How Did King Henry Viii Influence On Society

Born the second son of a royal family, Henry Tudor lived a very interesting life. His future was intended to be the head of the Roman Catholic Church and that fate ended with the death of his brother, Prince Arthur. Henry’s majestic life was full of sports, women, and faith. The young King acceded his father to the throne, married six women, and began the English Reformation when he broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and created his own religion.

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.

While in a time of the English Church being under the control of the Catholic Church and Pope in Rome, King Henry VIII claimed the power of controlling the whole English Church through the Act of Supremacy. This caused for any that are still supporting the Pope and the power of the Catholic Church to be destroyed in the King’s eyes, especially monasteries. With the country no longer under the Catholic rule, it soon became a Protestant country.

We can see that Henry also went with protestant beliefs, which shows that maybe he wasn’t just making a new church to get what he wanted. However one peculiar thing is that the Church of England still had transubstantiation, a major Catholic belief and one that Protestants disagreed with. This gives us the impression that Henry was torn between the two faiths. Henry’s actions show him up as a definite protestant, yet the hints that he was once Catholic definitely show. Some people may see Henry calling the act of supremacy as a bit power crazed and greedy. The Act of Supremacy was an act of parliament which allowed king Henry to declare that he was 'the only supreme head on earth of the Church in England' and that the English crown shall enjoy "all honours, dignities, preeminence’s, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities." This shows that there was always the threat of even Henry’s new church under the threat of corruption from himself. Henry would constantly be tempted with, money and power being the head of his church.

Henry VIII's Reformation In 1529 Henry VIII started to reform the Catholic Church in England, however there are different opinions as to why he began these controversial changes. The orthodox view concurs that there was a vast anti-clerical feeling in 16th century England; the corrupt church was unpopular with the masses. However the revisionist view claims that the reformation was actually due to politics. Henry needed a male heir and therefore needed a divorce.

During the 1500s, the citizens of England were overcome with multiple transitions of religion due to their monarch. The first notable instance of religious alteration was when Henry the VIII took the throne. During his reign, he ruled the Act of Supremacy, which separated England from the Catholic Church, and so Henry VIII established the Church of England, of which he was the leader of. This individual action indirectly prompted many other spiritual changes that would take place in England during the years to come, led by his successors. Even if his ruling may have ultimately been positive, it is utterly clear that at the time, Henry VIII's reformation was motivated purely by his selfish desires for a male heir. This was very dissimilar to Martin Luther's reformation, which was led by Luther's faith and loyalty to god. Though the two men both transformed the perception of religion in Europe drastically, the advancements were made for vastly different reasons. (#8)

He closed down many Catholic monasteries to seize their wealth. When he was not permitted to divorce his first wife by the Pope at the time, he split from the Catholic church entirely. Louis may have thrown several parties with the money he had collected through very high taxes, but Henry’s actions negatively helped kick-start the strenuous relationship between the Catholics and Protestants of England. This led to a very disastrous war that nearly tore Europe apart.

In 1533, Henry VIII became obsessed with Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII asked the pope to annul his almost 20 year marriage to Catherine de Aragon. When the pope refused, Henry VIII founded his own church. He named is Church of England and he proclaim himself to be the head of the new founded church. People started to move to America where they wanted freedom of religion (Khle, 2009).

Henry did not support Luther and was given the title 'Defender of the Faith' by the Pope due to his strong support of the Catholic Church. Katherine of Aragon, the niece of Emperor Charles V, married Henry on non-consummation grounds when her husband, Henry's brother, passed away. England had faced a 'War of the Roses' in 1455-1487 where the fight for England's throne caused political chaos. Henry was faced with a similar problem as he had no son to pass his crown to after he died. At the same time, Henry was in love with Anne Boleyn and wanted the Pope to annul his marriage with Katherine.

The English Reformation was a detailed process, in 16th-century England, where the Church of England broke ties with the authority of the pope and the Roman Catholic Church. It all began with King Henry VIII marriage with Catherine of Aragon. After years of marriage Catherine had not produced a male heir who survived into adulthood angering the King. With this in mind King Henry will set his eyes own Anne Boleyn who was a maid of honor to Queen Catherine. By the late 1520s, Henry wanted his marriage to Catherine annulled, claiming it to be invalid due to the fact that Catherine was his late brothers wife making it wrong for Henry VIII to be allowed to marry her. In 1527 Henry asked the Pope, Pope Clement VII, to annul his marriage. The pope refused in fear of the Queen’s nephew, Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. this

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

King Henry VIII, the second son of King Henry VII, was born at Greenwich, England in 1491. He succeeded the throne upon the death of his brother King Arthur in 1509. He married six wives in the hopes of getting a son as he could be the heir to the throne and become the next king of England. His first two wives failed to do so, but his third wife Jane Seymour, had given birth to a son and he was later named Edward VI. He then married three more wives, and his last wife Catherine of Parr, outlived King Henry who died in 1548. King Henry VIII was an tremendously important leader as he had greatly impacted the Renaissance by starting the English Reformation, the union between England and Wales, and he patronized the arts and literature.

King Henry VIII was an important figure in helping to kick start the Reformation in England, even though it was not his intent. His break with the Papacy and his constantly changing ideas on how the new Church of England should be run gave the Protestants the foothold they needed to gain popularity in Europe. Although his intentions were purely politically motivated, he started a change in the way the layman viewed the church and how it should be run.

Henry VIII was having trouble conceiving a male child with his current wife: Katharine of Aragon. Henry wanted the current pope to give him an annulment so Henry could marry Anne Boleyn. Wolsey was unsuccessful in his attempts due to interference from Katharine. This led Henry to lose trust in Wolsey and led to his eventual fall from grace and death in 1529. Cromwell was able to distance himself enough from Wolsey that when he fell, he did not take Cromwell with him. This left Cromwell in the perfect position to fill the space that Wolsey left empty. Through a series of events, the king enlisted Cromwell to use his legal skills to convince parliament to create laws that undermine the authority of the pope, allowing Henry to divorce Katharine without the pope’s permission. Henry VIII was wildly impressed by Cromwell success, Cromwell was granted the title “Master of Jewels” and invited to the English court. This complicated situation is largely responsible for Cromwell’s initial rise to power. (MacCulloch, Borman

Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I may have been the English Reformation’s greatest benefactors, all because of self interest. Henry VIII was not originally Protestant, but after the pope denied him of his divorce, Henry VIII took things into his own hands. Due to the power kings had in the Middle Ages, Henry VIII was able to control Parliament and force it to do whatever