King Henry VIII of England
King Henry VIII was dead set on repudiating his wife Catherine of Aragon. It was obvious she had reached the age when she could no longer have children and Henry was in desperate need of a male heir. Also, he had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, the women whom he hoped to make his wife and would give him sons. But Pope Clement VII was hesitating to give Henry an annulment or divorce because Rome had been sacked by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who happened to be Queen Catherine’s nephew. As early as 1527, Henry was threatening to renounce papal authority in England, thoroughly breaking the connection between England and the continent, represented by Rome. The king’s chief minister Cardinal Thomas Wolsey knew very well that Henry was deadly serious and wrote to Pope Clement, warning him of the dire…
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