Henry VIII and the English Reformation Explained

Did you know that the Protestant Reformation started in England because the king wanted a divorce? Hello and welcome to World History Encyclopedia. My name is Kelly and today's video is all about the establishment of the Protestant Church of England by Henry VIII in the 16th century, best known as the English Reformation. World History Encyclopedia is a non-profit organization and you can find us on Patreon, a brilliant site where you can support our work and receive exclusive benefits in return. Your support helps us create videos twice a week so make sure to check it out via the pop-up in the top corner of the screen or via the Patreon link down below. The English Reformation began with King Henry VIII of England and was essentially the process of breaking away from the Catholic Church headed by the Pope in Rome and the subsequent establishment of the Protestant Church of England with the English monarch as its supreme head. The break from the Catholic Church caused numerous changes including the dissolution of the monasteries, the abolition of mass, the shift to using the English language in services, communion tables replacing altars, and the general abandonment of the more elaborate ornamental elements of the Catholic worship service. Prior to the establishment of the Protestant Church, Henry VIII was a staunch Catholic and in 1521 his treatise against Lutheranism gained him the title of Defender of the Faith by the Pope. However, this all changed when he wanted to divorce his first wife Catherine of Aragon to marry the young Anne Boleyn. Did you know that only a small fraction of viewers are subscribers? Be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any of our new videos and to help us create more great history content. The origins of the English Reformation go back to Henry VII of England who had arranged for his eldest son Arthur to marry the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon. The two royals married in 1501 but the next year at the age of just 15 Arthur died. Wanting to keep friendly relations with Spain, special permission was granted from the Pope for Henry VIII to marry his brother's widow. In 1509 Henry VII died and Henry VIII became King of England with Catherine as his wife and queen. Their marriage started off a happy one but after six pregnancies and only one surviving child, a daughter named Mary, Catherine's chances of bearing a healthy son were slim and so Henry went on the hunt for a new young wife and eventually his attention and affections were aimed at Anne Boleyn, a lady-in-waiting at court. Anne however would not entertain the idea of having a family with Henry until they were married and so Henry had to figure out a way to rid himself of Catherine despite not being allowed to divorce because the Catholic Church prohibited it. This began the English Reformation. Henry VIII knew the Catholic Church didn't allow divorce so he had to come up with a good enough reason for his marriage to be annulled. He wrote to the Pope saying that because he married his brother's widow God was punishing him by not giving him a son and heir. He made this argument with the support of the prohibition of Leviticus which states if a man shall take his brother's wife it is an impurity. He hath uncovered his brother's nakedness they shall be childless. It was on this basis that Henry asked for an annulment but the Pope said nope. Not only did Pope Clement VII want to stay in good favor with the most powerful ruler in Europe at the time which was the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Charles V of Spain, the nephew of Catherine of Aragon, but he also figured that since Arthur was only 15 when he died Catherine and Arthur probably never consummated the marriage and so the prohibition of Leviticus didn't actually apply in this case. Pope Clement sent Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio to England to investigate the situation but nothing came of that so Henry took matters into his own hands. First he separated Catherine from her daughter Mary moving Catherine around from residence to residence while Henry lived in the same residence as Anne Boleyn who eventually became pregnant. With Anne pregnant Henry really needed to annul his first marriage. He charged his first minister Thomas Wolsey with the task but he wasn't able to please his king and so he was replaced first by Sir Thomas More and then by Thomas Cromwell. Wolsey and Henry had devised a radical plan of separating the church in England from Catholic Rome and placing the king as the head of the church in England so he could essentially grant his own annulment. In 1532 things started to change with the Act in Restraint of Annets which limited funds that the church paid to the papacy and then the next year the Act in Restraint of Appeals declared that the English monarch rather than the pope was now the highest authority on all legal matters both lay and ecclesiastical. In May of 1533 Henry's first marriage to Catherine was officially annulled by Thomas Cranmer the Archbishop of Canterbury and through the passing of the Act of Succession in April of 1534 Catherine's daughter Mary was declared illegitimate. Since Henry had clearly taken the affair well beyond the issue of royal marriages the pope had Henry excommunicated. Things were still moving in England though with the Act of Supremacy being passed on November 28th 1534 which meant that Henry and all subsequent English monarchs only had a single higher authority, God himself. Thomas Cromwell became Henry's Vicar General and as well as carrying out the reforms of the church he also took every chance he could to interfere with church affairs. This included recruiting radical priests, printing radical books of devotion and creating a network of informants. In 1536 the Reformation was in full swing with the The official excuse for the dissolution of the monasteries was that they were no longer relevant and were full of corrupt and immoral monks and nuns. Cromwell paid off senior monks and abbots with very generous pensions and then the estates of the smaller monasteries were redistributed to This was probably the real motivation for the closures. The Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 saw 40,000 people in an uprising protesting against not just religious changes but also governmental and economic concerns. The rebellions were peacefully disbanded other than the 200 ringleaders that were ruthlessly put to death. Many of Henry's people were either indifferent to the religious reforms or were in support of the changes as the Protestant Reformation continued to sweep across Europe. In 1539 the King approved an English translation of the Bible which was just another step towards religious independence. In this same year the rest of the monasteries were closed and those clerics who resisted were executed. In March of the final monastery closed, that of Waltham Abbey in Essex. In 1547 Henry was succeeded by his son with his third wife Jane Seymour, Edward VI of England. Edward, Thomas Cranmer and his regents Edward Seymour and John Dudley continued the reformation and introduced even more radical changes. In 1547 Cranmer issued a collection of sermons to be used in church services called the and in 1549 a new book of common prayer was introduced in English. The term Protestantism was becoming more widespread. Services were held in English not Latin and iconography, murals and pictorial stained glass windows were removed from churches. The worship of saints was discouraged and church lands were confiscated with the riches often going straight into the of the nobility. Just as before after the dissolution of the monasteries protests sprang up due to resentment at changes in traditional parish life and the poor economic situation but they were crushed just as quickly as the early ones had been. At age 15 Edward VI died of tuberculosis and his half-sister Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon and a devout Catholic took the throne. It took Mary no time at all to start the reversal of the Protestant movement starting with the legislation of Edward VI with her first act of repeal in October of 1553. In 1555 Mary's second act of repeal abolished all post 1529 legislation concerning religious matters which included the act of supremacy placing the Pope back as the official head of the Church of England. During her reign 287 Protestants were burned at the stake which gave rise to a moniker of Bloody Mary. One of those Protestant martyrs was Thomas Cranmer. The everyday people weren't too bothered by the religious changes but of course the nobles definitely were considering the enormous wealth they had acquired from the dissolution of the monasteries. Another problem Mary posed was her marriage to the Catholic Prince Philip of Spain since the people didn't want England to be absorbed into the Spanish Empire. These worries culminated in the Wyatt Rebellion in 1554. The English people wanted to stop the Spanish marriage but also perhaps wanted to have Mary's half-sister the Protestant Elizabeth on the throne instead. Mary didn't succeed in reversing the reformation she just put it on pause until her death in 1558 when she was succeeded by Elizabeth I. Upon ascending the throne Queen Elizabeth I set to work reinstating the reformed state as it had been under Edward VI undoing the work of her predecessor. Elizabeth went for a more middle-of-the-road strategy which dissatisfied the radical Protestants and Catholics but appealed to the majority of her subjects. Like her father Henry VIII, Elizabeth I was excommunicated by the Pope for heresy in February of 1570 but this didn't bother her at all and she provided financial aid to the Protestants in the Netherlands in their struggle against the Catholics. She also tried to impose Protestantism in Catholic Ireland but that just ended in a bunch of rebellions. There were two Catholic figureheads for the Catholics of England to rally behind though in the hopes of toppling Elizabeth and Protestantism. They were Mary Queen of Scots who was the granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister and there was Philip II of Spain. Elizabeth eventually executed Mary after she was found guilty of plotting against Elizabeth and Philip was thwarted by Elizabeth's navy when he attempted to invade England with the Spanish Armada. Under the Elizabethan settlement Elizabeth placed herself as the head of the church by reinstating the act of supremacy calling herself the supreme governor which was a more acceptable title for a woman to hold than supreme head. The act of uniformity in 1559 made it compulsory to attend church and Catholic mass was forbidden and to partake in it would result in a large fine. If you were a priest found performing mass you could face the death penalty. Many other reforms were instituted including preachers having to have a license and every church having to have a bible written in English. Something like 400 priests resigned due to the Elizabethan settlement but the reformation had become irreversible. England had successfully established its own unique and lasting brand of Protestantism known as Anglicanism and the Church of England was born. How do you feel about the part politics and personal agendas played in the establishment of the Church of England? Let us know what you think in the comments below. If you enjoyed this video make sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel so you don't miss out on any of our new videos published every single week. This video was brought to you by World History Encyclopedia. For more great articles and interactive content head to our website via the link below. If you like my shirt you can find this design and a bunch more in our shop at worldhistory.store or you can find a link for it down below. Thank you so much for watching and we will see you soon with another video.