Before Wolsey’s death, Dr. Thomas Cranmer, of Cambridge, suggested that the King lay the divorce question before the universities of Europe.  Henry caught eagerly at this proposition, and exclaimed, “Cranmer has the right pig by the ear.”  The scheme was at once adopted.  Several universities returned favorable answers.  In a few instances, as at Oxford and Cambridge, where the authorities hesitated, a judicious use of bribes or threats soon brought them to see the matter in a proper light.

348.  The Clergy declare Henry Head of the Church, 1531.

Armed with these decisions in his favor, Henry now charged the whole body of the English Church with being guilty of the same crime of which Wolsey had been accused (S346).  The clergy, in their terror, made haste to buy a pardon at a cost reckoned at nearly $5,000,000 at the present value of money.

They furthermore declared Henry to be the supreme head on earth of the Church of England, adroitly adding, “in so far as is permitted by the law of Christ.”  Thus the Reformation came into England “by a side door, as it were.”  Nevertheless, it came.

349.  Henry marries Anne Boleyn; Act of Supremacy, 1534.

Events now moved rapidly toward a crisis.  In 1533, after having waited over five years, Henry privately married Anne Boleyn (S343), and she was soon after crowned in Westminster Abbey.  When the Pope was informed of this, he ordered the King, under pain of excommunication (S194), to put her away, and to take back Queen Catharine (S345).

Parliament met that demand by passing the Act of Supremacy, 1534, which declared Henry to be without reservation the sole head of the Church, making denial thereof high treason.[1] As he signed the act, the King with one stroke of his pen overturned the traditions of a thousand years, and England stood boldly forth with a National Church independent of the Pope.[2]

[1] Henry’s full title was now “Henry VIII, by the Grace of God, King of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England, and also of Ireland, on earth the Supreme Head.” [2] Attention is called to the fact that a controversy, more or less serious in its character, had been going on, at intervals for nearly five hundred years, between the English sovereigns (or the barons) and the popes.  It began with William the Conqueror in 1076 (S118).  It was continued by Henry I (S136), by Henry II (SS163-170), by John (S194), by the barons under Henry III (S211), by the Parliament of Merton (S211), by Edward I (S226), and it may be said to have practically culminated under Henry VIII in the Act of Supremacy of 1534 (S349).  But after the formal establishment of Protestantism by Edward VI in 1549 (S362) we find the Act of Supremacy reaffirmed, in slightly different form, by Queen Elizabeth in 1559 (S382).  Finally, the Revolution of 1688 settled the question (S497).

350.  Subserviency of Parliament.