Henry VIII (left) with Pope Leo X (centre) and Emperor Charles V of Holy Roman Empire (right); painting by unknown artist c. 1520
King Henry VIII and Queen Catherine of Aragon
Two days after his coronation, Henry arrested his father's two most unpopular ministers, Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley. They were charged with high treason and were executed in 1510. Politically motivated executions would remain one of Henry's primary tactics for dealing with those who stood in his way. Henry returned some of the money supposedly extorted by the two ministers. By contrast, Henry's view of the House of York – potential rival claimants for the throne – was more moderate than his father's had been. Several who had been imprisoned by his father, including Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset, were pardoned. Others went unreconciled; Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk was eventually beheaded in 1513, an execution prompted by his brother Richard siding against the King.
Soon after marrying Henry, Catherine conceived. She gave birth to a stillborn girl on 31 January 1510. About four months later, Catherine again became pregnant. On 1 January 1511, New Year's Day, a son Henry was born. After the grief of losing their first child, the couple were pleased to have a boy and festivities were held, including a two-day joust known as the Westminster Tournament. However, the child died seven weeks later. Catherine had two stillborn sons in 1513 and 1515, but gave birth in February 1516 to a girl, Mary. Relations between Henry and Catherine had been strained, but they eased slightly after Mary's birth.
Henry himself, at least in the early part of his reign, was a devout and well-informed Catholic to the extent that his 1521 publication Assertio Septem Sacramentorum ("Defence of the Seven Sacraments") earned him the title of Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith) from Pope Leo X.
However, because Henry VIII was impatient with his power and his male descendants who would become King, Henry sometimes missed his own Catholic Faith by falling into sexual sin.
He also became blind to everything except his love for Anne Boleyn, a famous Prostitute who was the sister of Mary Boleyn, the assistant of Queen Catherine of Aragon herself. So he began to distance himself greatly from his wife, Queen Katherine, even though the Queen had been married to him for twenty-five years.
It should be noted, Anne Boleyn was an apostate and a Heretic, because she had secretly left the Catholic Church and followed Luther's disgusting Sola Fide teachings even when she became a Lutheran, Anne Boleyn was known to live as harlot.
Church of England had been fallen into Schism
Evil and Wicked Cardinal, Thomas Wolsey
It is from here that you will hear how the Church of England fell into the Heresy known as the Anglican Heresy. The misfortune of England at that time occurred because the country was almost ruled by a wicked and evil Catholic Cardinal, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. He was a man born into a lowly society, but his unusual behavior won him the favor of Henry VIII, so that he was not only appointed to the Archbishopric of York, but also appointed Lord Chancellor of the kingdom, and as a Cardinal.
Wolsey was a man of flattery, and he was also a man of no principle. When he saw that the King, disgusted with his Queen Catherine, was advising him to divorce, he raised his doubts (as the King had them), and told him that the marriage could never have taken place because Katherine was his brother's wife. This refusal, however, was illogical, for Henry had a dispensation from the Pope to marry Katherine; the case had been thoroughly examined at Rome, and the impediment which had existed before was not imposed by Divine Law, but by Canon Law alone.
" And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death. Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother's wife and married with her until perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” 9 But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So whenever he went in to his brother's wife he would waste the semen on the ground, so as not to give offspring to his brother. And what he did was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death also. Then Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father's house, till Shelah my son grows up and married with you”—for he feared that he would die, like his brothers. So Tamar went and remained in her father's house. " (Genesis 38:6-11)
And in the Mosaic Law , there is a principle that requires a younger brother to marry the widow of his older brother, if his brother dies without leaving children :
“If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband's brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. And if the man does not wish to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband's brother refuses to perpetuate his brother's name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband's brother to me.’ Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him, and if he persists, saying, ‘I do not wish to take her,’ then his brother's wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face. And she shall answer and say, ‘So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house.’ And the name of his house shall be called in Israel, ‘The house of him who had his sandal pulled off'." ( Deuteronomy 25:6-10)
Thus, a thing which was not only permitted, but commanded by the Old Law, could not possibly be contrary to the law of nature. Nor can the prohibition of Leviticus 18:16 be taken into account, since it applies only to the case where the deceased brother has left children, and not, as in the former case, where the brother dies childless, and therefore the younger brother is commanded to marry the widow, that the name of his deceased brother may not be lost in Israel. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the dispensation of the Pope for the marriage of Henry was valid. Bossuet, in his History of the Variations, says that Henry had consulted the Sorbonne as to the validity of his marriage. Forty-five Doctors gave their opinion that the marriage was valid, and fifty-three the contrary. But Molineaux says that the opinion was bought. Henry even wrote to the Lutheran Doctors in Germany, but Melancthon, who had consulted others, answered him that the law forbidding a man to marry his brother's wife was dispensable, and that his marriage to Catherine was therefore valid. This answer greatly displeased Henry, so he held to Wolsey's opinion, and determined to marry Anne Boleyn. Some say that from the age of fifteen Anne had been of a bad disposition, and that during her stay in France her conduct was so depraved that she was called by an indecent name.
Anne Boleyn the Lutheran Harlot with black cat
Henry wished to marry this evil woman. He sent his envoy to Rome to ask the Pope to appoint Cardinal Campeggio and Cardinal Wolsey to judge the divorce case. The Pope agreed, but the Queen [Catherine] appealed against that Cardinals as judges: one of them was a subject of the King, and the other had a duty to the King. Despite the Queen's appeal, the case was tried in England.
Henry with hurry to have the case decided, and he was sure that he would obtain a favourable result for himself, since Wolsey was one of the judges. But Wolsey, the principal proponent of the case, now feared the trouble he had caused, which was a sign of the ruin of religion. So he and Campeggio did everything they could to avoid making a decision, for they saw the terrible scandal they would create if they gave a decision in favour of the King, and feared the King's wrath if they gave a decision against him. The Pope acknowledged the truth of the appeal made by Queen Catherine, and forbade the Cardinals who were Legates to take any further steps in the case. The Pope transferred the case to his own court. Henry then sent Cranmer to Rome to look after his interests. Thomas Cranmer was a Catholic priest who graduated from Jesus College Seminary in Cambridge, When Cardinal Wolsey, the King's Lord Chancellor, selected several Cambridge scholars, including Edward Lee, Stephen Gardiner and Richard Sampson, to be diplomats throughout Europe, Cranmer was chosen for an embassy to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. His supposed participation in an earlier embassy to Spain mentioned in the older literature, has proved to be spurious. He was a dissolute man, and after that he had personally embraced the Lutheran doctrines during his life when Anne Boleyn was declared as Queen publicly. Cranmer was also indebted to Anne Boleyn for the King's kindness to her. Henry likewise endeavoured to entice Reginal Pole and Thomas More to his cause; but these men were too pious to submit to him. To frighten the Pope into complying with his wishes, Henry forbade, under the greatest penalties, all his subjects to give their support to Rome, without first obtaining his consent.
God now used Henry as an instrument to punish Wolsey for his crimes. The king was angry with Wolsey, because Wolsey had not hastened to make a decision in his favor. Henry therefore deposed Wolsey from the Bishopric of Winchester (though this is doubtful), and from his Chancellorship, and exiled him to the See of York. Wolsey lived for a time at Cawood, in Yorkshire, and made himself very popular in that neighbourhood by his extraordinary hospitality. Henry gave orders for his arrest, and ordered Wolsey to be taken to London, but he suffered so much on the journey, in body and mind, that, before he arrived, he died at Leicester in December 1530. A report was sent abroad that he had poisoned himself, but the truth was that when he learned that he was accused of high treason, his heart broke. “If I had served God,” he said, “as faithfully as I serve the King, he would not have delivered me up when I am old.”
Thomas Cranmer, who was Catholic Priest before knew Anne Boleyn the Harlot, but he was renowned for introducing the vernacular language for English Mass on England Church's Liturgy from Latin to English on 1520 when he was newly ordained as Catholic Priest by John Alcock the Bishop of Ely.
Meanwhile, Cranmer wrote from Rome that it was impossible for him to get an Agreement from Pope to the divorce or annulment, so he was recalled by Henry, and went to Germany, where he married either a sister or a niece of Osiander. When William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, died, Cranmer was appointed to the See, but on the express condition that he should do what the Pope refused to do: pronounce a divorce between Henry and Catherine.
When Henry found that the prelates of the kingdom were in favour of Catherine, he determined to punish some of them, and to punish them with praemunire [a law forbidding one to assert the jurisdiction/supremacy of the Pope over the King of England] on the charge that they favoured the Papal Legation rather than the King's power. The clergy were afraid of this policy, and as they had no one else to turn to, they offered the King 400,000 crowns to compromise on the matter, and to recognise his sovereign power over the clergy and the laity. Thomas More, seeing that the ruin of England was imminent, resigned his office as Chancellor of the King, who accepted his resignation, and appointed Thomas Audley, a man of no means, to succeed him. When Pope Clement VII saw the imminent danger to the kingdom from the King's love for Anne Boleyn, the Harlot who seduced King, he tried to save England by forbidding Henry, under Excommunication Law, to legalized new marriage to Anne Boleyn until the problem divorce was finished.
Pope Clement VII outlawed Henry VIII to marry with Anne Boleyn, the Lutheran Harlot under Excommunication and gave statement to Henry VIII if their marriage was Invalid and Null, Pope Clement VII supported Catherine of Aragon.
This prohibition only further irritated Henry, and in his resentment of the Pope's advice and punishment, he married Anne Boleyn in secret, before dawn in December 1532, after creating her Countess of Pembroke. Roland Lee was the Catholic priest who performed the ceremony, and some believe that Henry deceived Roland Lee, saying that he had the Pope's permission to remarry. Thomas Cromwell, with the support of the invalid Queen named Anne Boleyn, now had the highest office. He had been consecrated by Archbishop John Longland in 1533 as a Bishop (noted: that the form of the episcopacy consecration in Church of England had not been changed before the decree of King Edward VI, So Cranmer was Bishop validly), was a man of great cunning, of unbounded ambition, and a secret Lutheran. Henry made him Knight of the Garter, Treasurer of the Crown, Keeper of the Privy Seal, and made him Vicar-General for Church Affairs, which he handled at his pleasure, along with Archbishop Cranmer and Chancellor Audley. He required the priests to take an oath of obedience in spiritual matters to the King, and to obey him as they had formerly obeyed the Pope. Every means was used to induce John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, to take this oath. At first he refused, but at last he consented, adding as a condition, “as far as it is not contrary to the Divine Word.” When this pillar of the Church was fallen, it was not difficult to get the other priests to take the oath. Cranmer was now ready to fulfill his part of the agreement he had made with Henry; thus he declared Henry’s marriage to Catherine contrary to Divine law, and declared Henry free to marry any other woman, but we have seen that Henry had already married his mistress, Anne Boleyn, on April 13, 1533.
Pope Clement VII now saw that it was no longer useful to take a soft course. He determined to act with the utmost severity. Thus he declared Henry’s marriage to Anne as invalid; his descendants, present and future, illegitimate; and restored the conjugal and royal rights of Queen Catherine. He likewise declared Henry excommunicated for his disobedience to the Holy See, but this sentence was not carried out for a month, to give him time to repent. Not only did Henry not seem to change a bit, he forbade, under the strictest penalty, anyone to confer the title of Queen on Catherine, or to name Mary [his daughter by Catherine] as heir to the kingdom, although she had been declared so by the common people. Henry declared Mary, his daughter as illegitimate, and made her live with her mother Catherine, giving her a fixed place to live, and employing spies or guards, instead of servants for them.
Bishop John Longland (portraited on Movie), Regarding the episcopacy consecration received by Cranmer from the rite given by Bishop John Longland, it should be noted that Bishop John Longland, although he helped Cardinal Wolsey in his stating that Henry and Catherine's marriage could be annuled, John Longland was a Bishop who fiercely defended the theology of Roman Catholic Transubstantiation where the Bread and Wine when the words of consecration were spoken, became the Body and Blood of Christ really. Bishop John Longland also refuted Cranmer's heretical theology which followed Luther's way of thinking. So Bishop John Longland had a smaller mistake than Cranmer because he only supported Henry VIII's Supremacy for Church of England and he rejected Papal Supremacy, but regarding theology and the Eucharist, Bishop John Longland's views was widely embraced by Henry VIII and many Anglo-Catholics.
Meanwhile, Anne Boleyn gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, born on September 7, seven months after her marriage. Henry continued his persecution of the Catholics by imprisoning Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas More, and two hundred Observant Friars of the Order of St. Francis; and in the parliament held on November 3, 1534, he passed a bill, which was passed in both houses, declaring Mary, daughter of Catherine, to be exempt from the succession to the kingdom, and recognizing Elizabeth, daughter of Anne, as heir to the throne. At the same time the power of the Pope in England and Ireland was denied, and any who professed a belief in the primacy of the Holy See was declared a rebel. Henry assumed a power over the bishops of the kingdom greater than the Pope had ever possessed, for he gave them power as if they were secular magistrates, only until he wished to revoke it, and only by his power were they permitted to ordain priests or to issue sentences. Finally, the King was decreed supreme head of the Church of England; that only he can quell heresy and correct abuses, and only he has the right to receive tithes and the first fruits. The Pope's name was removed from the Liturgy, and from among the supplications in the Litany the following sacrilegious sentence was added: “From the oppression and detestable cruelty of the Bishop of Rome, save us, O Lord.”
Henry knew that this assumption of his primacy was condemned not only by Catholics, but even by Luther and Calvin, so he gave orders that this primacy be defended by theologians in their writings, and many people obeyed this order – some willingly, and others were forced to do so. Henry desired that his brother, Reginald Pole, publish something in his favor, but not only did he strongly refuse to abuse his pen for such a purpose, but he also wrote four books, “De Unione Ecclesiastica”, in opposition to Henry's professed rights. His work so provoked the despotic King that the King declared him guilty of high treason, and a traitor to his own country. Henry tried to kill him, and when he could not fulfill his wish, he executed Reginald Pole's mother, brother, and uncle.
The noble family was almost destroyed and fell apart. For the same reason, Henry began the most terrible persecution of the Friars, especially the Franciscans, Carthusians, and Brigittines. Many of them he put to death, besides Bishop Fisher and Thomas More, whom he put to death in 1534. While Bishop Fisher was in prison, he was made a Cardinal by Pope Paul III.
When Henry heard of this, he immediately had him executed. As for this holy bishop, when he was led to the place of execution, Henry wore the best clothes he could find, because, he said, it was his wedding day. Because of his old age and the sufferings of his imprisonment, Bishop Fisher was so weak that he cried out: "O my feet, do your duty, the road you have to take is short to carry me." As he ascended the dais to be executed, he asked a man near him to help him up the steps; “But when I come down, my friend,” he said, “I shall need no one to help me.” On the dais he protested to the crowd that he was dying for the Catholic Faith. He uttered the Miserere, and laid down his head. His execution caused mourning throughout England.
St. Thomas More was beheaded on 6 July 1535 and St. John Fisher was beheaded on 22 June 1535 in Tower Hill, London, By Henry VIII order. They were canonized as saints by Pope Pius XI on 19 May 1935 as representatives of the many Catholic martyrs of England. The two martyrs share a common feast day on 22 June in the current General Roman Calendar of the Catholic Church.
When Pope Paul III, successor to Pope Clement VII, heard of the development of the matter, he summoned Henry and all his accomplices to his court, and in case of obstinacy, condemned him to excommunication, but this was not published at the time, because there seemed to be some hope that he would change his ways. But all was in vain, and day by day he only involved himself in more and more crimes. Now, as head of the Church of England, he ordered Thomas Cromwell, a layman, to visit the monasteries (male and female) under his authority, to expel all monks who were not yet twenty-four years of age, and to leave the others free to go or to remain, as they pleased.
Thomas Cromwell, Ancestor of Oliver Cromwell who revolted against King Charles I
About Thomas Cromwell before Anglican Schism,
In 1517–1518 he travelled to Rome,
this time to gain Pope Leo X's approval for plenary Indulgence to be given by the St Mary's Guild, Boston as part of a thriving trade. Thomas Cromwell was a devout Catholic on his early life, he venerated his life to many saint. During this lengthy trip, Cromwell studied in detail
Erasmus's new
edition of the gospels.
His reading made him, for the first time, doubt the legitimacy of the practice he was advocating.
The persecutions inflicted by King Henry VIII on the Catholic Monks in England caused tens of thousands of religious to return to the world. About the same time, Queen Catherine of Aragon died; she had always borne her sufferings with the greatest patience, and, not long before her death, wrote to the King words that would have melted the hardest heart.
The vengeance of the Almighty now awaited Anne Boleyn, the barbarous whore who had caused so much suffering and misery. Henry's affection for her had now waned, especially when he fell in love with one of his courtiers, Jane Seymour. Anne still had hopes of winning back Henry's affection by giving him a male heir, but in this she failed: her child died at birth. Then her misfortunes began; she was accused of incest with her brother, George Boleyn, and of lewd and lustful conversation with four other men at Court. At first time, Henry refused to believe the accusations, but his malice increased, and his love for Jane Seymour influenced Anne's downfall. Henry promptly confined Anne in the Tower. Bossuet tells us that Henry ordered Thomas Cranmer to declare at this time that his marriage to Anne was invalid from the beginning, and Elizabeth, his daughter, illegitimate, because Anne had married Henry in the lifetime of Lord Percy, who was then Earl of Northumberland. It was said that there was a marriage contract between Lord Percy and Anne. But this was baseless; there was no promise between them; the only basis for the statement was that at one time, Percy had been very anxious to marry her. For all this, Anne was condemned to death on a charge of adultery, and the sentence was that she should be burned or beheaded, at the pleasure of the King.
Anne Boleyn was beheaded on 19 May 1536 in Tower of Hill, London, as a Lutheran Heretic, her contrition was rejected by The Almighty God, and was sent to Hell.
Henry VIII convoked Parliament again on June 7, 1536, and repealed the law in favour of Elizabeth, and excluded Mary, daughter of Queen Catherine; and set forth six Articles for the regulation of religious affairs in the kingdom. The first Article was, that the Transubstantiation of bread into the body of Christ in the Eucharist was an article of Faith. The second—that Communion should be given of one kind. The third—that the celibacy of the priesthood should be observed. The fourth—that the vow of chastity was binding. The fifth—that the celebration of the Mass was in harmony with the Divine law, and that private Masses were not only useful, but necessary. The sixth—that auricular confession should be strictly practised. All these Articles were confirmed by the King, and the two councils, and the penalties imposed on heretics were applied to all who believed or taught contrary doctrines. The King's supremacy, however, was still embraced, so that Henry, was using his new powers, appointed Thomas Cromwell, though a layman, as Vicar-General for Spiritual Affairs for the whole kingdom, and ordered him to preside over all the Synods of the bishops, So Pope can't regulate rules of Church of England, and 6 Articles was held with exception for Papal Supremacy. When Pope Paul III heard of all these ignominious attempts against the integrity of the faith, and especially of the affair of St. Thomas of Canterbury, who was tried and condemned as a traitor to his country, and whose sacred body was taken from the tomb, burned, and the ashes cast into the Thames, the Pope issued a Brief on 1 January 1538 ordering the sentence which had been previously executed upon Henry to be published. This, however, was postponed on account of the sad death of Queen Jane, who died in childbirth, leaving Henry a successor, who afterwards became Edward VI.
Queen Jane Seymour with her son, King Edward VI
Pope Paul III and Cardinal Reginald Pole
After the death of Jane Seymour, Henry immediately sought his fourth wife, Pope Paul III, was hoping to restore to him a sense of responsibility, wrote the information to him of the sentence of excommunication hanging over his head, which he did not announce, as he still had hopes that he would be reconciled with the Church; at the same time, he created Reginald Pole a Cardinal, and sent him to France as his Ambassador, so that he could attempt to arrange a marriage between Henry and Margaret, daughter of the Catholic King Francis I of France.
Cardinal Pole, even though his family was killed by Henry VIII, with great sincerity and patience, without any grudge in his heart, still wanted to convert Henry VIII to return to the bosom of the Catholic Church, but the result was still a failure and very sad.
So Cardinal Pole came to France, and arranged the matter with Francis, but Henry would not agree, and wrote to Francis that Pole was a rebel, and required Francis I to deliver Pole to him. This was refused by King Francis I. King Francis I informed the Cardinal of the danger he was in, and by his advice Cardinal Pole left France but was kept under strict guard by French troops from the spies of King Henry VIII. Henry VIII failed to take his revenge, and declared that the King would have him with a reward of fifty thousand crowns for the person who would deliver Cardinal Pole to him.
Anne of Cleves
Thomas Cromwell now thought it a good opportunity to influence the King to take the wife he suggested, and to convert him to his own religion, the Lutheran religion. He then proposed to him a wife, Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, head of one of the noblest families in Germany, sister of the Electress of Saxony. Anne had many good qualities, which made her worthy of the crown. But unfortunately she was a Lutheran, and her connections were with the leaders of the Smalcald League. Henry was very anxious to join the League, but the Lutherans distrusted him, and he imagined that by marrying a Lutheran Princess he would remove all the difficulties he had in joining the League.
The marriage took place on the 3rd of January, 1540, and was much to Henry's delight. Cromwell was made Lord Chancellor to her, and Earl of Essex. Henry had been married only seven months, and as usual he publicly declared himself dissatisfied with his Queen, especially because she was a heretic, as if she could be called a Catholic. He now fell in love with Catherine Howard, niece of the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England, one of Anne's courtiers. And as Henry could see no possibility of winning her affections unless he married her, he asked Cromwell to again assist him in obtaining a divorce from Anne of Cleves. Cromwell had had his good fortune with the Queen; he feared that a divorce would bring him down, and endeavoured to prevent it. Henry was irritated by Cromwell's resistance, and looked for a way to destroy him. He soon found it. The heads of the Protestant League sent ambassadors to London to effect the alliance he had so ardently desired, but as he was now determined to divorce Anne, he no longer wished to enter into an alliance with the Lutherans, and refused to enter into an agreement with the ambassadors. Cromwell, however, decided to sign the agreement. Some say that Henry knew of this act of Cromwell, but this is denied by others; but this matter was the beginning of Cromwell's misery. For when the Emperor loudly complained of the alliance, Henry swore that he had no knowledge of it. He then called Cromwell to him, and in the presence of many of the nobles, publicly accused him of signing a treaty for which he had no power. Henry then ordered him to be brought to the Tower. Cromwell begged for a public trial, to give him an opportunity to justify his conduct in the matter. But, besides this charge, he was accused of other crimes: heresy, embezzlement, and the imposition of illegal ordinances. Cromwell, who had caused so many Catholics to be punished without trial, was himself condemned by the just judgment of the Almighty. He was condemned and beheaded, and his property was confiscated. Henry then told the Queen that if she did not consent to a divorce, he would execute the law against the heretics of the Lutheran League who had just come as delegates to enforce it against them and against the Queen herself, since she was a Lutheran. Fearing the fate that awaited her, and Henry's notorious cruelty, and because she wished to avoid the shame that would befall her if she were publicly removed, the Queen is reported to have confessed that before her marriage to the King, she had been promised to marry another. So Thomas Cranmer, who had given the decree of divorce in the cases of Catherine and Anne Boleyn, then, for the third time, gave a similar decree. The decision was based on the greatest injustice; for the marriage contract between Anne and the Duke of Lorraine, on which it was based, had been made when they were both children, and had never been ratified. How, then, could Henry's solemn marriage be affected by this? But Cranmer—whom Burnet compares with St. Athanasius and St. Cyril—decided that the marriage of the King and Queen was null and void, merely to please Henry, who immediately married another woman. Queen Anne received a pension of £3,000 annually, but she never returned to Germany again.
Catherine Howard, the Lutheran woman who was like Anne Boleyn, as a Harlot and hypersex.
Within a week, Henry married Catherine Howard, who soon met the same fate as Anne Boleyn. She was accused before Parliament of having committed lewd acts with two individuals before her marriage, and of adultery afterward, and was sentenced to be beheaded.
Henry then passed an unprecedented law, making it high treason for a lady to marry the King if she had previously broken her chastity. Henry then married Catherine Parr, sister of the Earl of Essex; Catherine Parr lived until after Henry's death.
Anne Boleyn also had the added benefit of her connection to the hated Howard family being underlined, following her death, by her own markedly Protestant faith, which stood in contrast to that of the staunchly Catholic House of Howard. (While Catherine Howard herself was Protestant as well, she was not the one remembered for having been the cause of the Anglican Reformation.) The Howard family’s Catholicism made it unpopular, especially with the King.
About Catherine Parr, She
was the final queen consort of the House of Tudor, and outlived Henry by a year and eight months. With four husbands, she is the most-married English queen. She was the first woman to publish in print an original work under her own name in England in the English language.Catherine enjoyed a close relationship with Henry's three children, Mary, Elizabeth and Edward. She was personally involved in the education of Elizabeth and Edward. She was influential in Henry's passing of the Third Succession Act in 1543 that restored his daughters Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession to the throne.
Henry Face was swollen and fulfilled with ulcer on his face as damnation by The Holy Trinity
Death, at last for him, was to put an end to Henry's crimes. At fifty-seven years of age, his body had become so swollen that he could hardly pass through the door of his palace, and had to be carried up and down the stairs by his servants. Deep sorrow and remorse seized him; all the crimes, sacrileges, and scandals he had committed now stared him in the face.
To establish his ignoble doctrine of his primacy over the whole Church of England, he had murdered two cardinals, three archbishops, eighteen bishops and archdeacons, five hundred priests, sixty superiors of religious houses, fifty canons, twenty-nine peers, three hundred and sixty-six knights, and a great number of the gentry and people. An ulcer in one of his legs, and a fever, gave him clear indications that his death was near, and some writers say that he spoke to several bishops of his desire to be reconciled to the Church, but none of them dared to tell him openly what course he should take. All were afraid of his anger; and no one was willing to face the danger of death, telling him frankly that his only chance of salvation was to repent of his evil deeds – to make reparation for the scandal he had committed – and humbly return to the Church he had left. No one was brave enough to tell him this; only one suggested to him that he should call a Parliament, as he had done when he was about to make changes, to put things right. He reportedly ordered the Secretariat of State to call one, but they were afraid that they would be obliged to return the goods that had been robbed of the Church, and postponed the meeting. He thus left the Catholic Church in great confusion and soon, as we shall see, into irreparable ruin which sank him.
Anglican Monastery, Malmesbury Abbey
Shortly before his death, Henry opened a church owned by the Franciscans, restored Mass to it (now Christ Church Hospital), and also restored the monasteries but this was too small a reparation for the great evil he had done. He then wrote his will, and made his only son, Edward, heir to the throne. Edward was then only nine years old. Henry also appointed sixteen guardians for him, and ordered that his childrens should be brought up in the Catholic Faith, but never renounced the primacy of the Church of England if the English Monarch had the supremacy and not the Pope. And of course, it was this assertion of the Supremacy of the English Monarch that made it was a statement that Henry VIII was still insincere in his recognition of the Pope of Rome and in his pride of his errorness. This was a form of barbarity inconsistent with his penitence. In the case where Edward VI died childless, Henry VIII left the crown to Mary, daughter of Queen Catherine of Aragon, and if Mary also died childless, to Elizabeth, daughter of the heretic harlot Anne Boleyn. He ordered several Masses to be said in his cell, and desired that Viaticum should be given him only one kind. When it was brought in, he received it on his knees, and when he was told that he need not kneel on account of his condition, he said: “If I could bury myself in the ground, I should not be able to show sufficient reverence to God which I am about to receive?” But how could he hope to please the Almighty by such an act of reverence, after having trampled upon His Church, and died outside its communion with the schism still declaring that He still held the Supremacy over the Church of England? He endeavoured, by these exterior acts, to silence the remorse of conscience which he felt, but he could not, however, recover the grace of God, nor the peace which he sought. He asked some Friars to accompany him in his last moments, after he had banished them from his kingdom; and then asked for a drink. After he tasted it, he said to those around him, loudly, "So this is the end, and all hope is gone for me", and he died immediately. He died on January 28, 1547, when he was fifty-eight years old. And Henry VIII because he had no regrets for rejecting the Roman Papacy, he died not in a state of Grace, in other words, he went to Hell.
King Edward VI
The condition of the Church of England was getting worse, when the Church of England adopted Anglicanism even under Edward VI. Edward VI was the first King to deny the concept of Transubstantiation and was fully supported by Archbishop Cranmer. Edward VI was even more radical than Cranmer, he also rejected Consubstantiation and believed more in the Eucharist embraced by John Calvin, worsened by his collaboration with John Knox and John Calvin who eliminated and abolished the form and material of the Priesthood ordination in the Church of England with removal of any admonition and priesthood functional on form texts of Ordination, so that all Anglicans like Protestants in general from the Edwardine Ordination Line, were Laymen, none were Valid Priests let alone Bishops.
Martin Bucer the Lutheran Heretic who involved on Invalidity formula of Ordinations
German reformer Martin Bucer–who had been exiled to England in 1548–drew on the discussions that had already occurred among his fellow reformed countrymen in Germany regarding the role of the priesthood and compiled an ordination liturgy in Latin, De ordinatione legitima ministrorum ecclesiæ reuocanda, for the English reformers to study. Martin Bucer had invalidated an new ordination matters and form for Lutheran Church, under Luther's influence, he rejected and erased the Asceticism and Priesthood, and mutilated 7 sacraments to be only 2 Sacraments according to Lutheran belief and other Protestants. And then with Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury and liturgist behind the 1549 prayer book, would perform an ordination with Nicholas Ridley, the Bishop of London and Westminster, at St Paul's Cathedral in 1549 according to the ritual soon to be legally requested.
The authorization and production of an ordinal was formally requested in a House of Lords bill on 8 January 1550 and authorized by an act of Parliament on 31 January that mandated its preparation under the authority of the king "before the first day of April" of 1550. A commission was set up to authorize a form for the new ordinal. Nicholas Heath, a moderate Catholic and the Bishop of Worcester, is the only person known to have been on the commission; Heath was imprisoned for 18 months for refusing to sign off on the Invalid ritual form produced for the commission.
Under Cranmer's Regulation, Laypersons could and would attend ordinations, with an opportunity for those gathered to "declare 'any impediment'" and give negative endorsement of the candidates to prevent their ordination. (Source:The Ordinal from the 1549, 1552 and 1559 Books of Common Prayer) Among the requirements for an ordinal present in the 1550 ordinal were that they be educated and intimately connected with their ministerial community. This requirement proved a challenge among clergy emanating from Wales and the linguistic and cultural frontiers on the border between England and Wales–particularly in the Diocese of Hereford–as many English-speaking clergy had trouble communicating with the local Welsh-speaking laity. In Ireland, the Reformation was decelerated by stalled efforts to translate and print Anglican liturgies in the country and its language.
As with most later prayer books, the 1552 prayer book was now typically bound together with the ordinal; every parish in the Kingdom of England was legally required to purchase a copy 1552 prayer book. However, the ordinal retained its own title page and at least one printing gave it a separate 16-page foliation.
This new ordinal deleted giving the priestly candidate any items outside of the Bible; the giving of the Bible remained a practice in the subsequent Church of England prayer books. Reginald Pole, Catholic cardinal and Mary I's Counter-Reformation Archbishop of Canterbury, reiterated Eugene IV's position that the tradition of elements that had been deleted in the 1552 ordinal were necessary for ordination. These changes from the practices of the pontificals implied an alteration in the purpose of the priesthood, from a Catholic understanding a "consecrating" and "sacrificing priest" to one where an "Anglican priest is a presbyter, not a sacrificing priest", not "consecrating".
Queen Mary I of England, First daughter of Henry VIII
With the death of Edward VI in July 1553 at age 15, the Catholic Mary I ascended to throne and initiated the Marian Persecutions against the English Reformers. Mary I restored a "Pre-Reformation Catholicism" and reinstated the medieval liturgical books in England during her 1553-1558 reign, suppressing the 1552 ordinal. She further reintroduced the minor orders and deprived married clergy of their benefices which were regulated by Edward VI. Under Queen Mary I, Anglican Ordinal was Invalid and must be removed from Church of England. (Source: The Anglican Ordinal: Its History and Development From the Reformation to the Present Day. Alcuin Club Collections No. 53.)
However, under Queen Elizabeth I, the revocation of the Edwardine Ordinal by Queen Mary I was removed and the Edwardine Ordination was used again for the Anglican Church.
Elizabeth I was also different from Edward VI who removed the vestment rule, Elizabeth I actually required it as a form of maintaining the Catholic Values in the Anglican Church. Queen Elizabeth I even returned the Iconography used by the Church of England since Henry VIII such as the Crucifix (Statue of Jesus being crucified), images of saints, Cathedral Decoration for buildings that followed Gothic culture, the return of the Mass Organ in the Church, the Form of the Sign of the Cross was still emphasized, even though Elizabeth I followed the Calvinist current which even denied the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Elizabeth I, daughter of the Bitch, Anne Boleyn
Elizabeth I's policy also reaped controversy, even getting opposition from lower-church Anglican parties such as the Puritans who were even more radical in rejecting the sign of the cross in the infant baptism ritual. The Puritans taught that infant baptism did not need to use the sign of the cross, the sign of the cross was only used if during worship they knelt towards the Service Table. But even though some Puritans still maintain the sign of the cross, some reject it, even rejecting Iconography as the Reformed Protestants who reject Statues in Church Interiors as idolatry. Because as Protestants generally, they rejected Iconographics on Church's Interior like statues and icons.
From here we can judge, Anglicanism is also flawed in terms of the firmness of its theology and doctrine, Low Church is different from High Church, but even if they want to be united in the Anglican Communion, in the end in history there was war even among themselves killing each other like the case of Charles I and the Puritans, then Charles II and the Puritans.
Then in the modern century after the Renaissance, the Oxford Movement emerged again which returned Anglicanism to what Henry VIII had initiated which was considered "More Catholic".
