7 Henry VIII 7in 1516) survived. He wished to marry Anne Boleyn, a lady
of the court, but Pope Clement VII denied him the neces-
sary annulment.
In 1532 Henry’s new minister, Thomas Cromwell, initi-
ated a revolution when he decided that the English church
should separate from Rome. This allowed Henry to marry
Anne in January 1533. In May a new archbishop, Thomas
Cranmer, presided over the formality of a trial that
annulled Henry’s first marriage, and in September, the
princess Elizabeth was born. The pope retaliated with a
sentence of excommunication.
Henry was declared the Supreme Head of the Church
of England in 1534 by the Act of Supremacy. The monas-
teries throughout England were dissolved, and their vast
lands and goods were turned over to the king, who in turn
granted those estates to noblemen who would support his
policies. Although Henry made changes to the govern-
ment of the church, he refused to allow any changes to be
made in its doctrines. Before his divorce he had opposed
the teachings of Martin Luther in Assertio septem sacramen-
torum adversus Martinum Lutherum (1521), which had
prompted the pope to give Henry the title Defender of
the Faith. After the separation from Rome, Henry perse-
cuted with equal severity the Catholics who adhered to
the government of Rome and the Protestants who rejected
its doctrines.
Cromwell’s decade, the 1530s, was the only period of
the reign during which a coherent body of policies was
purposefully carried through. Cromwell’s work greatly
enlarged Henry’s power, especially by transferring to the
crown the wealth of the monasteries and from new cleri-
cal taxes. The union of England and Wales was completed
in 1536, and Ireland was made a kingdom in 1541 with
Henry as king of Ireland. Old friends such as Sir Thomas