The Break with Rome

Very different to the image of Henry VIII that we have come to recognise today, this widely distributed portrait type pre-dates Hans Holbein’s more famous Whitehall Palace painting of the King (see fig. 2) and may have been produced within Henry’s lifetime. Numerous portraits would have been produced using this ‘late non-Holbein image’ pattern with artists working from a cartoon as opposed to a live sitting. Painted before the Holbein portrait, this well-known image was widely copied and distributed, suggesting that many leading figures received the message that possession of an image of the King was an act of loyalty, and that Henry was correct in identifying the importance of image as propaganda.

His appearance – square-shouldered, bearded, and with his hair worn short – is consistent with the image of him that emerges from written and pictorial sources around 1535. This suggests the portrait was painted around the time of Henry’s appointment as Supreme Head of the Church and during the dissolution of the monasteries. But, aside from these symbols of strength and power, the image varies from contemporary depictions in that it is lacking the image of magnificence that Henry was so careful to cultivate, and that as a result, we have come to expect. Henry’s costume in the portrait is rather restrained and informal in appearance. Although conspicuous luxury was frowned upon for the ordinary citizen in early Tudor England, it was considered essential for the monarch to present a public image that was distinctive and magnificent, and Henry, who as a young man was known for his athletic physique and attractive appearance, would appear in a completely new outfit at all important state occasions.

Recognising the power and importance of image, Henry moved away from this style of portrait and commissioned Augsburg-born artist Holbein to paint him. The most famous of these portraits by Holbein was part of a wall-painting of the Tudor dynasty at Whitehall Palace and was said to make visitors tremble at its majesty. This became the image that was circulated on coins, medals, and the seal of the monarch, as well as being replicated in later artworks and copied by the artists that came after. Holbein became the most-favoured court painter to Henry VIII until his death in 1543. The pattern and quality of royal image-making that he set down became the standard thereafter for the Tudor court.

Although not visually striking as compared to the Holbein, our portrait pictured here allows an important comparison to be drawn between elite images of the king intended for the royal court, and lower-quality copies produced for wider consumption.

Here we have a further two portraits – an engraved copy of the portrait of Katherine of Aragon, by an unknown artist, in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery and a copy of Holbein’s c.1533 portrait drawing of an unknown woman, formerly identified as Anne Boleyn, taken from the original chalk drawing in the Royal Collection.

As monarch, Henry’s prime concern was to safeguard the succession by producing a legitimate male heir, but by 1527 his marriage to Katherine of Aragon had failed to produce a son. Henry took this to be a sign of God’s disapproval and looked to the Bible to back his assertion, finding his answer in the Book of Leviticus. His wife was his brother’s widow and such a union was forbidden by God. Henry believed that he should not have married, and indeed, had not married Katherine in the eyes of God, and believed that by removing her, he would be carrying out God’s will.

Henry had also by this time fallen passionately in love with Anne Boleyn, who had arrived at court five years earlier as a Lady in Waiting to Katherine. Anne Boleyn encouraged Henry’s affections but refused to become his mistress and so Henry had set his sights on marriage.

In 1527 Henry asked Pope Clement VII to annul his marriage to his first wife, Katherine of Aragon on the basis that she had not produced a living heir. He then planned to marry Anne Boleyn. Henry’s request was not entirely new – there was an understanding amongst European Monarchs that an heir would be needed to ensure the continuity and stability of a dynasty, and Papal dispensation – allowing a monarch to set aside his first wife and to marry another – had been granted before. But when Henry requested it, Pope Clement refused, concerned that the annulment would undermine papal authority and antagonise Katherine’s nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, now the most powerful ruler in Europe.

Henry continued to push for annulment and negotiations continued for several years, but when it became clear that the Pope would not be moved, Henry took steps to restrict the Pope’s power in England. By 1533 – around the time her portrait was taken – Anne was pregnant and Henry married her (whilst still married to Katherine) to ensure the legitimacy of their unborn child (later Queen Elizabeth I). In 1534 Henry declared that he alone should be the final authority in matters relating to the English church.

The Society’s collection contains a printed proclamation issued by Henry in June 1535. In it the King refers to the sermon campaign he has launched by letter, instructing all the clergymen of his realm (bishops, ‘abbots, priors, deans, archdeacons, provosts, parsons, vicars, curates, and all other ecclesiastical persons’) to ‘preach the true and sincere word of God’ to the people on Sundays and on all important feast days. This meant, of course, teaching them to acknowledge the Crown as the Supreme Head of the Church.

After Pope Clement VII’s refusal to annul Henry’s marriage to his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, Henry’s Reformation Parliament (as it came to be known), had passed a series of Acts, designed to pressurise the Pope into agreeing to the annulment. When these proved unsuccessful, Henry’s adviser, Thomas Cromwell, persuaded him that it would take just two further Acts of Parliament to push through the divorce. The first Act to be put before Parliament in 1533, ‘The Act in Restraint of Appeals’ banned English subjects appealing to any foreign authority in ecclesiastical matters. This Act effectively blocked Katherine of Aragon from asking for the Pope’s support with regards to the divorce and ensured that she would have to instead address Henry’s Parliament – the final authority on the constitutional affairs of England.

The second Act, the Act of Supremacy, came the following year. The Act of Supremacy asserted that the King was, and always had been, the Supreme Head of the Church in England. Thomas Cromwell used the twelfth century book ‘The History of the Kings of Britain’ written by Geoffrey of Monmouth as his source for legitimising this supremacy. The book traced the ancestry of the Kings of Britain right back to King Arthur and was used to insinuate that this was not a new title but a re-gained right. The Act empowered Henry to ‘visit, redress, reform, correct or amend all errors, heresies and enormities’ within the English Church, and all funds that had previously been paid to Rome were redirected to the Crown.

The power and responsibility of the English king had been recognised by Parliament and was now to be welcomed by the English people. Thomas Cromwell had already written to the bishops of England on behalf of the King, ordering them to preach in support of the supremacy and the Society’s 1535 proclamation followed shortly after. Preaching the word of God was now synonymous with teaching the populace to accept the monarch’s authority over that of the pope, instilling the notion that obedience to the Crown was divinely ordained. The break with Rome was complete and by 1536, Henry hand absolute power over church and nation.

In response, the Pope expelled Henry from the Catholic Church and stripped him of his papal title of Fidei Defensor or ‘Defender of the Faith’.

This chronicle of English history, first printed by Caxton in 1480, is an English translation of the Prose Brut chronicle (originally derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth with later additions), collated with a geographical description of Britain from the Polychronicon of Benedictine monk Ranulf Higden (d.1364). The Brut was considered the ‘standard’ political and secular history of England during the fifteenth century; with its translation into English and the advent of printing, it became even more widely disseminated. Some thirteen editions of the chronicle were published between 1480 and 1528.

Although this chronicle was published during the reign of Henry VII – seven years before his son would ascend the throne as Henry VIII – we can see the later impact of Henry VIII’s regime on the Society’s copy of the text. In 1534, the Act of Supremacy established Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the Church, replacing the authority of the Pope. An order was issued to all parish priests that all references to the Pope should be erased from liturgical books; there was to be no doubt across England that the king was the one and only Head of the Church.

Though this is not a liturgical work, we may speculate that its unknown owner nevertheless wished to comply with the new practices of the Reformation, perhaps as an ardent believer in the legitimacy of Henry’s authority – or perhaps censoring out of fear of reprisal for owning ‘popish’ texts. We also find mentions to St Thomas of Canterbury struck through. A Royal Proclamation of November 1538, issued by Henry and Thomas Cromwell, ordered that Thomas Becket – one of the most popular saints of the High Middle Ages – was to be ‘unsainted’. Images of Becket were to be destroyed, along with his shrine at Canterbury, and all references to his festival and veneration obliterated from service books.

This manuscript records the yearly revenue of the abbey of St Albans from 1537-1538, ‘from the time of Richard Stephenadge late Abbott’ (heading fol.2). Like many monastic houses, the abbey accrued revenue from the rent of lands for sheep flocks and farming (as seen here); the produce of livestock; the production of ales; and from benefactions and community fundraising. Richard Stevenage was the last abbot of St Albans and surrendered the abbey to the king on 5 December 1539.

Monastic life was devoted to prayer – the giving of indulgences meant praying for others – and prayer was organised by a system of Hours. Additionally, Friars were responsible for preaching sermons, celebrating masses, and hearing confession. But the writings of Humanist scholars, such as Erasmus and Martin Luther, had thrown into doubt the need for this type of prayer and there was a thought amongst bishops and scholars, such as Erasmus, that the monks were not fulfilling their proper function, nor abiding by the strict rules that they were supposed to follow.

Further, Henry’s defence of the Catholic Church against Lutheranism had seen him awarded the title of defender, but it had isolated England from the rest of Europe where Protestantism had taken hold. Now, as the newly titled Supreme Head of the Church, Henry found himself cut off from Rome’s economic trade powers at a time when he desperately needed funds. (The peace of the Field of Cloth of Gold had not lasted, and England was at war with France).

It was at this crucial moment that Henry’s leading Councillor, Thomas Cromwell, drew Henry’s attention to the vast wealth of the church. He also claimed that the clergy were still loyal to the Pope and were syphoning off money to send to Rome. The claim was a false one but it motivated Henry to obtain an Act of Parliament that allowed him to visit monasteries and in 1535 the Valor Ecclesiasticus (the great survey of monastic wealth) began. Thomas Cromwell’s commissioners also visited monasteries to look for scandal and to find and uncover corruption. Using this ‘evidence’ Cromwell began a four-year campaign of destruction.

In 1536 Henry was granted an Act of Parliament to dissolve the smaller monastic houses (around 400 of them). After this Henry moved on to the larger monasteries. Rather than waiting for the second Act of Suppression, that was passed by Parliament in 1539, the King’s commissioners pressurized the abbots and monks into surrendering their monasteries to the King, as was the case with St Albans Abbey. By 1540 a total of 800 religious houses had been dissolved.

During the Dissolution everything of value was taken from the monasteries – books, manuscripts, gold, and land. Monastic land made up one third of the land of this country and this, along with some of the monastic houses, was sold off to Henry’s courtiers. Many of the houses and sites that were not sold off were left to ruin and became a visual reminder that the Catholic church had fallen and that the power of the church had moved to the power of the state.

John Leland (1505-1552) was the first person to publicly declare himself an antiquary and the first real example of an antiquary as we would recognise. Leland had received a humanist education, first at St Paul’s School, London, and then at the University of Cambridge, after which he became a priest, a court scholar, and acting Keeper of Henry VIII’s libraries.

Leland was a staunch supporter of Henry’s religious reform, but as an antiquary he was appalled by the destruction wrought by the dissolution of the monasteries and of the loss of rare and ancient texts that were so important for future scholarship. In 1533 Leland received a licence from the King to search for rare books by ancient authors in the monasteries and colleges of the realm. Leland toured much of the Kingdom as the dissolution got under way and saved, not just the works of ancient authors, but monastic texts and important manuscripts, all of which were lodged in the King’s own library. Leland had hopes of one day opening the collection as a research library for scholars.

In addition to his royal commission, he took the opportunity of travel to note down all that he saw – castles, churches, gates, bridges, tombs, and inscriptions- in hopes of producing a comprehensive description of Britain. In a letter to Henry VIII know as ‘the New-Years Gift’ he gave an account of his activities, explaining that he hoped to produce a book to be titled ‘De Antiquitate Britannica’ and a catalogue of all British writers, ‘begynning at the Druides’.

Leland completed his catalogue but not the greater work. The scale of his ambition made it hard to give any depth or coherence to the copious notes he had taken, or the material that he had collected, and the attempt to do so eventually drove him mad. However, his work was, and remains, incredibly valuable as he created the only survey of its kind before the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and in so doing, he laid the early foundations for the modern antiquarian movement.

This survey became known as ‘The Itinerary of John Leland’ which was regularly consulted by antiquaries before being published in nine volumes by the antiquary Thomas Hearne between 1710-1712. The Society’s second edition was printed 35 years later – demonstrating the continued importance of this Tudor antiquarian’s work.

This is the Society’s 1553 copy of The Great Bible in English, bound into a volume with the later 1560 Book of Common Prayer, and ‘Certayne sermons appoynted by the Quenes maiestie’, published during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Accompanying this is a 1541 proclamation ‘for the Bible of the largest and greatest volume to be had in every church’. This followed on from an earlier issue of the same and was used to reiterate the order that every church should hold, and preach from, Henry’s English Bible.

In 1538 Thomas Cromwell issued an injunction on Henry’s behalf, ordering the clergy to purchase a copy of an English Bible to be placed in every parish church. Further, the Bible was to be read aloud in church services throughout the Kingdom, and the clergy were to place the Bible in ‘some convenient place’ so that parishioners ‘may resort to the same and read it.’ To ensure that this injunction would be fulfilled, Henry authorised the printing of The Great Bible the following year. This was the first authorised printed edition of the Bible in English. This was an about-turn for Henry, who had previously deemed it heretical to translate the Latin text into English.

The edition was prepared by English ecclesiastical reformer Myles Coverdale* under the direction of Thomas Cromwell (Vicar General) and around 9000 copies were printed – enough for every parish in the Kingdom.

Henry’s Bible began with a woodcut title page – the first page that every person would see – that served as a visual reminder that Henry was quite literally the Head of the Church in England. The page depicted Henry sitting in majesty at centre-stage, directly below God, handing down his bible (the word of God) to his clergy, who are seen passing the volume to the congregation, right at the bottom of the page. This was the first time that everyday people could see a Bible in a language that they could understand, and it was the King who had made this possible. Henry VIII had made himself head of the church and now it was he who would communicate the word of God to his people.

The Society’s Bible was published in 1553 during the reign of Henry’s son, Edward VI. By the time of its publication, evangelicalism had taken hold, with services held in English rather than Latin, using the English Bible alongside an English prayer book authorised in 1549.

This is an original wax impression of the third Great Seal of Henry VIII. The Great Seal is the official seal of the monarch and has been used as a means of authentication by Scottish and English monarchs since the eleventh century. The first British king known to have employed a seal to validate documents was Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) and the double-sided design has remained unchanged ever since. On one side the monarch is shown in ‘majesty’- enthroned, crowned, and holding royal regalia. On the other, the monarch is show as ‘warrior’ – mounted on horseback. The double-sided seal would be used as a pendant seal and would be attached to the foot of a document using a cord, tag, or tongue. Our seal has a length of woven green and white silk cord still attached.

The Great Seal represents the signature of the monarch and as such, has been referred to as the ‘key to the kingdom’. When a Great Seal was decommissioned, it would be broken in front of witnesses to ensure it could not be used or copied, and it was considered treason to forge the Great Seal with the death penalty for anyone who was convicted of this crime.

The matrix that would have been used to create this impression was designed by Morgan Wolff. It came into use in 1542 and was used until Henry’s death in 1547. In 1538 Henry had been stripped of his title of Defender of the Faith by Clement’s successor, Pope Paul III, after he broke away from Rome. But if you look carefully, you will see that the Fidei Defensor title still appears on our seal.

This is because Henry had approached the English Parliament in 1543 and had asked them to re-instate his title of Defender. This new title, awarded the following year, referred to his defence of the English church and appears on this seal alongside the title of [Supreme] Head of the Church in England.