Anne Boleyn was the most important person in bringing about the Kings divorce in the years 1529 - 33. Discuss. (24 marks)
by
amygarrett1btinternetcom (student)
Anne Boleyn was the most important person in bringing about the King’s divorce in the years 1529 - 33 (24 marks)
Anne was probably the most closest person to Henry during this time, so it would of been thought that Anne would have a massive influence on Henry decisions on things that would concern her, the divorce. Anne wouldn’t of been able to create any laws that would allow the divorce to go ahead but could certainly tempt Henry into thinking them which he could then enforce to be a new law. Of course other people would needed to be involved with being able to set the laws and to ensure whoever was in charged agreed with what was happening so it could've been a possibility that other people many of had an influence on Henry as well.
Boleyn would of been important to Henry wanting the divorce as she introduced him to Lutheran ideas of where Henry should be in charge of his own church, and so have power over his own kingdom and not the Pope. This would then give Henry the freedom to decide on what laws England should follow by, which could make it a lot easier for him to introduce and set a law about allowing people to divorce, rather than the King following laws from the Pope that isn't even in his country. Boleyn introduces Henry to these ideas by giving him a book titled ‘obedience of christian men’ written by W.Tyndale. Once Henry has read this book it gives him the idea of wanting to gain him own power in being able to run his own country, so leads him gaining power over law and giving his the authority divorce Catherine and marry Boleyn. So if it wasn't for Boleyn Henry may not of had the idea in the first place to challenge the authority of the Pope over the King. However Boleyn isn’t the only one to introduce these types of ideas to Henry for Thomas Cranmer also puts across to Henry the type of ideas Lutherans have, to try and influences Henry into following as they benefit him better then the situation he has at the moment. Also Cranmer plays quite a big role in Henry's divorce because he is the man that declares that Henry’s and Catherine's marriage was invalid, so even if Henry has these ideas, Cranmer was the one who followed through and actually got him the divorce. Before Cranmer does this of course he went to all the local universities to try and get the students there on Henry's side by changing the law maker, this was just to put across to the Pope that is isn't just Henry that thinks this, this was known as the university sweep. Finally Cranmer was used to marry Henry and Boleyn as he was the Archbishop of Canterbury and was one of the few members of the clergy that believed in Henry's views. Overall i don't think Boleyn was the more important person at this stage in getting Henry's divorce, because you could argue that Boleyn introduced Cranmer to Henry and without her he would never of been in power, but he most likely would of got someone else. So Cranmer id the more important person because he managed to get Henry the divorce even if Boleyn may of been the one to give him the ideas in the first place.
