Explain the role played by Thomas Cranmer in achieving the Royal Divorce

Paper 11 June 2012
Explain the role played by Thomas Cranmer in achieving the Royal Divorce
Thomas Cranmer, along with Foxe and Gardiner, were tasked with trying to solve King Henry VIII’s Great Matter. First they decided to appeal to the great universities of Europe in 1530, but it became apparent that there was nothing that could be done within canon law.
Therefore Cranmer, along with the Archbishop of Hereford, turned to a collection of documents known as the Collectania satis copiosa. This was a collection of ancient English manuscripts and Anglo-Saxon Chronicals which referred to the king as head of state and church. They set forward a legal and historical basis from which Cranmer used to argue that Henry had the authority to achieve a divorce without the consent of the Pope. Furthermore, it was said that Henry had a positive duty to regain the control over church and state that was written of in the Collectania. Henry’s own notes on the document prove that he was aware of its existence and that he was intelligent enough to know what it implied.
