These measures, bold and unusual as they were, affected Rome only indirectly. As it was evident that something to be more closely felt was requisite, one of the pope's highest and most lucrative privileges was attacked. The pope had long maintained that no high ecclesiastical dignity could be conferred without hisapproval, and in return for granting it, he received the first year's fruits of the benefice. These payments, called annates, amounted to a large sum, increased even beyond its legitimate amount by time dishonorable expedient of sanctioning the appointment of none but very old men. A bill passed both houses abolishing these payments (23 Hen. VIII., c. 20). To make the measure serve its purpose more effectually, power was given to the king to call it into effect at any future time, while the hope was privately held out that this power would not be exercised if the divorce were granted.
While such measures were being passed, it may be believed that sir Thomas More held office with pain and reluctance. Finding at last his influence powerless to restrain the advancing tide of secularism, he resigned, and a ministry was formed (1532) of which Cromwell was now the nominal as well as real head. The new ministry were prepared to push measures of reform as far as the temper of the king and the nation would per mit. They desired nothing better than an open rupture with Rome. Henry, on the other hand, exhausted every effort of diplomacy to preserve the alliance with the church. Embassies, intrigues, plots of all kind, in Paris and Rome, abounded in end less confusion at this time, making it impossible to determine the immediate cause of the separation, long since certain to ensue.
In time begiuuine of 1533, Henry either impatient at the long delay, or as others say. and as the dates render not improbable, discovering that an illicit intercourse he carried on with Anne Boleyn had resulted in her pregnancy, was privately married to her. Within three months afterwards, the marriage was made public; and to complete mat ters. Cranmer, recently appointed archbishop of Canterbury, held a court, as the highest ecclesiastical authority in England, and pronounced sentence of divorce, declaring the marriage of Henry and Catharine to have been null from the beginning. In England, these doings were accompanied by much rejoicing, and the king's former taste for pageantry revived in the magnificent ceremonial of crowning his new queen.
The news prOdtee0 ol'hrt:effects in Italy and Germany. When news of the marriage reached the vatican, Henry was cited to appear before the papal court. He
refused, and appealed to a general council. When Cranmer's sentence reached Rome, the pope at once declared it illegal, and soon after, almost closed the door for further negotiation by rejecting the appeal to the council. The next steps on each side were taken almost simultaneously. The English parliament met, and under Cromi,vell's guidance, far outdid its predecessors. It passed an act entirely abolishing the papal authority within the realm (24 Hen. VIII. c. 12), giving the king, as on a former occasion, power to call the act into operation when lie pleased. It then settled the sue cession on the issue of Anne Boleyn, to the exclusion of that of Catharine. Scarcely had these measures passed, when news came from Rome that the pope had pronounced judgment in the long pending divorce case, finding Henry's marriage to Catharine to have been valid. On the day following Henry called into operation the act abolishing the pope's authority.
Henry having as yet done comparatively little to forfeit his early popularity, the sympathy of most was with him in the steps taken against those of his subjects who were disaffected with these changes. Among these steps, however, were some not easily defended, even according to the standard of the times. Minor victims fell unheeded, but all Europe was shocked when More and Fisher (bishop of Rochester) were put to death for refusing to acknowledge the new succession, and to admit the king's right to the headship of the church. Even Henry's ally, Francis I., remonstrated. The worst effect of the cruelty was the alienation of the German Protestants, who ever afterwards held aloof from Henry in spite of all Cromwell's efforts to cement an alliance. After this and other similar acts, which were not unfrequent, it may be said that Henry never again received human sympathy. He pursued his course, however, aided by those from whom the dust of the conflict concealed his cruelty.
The state of the monasteries having long been a public scandal, Cromwell (1535) sent a commission to examine them. Acting on the reports of the commission, parlia ment abolished the smaller monasteries, which happened to be at once the weakest and the worst (21 Hen. VIII. c. 28). The disbanded monks made a large addition, both directly and indirectly, to the ranks of the disaffected; and to create further discontent, the swarms of vagabonds who had subsisted on the monastic alms were suddenly thrown for support on the yeomen.