Protestantism had little to do with the Henrican reformation of the 1530(TM)s. Henry(TM)s real motives were sex and greed.

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Protestantism had little to do with the Henrican reformation of the 1530’s. Henry’s real motives were sex and greed.

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It is clear that Henry’s main reason for breaking with Rome was to gain control of the Church’s wealth in England, and to get his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, rather than to alter the liturgy. The liturgy really continued much as it always had; only some bibles were in English and less people attended Catholic Church.

Henry asked for an annulment from the Pope in 1527, after the Sack of Rome. The Pope had a dilemma: Charles V’s troops had ransacked Rome, destroying the city, Killing the monks, and raping the nuns, and threatened to return at any point. Charles was the nephew of Catherine of Aragon (whom Henry was trying to annul his marriage to, without her agreement). But his good relationship with Henry would be in ruins if he did not give him an annulment, that he so wanted. So, knowing Henry, he decided to put off the annulment for now, without replying and he hoped Henry would change his mind, as he often did. He put it off for so long that Henry issued the ‘Act in Conditional Restraints of Annates’ and Peter’s Pence, threatening the Popes income from England. The Pope still did nothing, because he was more afraid of Charles V, so Henry broke with Rome, making himself the head of the Church.

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He was then excommunicated – twice, in 1534 and in 1538.

Henry needed to get rid of Catherine of Aragon, and he couldn’t kill her because she was popular in England, and it might have led to a revolt, and because her nephew was the most powerful man in Europe, Charles V, and he would most certainly invade. So Henry decided to get the marriage annulled, under the claim that in the Bible, in the book of Leviticus it states if you marry your brother’s wife you shall have no children. Even though he already had a daughter to ...

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