Henry VIII, Part Four

Thomas Cromwell, architect of the English Reformation

The first order of business after Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn was convincing the English people, who were generally pro-Catholic, that the king’s maneuvering was legitimate. A series of statutes were passed in the so-called Reformation Parliament to legitimize the king’s actions and the rulings of the special court that annulled the king’s marriage to Catherine (who was adored by the people) and upheld his marriage to Anne (who was viewed quite negatively by the populace). Spearheading the Reformation Parliament were Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Audley, and the Duke of Norfolk. This process was completed by 1532, at which point the pro-Catholic Thomas More was forced to resign as Lord Chancellor; the vacuum was filled by the Protestant Thomas Cromwell, who would remain in power for eight years. In the 1533 Act of Succession, Catherine’s daughter Mary was declared illegitimate; Henry’s marriage to Anne was declared legitimate; and Anne’s issue was decided to be next in the line of succession. Next year’s Acts of Supremacy recognized the king’s status as head of the church in England, and this – coupled with the 1532 Act in Restraint of Appeals – abolished the right of appeal to Rome. The papacy had been at loggerheads with England for the past several years, but it was the Act of Supremacy that resulted in Pope Clement’s excommunication of Henry and Cranmer. 

The English Reformation caused huge swathes of division among the English people, but Henry moved quickly to squash any dissension. A number of dissenting monks, including the first Carthusian Martyrs, were executed, and even more were pilloried (publicly humiliated in a device similar to the stocks). Those high-rolling politicians and government officials who refused to take the king’s oath over against the Catholic Church were blacklisted and even executed; Thomas More refused the oath and was executed in the summer of 1535. The next year, the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries Act – in which Parliament authorized the ‘despoiling’ of Catholic monasteries for the enrichment of England’s purse – led to a large uprising in northern England. Called the Pilgrimage of Grace, between twenty and forty thousand rebels took up arms against the king. Henry promised the rebels that if they relinquished their arms, he would pardon them for their treason and thanked them for voicing their concerns; the rebel leader, Robert Aske, took the king’s offer and told the rebels that they’d been successful and could return to their homes with their pride and dignity intact. Henry, however, saw the rebels and traitors and didn’t feel obliged to keep his promises; thus when further violence occurred after Henry’s offer of a pardon, he quickly broke his promise of clemency. Close to two hundred rebels, including Aske, were hunted down and executed. No one had the nerve to rebel after that.

In 1538 Cromwell led a crackdown on Catholic devotees; their insistence on clinging to the ‘old religion’ was viewed as idolatry. His clean-up reached a pinnacle with the dismantling of St. Thomas Becket’s shrine at Canterbury. The papacy had watched the English Reformation with much concern, but they’d practiced restraint in their reactions; this, however, was going too far, and King Henry was excommunicated (again) by Pope Paul III in December of that year. Henry didn’t back down, and in 1540 he authorized the complete destruction of all saints’ shrines. The ball was rolling downhill, and it gathered speed: in 1542 England’s last remaining monasteries were dissolved and their property transferred to the Crown. Abbots and priors lost their seats in the House of Lords; only archbishops and bishops held their place. 

The Pope had excommunicated Henry, but that didn’t bother anyone – England was under a different ‘higher power,’ as it were, and the King was at its center. He became, in essence, England’s new pope, the supreme headship on earth over the Church of England. Henry, of course, didn’t embark on the Reformation to attain such titles; he simply wanted to wiggle free of Queen Catherine, marry his sweetheart, and sire a male heir. Nevertheless, the fall-out of his machinations are regarded by historians as his greatest achievement. Henry didn’t resist the new title, as it consolidated his perception of kingship, his innate egotistical belief that he had no superior on earth. On the other hand, Henry had been opposed to the Protestant Reformation that was sweeping through continental Europe, and he had been a staunch critic of Martin Luther. In 1521 he’d written a book, Assertio septem sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum, in which he denounced Luther and made clear his dedication to the papacy (remember that he’d been rewarded the title Defender of the Faith). It’s not surprising, then, that the Church of England didn’t embrace Protestantism’s tenets; it remained largely Catholic in outlook and practice, despite differences in theology regarding transubstantiation and clerical celibacy. 

Cromwell was vicious in his institution of the English Reformation, and dissenters were hunted down and mercilessly punished. Treason laws entrapped those who dared cling to papal allegiance, and between 1538 and 1541 the powerful Pole and Courtenay families were destroyed by execution after execution for their efforts to stem the tide of the English Reformation (though it stands to reason that their blood, with tints of royalty, didn’t help their case: because Henry lacked a male heir, the Tudor dynasty’s position was fragile, and rivals needed to be weeded out). As the Reformation unraveled, and as lives were lost in the balance, Henry’s reputation before the masses suffered. One historian writes, ‘As heads rolled, the king’s earlier reputation as a champion of light and learning was permanently buried under his enduring fame as a man of blood.’ His marital adventures wouldn’t help his case, and, as it were, things weren’t going smoothly for him and his new and pretty wife. 

Though it's the English Reformation that has lodged Henry VIII firmly in the history books, it is his marital adventures that has rooted him firmly in popular lore (and made him a barroom laughingstock among the English people of his time). His mistress-turned-second-wife, Anne Boleyn, was a hellfire spirit, and though she and Henry enjoyed moments of calm and affection, her headstrong personality chafed at Henry’s autocratic leanings. As is so often the case, those very things that drew Henry to love Anne – her feistiness, her cultured rebellious streak, and her stubbornness – are the very things that made marriage difficult – especially a royal marriage, where the wife was expected to be submissive to her lord and to curry friends at court. Henry grew weary of Anne’s irritability and explosive temper, but he held out hope that she could do her job and bear him a son. On 7 September 1533 she gave birth to their first child, but to Henry’s chagrin it was a girl. Henry now had two daughters: Mary, from Catherine, and Elizabeth, from Anne (Henry would later declare Elizabeth illegitimate, but after Mary Tudor’s death, Elizabeth would be crowned queen and would reign until her death in 1603). Anne conceived again, and Henry bit his tongue; but the pregnancy was either false, or a miscarriage, and Henry felt betrayed by her inability to bear him a son. As early as Christmas 1534, he was in talks with Cranmer and Cromwell about how to leave Anne without being forced to return to Catherine. A return was rendered impossible on 8 January 1536 when news reached Henry that Catherine of Aragon had died; he celebrated by dressing in all yellow and putting a white feather in his bonnet. If things didn’t work out with Anne, then he would have recourse to try his hand at yet another suitor without his first wife getting in the way. 

Jane Seymour

The die, however, remained yet to be cast; Anne conceived again. Things took another turn for the worse in January 1536 when Henry was unhorsed and injured during a jousting tournament. When the news reached pregnant Anne, she miscarried and delivered a stillborn son. The recuperating Henry was devastated by the news – he had been so close to having a male heir – and his disposition towards Anne soured beyond the point of return. Once a cheater, always a cheater, they say, and though Henry hadn’t stopped philandering during his marriage to Anne, he now turned the whole of his emotions upon the twenty-eight-year-old Jane Seymour, one of Anne’s ladies-in-waiting.

The Execution of Anne Boleyn

Anne had fallen out of the king’s favor – and she was also running against many loyalists in the king’s court. Though the Boleyn family still held key positions on the Privy Council, Anne had made enemies not only with the powerful Duke of Suffolk but also with her own uncle, the Duke of Norfolk. In the international sphere, the Boleyns favored friendship with France over the Holy Roman Empire; but under Cromwell’s direction, Henry had become friendlier with the Holy Roman Emperor. The king’s shift in favoritism damaged the Boleyns’ power. As Henry soured towards his second wife, Cromwell leapt at the opportunity to cast shade on his rival Boleyns, and it didn’t take a genius to see what the outcome would be. Signs of the end came when Jane Seymour was moved into new quarters and when Anne’s brother George was refused the Order of the Garter. Allegations of conspiracy, adultery, and witchcraft against Anne began to surface, first as whispers in the royal court and then as serious obstacles to be overcome. The hammer began to fall between late April and early May when five men, including Anne’s brother, were arrested on charges of treasonous adultery and accused of having sex with the queen. Anne was then arrested and accused of adultery and incest; though the evidence was lacking, and though Anne was calm yet defiant against the charges, all of the accused were found guilty and condemned to death. Evidence, of course, wasn’t important: this was a political culling, and the details didn’t matter. Four days later Henry’s marriage to Anne was declared null and void. The charged men were executed on 17 May 1536, and two days later, at eight in the morning, the late Queen Anne was executed on Tower Green.

Henry wasted no time: the day after Anne's execution, he and Jane Seymour were engaged; they were married ten days later. Much to Henry’s joy, on 12 October 1537 Jane gave birth to a son, Prince Edward, who would become the future Edward VI. Jane, however, was unable to share in her husband’s joy: due to complications from childbirth, she died later that month. Henry took her death in stride, at least at first, but soon he began to long for his late wife. Cromwell went on the hunt for a new wife and settled on the twenty-five-year-old sister of the Duke of Cleves. Henry’s marriage to the young Anne of Cleves would garner him a strong ally in case of a Catholic attack on England, as the Duke of Cleves fell between Lutheranism and Catholicism. Cromwell liked the marriage because it would strengthen his policy for a northern European alliance against dangers from France and the Holy Roman Empire. 

Anne of Cleves

An artist was sent to Cleves to paint a portrait of Anne for the king. Henry was impressed by the painting and by the favorable reports of her given by his courtiers, and he agreed to marry her. Shortly into the marriage, however, Henry became enamored with the seventeen-year-old Catherine Howard, first cousin to the late Anne Boleyn and a previous lady-in-waiting like Jane Seymour. Howard was also the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, and Henry looked for a way out of his marriage to Anne of Cleves so that he could marry Catherine Howard instead. Though legend has it that Henry accused the painter of Anne’s portrait of having painted her in an overly flattering light, it’s likely that this was just a rumor, as the painter remained highly esteemed in the king’s court. Anne of Cleves didn’t fight Henry’s desire for annulment; she knew what had happened to her predecessor. She confirmed that their marriage had never been consummated, and Anne’s previous betrothal to the Duke of Lorraine’s son added support in favor of annulment. The marriage was dissolved without fanfare, and Anne did much better in the offing than her predecessor: rather than meeting her death in the Tower Green, she was named ‘The King’s Sister’ and given two houses and a generous allowance. 

Catherine Howard

Cromwell wasn’t happy with Henry’s preoccupation with Catherine Howard, since her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, was Cromwell’s opponent. His opposition to the marriage stoked Henry’s angst, and Cromwell began to fall out of favor. He had plenty of enemies in court, and Norfolk’s newfound power as Catherine Howard’s uncle shifted the balance of power against him. Though Cromwell was never accused of being responsible for Henry’s failed marriages, he was eventually charged with treason, selling export licenses, granting passports, and drawing up commissions without permission. He was soon stripped of all his lands and titles and beheaded.

That very day – 28 July 1540 – Henry married Catherine Howard. He awarded her the lands he’d stripped from the attainted Cromwell as well as a horde of jewelry. Catherine had the same promiscuous leanings of her husband, however, and she soon had an affair with a courtier named Thomas Culpeper. She made the bold choice of employing her former lover, Francis Dereham, as her secretary; when the court was informed of her ongoing affair with Dereham while Henry was away, they sent Cranmer to investigate. Cranmer brought evidence of Catherine’s affair to the king, but Henry refused to believe it, even when Dereham confessed. The council badgered the king about it, hoping to pull the wool from over his eyes, and when he finally came around, he went into a rage. He blamed the council for the affair before isolating himself on a hunt. When Catherine was questioned, she insisted that Dereham had forced her to enter into the affair; Dereham returned the favor by exposing Catherine’s affair with Culpeper. Both Culpeper and Dereham were executed, and Catherine went the way of Anne Boleyn and was beheaded on 13 February 1542. 

The Execution of Catherine Howard