Реферат: Henry Viii 2 Essay Research Paper Henry

praemunire they had incurred by presenting the king with the enormous

sum of 100,000 pounds. Further, they were bidden to recognize the king

as “Protector and Supreme Head of the Church of England.”

Convocation struggled desperately against the demand, and in the end

succeeded in inserting the qualification “so far as is allowed by the law of

Christ.” But this was only a brief respite. A year later Parliament under

pressure passed an edict forbidding the payment to the Holy See of

Annates or first-fruits, but the operation of it was for the present

suspended at the sovereign’s pleasure, and the king was meanwhile

solicited to come to an amicable understanding with “His Holiness” on the

subject of the divorce. The measure amounted to a decently veiled threat

to withdraw this source of income from the Holy See altogether if the

divorce was refused. Still the pope held out, and so did the queen. Only a

little time before, a deputation of lords and bishops of course by the

king’s order had visited Catherine and had rudely urged her to

withdraw the appeal in virtue of which the king, contrary to his dignity,

had been cited to appear personally at Rome; but though deprived of all

counsel, she stood firm. In the May of 1532 further pressure was brought

to bear upon Convocation, and resulted in the so-called “Submission of

the Clergy”, by which they practically renounced all right of legislation

except in dependence upon the king.

An honest man like Sir Thomas More could no longer pretend to work

with the Government, and he resigned the chancellorship, which he had

held since the fall of Wolsey. The situation was too strained to last, and

the end came through the death of Archbishop Warham in August, 1532.

In the appointment of Cranmer as his successor, the king knew that he

had secured a subservient tool who desired nothing better than to see the

papal authority overthrown. Anne Boleyn was then enceinte, and the

king, relying, no doubt, on what Cranmer when consecrated would be