Henry VIII and the English Reformation (1509 – 1547)

 

Henry VIII and the English Reformation

(1509 – 1547)

 

Henry VIII made history for two things:

1.     English Reformation

2.     His six wives

Henry’s relationship with the Pope further deteriorated during the early 1530s.

 Therefore he broke away from the Catholic Church and passed a set of acts to establish the Church of England. He closed down the smaller monasteries (1536) and later the remaining monasteries (1539) and sold off their lands. Translated the Bible in to English and published it. Anybody who rebelled and remained Catholic was burned at the stake. This is referred to as the English Reformation.

 

Four main causes of the English Reformation

 

1.     Theology – the most important ideas of a religion is called theology. Luther and many others criticized the ideas of the Catholic Church and they believed that Bible should be the basis of all Christians. They also criticized the luxurious life of Pope and urged that the Bible should be translated to one’s own language.

 

2.     Divorce – at that time divorce was very rare and only the Pope could grant it upon perusing the reasons. Henry VIII wanted to divorce his first wife Catherine of Aragon as she could not produce a male heir. (At that time the King’s longed for sons as the eldest and the immediate next as they believed a son could withstand any resistance by the competing nobles). The Pope refused it many times. Finally he got it granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

 

3.     Money – Unlike his father, Henry VIII was involved in a series of costly wars and was looking for ways to fund them and found that the monasteries were too wealthy and owned a lot of land in England.

 

4.     Unpopularity of the Catholic Church – The distrust and resentment of people towards the clergy’s luxuries paved the way Henry VIII to investigate the conduct of the priests and found them guilty for many vices.