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HVIII - Religion - Coggle Diagram
HVIII - Religion
The King's Great Matter
By the mid-1520s, Henry was becoming dissatisfied with his marriage as Catherine had passed 'child-bearing age' and HVIII was worried that he would die without a male heir (link to dynastic security)
At this time, HVIII had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn (Niece of Thomas Howard (Duke of Norfolk)). In 1532, she became pregnant
Henry needed Wolsey to provide a papal dispensation for the annulment for his marriage. This action would thus legitimise future heirs
Henry found justification through Leviticus which contained a prohibition on a man marrying his brother's widow and thus in God's eyes, this marriage was illegal YET Catherine had said that the marriage had not been consummated and the argument presented did not apply
May 1527 - Wolsey uses his power as the personal representative of the Pope to bring HVIII in front of a fake court and accuse him of living in sin. Catherine did not accept this and appealed to the Pope in accordance to canon law
Wolsey's Solution
Scriptural Arguments - Drew up a complex line of argument based on the scriptures to justify divorce and argued that the validity of the marriage was reliant on Catherine's word on consummation
Diplomatic manoeuvres - Second line of attack on Charles V due to the fact that Charles was Catherine's nephew and thus, would not offer support for the divorce. As a result, Wolsey tried to free the pope from Charles' influence by using an alliance with France and the renewal of warfare in Italy but this failed as Charles V was too strongly entrenched in the Italian Peninsula to be evicted by France
Legal Efforts - Wolsey hoped to side-step the issue of Charles V by holding the divorce proceedings in England as he was the Papal Legate and could make the judgement. The Pope agreed to set up a commission to hear the case
The Fall of Wolsey
The Pope sent Cardinal Campeggio in 1529 in June and Campeggio delayed it so a decision would not be made. By July, the case was adjourned and Wolsey had not gained the annulment.
As a result, in Oct 1529, he was charged with praemunire and died in 1530
The 4 main factors to his downfall were:
- Failure to secure divorce
- Failure in achieving FP aims
- Boleyn faction accused Wolsey of delaying divorce
- Reputation and personal ambitions
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Why Break from Rome
the Top Down approach is taken by historians such as Pollard, Elton and Scarisbrick who believe that BWR was driven by HVIII himself
- Henry's need to increase revenue
- Henry's desire for power
- Henry's own religious conscience
- The Boleyn Faction
- The Succession
The bottom-up approach indicated that the BWR was inevitable and was driven by an increasing desire for reform brought about by abuses of the clergy. This was believed by historians such as AG Dickens
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Weaknesses of the Church
Anti-clericalism was beginning to grow and this is evidenced in the Richard Hunne Case in 1515 and Simon Fish's 'Supplication of the Beggars'
Corruption was evidently an issue with pluralism, absenteeism, simony and more. A prime example was Cardinal Wolsey who emulated all the abuses of the Church