told the Convocation of
the clergy that they had all made themselves liable to the penalties of
Praemunire, for recognizing Wolsey as legate without the royal leave.
They only got pardon by voting the king the large fine of £118,000.
He also caused Convocation to address him as "Supreme Head, as far as
the law of Christ will allow, of the English Church and clergy," thus
casting a slur on the Pope's universal authority. Convocation was also
forced to submit to an Act of Parliament which swept away two ancient
abuses, the right to claim "benefit of clergy" when accused of felony,
and so to escape the king's justice, and the power of evading the
Statute of Mortmain, by receiving legacies under trust instead of in
full proprietorship. The Pope still proving recalcitrant in the matter
of the divorce, Henry took the further step of threatening to cut off
the main contribution which England sent to Rome--the _annates_ or
first-fruits, paid by all benefices when they changed hands.
[Sidenote: =Henry divorces Catherine.=]
This menace did not bring Clement VII. to reason, and Henry at last
took the step which involved a fatal breach with Rome. He appointed the
pliant Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury, and bade him try the question
of the divorce in an English ecclesiastical court, without any further
application to Rome. Queen Catherine refused to appear before such a
tribunal, and formally appealed to the Pope's justice. But Cranmer
proceeded with the trial, declared the marriage contrary to the law
of God, and pronounced the king free from all his ties and able to
wed again. Even before the decision was announced, Henry had secretly
married Anne Boleyn (January, 1533), and the moment that the court had
given judgment he presented her to the nation as Queen of England. The
unhappy Catherine retired into privacy at Kimbolton, where she survived
nearly three years.
[Sidenote: =Final rupture with the Pope.=]
The Pope at once declared the new marriage illegal, and threatened
Henry with an excommunication. Many good men were scandalized to see
the king repudiate a wife who had lived as his faithful spouse for
twenty years. Murmurings and prophecies of ill filled the air, and
Henry felt that trouble was brewing. But he only hardened his heart,
and caused Parliament to pass a bill for cutting short the Pope's
spiritual authority over England, unless he should acknowledge the
validity of the new marriage within three months. Clement refused to be
bullied into compliance, and the rupture came (1533).
[Sidenote: =Act of Supremacy.--More and Fisher executed.=]
Queen Anne soon bore the king a daughter, the famous Queen Elizabeth,
and Henry then ordered all his subjects to take an oath repudiating
all obedience to papal orders, and acknowledging the child as rightful
heiress of the realm, to the prejudice of his elder daughter Mary.
This oath many persons refused to take, since it openly disavowed
the Pope's authority over the English Church. The chief of them were
Sir Thomas More, a learned and virtuous statesman who had succeeded
Wolsey as Chancellor, and Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. Henry cast them
into prison, and soon after caused Parliament to pass the "Act of
Supremacy," which declared him "Supreme Head of the Church of England,"
and pronounced any one who denied him this title guilty of high
treason. Under this ferocious edict More and Fisher were beheaded, and
many other minor personages suffered with them.
[Sidenote: =Henry excommunicated and deposed.=]
Pope Paul III., who had just succeeded to Pope Clement's tiara, now
caused a Bull to be drawn up against his enemy (Dec. 15, 1535). He not
only pronounced King Henry an excommunicated person, but declared him
to be deposed from his throne. It was now war to the knife between the
king and the papacy, and the rest of Henry's reign was to be taken up
with the struggle. During the twelve years that he had still to live,
he spent all his energies in severing every link that still bound
England to Rome.
FOOTNOTE:
[31] Lady Jane Grey, granddaughter and heiress of Charles and Mary.