Реферат: Henry Viii 2 Essay Research Paper Henry

insincere renewal of their friendship took place in June, 1520, at the

famous “Field of the Cloth of Gold”, when the most elaborate courtesies

were exchanged between the two monarchs. The prospect of this

rapprochement had so alarmed the Emperor Charles that, a month

before it took place, he visited Henry in England. In point of fact a

continuous game of intrigue was being played by all three monarchs,

which lasted until the period when Henry’s final breach with Rome led him

to turn his principal attention to domestic concerns. Meanwhile the

strength of Henry’s position at home had been much developed by

Wolsey’s judicious diplomacy, and, despite the costliness of some of

England’s demonstrations against France, before the French king became

the emperor’s prisoner at Pavia, the odium of the demand for money fell

upon the minister, while Henry retained all his popularity. Indeed,

whatever disaffection might be felt, the people had no leader to make

rebellion possible. The old nobility, partly as a result of the Wars of the

Roses, and partly owing to the repressive policy dictated by the dynastic

fears of Henry VII, had been reduced to impotence. In 1521 the most

prominent noble in England, the Duke of Buckingham, was condemned to

death for high treason by a subservient House of Peers, simply because

the king suspected him of aiming at the succession and had determined

that he must die. At the same period Henry’s prestige in the eyes of the

clergy, and not the clergy only, was strengthened by his famous book, the

Assertio Septem Sacramentorum. This book was written against Luther

and in vindication of the Church’s dogmatic teaching regarding the

sacraments and the Sacrifice of the Mass, while the supremacy of the

papacy is also insisted upon in unequivocal terms. There is no reason to

doubt that the substance of the book was really Henry’s. Pope Leo X

was highly pleased with it and conferred upon the king the title of Fidei

Defensor (Defender of the Faith), which is maintained to this day as part