Henry VIII Seeks His Great Matter

1527

Henry VIII, convinced Catherine of Aragon could not give him a male heir and besotted with Anne Boleyn, quietly instructed Cardinal Wolsey to begin seeking an annulment from Rome. Pope Clement VII, a virtual prisoner of Charles V after the sack, could not oblige. English Catholicism's long death began. The obsession with a male heir would transform England's religious, political, and cultural landscape beyond recognition.