Do you agree with the view expressed in source three that the diplomatic situation was the main reason for Henry’s failure to obtain an annulment of his marriage to Catherine by 1529?

In addition Wolsey was becoming less successful as on the political front Charles V had taken Italy while Francis I had grown tired of the war and sought peace. In this he abandoned Italy to Charles, and they agreed on a Treaty at Cambrai which Henry effectively ignored. As a result Wolsey`s grand plan for conservative reform and England holding the balance of power in Europe fell.

The powerlessness of Henry VI is a central factor of the outbreak of the war. He was known to be too soft and malleable to the wishes of his surrounding that had influence and control of him. Henry was considered to be a person who was very uninterested in the politics of the country. He also felt the lack of cleverness and strong features of character that were fundamental

While these were the main causes of Reformation in continental Europe, in England, King Henry VIII initiated the Reformation. Henry VIII wanted to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, after she had failed to produce a male heir to the throne. However, a divorce was not a simple issue. Henry VIII was a Roman Catholic and the Roman Catholic faith believed in marriage for life. It did not recognise, let alone support, divorce. He also wanted to prevent the interference of foreign powers in the national and international affairs of the country.

After his brother's death Henry VIII not only gained the title of being next in line for the throne, but also a betrothal to his brother’s now widowed wife, Catherine of Aragon. Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII remained only betrothed to one another until after the death of Henry’s father Henry VII. 1509 marked the death of Henry VII, this also became the year that Henry VIII, at the age of 17, and Catherine of Aragon were married and crowned at Westminster Abbey. At the beginning of Henry VIII’s ruling he supported the Catholic church and the papacy, he never went against their statements and he even had Thomas Wolsey, a catholic cardinal, help him with both his foreign and domestic policies from 1514-1529. Henry VIII had no problems with the papacy until he wanted to have an annulment between him and Catherine of Aragon approved by the

During the years between 1496 and 1497, Warbeck continued to cause Henry trouble – however, Henry became more successful at overcoming these threats. For example, although Warbeck was greeted into Scotland warmly by King James IV, their invasion of England in September 1946 lasted just four days; the English force led by Lord Latimer was too strong. In addition, the northern counties failed to support Warbeck, which is in contrast to his previous international support. At this point, Henry was showing greater confidence against Warbeck. It had seemed as though the marriage of Henry's eldest son, Arthur - to Catherine, a Spanish princess– would be threatened by these anti-Tudor gestures, however the marriage did go ahead in 1501. Despite the failed invasion of England, Henry was still wary of Warbeck’s allegiance with Scotland; he spent the beginning on 1497 raising a huge army to invade Scotland. This dedication – in terms of both time and money – reflects his strength and determination to quell Warbeck once and for all.

He then failed to re-marry and achieve stronger diplomatic relations outside of England following the death of Elizabeth creating a weak government in England. Also the death of Isabella of Castile was another problem for Henry as he would have Ferdinand as his rival instead of an ally over territorial gains in Europe and in the New World. The later years of Henrys foreign policy were definitely his most challenging and difficult period of foreign affairs allowing the government to be weak and therefore vulnerable to a crisis.

Furthermore, in England, King Henry VIII considered himself a worthy Catholic king. He had “enthusiastically attacked the outbreak of Protestant heresy when it began, and the papacy gave him the title Defender of the Faith as a result”. This did not matter when Henry wanted to divorce from Catherine of Aragon. When the church would not grant the divorce he wanted, Henry’s resulting decision to create the Church of England set the standards for more than a century of religious conflict/isues in England. The Act of Supremacy in 1534 essentially “took power away from the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.” Henry VIII made an entirely new church which he made himself head of, because he was the king. This demonstrates the actions that politics affected Europe and that they were not always necessarily for religious purposes but for power and personal

Henry VIII is one of the few English monarchs recognizable even in America, for his antics are legendary on both sides of the Atlantic. He is as notorious for killing important people as he is for getting married six times and his break with Rome. Indeed, Henry's reign would make a good comic book, for he was always off on some new half-baked project, be it invading France or plotting a crusade. His whole life was marked by impulsiveness and his "OK, that was fun, what's next?" attitude. He never outgrew many childlike character traits, at times stubborn and the next moment almost a gullible pushover. This childish disposition is the key to why he

Even after he had come of age, Henry suffered from a lack of popular support, something that invariably helps the "other side" in a civil war. He was considered a fool by the general populace, which weakened his authority. During his reign, there were many charges of seditious libel to come before the courts (Storey, 34) and they usually dealt with someone slandering the king. Common people and yeomen were calling the king a "lunatic", a child, and a fool (Storey, 35). For instance, one Sussex yeoman called the king a "natural fool" and said that "the king was no person able to rule the land" (Storey, 35). Evidently, if even the common people were slandering the king, they must have had some basis for it. The king did nothing to prove the people wrong, rarely going on progresses to smooth out his image. He stayed in the Home Counties for much of his reign, and even that did not improve his image with the people.

Cramner appealed to Parliament to confirm that Henry’s marriage to Catherine was invalid. Henry secretly marries a lady in his court, Anne Boleyn, in 1533. He decides to officially break with the Catholic church the following year and makes himself the head of the Church of England. He appoints Cramner as his new Archbishop and Cramner publicly declares the marriage between King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon as invalid.

b) Do you agree with the view that the Break with Rome was brought about primarily by Henry’s desire for a male heir? Use sources 4, 5 & 6 and your own knowledge to explain your answer.

In Extract A, Carpenter suggests that Henry's lack of experience in the administrative running of a country, his rapacity and his bias against the nobles lead to the relationship between the King and the nobility being undermined. A convincing point that Carpenter provides is that Henry had no experience of running a country. Having spent fourteen years in exile in Brittany, he had not grown up amongst the nobles in the English royal courts, and therefore this not only diminished his experience of administration but also separated him from the English nobility. This created a great dependence upon the guidance of others, as he had no past knowledge of how to run a country.

From its first lines, 1 Henry IV makes it clear that Henry’s position as king is not an enviable one. The newly crowned sovereign himself opens the play, explaining his wish to lead a crusade “in strands afar remote” from the shores of England (1.1.4). His reasoning is twofold. Firstly, he wishes to atone for deposing and murdering Richard II. More interestingly for our purposes, we learn that only “lately” came a “furious close [to the] civil butchery” in England following Henry’s rise to power (1.1.12-13). For the moment, at least, it seems that civil strife has cooled in England, and Henry now elects “[f]orthwith” to raise an army “of English…[t]o chase these pagans in th[e] holy fields” near Jerusalem (1.1.22, 24). We have already seen how Henry used the exception to climb over Richard and ascend the English throne—the end of civil conflict therefore necessarily opens Henry to the threat of deposition, as it will rob him of an exceptional situation, and subsequently also remove his power to act as sovereign over the law that invalidates his rule. As Schmitt explains, “[w]hat characterizes an exception is principally unlimited authority, which means the suspension of the entire existing order. In such a situation it is clear that the state remains, whereas law recedes” (12). This way, if Henry can find a way to maintain a state of exception in England, he (as the embodiment of the state) can retain his position as sovereign, and

Lord Cromwell never fully believed in the king’s desire for reformation or separation from the Papacy, however, he knew that the king fully desired this annulment. Lord Cromwell used that information to his benefit, knowing that the Pope’s refusal to grant the annulment would turn the king against the Roman Catholic Church. The Act of Supremacy not only made Henry VIII both head of state and church but it broke ties between England and the Papacy.

Nonetheless, the Tudor dynasty was not fully established by 1487. this is due to the threats Henry faced from others with a strong claim to the throne, numerous rebellions and the lack of legitimacy he had as a usurper. these threats lead to the conclusion that Henry's position on the throne was not secured and neither was the Tudor dynasty. Even though Henry had certain factors that aided some security in his place on the throne e.g. an heir, Henry needed more time to secure his position as monarch and development of his ruling as the king of England.