In 1533 Henry married Anne Boleyn, one of the ladies of the court (Henry VIII, 1992) Archbishop Thomas Cranmer annulled his marriage with Catherine. Pope’s reaction was a excommunication of Henry from the church. So Henry became “Supreme Head of the Church of England” (by the Act of Supremacy in 1534), a church that was independent of Rome (Halliday, 1995).
This whole situation was a bit complicated for Henry. He had to decide what next. He himself did not want to change anything from Catholic religion, he did not sympathize with the Protestants (Halliday, 1995). His Act of Six Articles was supposed to protect six Catholic dogmas against changes (Haigh, 1992). This is the evidence that English Reformation was political and not religious act.
Although it seemed that the religion had not changed, there was at least one big difference. Service was served in English not in Latin any more and English Bible was supposed to be in every parish church (Halliday, 1995).
However, the Reformation did not happen to be without problems. There were several rebellions all over England. The biggest one (called Pilgrimage of Grace) took place in Yorkshire in 1536. All of them were suppressed (Haigh, 1992). Henry needed some help in the political field. He found a supporter in Thomas Cromwell, who replaced Wolsey. This minister made him even more powerful. As a quarter of the country was owned by the church (Halliday, 1995), a dissolution of monasteries (1536-40) sorted out Henry’s financial problems. Newly obtained wealth served mainly to finance Henry’s wars (Haigh, 1992).
As was pointed out previously, the main reason for the whole Reformation was lack of a male heir. But Henry’s hopes for a son were not fulfilled. Anne gave him also only a daughter, Elizabeth. Soon after, Anne was convicted of treasonable adultery and executed (Haigh, 1992). Henry than married Jane Seymour who gave him long-awaited son Edward (Henry VIII, 1992). Henry finally had the male heir and both of his daughters were declared bastards (Haigh, 1992). Henry’s fourth wife was Anne Cleves (Jane died at childbirth). This was political marriage and Henry did not like her, so he divorced. Failure of this marriage and intrigues of the court caused a fall of Cromwell who was executed (Haigh, 1992). Henry than had two more wives; Catherine Howard (executed) and Catherine Parr, but no other children (Henry VIII, 1992).
The later years of Henry’s reign were in were characterized by constant suspicions. Many people were executed after being convicted of treason (Henry VIII, 1992).