Henry VIII: The Obedience Of A Christian Man

It all started with an enormous debt, an “illegitimate” wife, a King who needed more power than he had, and a lack of a son. Henry VIII broke away from the Pope and Rome due to his greed for a successor, power, and money.
Henry VIII initial break from the Pope began with the belief that he and his wife Katherine’s marriage was illegitimate. At the time it was believed that if a marriage was illegitimate the couple could not conceive a child. During his marriage with Katherine she had three stillborn children, two die during infancy, and a daughter named Mary; although Katherine conceived multiple children. Henry took it as conceiving a male and thoroughly believed his marriage was cursed. He began pushing for a divorce, which had to be granted by the Pope, during this time he met a woman named Anne Boleyn and fell in love with her, hoping to obtain a male heir, he further pushed for a divorce from Katherine in order to marry and …show more content…
Boleyn and his wife Katherine one man stood in the way, the Pope. Henry could not obtain a divorce from Katherine considering there was no valid reason for the divorce. So he plotted and with the influence of Anne and a book called “The Obedience of a Christian Man,” he inherited the idea that the king should be in charge of everything. When he is “in charge” of everything he vacations in France with his mistress, has a secret marriage, and gets her pregnant. Yet, he is still married to his first wife. About this time Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s chief minister, whispered quiet loudly that in order to fully degrade the Popes power he must break from Rome entirely therefore eliminating any opposition of his divorce and his marriage. Hence, the Restraint of Appeals act which forbade appeals of all religious or other matter by the Pope in Rome or other foreign juries pertaining to anything in Henry’s domain. This gave Henry all the power he needed and once the act was passed Henry had free