Formal and repeated were made to the pope, to annul the king's marriage with Catherine; but his holiness, while he professed his desire to comply with Henry's request, was awed by the power of the emperor. and practised various artifices, to elude the demands of the English monarch. Urged at I•ngth by his solicita tions, he commissionsCardinal Campegio as his legate to London, who, together with Cat dinal \Volsey, should hold a court for trying the validity of the king's marriage; but, when the proceedings were nearly brought to a con clusion, the legate, upon some frivolous pretences, pro rogued the court, and the pontiff a few clays alter ad journed the cause to his own judgment at Rome.
\Volsey had long foreseen, that his ruin would be the consequence of the king's suit for a divorce; and his fall took place more suddenly than could have been anticipa ted. Solicitous to gratify his royal master, yet fearing to offend the pope, his conduct, throughout the whole course of the offal!, was mysterious and temporizing. The king, at last, confident of his minister's talents, or blinded by the ardour of his wishes, suspected his fide lity and zeal in managing the affair. Anne Boleyne, had been prepossessed against the cardinal, imputed to him the failure of her hopes; and her influence over Henry contributed to fortify his suspicions against his favourite. Even the queen and her partizans, judging of \Volsey by the part which he had openly acted, ex pressed the greatest animosity against him; and the most opposite factions seemed to combine for the overthrow of that haughty minister.
Henry, after remaining some time in suspense, at length resolved upon the ruin of Wolsey ; required hint to deliver up the great seal, and to retire from his palace in London to his country seat near Hampton Court. Ile next ordered hint to be indicted in the star chamber, and abandoned him to all the rigour of the parliament : but thought many charges were brought against him, it was found difficult to establish the proof of any crime ; and Henry remitted the sentence of forfeiture, which had been pronounced against hint, and restored his property which had been seized. Afterwards, however, funding that he stood in the way of his measures against the pope, renewed the prosecution against him ; commanded hint to be arrested for high treason, and to be brought to London for trial. But by the fatigues of the journey, the agitation of his mind, or, as some have alleged, by the effects of poison which lie had taken, he was seized with a violent disorder by the way, and died at Leicester Abbey. See WOLSEY.
Henry, being thus freed from a pet-son whom he re garded as an obstacle to his intentions, resolved, by the advice of Crammer, to have the legality of his marriage discussed by all the universities of Europe; and having at length procured their suffrages, as well as the opi nions of the Rabbis in his favour, he determined to com mence an open resistance to the pope's authority. By
the revival of an old statute, which had been employed to ruin \Volsey, and which rendered his exercise of the power of legate unlawful, though it had been done with his own permission, he indicted all those ecclesiastics who had submitted to the legantine court, for having violated the law; reduced them to compound for their offence by a fine of 118,0001.; and, at the same time, ex torted from them a confession, that ('the king was the protector and the supreme head of the church of Eng land." By the strict execution of the old statute above mentioned, much of the profits, and still more of the power, of the church of Rome was cut off; and by seve ral new acts, the usurpations of the pontiff were farther abolished.
Henry, now determined in his own mind, and prepar ed for all consequences, privately married Anne Bo leyne; and upon her becoming pregnant, publicly an nounced her as his wife, by carrying her in a magnifi cent procession through the streets of London. His mar riage with Catherine having been pronounced invalid by a court held under Archbishop Cranmer, the new queen was publicly crowned with suitable splendour, and was soon afterwards delivered of a daughter, who received the name of Elizabeth. When intelligence of these transactions was conveyed to Rome, the pope im mediately issued a sentence, declaring the nullity of Cranmer's decision, and requiring Henry, upon pain of excommunication, to restore Catherine to her place as his only lawful wife. The king, upon receiving infor mation of this decree against him, no longer delayed to execute his long meditated scheme of renouncing the Papal jurisdiction. A parliament was assembled, which ratified the king's marriage with Anne Boleyne, and ap pointed the crown to descend to the issue of this con nection; declared the king to be the only supreme head on'earth of the church of England, and granted him a right to all annates and tythes of benefices, which had hitherto been paid to the see of Rome. The clergy, as sembled in convocation, passed a vote, that, by the law of God, the Roman pontiff had no more jurisdiction in England than any other foreign bishop; and the bishops even took out new commissions from the crown, ac knowledging all their spiritual and episcopal authority to be derived ultimately from the civil magistrate.