Henry laid his conduct open to the world, declaring truly what he desired, and seeking it by open means.  He was determined to proceed with the divorce, and also to continue the reformation of the English church.  And he was in no small measure aided in the former resolve by the recommendation of Francis, for the French king advised him to act on the general opinion of Europe that his marriage with Catherine, as widow of his elder brother Arthur, was null, and at once made Anne Boleyn his wife.  This counsel was administered at an interview between the two kings at Boulogne, in October, 1532.

The pope had trifled for six years with the momentous question, and Henry was growing old.  At the outset of the discussion the pope had said:  “Marry freely; fear nothing, and all shall be arranged as you desire.”  But the pontiff, reduced to a dilemma by various causes, had fallen back on his Italian cunning, and had changed his attitude, listening to the appeals of Catherine and her powerful friends.  And now he threatened Henry with excommunication.

Henry entered privately into matrimonial relations with Anne in November, 1532, and the marriage was solemnly celebrated, with a gorgeous pageant, at Westminster Abbey in the following January.  On July 24 the people gathering to church in every parish read, nailed to the church doors, a paper signed Henry R., setting forth that Lady Catherine of Spain, heretofore called Queen of England, was not to be called by that title any more, but was to be called princess dowager, and so to be held and esteemed.  The triumph of Anne was to last but three short years.

Protestantism

Wycliffe’s labour had left only the Bible as the seed of a future life, and no trace remained in the sixteenth century of the Lollardry of the fourteenth.  But now Protestantism recommenced its enterprise in the growing desire for a nobler, holier insight into the will of God.  In the year 1525 was enrolled in London a society calling itself “The Association of Christian Brothers.”  Its paid agents went up and down the land carrying tracts and Testaments with them, and enrolling in the order all who dared risk their lives in such a cause.

The Protestants thus isolated were waiting for direction, and men in such a temper are seldom left to wait in vain.  Luther had kindled the spark, which was to become a conflagration in Germany, at Wittemberg, on October 31, 1517, by his denunciation of indulgences.  His words found an echo, and flew from lip to lip all through Western Europe.  Tyndal, an Oxford student, went to Germany, saw Luther, and under his direction translated into English the Gospels and Epistles.  This led to the formation of the “association” in London.  The authorities were alarmed.  The bishops subscribed to buy up the translations of the Bible, and these were burned before a vast concourse in St. Paul’s Churchyard.  But Wolsey had for two years been suppressing the smaller monasteries.