year 1.533 Henrj- was jirivately married to Anno Polej-n ; and on the 23d of May following archbisliop Cranmer pronounced the former marriage with Catharine void. In the mean time the Parliament had passed an act for- bidding all appeals to the See of Kome. Pope Clcuieiit VII met this by annulling the sentence of Cranmer in the matter of the marriage, on which the separation from Kome became complete. Acts were passed by the Parliament the next year declaring that the clergy should in future be assembled in convocation only by the king's writ, that no constitutions enacted by them should be of force without the king's assent, and that no first-fruits, or Peter's pence, or money for dispensations, shoidd be any longer paid to the pope. The clergy of the province of York themselves in convocation declared that the pope bad no more power in England than any other bishop. A new and most efficient supporter of the Reformation now also becomes conspicuous on the scene, Thomas Cromwell (aftenvards lord Cromwell and earl of Essex), who was this year made first secretarj' of state, and then master of the roUs. See Ckojiwei.l, TiioJiAs. In the next session, the Parliament, wliich reassembled in the end of this same year, passed acts declaring the king's highness to be supreme head of the Church of England, and to have authority to redress all errors, heresies, and almscs in tlie Church; and order- ing first-fruits and tenths of all spiritual benefices to be paid to the king. After this, various persons were exe- cuted for refusing to acknowledge the king's supremacy ; among others, two illustrious victims, the learned Fish- er, bishop eif Rochester, and the admirable Sir Thomas IMore. See Fisher, John; Moke, TiioJiAS. In 1535 began the dissolution of the monasteries, luider the zeal- ous superintenelence of Cromwell, constituted for that purpose visitor general of these establishments. Lati- mer and other friends of Cranmer and the Reformation were now also promoted to bishoprics ; so that not only in matters of discipline and polity, but even of doctrine, the Church might be said to have separated itself from Rome. One of the last acts of the Parliament under which all these great innovations had been made was to petition the king that a new translation of the Scrip- tures might be made by authority and set up in church- es. It was dissolved on the 18th of July, 153(), after having sat for the then unprecedented period of six years. The month of May of this year Avitnessed the trial and execution of queen Aime — in less than six months after the death of her predecessor, Catharine of Aragon — and the marriage of the brutal king, the very next morning, to Jane Seymour, the new beauty, his passion for whom must be regarded as the true motive that had impelled him to the deed of blood. Queen Jane dying on the 1-lth of October, 1537, a few days af- ter giving birth to a son, was succeeded bj' Anne, sister of the duke of Cleves, whom Henry married m January, 1540, and put away in six months after— the subservient Parliament, and the not less subservient convocation of the clergy, on his mere request, pronouncing the mar- riage to be null, and the former body makmg it high treason 'by word or deed to accept, take, judge, or be- lieve the said marriage to be good.' ]\Ieanwhile the ec- clesiastical changes continued to proceed at as rapid a rate as ever. In"l53G Cromwell was constituted a sort of lord lieutenant over the Church, by the title of vicar general, which was held to invest him with all the king's authority over the spirituality. The dissolution of the monasteries in this and the following year, as carried fonvard mider the direction of this energetic mmister, produced a succession of popidar insurrections in differ- ent parts of the kingdom, which were not put clo\\ii without great destruction of life, both in the field and afterwards by the executioner. In 1538 all incumbents were ordered to set up m their churches cojiies of the newly-published English translation of the Bil)le, and to teach the people the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, in English ; the famous image of our Lady at AValsingham, and other similar objects
HENRY 1
of the popular veneration, were also, under Cromwell's order, removed from their shrines and burnt" (^Enr/lish Cyclopcedia, s. v.).
But Henry never abandoned the special Romanist opinions to which he had committed himself personally by controversy. "When, in 1538, the princes of the League of Smalcald ofPeretl to place him at its liead, and even to alter, if possible, the Augsburg Confession so as to make it a common basis of union for all the elements of opposition to Kome, Henry was well inclined to obtain the political advantages of the position tender- ed him, but hesitated to accept it until all doctrinal questions should be settled. The three points on whicli the Germans insisted were the communion in both ele- ments, the worship in the vulgar tongue, and the mar- riage of the clergy. Henry was firm, and the ambassa- dors of the League spent two months in conferences with the Itnglish bishops and doctors without result. On their departure (Aug. 5, 1538) they addressed him a letter arguing the subjects in debate — the refusal of the cup, private masses, and sacerdotal celibacy — to which Henry replied at some length, defending his po- sition ou these topics with no little skill and dexterity, and refusing his assent finally. The Keformers, how- ever, did not yet despair, and the royal preachers even ventured occasionally to debate the propriety of clerical marriage freely before him in their sermons, but in vain. An epistle which IMelancthon addressed him in April,