Henry VIII: The Break with Rome & Establishment of Royal Supremacy (AQA A Level History: Component 1: Breadth study): Revision Note

Summary

• The Break with Rome (1529–1534) saw Henry VIII use Acts of Parliament to strip the Pope of all authority over the English Church and transfer it to the Crown

• The trigger was Henry's need for an annulment from Catherine of Aragon

  • Driven by succession anxiety, a biblical argument and his relationship with Anne Boleyn

• The Act in Restraint of Appeals (1533) was the decisive breakthrough

• The Act of Supremacy (1534) formally made Henry the Supreme Head of the Church of England

• Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher were executed in 1535 for refusing the Oath of Supremacy

• The consequences of the Break were significant:

  • Royal authority was transformed, Parliament's role was elevated and England became diplomatically isolated from Catholic Europe

• Historians debate whether the break was driven by Henry's personal circumstances (Loades) or by a deeper ideological claim to royal authority that would have emerged regardless (Scarisbrick)

The Break with Rome

Why did Henry need an annulment?

• Henry had been married to Catherine of Aragon since 1509

  • Their only surviving child was Mar

    • Henry had no male heir

  • He feared a disputed succession would reignite the civil wars that had ended in 1485

• This led Henry to argue the marriage was biblically invalid

  • Leviticus 20:21 prohibits marrying a brother's widow

  • Catherine had been married to Henry's elder brother Prince Arthur (died 1502)

  • Henry argued the original papal dispensation for the marriage had been void from the start

  • Catherine’s supporters pointed to Deuteronomy 25:5, which supported a man marrying his brother’s widow to continue the family line

    • They therefore argued the papal dispensation granted by Pope Julius II (1503) made the marriage lawful

• His relationship with Anne Boleyn made the situation urgent

  • Anne refused to be his mistress and insisted on marriage

  • She was pregnant by early 1533: any child had to be born in legitimate wedlock

  • The annulment had to come before the birth

• Henry also resented papal interference in England more broadly

  • Payments of annates drained English wealth to Rome

  • Rome also had influence over English Church appointments

Why did the Pope refuse?

• Pope Clement VII refused to grant the annulment

  • He was heavily influenced by Emperor Charles V, Catherine's nephew

  • Charles's troops had sacked Rome in 1527, making Clement, effectively, his political prisoner

  • Granting the annulment would have humiliated the most powerful Catholic ruler in Europe

Cromwell's solution

• Thomas Cromwell proposed using Parliament to break the deadlock

  • Parliament would declare England independent of papal jurisdiction entirely

  • Parliamentary legislation gave the break a legitimacy that royal proclamation alone could not provide

• Cromwell framed the break as the recovery of ancient rights, not a revolution

  • The Preamble to the Act of Appeals declared England an 'empire'

  • This meant a self-governing realm, free from any external authority

  • It drew on English legal history to make the break look historically justified

• The Reformation Parliament (opened November 1529) became the instrument through which the break was built

Acts of Parliament, 1532–1534

• The Break with Rome was a carefully staged process

• Thomas Cromwell used Parliament to dismantle papal authority step by step, giving each change the force of statute law

• This was deliberate:

  • Statute was permanent

  • No future government could reverse it without an Act of Parliament

• Each Act was carefully timed, some were initially suspended to use as bargaining chips with Rome

Opposition to the Break with Rome: Thomas More & John Fisher

• Opposition was real but ultimately ineffective

• Changes came individually and appeared legal at each stage

  • This made coordinated resistance very difficult

Sir Thomas More (1478–1535)

• More served as Lord Chancellor from 1529 to 1532

  • He resigned after the Submission of the Clergy

  • He could not accept Crown dominance over the Church

• In 1534, he refused to swear the Oath of Succession and was sent to the Tower

  • He refused to explain his reasons

  • This was deliberate: it denied Cromwell a clear basis for a treason charge

• A trial using testimony from Sir Richard Rich led to his conviction

• More was executed on 6 July 1535, declaring himself "the King's good servant, but God's first"

  • His fame as a humanist scholar made his execution controversial across Europe

Bishop John Fisher (1469–1535)

• Fisher had been Bishop of Rochester since 1504

  • Known for genuine piety, not personal ambition

  • He had openly supported Catherine of Aragon throughout the divorce proceedings

• He also refused to swear the Oath of Succession and was imprisoned in the Tower

• The Pope announced Fisher was to be made a Cardinal: Henry acted immediately

  • A Cardinal in the Tower would have been an impossible diplomatic embarrassment

• Fisher was tried for treason and executed on 22 June 1535

  • Like More's execution, this worsened relations with Catholic Europe

Other forms of opposition

• The Aragonese faction at court (conservative nobles sympathetic to Catherine of Aragon)

  • Included Henry Courtenay and Lords Darcy and Hussey

  • Largely silenced from 1532 by Cromwell's growing influence

• Elizabeth Barton, the "Nun of Kent"

  • Claimed prophetic visions warning Henry would die if he divorced Catherine

  • Her mentors built this into a coordinated anti-reform campaign

  • Arrested September 1533, publicly humiliated and executed by Act of Attainder in April 1534

• The Carthusian monks in London refused to accept the divorce and the supremacy

  • 18 Carthusian monks were executed between 1535 and 1540

Why opposition failed

• Changes were passed by Act of Parliament, giving them a legitimacy that was very hard to challenge openly

• The Treason Act imposed the ultimate deterrent: denying the supremacy now meant execution

• The piecemeal process prevented coordinated resistance

  • Each individual Act was hard to rally opposition around

• Many conservatives believed the break was temporary

  • They assumed Henry would reconcile with Rome once his marital problems were solved

  • This delayed serious resistance until it was too late

What were the Consequences of the Break with Rome?

• The question of how far the Break with Rome had genuinely transformative consequences sits at the heart of this sub-topic

• Use the specific evidence below to build and support your own argument

Evidence that the Break with Rome had far-reaching, permanent consequences

• Henry became head of both Church and State

  • No English monarch had previously held authority over the spiritual lives of their subjects

• Parliament's role was permanently elevated

  • It had legislated for the most significant constitutional change in English history

  • Parliament was now a necessary partner in all major decisions of state

• The break created the legal framework for all subsequent Reformation measures

  • Including the dissolution of the monasteries (covered in the next revision note)

• England was excommunicated by Pope Paul III in 1538

  • This formally isolated England from Catholic Europe

  • Henry faced the real threat of a combined Franco-Habsburg invasion

• Even Mary I's restoration of Catholicism (1553–1558) could not fully undo the changes

  • Parliament had to be used to reverse what Parliament had done

Key historians

Evidence that the significance of the Break with Rome has been overstated

• Henry remained theologically conservative throughout his reign

  • In 1521, he had earned the title "Defender of the Faith" from the Pope for attacking Luther

  • No doctrine changed until 1536

• The break was political, not religious, in its initial stages

  • Henry took control of the Church's organisation and finances

  • He did not change its theology

• Contemporaries assumed the break was temporary

  • Even the Pope saw it as a crisis over Henry's marriage, not a permanent shift

• In the short term, ordinary people experienced little change in their church services

  • The break affected the nobility and political class far more directly

• The Six Articles (1539) reasserted Catholic doctrine

  • This showed Henry viewed the supremacy in personal rather than ideological terms

Key historians