How Did King Henry Viii The Tudor Reformation
RUNNING HEAD: THE TUDOR REFORMATION UNDER KING HENRY VIII
The Tudor Reformation under King Henry VIII
Religion 100
University of Indianapolis
12/12/11
To better understand the life of England’s King Henry VIII, one of the most famous and infamous of monarchs in history, the times into which he was born must be understood. Like his father, Henry VII, Henry VIII reigned during the transition from Medieval England to Renaissance England. The advent of the printing press, the rise of skepticism, and the move toward secularism were responsible for rapidly changing ideas. They were also the cause of some of the greatest conflicts of the sixteenth century. The 16th century was a confusing mass of changing …show more content…
loyalties, betrayals, near-constant fighting, and most importantly, a rising skepticism of the Roman Catholic Church. Henry VIII was considered one of the most educated as well as eventually one of the most brutal Kings of England. His six marriages resulted in two divorces, one publicly humiliating rejection, two beheadings and a final lasting union between Henry VIII and Katherine Parr, who survived after his death with their marriage intact. (Hanson, 1997) King Henry VII had groomed his eldest son, Arthur, to become the next King of England, while Henry was groomed to become the highest church official in England. This grooming is why Henry VIII would eventually have the knowledge and understanding of the Catholic Church to challenge its authority (Hanson, 1997). Arthur died unexpectedly, then a year later when Henry VII died, Henry VIII at eighteen years of age became the King of England. He was tall, slim and skilled in athletics as well as highly educated, the proclamation of Henry VIII on April 22, 1509, held great promise for the English, many of who considered his father a “miser and an extortionist” (Hanson, 1997). The youthful Henry VIII was optimistic, congenial, idealistic and liberal by all accounts. He was also high-strung and emotional. He was educated in the finest schools and by the finest tutors England had to offer. Henry VIII was schooled in academics as well as theology, music, art, and the gentlemanly sports like wrestling, horse racing, hunting and others (Hanson, 1997). His education and well-rounded abilities and pursuits were characteristic of the flourishing Renaissance. Henry VIII represented the ideal of all that the Renaissance embodied. “He embodied the Renaissance ideal of the man of many talents with the qualities of the chivalric heroes whom he so much admired” (Hanson, 1997). Henry VIII was also a devout Catholic, and he attended mass five times a day. (Slavin, 1968) Henry left much of the political maneuvering to his inner circle which consisted of his trusted assistant Thomas Cromwell, his confessor John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, and to Cardinal Wolsey, who served as the link between the House of Tudor and the Church, and who, next to the king alone in England, and the Pope in Rome, was the most powerful man in the history of the schism (Slavin, 1968).
In 1517, a German monk called Martin Luther led a breakaway from the Roman Catholic Church. He was not comforted by Catholic ritual and horrified by abuses of clerical power. Luther concluded that salvation was a personal matter between God and man. He theorized that traditional church ceremonies were irrelevant and fraudulent. He nailed his 95 Theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany which prompted massive theological debate. Luther was condemned as a heretic and an outlaw by the Catholic Church. In 1521 Henry defended the Catholic Church from Martin Luther’s accusations of heresy in a book he wrote entitled The Defence of the Seven Sacraments , for which he was awarded the title "Defender of the Faith” by the Pope. (Robinson, 2011).
Henry married his brothers widow Catherine of Aragon which required a papal dispensation.
Though they remained married for over two decades, after she had several miscarriages and several children died, Catherine had produced only one surviving child - a girl, Princess Mary, born in 1516 (Hanson, 1997).Henry VIII sought another wife to provide him with a male heir. The Catholic Church refused to grant Henry a divorce or annulment. With the help of Thomas Cromwell, and Longland, Wolsey gave Henry the idea that he could establish himself under the Act of 1533 Act of Appeals, which would use Biblical precedent to establish his self as the “Supreme Authority” (Slavin, 1968). Wolsey gave Henry VIII the precedent he needed to divorce Catherine. Unfortunately, Wolsey fell victim to his own plan, and typical of Henry VIII’s lack of allegiance to his own inner circle, Henry blamed Wolsey for the schism. Henry took power away from Wolsey, banished him in poverty. Wolsey’s assistant, Thomas Cromwell, completed the work that been started by Wolsey, and Henry VIII was able to divorce his wife to marry Anne Boleyn (Slavin, …show more content…
1968).
“The model of Old Testament kingship was invoked from the hazy dawn of the royal supremacy in the early 1530s. In the Collectanea satis copiosa, the warehouse of precedents and proof-texts put together to support Henry 's campaign against the papacy and the clergy, the cases of Hezekiah and Jehoshaphat are already being proposed as evidence of a Christian king 's power over his priests. It was from these raw materials that the new ideology of kingship was forged in the course of the 1530s. When the message of the Collectanea was distilled and repackaged for public consumption in 1534, as The true difference between ecclesiastical and royal power (De vera differentia regiae potestatis & ecclesiasticae), the definition of royal power was almost entirely handled in terms of the scriptures. What was initially at stake, of course, was the basic issue of a king 's power over the (or `his ') priests. This claim to authority over the priesthood had been comprehensively denied by the medieval Catholic Church in the name of `ecclesiastical liberty ', a cause symbolically enshrined in the cult of St Thomas Becket of Canterbury. The dramatic elimination of that cult in late 1538 symbolised the overthrow of the medieval church system in England. It is fitting that it was this event which finally provoked the papacy into formally excommunicating Henry VIII and releasing his subjects from their allegiance (Rex, 1997)”.
Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon scandalized England and especially the church. With the break from the Catholic Church in Rome, Henry VIII became head of the Protestant church in England. It was never a break that Henry was entirely comfortable with, and having been devout as a Catholic, Henry struggled with his self to reconcile what he had allowed to happen, and he blamed it on Anne Boleyn. His second wife, Anne Boleyn, would be beheaded due to Henry’s suspicions of infidelity. The same fate would meet her cousin, Henry’s fifth wife, Katheryn Howard, also suspected of infidelity. Henry’s union with Anne Boleyn did produce one of England’s future, most famous and longest reigning monarchs, Queen Elizabeth I (Hanson, 1997). Henry’s third wife Jane Seymour gave Henry a much welcomed son, Edward VI, but she died shortly after childbirth. His next marriage to Anne of Cleves was short-lived and ended in divorce after only six months (Hanson, 1997). After the beheading of Katheryn Howard, Henry married his last wife, Katherine Parr, who remained his wife until his death in 1547. When he died, the obese, tubercular King plagued by other illnesses bore little resemblance to his knightly appearance in youth.
One effect of the English Protestant Reformation was the Dissolution of Monasteries: monastic lands and possessions were broken up and sold off.
The wealthiest Catholics in England were the monasteries where monks lived. They were also the most loyal supporters of the pope. This made them a threat to Henry. They did not help the community as they were meant to do. All they seemed to do was take money from the poor. Henry wanted to make the Dissolution appear to be backed by law. He sent round government officials to check up on what the monks were doing. Anything to discredit the monks was considered useful. In 1535-6, 200 smaller monasteries were dissolved by statute, followed by the remaining greater houses in 1538-40; as a result, Crown revenues doubled for a few years. The Dissolution of the Monasteries lasted four years. Two thirds of all the land was sold to the congregation, the money squandered in vanity wars against France. The destruction of priceless ecclesiastical treasures was possibly the greatest act of vandalism in English history. However it was also an act of political genius, creating a vested interest in the Reformation: those now owning monastic lands were unlikely to embrace a return to Catholicism (Household, 2008). Henry made changes in traditional religious practices. He ordered the clergy to rebuke superstitious images and relics, and to preach against miracles and pilgrimages. “The catechism of 1545, called the King 's Primer, left out the saints.
Latin rituals gave way to English. Shrines to saints were destroyed—including the popular one of St Thomas at Canterbury; relics were ridiculed as worthless old bones” (Moorehouse, 2003)
“The Church of England set up by the Act of Supremacy was in Henry’s eyes a Catholic body. He hoped to retain Catholic doctrines and ritual, doing no more than abolish monasteries and deny the pope’s position as head of the church in England. Inevitably, his policies aroused opposition, in part from English Roman Catholics who greatly resented the break with Rome, and still more from militant Protestants, who began to introduce within the Church of England such Protestant practices as marriage of the clergy, use of English instead of Latin in the ritual, and abolition of confession to priests and the invocation of saints. Henry used force against the Catholic opposition and executed some of its leaders. He then tried to stem the Protestant tide by appealing to Parliament. In 1539, at Henry’s behest, Parliament passed the statute of the Six Articles, reaffirming transubstantiation, celibacy of the priesthood, confession to priests, and other Catholic doctrines and ritual, and making their denial heresy. But there were now far too many heretics to be repressed. England was to become a great center of religious variation and experimentation; the Anglican church, much more Protestant than Henry had intended, became a kind of central national core. Though he most likely thought of himself as its preserver, Henry was really the founder of the Church of England. (Protestant Founders: King Henry VIII, 1509-1547 | The Protestant Reformation, 2011)”.
When Henry became king in 1509, the church in England was as follows: The head of the Church was the Pope, based in Rome. All church services were held in Latin, prayers were all said in Latin, and the bible was written in Latin. Priests were not allowed to marry.
By the death of Henry in 1547, the church in England was as follows : The head of the Church was the king. Church services were held in Latin, prayers were mostly said in Latin. The Lord’s Prayer was said in English. The bible was written in English. Priests were still not allowed to marry.
English Reformation did change the way the church was run throughout England. However, the death of Henry in 1547 did not see an end of the religious problems of England.
Works Cited
Protestant Founders: King Henry VIII, 1509-1547 | The Protestant Reformation. (2011). Retrieved December 1, 2011, from Big Site of History, History of Civilization: http://bigsiteofhistory.com/protestant-founders-king-henry-viii-1509-1547-the-protestant-reformation
Hanson, M. (1997). English History- Tudor England. Retrieved December 1, 2011, from http://englishhistory.net/tudor/
Household, T. R. (Ed.). (2008). English Monarchs: The Tudors: Henry VIII. Retrieved December 1, 2011, from The Official website of The British Monarchy: http://www.royal.gov.uk/HistoryoftheMonarchy/KingsandQueensofEngland/TheTudors/HenryVIII.aspx
Moorehouse, G. (2003). The Pilgrimage of Grace: The Rebellion That Shook Henry VIII 's Throne . London: Pheonix, an imprint of Orion Books Ltd, Orion House.
Rex, R. (1997). Henry VIII and his Church: History Review. Retrieved December 1, 2011, from http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000546177
Robinson, B. (2011, February 17). An Overview of the Reformation. Retrieved December 1, 2011, from BBC History: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/reformation_overview_01.shtml
Slavin, A. J. (1968). PROBLEMS IN EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION :HENRY VIII AND THE ENGLISH REFORMATION . Retrieved December 1, 2011, from http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=97615501
The Tudor Reformation under King Henry VIII
Religion 100
University of Indianapolis
12/12/11
To better understand the life of England’s King Henry VIII, one of the most famous and infamous of monarchs in history, the times into which he was born must be understood. Like his father, Henry VII, Henry VIII reigned during the transition from Medieval England to Renaissance England. The advent of the printing press, the rise of skepticism, and the move toward secularism were responsible for rapidly changing ideas. They were also the cause of some of the greatest conflicts of the sixteenth century. The 16th century was a confusing mass of changing …show more content…
loyalties, betrayals, near-constant fighting, and most importantly, a rising skepticism of the Roman Catholic Church. Henry VIII was considered one of the most educated as well as eventually one of the most brutal Kings of England. His six marriages resulted in two divorces, one publicly humiliating rejection, two beheadings and a final lasting union between Henry VIII and Katherine Parr, who survived after his death with their marriage intact. (Hanson, 1997) King Henry VII had groomed his eldest son, Arthur, to become the next King of England, while Henry was groomed to become the highest church official in England. This grooming is why Henry VIII would eventually have the knowledge and understanding of the Catholic Church to challenge its authority (Hanson, 1997). Arthur died unexpectedly, then a year later when Henry VII died, Henry VIII at eighteen years of age became the King of England. He was tall, slim and skilled in athletics as well as highly educated, the proclamation of Henry VIII on April 22, 1509, held great promise for the English, many of who considered his father a “miser and an extortionist” (Hanson, 1997). The youthful Henry VIII was optimistic, congenial, idealistic and liberal by all accounts. He was also high-strung and emotional. He was educated in the finest schools and by the finest tutors England had to offer. Henry VIII was schooled in academics as well as theology, music, art, and the gentlemanly sports like wrestling, horse racing, hunting and others (Hanson, 1997). His education and well-rounded abilities and pursuits were characteristic of the flourishing Renaissance. Henry VIII represented the ideal of all that the Renaissance embodied. “He embodied the Renaissance ideal of the man of many talents with the qualities of the chivalric heroes whom he so much admired” (Hanson, 1997). Henry VIII was also a devout Catholic, and he attended mass five times a day. (Slavin, 1968) Henry left much of the political maneuvering to his inner circle which consisted of his trusted assistant Thomas Cromwell, his confessor John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, and to Cardinal Wolsey, who served as the link between the House of Tudor and the Church, and who, next to the king alone in England, and the Pope in Rome, was the most powerful man in the history of the schism (Slavin, 1968).
In 1517, a German monk called Martin Luther led a breakaway from the Roman Catholic Church. He was not comforted by Catholic ritual and horrified by abuses of clerical power. Luther concluded that salvation was a personal matter between God and man. He theorized that traditional church ceremonies were irrelevant and fraudulent. He nailed his 95 Theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany which prompted massive theological debate. Luther was condemned as a heretic and an outlaw by the Catholic Church. In 1521 Henry defended the Catholic Church from Martin Luther’s accusations of heresy in a book he wrote entitled The Defence of the Seven Sacraments , for which he was awarded the title "Defender of the Faith” by the Pope. (Robinson, 2011).
Henry married his brothers widow Catherine of Aragon which required a papal dispensation.
Though they remained married for over two decades, after she had several miscarriages and several children died, Catherine had produced only one surviving child - a girl, Princess Mary, born in 1516 (Hanson, 1997).Henry VIII sought another wife to provide him with a male heir. The Catholic Church refused to grant Henry a divorce or annulment. With the help of Thomas Cromwell, and Longland, Wolsey gave Henry the idea that he could establish himself under the Act of 1533 Act of Appeals, which would use Biblical precedent to establish his self as the “Supreme Authority” (Slavin, 1968). Wolsey gave Henry VIII the precedent he needed to divorce Catherine. Unfortunately, Wolsey fell victim to his own plan, and typical of Henry VIII’s lack of allegiance to his own inner circle, Henry blamed Wolsey for the schism. Henry took power away from Wolsey, banished him in poverty. Wolsey’s assistant, Thomas Cromwell, completed the work that been started by Wolsey, and Henry VIII was able to divorce his wife to marry Anne Boleyn (Slavin, …show more content…
1968).
“The model of Old Testament kingship was invoked from the hazy dawn of the royal supremacy in the early 1530s. In the Collectanea satis copiosa, the warehouse of precedents and proof-texts put together to support Henry 's campaign against the papacy and the clergy, the cases of Hezekiah and Jehoshaphat are already being proposed as evidence of a Christian king 's power over his priests. It was from these raw materials that the new ideology of kingship was forged in the course of the 1530s. When the message of the Collectanea was distilled and repackaged for public consumption in 1534, as The true difference between ecclesiastical and royal power (De vera differentia regiae potestatis & ecclesiasticae), the definition of royal power was almost entirely handled in terms of the scriptures. What was initially at stake, of course, was the basic issue of a king 's power over the (or `his ') priests. This claim to authority over the priesthood had been comprehensively denied by the medieval Catholic Church in the name of `ecclesiastical liberty ', a cause symbolically enshrined in the cult of St Thomas Becket of Canterbury. The dramatic elimination of that cult in late 1538 symbolised the overthrow of the medieval church system in England. It is fitting that it was this event which finally provoked the papacy into formally excommunicating Henry VIII and releasing his subjects from their allegiance (Rex, 1997)”.
Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon scandalized England and especially the church. With the break from the Catholic Church in Rome, Henry VIII became head of the Protestant church in England. It was never a break that Henry was entirely comfortable with, and having been devout as a Catholic, Henry struggled with his self to reconcile what he had allowed to happen, and he blamed it on Anne Boleyn. His second wife, Anne Boleyn, would be beheaded due to Henry’s suspicions of infidelity. The same fate would meet her cousin, Henry’s fifth wife, Katheryn Howard, also suspected of infidelity. Henry’s union with Anne Boleyn did produce one of England’s future, most famous and longest reigning monarchs, Queen Elizabeth I (Hanson, 1997). Henry’s third wife Jane Seymour gave Henry a much welcomed son, Edward VI, but she died shortly after childbirth. His next marriage to Anne of Cleves was short-lived and ended in divorce after only six months (Hanson, 1997). After the beheading of Katheryn Howard, Henry married his last wife, Katherine Parr, who remained his wife until his death in 1547. When he died, the obese, tubercular King plagued by other illnesses bore little resemblance to his knightly appearance in youth.
One effect of the English Protestant Reformation was the Dissolution of Monasteries: monastic lands and possessions were broken up and sold off.
The wealthiest Catholics in England were the monasteries where monks lived. They were also the most loyal supporters of the pope. This made them a threat to Henry. They did not help the community as they were meant to do. All they seemed to do was take money from the poor. Henry wanted to make the Dissolution appear to be backed by law. He sent round government officials to check up on what the monks were doing. Anything to discredit the monks was considered useful. In 1535-6, 200 smaller monasteries were dissolved by statute, followed by the remaining greater houses in 1538-40; as a result, Crown revenues doubled for a few years. The Dissolution of the Monasteries lasted four years. Two thirds of all the land was sold to the congregation, the money squandered in vanity wars against France. The destruction of priceless ecclesiastical treasures was possibly the greatest act of vandalism in English history. However it was also an act of political genius, creating a vested interest in the Reformation: those now owning monastic lands were unlikely to embrace a return to Catholicism (Household, 2008). Henry made changes in traditional religious practices. He ordered the clergy to rebuke superstitious images and relics, and to preach against miracles and pilgrimages. “The catechism of 1545, called the King 's Primer, left out the saints.
Latin rituals gave way to English. Shrines to saints were destroyed—including the popular one of St Thomas at Canterbury; relics were ridiculed as worthless old bones” (Moorehouse, 2003)
“The Church of England set up by the Act of Supremacy was in Henry’s eyes a Catholic body. He hoped to retain Catholic doctrines and ritual, doing no more than abolish monasteries and deny the pope’s position as head of the church in England. Inevitably, his policies aroused opposition, in part from English Roman Catholics who greatly resented the break with Rome, and still more from militant Protestants, who began to introduce within the Church of England such Protestant practices as marriage of the clergy, use of English instead of Latin in the ritual, and abolition of confession to priests and the invocation of saints. Henry used force against the Catholic opposition and executed some of its leaders. He then tried to stem the Protestant tide by appealing to Parliament. In 1539, at Henry’s behest, Parliament passed the statute of the Six Articles, reaffirming transubstantiation, celibacy of the priesthood, confession to priests, and other Catholic doctrines and ritual, and making their denial heresy. But there were now far too many heretics to be repressed. England was to become a great center of religious variation and experimentation; the Anglican church, much more Protestant than Henry had intended, became a kind of central national core. Though he most likely thought of himself as its preserver, Henry was really the founder of the Church of England. (Protestant Founders: King Henry VIII, 1509-1547 | The Protestant Reformation, 2011)”.
When Henry became king in 1509, the church in England was as follows: The head of the Church was the Pope, based in Rome. All church services were held in Latin, prayers were all said in Latin, and the bible was written in Latin. Priests were not allowed to marry.
By the death of Henry in 1547, the church in England was as follows : The head of the Church was the king. Church services were held in Latin, prayers were mostly said in Latin. The Lord’s Prayer was said in English. The bible was written in English. Priests were still not allowed to marry.
English Reformation did change the way the church was run throughout England. However, the death of Henry in 1547 did not see an end of the religious problems of England.
Works Cited
Protestant Founders: King Henry VIII, 1509-1547 | The Protestant Reformation. (2011). Retrieved December 1, 2011, from Big Site of History, History of Civilization: http://bigsiteofhistory.com/protestant-founders-king-henry-viii-1509-1547-the-protestant-reformation
Hanson, M. (1997). English History- Tudor England. Retrieved December 1, 2011, from http://englishhistory.net/tudor/
Household, T. R. (Ed.). (2008). English Monarchs: The Tudors: Henry VIII. Retrieved December 1, 2011, from The Official website of The British Monarchy: http://www.royal.gov.uk/HistoryoftheMonarchy/KingsandQueensofEngland/TheTudors/HenryVIII.aspx
Moorehouse, G. (2003). The Pilgrimage of Grace: The Rebellion That Shook Henry VIII 's Throne . London: Pheonix, an imprint of Orion Books Ltd, Orion House.
Rex, R. (1997). Henry VIII and his Church: History Review. Retrieved December 1, 2011, from http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000546177
Robinson, B. (2011, February 17). An Overview of the Reformation. Retrieved December 1, 2011, from BBC History: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/reformation_overview_01.shtml
Slavin, A. J. (1968). PROBLEMS IN EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION :HENRY VIII AND THE ENGLISH REFORMATION . Retrieved December 1, 2011, from http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=97615501