HENRY VIII, King of ENGLAND. – Second son of Henry VII, born on 28 June 1491, died on 28 January 1547, became heir to the throne upon the death of his brother Arthur (1502), and king on 2 April 1509, at the age of eighteen. He had received a good education, showed an inclination for theology, music, poetry, and sports. With a dispensation from Pope Julius II, he married the widow of his brother, Catherine, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon.
Having removed nearly all the ministers and counsellors of his father—whom he punished with death on popular accusations of rapacity—he entrusted himself to other counsellors, and from 1512 to 1529, to Thomas Wolsey. A diplomat of the old school, Wolsey was the opposite of his sovereign, little open to the new times: he was a stranger to maritime policy, whereas he was the founder of a royal war fleet; he was a stranger to exploration, whereas Henry favoured them, at least within limits that would not alarm Spain and Portugal. But in other respects, he allowed himself to be guided by his minister and pursued a policy of continental balance, though not always consistent and straightforward: at first against the danger of French predominance—which he also felt on the island itself, given the traditional ties between Scotland and France—he fought France (campaign in Gascony, battle of the Spurs in 1513, victory over the Scots at Flodden Field); then, in the conflict between Charles V and Francis I, he inclined towards the latter, but in 1520 he joined the League of Augsburg, only to abandon it when the victory at Pavia (1525) made him too powerful in Italy and over the pope. Overall, this policy had not yielded great results, which was enough to explain the waning of the sovereign’s trust in his minister. Increasingly despotic by nature and therefore intolerant of parliamentary power, the king, before keeping Parliament closed almost uninterruptedly for 14 years, had been able to observe, on various occasions, that this body was inspired by anti-clerical resentments and could be used to impose its will on the clergy. But in these years Henry was far from rising up against the authority of the Roman Church in doctrinal matters and at this time wrote an *Assertio septem Sacramentorum contra Martinum Lutherum*, for which Leo X bestowed upon him the title of *Defender of the Faith*.
What drove him to this was a personal circumstance, in which he believed he saw his reputation—and that of England—insulted: namely, the question of his divorce, or rather, as he claimed, the illegitimacy and thus non-existence of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. On account of the impediment of affinity, though sanctioned by Julius II’s dispensation, he maintained that the marriage should be considered as never having taken place, and when the Pope (July 1529) refused and Wolsey proved unable to overcome this refusal, he interpreted it as not being dictated by religious motives but by political considerations, namely Clement VII’s regard for Charles V, the true master of Italy and protector of his aunt Catherine of Aragon. In his desire to be freed from Catherine, there was also the will to secure an heir for the monarchy, since Catherine had given him only a daughter, Mary, and England had never seen a queen govern. On 3 November 1529, Henry entrusted the controversy to Parliament; and indeed Parliament supported him in all the measures adopted against the clergy, especially the regular clergy: suppression of religious orders (about 7,000 members) and confiscation of their goods, of which only a part was destined for cultural works, while the rest ended up in the hands of speculators; obligation to recognise the king as head of the national English Church, a recognition only apparently mitigated by the reservation “as far as the law of Christ permits”; prohibition of teaching canon law; of the veneration of relics and images and of indulgences; of pilgrimages, once so numerous and popular, to the tomb of Thomas Becket, now depicted as a rebel; of Latin as the language of worship; and the introduction of the English Bible. The boldness and sense of absolute power grew in Henry in the face of the clergy’s weak resistance; where resistance did occur, it was repressed with trials and capital sentences (Fisher, Bishop of Rochester; Sir Thomas More, former chancellor), sometimes even on the basis of slanderous and calumnious accusations (Abbot of Glastonbury). There was, however, also
neciat tam ipsius causaequos (q) ipsius etiam
ur qui omnes cipiam falsos, fi poffit fieri) qui
aliquando contertus, aut uelut falsus prodigus,
tuerfus ad mifericordiam tam benigni patris,
et errorem fuum confellus: in uiam reuocet, fi
quos effecit errare. Caturum fit tam proflum-
de, fedemelfit, ut iam luper eum puteus impi-
etatis ac defpetationis urgetos fuit, bluferet,
blafphemet, calumnietur, infamiat, ut qui for-
der fedefcat adhuc. Ceteros uero christianos
omnes obferro, et per Christi uideat, cuius fi-
dem profittum; obferlor, ut ab impiis uerbi
auctant auites, neq fchdima faueant et dif-
cordias, hoc praefertim tempore, in quo maxi-
ne oportebat aduersus holles Christi, chrifti-
anos effe concordes. Neq aduersus Chriftiui-
catium, probris et defraffionibus auiculent:
quas in pontificem facterculi furor exulta,
neq facta. Chrifto peteca, heretibus impiis
contaminent: quas filminat, charitate ua-
cat, gloria turget, ratione fugiet, fecunt mui-
dit. Deniq, quibus animis aduersus tuchas
aducfus laqueos, aduersus quicquid eft:
uipiam infidelium conficient: iidem anis-
mis confitant aduersus unum illum: uerbus
unbeticium, fed animo: tarchis omnibus, a-
minibus, saepe, animos infidelibus
uocet, qui in facta uerunt.
(St. Sennius)