May 23,1533
The divorce of King Henry VIII & Catherine of Aragon.
The 24-year marriage of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII was declared illegal by Archbishop Cranmer at Dunstable Priory on May 23rd, 1533. Never has the dissolution of a marriage caused more ramifications for a country, a religion and most interestingly, the woman who caused the whole thing.
It had all started out so beautifully. The newly crowned Henry, wonderfully handsome, personable, and athletic had rescued Catherine of Aragon, the highly intelligent, incredibly gracious, very Catholic and impeccably royal (her parents were the famed Ferdinand and Isabella of the Columbus story) widow of Henry’s older brother Arthur, from years of limbo in England. The first 15 years or so of their marriage were very happy and they were partners personally and politically. It was, as one courtier put it a “Golden World.”
But golden worlds often fade. By the mid 1520s Catherine had grown old and stout and was increasingly involved in religious activities. Henry was in his early 30s, a man in his glorious prime and obsessed with fathering a male heir and Catherine had produced only one surviving child, the future Bloody Mary. In 1526 there factors all collided with another extremely clever, bewitching, religiously progressive Maid-of-Honor to the Queen. Her name was Anne Boleyn.
The King fell madly in love with Anne (his letters to her survived and are like those of a schoolboy). He saw the graceful, fiery lady as his second chance at life and was furious when the Pope absolutely refused to annul his marriage to Catherine on the grounds that it was invalid since she was the widow of his long dead brother. Catherine fought all attempts at divorce insistently having countless public debates and fights with her husband on the subject.
With Anne’s encouragement, Henry began to break away from the Catholic Church and married her in January of 1533 (two months before his annulment from Catherine was declared, therefore making the marriage technically invalid). The Pope swiftly excommunicated Henry and Cranmer and so the Church of England (the Anglican Church) was created with Henry as its supreme head. An entire country was forced into a new religion, with different rules, prayers and a new language (English instead of Latin).
Anne and Henry’s marriage ended about as badly as it possibly could when she was beheaded at his order in 1536. Many people believed the transition from mistress to wife had been her undoing as had the death of the publically beloved Catherine in Jan. of 1536, and her inability to produce a male heir. But she did produce Elizabeth, the greatest monarch in English history, and was inspiration for the formation of the Church of England, with 77 million current members worldwide.
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