The Tudors: Henry VIII and the break with Rome
History · Key Stage 2 · The School
A king who needed a son
HENRY VIII married CATHERINE OF ARAGON. Their only surviving child was a daughter, Mary. Henry believed England needed a male heir to stay stable. He decided he needed to end the marriage and marry again. He wanted a son, not another daughter. He had waited many years for a son. A queen ruling alone would have been almost unheard of.
The Pope refuses
Henry asked the POPE to annul, or cancel, his marriage. The Pope said no. Politics mattered here as much as religion: Catherine's nephew controlled Rome at the time, and the Pope did not want to offend him. That refusal changed everything that followed. Henry did not give up easily though.
Breaking away entirely
Unable to get his way through Rome, Henry changed who was in charge. The Act of Supremacy, in 1534, made Henry himself, not the Pope, head of the Church in England. This was mostly a fight about AUTHORITY, not about belief — at least to begin with. It was a change in power, first of all. Many bishops and nobles went along with it. Some refused, and it cost them their lives.
Between 1536 and 1541, Henry VIII closed hundreds of religious houses. This was the DISSOLUTION. Most houses were formally handed over to the Crown. WOBURN ABBEY in Bedfordshire is one real case, and an unusual one, because its abbot was put on trial too. In the mid-1530s, a royal official made everyone there swear the Oath of Supremacy. This meant accepting Henry as head of the Church. The abbot, Robert Hobbes, swore it. In May 1538, the abbey was handed to the Crown. In June, Hobbes was tried for treason. He was accused of speaking against the king as head of the Church. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. About ten years later, the land passed to the Russell family. The Duke of Bedford's family lives there today.