What was the Religious Policy of Henry VIII of England?

The first half of the sixteenth century witnessed in Europe the beginning of a great religious movement, which was known as Reformation.

This movement started as a protest against the abuses in the Roman Catholic Church. Since they protested, the followers of this movement were called the Protestants.

The period preceding this movement was one of moral and spiritual decay in the life and conduct of the Pope and the clergy, The Popes lived like kings of the earth, neglecting their spiritual mission the clergy grew corrupt, worldly and ostentatious the Roman Catholic Church became a centre of absolute corruption and lastly the monasteries became the places of debaucheay and nefarious practices.

The monastic system in the great part of Europe including England was full of explosives, only waiting for a spark and the spark came from one Martin Luther, a Professor of Germany.

The Reformation in England:

A spark from Germany being carried in the wave reached England and kindled new spirits in the minds of her scholars to start a similar movement against the monastic evils.

The famous among them were Thomas moire, Colet and Erasmus. They tried to bring Reformation but could make little progress in the real task.

It was Henry VII who took up the cause and made a substantial progress of the Reformation in England by bringing a breach with the Pope of Rome.

In the beginning, Henry VII was unsympathetic for the Reformation as he had no quarrel with the papacy, on the other hand when Luther denounoed the Pope, Henry in the defence of the Pope wrote a book, called The Defence of the seven sacraments.

Even all his early letters had been headed, In Jesus is my hope! So Pope awarded him the crown of glory by giving him the tide ‘Fidei Defensor’ (Defender of the Faith) but there came a turn in the tide.

The loyal supporter Henry VIII became a fierce opponent of Pope. Ultimately he caused England’s breach with Rome. The causes of such breach were more political than religious.

Causes of Breach with Rome:

The main cause that led to Henry VIII is quarrel with Pope was his desire to divorce his queen Catherine. Behind this divorce there lay two political reasons besides the superstition and passion which contributed no less co the breach.

First, Henry VIII’s queen Catherine was a Spanish princess and in the 16th century royal marriages acted as powerful force in cementing alliances’ between states.

But at one time political necessity demanded Henry to make an alliance with France and for this the wanted to get rid of his Spanish wife.

Secondly, Henry desired very much a son to succeed him. Within five years of his marriage, his wife gave birth to five children but to his misfortune rone of them survived beyond two months when in February, 1519 she gave birth to her only normal healthy child, it chanced to be a female-the princes Mary.

The birth of the princess Mary was followed by further mis carriages. At last it became evident that no more the queen could give birth to male child and Henry would die without a male issue. A female was no heir as no woman had ever sat on the English throne.

It was also doubtful whether the nation would accept her, Rightly Henry realised that a king without an heir was a just a kingdom without a king and without a king the kingdom would go to ruins.

So he had to move mountains to get a son. Moreover a superstitious belief entered into his mind. He came to believe that God had been offended as he had married his brother’s widow. For all these reasons, Henry’s mind turned in to consideration of a fresh marriage.

Mean while he fell in love with a young lady of the Court named Anne Boleyn-a Lark-eyed and accomplished girl in whom he found the chance to get a male child. To win the hands of Anne, he had to get rid of Catherine first.

What one Pope had done, only another Pope could undo. Henry’s marriage with his brother’s widow Catherine was performed only when the Pope had sanctioned a Papal dispensation to that effect.

He therefore appealed now to the Pope Clement VII to declare his marriage with a widow illegal and allow him to divorce her.

The Pope hesitated to do so as there were some positive difficulties. First the Roman Catholic Church never allowed a divorce. Secondly, by doing so he would elicit no, sympathy of the common people in London as they would not like a frivolous woman raised to be a queen at the expense of a lady who was of pious, virtuous and spotless character, Thirdly, Catherine was the acent of the Spanish Emperor Charles V, and the Pope at this time was politically in the pocket of the Spanish emperor.

At the same time the Pope did not wish to offend a powerful king, like Henry-VIII. In order to satisfy both the parties and postpone the decision for some­time he asked Wolselay and Campeggio to form a commission and try the case in a Court of England.

Its verdict was expected to come in July but, at the end of that month, the sitting was adjourned for two months more. After two months the Pope then recalled the case to Rome. Henry’s anger knew no bound. He felt that he had been duped and his own Minister Wolsey had been unable to do anything for him.

So Wolsey became the first victim of his anger. He was dismissed from his, service in 1529 and in his place was appointed Sir Thomas Moie. He issued him a writ to convene a Parliament and it was summoned in November, 1529.

Thus, the divorce project sprang from a mixture of policy and passion; the religious question had nothing to do with it. Ha decided to fight with the Pope not to convert England to a land of Protestants but to obtain a wife and perhaps a son he so body wanted.

Reformation Parliament:

A politician as he was, Henry VIII Wanted to do everything in the name of the parliament. For Seven Years (1529 to 1336) the Parliament known as Reformation Parlia­ment sat and in eight sessions it passed a number of acts which completed the breach with Rome, utterly destroyed the monasteries and established the supremacy of the king over the Church of England.

First, the Parliament proceeded to attack the Church, clergy and the bishops of England. It said that if Pope lived like kings the clergy and bishops lived like princes.

They were in the habit of extracting money from the people, in the form of burial and marriage fees. They collected burial fees when a dead body was carried through a Parish, marriage fees when a person got married. Further, a few clergy held more than office and those were called the ‘pluralities’. Alt those Henry prohibited by acts.

The clergy who acknowledged Wolsey as Papal Legate were punished and the Parliament given to them was nothing less than the confis­cation of their wealth.

All the Church properties were also confiscated. So the clergy cried, “The commons seen the goods, not the good of the Churches. “All those measures aimed at terrorising the clergy who would put indirect pressure on the Pope to grant the divorce. But the Pope still remained firm and turned a deaf ear to Henry’s demands.

Hence in 1532 another session of Parliament met to destroy the papal power in England by circumscribing his benefits. Hither to a custom was in vogue that the newly, appointed bishops would pay the annates-their first years income to the Pope.

To stop this custom the Act of Annates was passed The- bishops were forbidden to pay their Annates to the Pope; hat these payments were to be made to the king Farther another payment known as Peter’s Pence was also forbidden to be paid to the Pope. Here after any bishop to be found making such payments would forfeit his land and goods to the king.

At this stage even the Pope took not steps to pronounce Henry’s marriage with Catherine illegal. Meanwhile Anne Boleyn was with child order to declare the child as a legal one, the marriage must be solemnised quickly without waiting for Pope’s consent Then Thomas Cramer was appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury and he was asked to collect judge­ment of different Universities, Oxford and Cambridge Universities upheld Henry’s view.

On that basis in June 1533 the marriage with Anne Boleyn was celebrated and she became the crowned queen of England. Three months later she gave birth to a child.

It was a girl and she was called Elizabeth Henry did not get a son he longed for. But this did not prevent him from continuing his old policy.

In 1533 Act of Appeals was passed. All appeals is matters of will, marriage and divorce from the religious courts of England to the court of Rome were for bidden. Further the bishops here after were to be elected from among the persons nominated by the king. “So the Pope’s authority was set at naught.

Hereafter all church ordinances were to be made by the king’s consent. Further by a Royal succession, Act, the marriage with Catherine was declared illegal and consequently her daughter Mary was deprived of her succession to the throne of England.

But after doing all this, the Pope remained firm in his decision. Instead of lying low he prepared a Bull of Excommunication against. Henry VIII.

He proclaimed that the marriage with Catherine was valid and with that of Anne Boleyn illegal. Henry was not the man to leave the matter at rest.

He boldly issued a Royal Proclamation, ordering the abolition all prayer books in which the name of the Pope was mentioned. Further safeguard the Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy in 1534, declaring the king to be “Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England.

The king declared, “This earth of England is an Empire, whose king was appointed by God and is not responsible to any foreign princes of potentates of the world”. Finally he passed a Treason Act which declared that anybody who called the king a tyrant, heretic on infidel would meet the consequences of death penalty.

In the last session of Parliament, king’s attention was turned to the suppression of the small monasteries, the last possible strongholds of papal power in England. Of course most of those monasteries richly deserved suppression. Outliving the usefulness they had grown rich and decayed.

The monasteries were then the centers of idleness and vice yet he could not begin the task unless come pretext could be round to justify his action. He asked Thomas Cromwell, known as “Hammer of the Monks”, to set up a commission to gather of possible to fabri­cate enough of scandals.

Their report was all scandalous. On the strength of their report as many as 376 monasteries, whose income was less than 200 were dissolved.

He did not destroy greater monasteries as it might give rise to violent opposition. With this last blow delivered, the Reformation Parliament came to an end the breach of England with Rome was complete.

Thus, Henry waged a sort of cold war against Pope. The Reformation that he championed was a political movement in a religious guise.

He destroyed the Pope, but not popery. He did not become a protestant. Even did he not allow any Englishman to become a protestant?

This can be known from the stature of six Articles which was enacted to stop the rising tide of Reformation. It enumerated six points of catholic doctrine and practice which everyone was to follow and severe penalties were prescribed against all who refused to abide by the six Articles.

He executed many Protestants for refusing to follow the statue. Thus Henry had been brought up in Catholic faith, fully believed it and held it till his death. ‘He died, “says G. W, Southgate, as he had lived a Catholic”. At this death, the English church was found to be Catholic.

Results of His Religious Policy:

The religious policy of Henry VIII brought for him and for England consequences of far-ranging importance.

First, the ecclesiastical independence of England was secured when Henry VIII disregarded the authority of the Pope. The king and not the Pope became the head of the church in his reign.

Secondly, his religious policy raised the power and position of crown to a height unparallel before or after in English history. The king, seizing for him all the Papal powers and enormous church properties, could command enough of influence in Europe.

Thirdly, many saintly bishops, great scholars, avowed monks who refuted to accept the Act of supremacy were hanged r or left to die in chains.

Fourthly, the dissolution of smaller monasteries aroused wide spread discontent in Northern England. In 1536 under the leadership of Robert Aske, the people started an agitation.

It was known as the pilgrimage of Grace. Their motto was “One God, One Faith is One King.” The rebellion was ruthlessly suppressed; the leaders including Aske were hunted down. By the middle of 1537, the pilgrimage of Grace was no more than a memory. The failure of the agitation led to the dissolution of the greater monasteries.

But the effect of the dissolution on economic life was disastrous. All the monasteries were not corrupt. Many of them used to give charitable relief to the poor and the destitutes. And now they were deprived of their maintenance.

Many persons, including monks, were turned out on the roads to beg, steal or die Henery by suppressing the monasteries wanted to cut a cancer bat in doing so he destroyed many living cells.

On the other hand, the wealth Henry received from the monasteries was spent on education, building, defence and strengthening the royal navy.

Lastly, an important step was taken in the translation of the Bible. The old copes of Tyndale’s version of the Bible were destroyed and new translation made by Miles coverdale was followed.