Реферат: Henry Viii 2 Essay Research Paper Henry

England and the compulsion to which she was subjected, had many

important results. First among these we must count the disgrace and fall

of Wolsey, hitherto the only real check upon Henry’s wilfulness. The

incredible meanness of the praemunire, and consequent confiscation,

which the cardinal was pronounced to have incurred for obtaining the

cardinalate and legateship from Rome though of course this had been

done with the king’s full knowledge and consent would alone suffice to

stamp Henry as one of the basest of mankind. But, secondly, we may

trace to this same crisis the rise of both Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell,

the two great architects of Henry’s new policy. It was Cranmer who, in

the autumn of 1529, made the momentous suggestion that the king should

consult the universities of Europe upon the question of the nullity of his

marriage, a suggestion which at once brought its author into favour.

The project was carried out as soon as possible with a lavish expenditure

of bribes, and the use of other means of pressure. The result was naturally

highly favourable to the king’s wishes, though the universities which lay

within the dominions of Charles V were not consulted. The answers were

submitted to Parliament, where the king still kept the pretense of having

no personal interest in the matter. He professed to be suffering from

scruples of conscience, now rendered more acute by such a weight of

learned opinion. With the same astuteness he persuaded the leading

nobility of the kingdom to write to the pope praying him to give sentence

in Henry’s favour for fear that worse might follow. All this drew the king

into closer relations with Cranmer, who was made ambassador to the

emperor, and who, a year or two afterwards, despite the fact that he had

just married Osiander’s niece (his second wife), was summoned home to

become Archbishop of Canterbury. The necessary Bulls and the pallium

were obtained from Rome under threat that the law (referred to again

below) for the abolition of annates and first-fruits would be made