Post on 11-Apr-2023
LIBERTY UNIVERSITY BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
The Papacy of Clement VII and the English Reformation
Submitted to Dr. Timothy M. McAlhaney in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the completion of the course
CHHI 525-D08
Church History II
by
Erik DiVietro
L22883060
April 30, 2015
Contents
Introduction..................................................ii
The Pope in a Trap.............................................1
The Burgeoning Reformation................................1
Political Concerns........................................3
The Crisis of the English King and His Spanish Queen...........4
The Initial Request and Ensuing Complications.............5
Indecision and Stalling...................................7
The Shift in Ecclesiastic Power in England................9
The Cost of Clement’s Indecision..............................11
Conclusion....................................................14
Bibliography..................................................16
i
Introduction
There are a few events in history that alter the course of
events in such a way that one can call them seminal. One such
event is Tudor England’s break with the See of Rome in the early
sixteenth century. England, which had always been somewhat
isolated and idiosyncratic, made a wild turn that truly separated
it from the rest of Europe. In the span of a single generation,
England went from being one of Catholicism’s most vocal
supporters to a Protestant nation firmly entrenched against the
Roman Church. To call this a radical alteration of the course of
European history would not be an overstatement.
The popular perspective on the English Reformation is often
superficial, without consideration of the political and
ecclesiastic forces that formed the events of the Reformation as
well as the results of it. There is a need to establish the
narrative within the context of canon law and international
diplomacy in order to understand the symbiotic relationship
between these forces and ecclesiastic reform, especially in
England.
ii
Henry VIII of England is sometimes cast as something of an
anti-hero, a libertine who rejected Rome because he was denied
his pleasures but accomplished something good in the process. In
reality, Henry was a faithful son of the Church who did not seek
an unprecedented boon from a close ally. While writing his Assertio
Septem Sacramentorum (the occasion of which will be discussed
later), Henry would often read his manuscripts to his friends.
Upon hearing one passage, Thomas More commented to Henry, “Your
grace should be guarded in your expressions for the Pope, as a
temporal sovereign may one day be opposed to England, and here is
a passage wherein you exalt the authority of the Holy See to too
high a pitch, and which Rome would surely adduce in case of a
rupture.” Henry replied, “What matter? Do I not hold my crown
from the Holy See?”1 More’s question helps the reader understand
one of the realities of his day. The popes led a nation that
could be embroiled in the politics of the day. They were not just
an ecclesiastic authority. Though Henry was faithful to what he
believed to be the true Church, the political, temporal side of
1 Henry VIII, Assertio Septem Sacramentum or Defence of the Seven Sacraments by Henry VIII, King of England, trans. Louis O’Donovan (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1908), 86-87.
iii
that Church would become a matter of strife to hi. More’s words
were prophetic. Less than a decade later, Henry would be
embroiled in a diplomatic and legislative battle with the very
authority he defended.
There were complex relationships that brought about
England’s break with Rome, but ultimately responsibility rests
not fully on Henry but also on the shoulders of Pope Clement VII.
From 1527 until 1533, Clement attempted to manage Henry VIII’s
request for a divorce from his wife, Catherine of Aragon.
Clement’s delays provided the space in which Protestant ideals
could be integrated with emerging lay leadership, ultimately
shedding medieval papacy and laying the groundwork for much of
what is now a predominantly Protestant modern English-speaking
world.
The project will be divided in three major sections,
developing both the context and implications of Clement’s
inaction. The first section will briefly recount the difficult
situation that Clement VII inherited in 1521. This will set the
stage for the second, much larger section dealing with the events
of the annulment itself. In the final section, the repercussions
iv
of Clement’s inaction will be presented. By examining these
events and the repercussions that follow, it can be demonstrated
that Clement’s delaying involvement in the volatile matter was
the crucial component of the affair which brought about the
breakdown of English Catholicism.
v
The Pope in a Trap
Cardinal Giulio de Medici was not well-liked, even if he was
well-known and generally applauded as being an adept politician
and organizer. Since childhood he had been inseparable from his
slightly older cousin Giovanni, and when Giovannie became Pope
Leo X in 1513, Giulio received a cardinal’s hat. After Leo died
in 1520, Giulio supported the former tutor of the Holy Roman
emperor and spiritual reformer, an aged Dutch cleric named
Adriaan Florensz, as the next pope. Adriaan survived only ten
months; and so in 1521, Cardinal Giulio entered the enclave
again. This time he emerged as the pope, thanks largely to the
support of the English Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of
York, and took the name Clement VII.
The Burgeoning Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was still in its infancy when
Clement came to power, but Martin Luther’s faction was gaining
momentum. Leo X and the previous Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian
I, had mismanaged the legitimate complaints raised by the
Protestants. At first Luther was conciliatory, hoping Leo would
1
join him in answering the corrupt that had flowed from Rome.2
When Leo responded with threats of excommunication and order to
burn Luther’s works, 3 Luther began openly attacking the pope,
referring to him as antichrist in his rebuttal and burning the papal
bull before the gathered faculty of the University of Wittenberg
in December 1520.4 The battle of “bulls and smoke,” as Erasmus
put it, quickly escalated to violent threats against Luther.5
Hoping to get Luther to recant, the new emperor-elect
Charles V had called the Diet of Worms in May 1521. Luther was
condemned, but the emperor proved unable to even imprison him. By
the time of Clement’s acclamation in November, Luther had
published four further books specifically targeting practices in
the Roman Church. His followers were emerging from every corner
of Germany.
During this time of troubles, the papacy’s greatest defender
2 Martin Luther, Concerning Christian Liberty in Harvard Classics, trans. R.S. Grignon (1909, reprint New York: Bartelby.com, 2001), accessed April 23, 2015,http://www.bartleby.com/36/6/1.html.
3 Exsurge Domine, 1520; Decet Romanum Pontificem, 1521.4 Martin Luther, “Letter the George Spalatin, December 10, 1520” in
Luther’s Correspondence and Other Contemporary Letters vol. I, translated by Preserved Smith (Philadelphia, PA: The Lutheran Publication Society, 1913), 414-415.
5 Justo L. González, The Story of Christianity: The Reformation to the Present Day, vol.2 (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010. Kindle edition, loc. 636; Smith, Luther’s Correspondence and Other Contemporary Letters, 401-410.
2
had arisen not from Germany or France but from England. The young
Tudor monarch Henry VIII took his faith very seriously. Advised
by Cardinal Wolsey, he had prepared a theological response to
Luther, Assertio Septem Sacramentorum, in which he vigorously defended
the Church, accusing Luther of being an imposter: morbidum esse
ovem.6 This had earned Henry the title of fidei defensor in October
1521.7 Leo praised Henry: Qui enim in te amor, quod studium defendendae
christianae fidei.8
It stood to reason that the amenable relationship would
continue with Leo’s cousin, Clement VII. The Medici relationship
with the House of Tudor was longstanding, and Clement had been
cardinal-protector England (1514-1518).9 Cardinal Wolsey had
benefited significantly from Clement’s assistance in dealing with
religious dissidents in Britain.10 Wolsey had advocated Clement’s
election in the enclave; and the two maintained a cordial, 6 O’Donovan, Assertio Septem, 194.7 Ibid., 167-173; Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, loc. 1489. “A diseased
(possibly infectious) sheep.”8 Ibid., 178. “What zeal, what love, what an intellectual defense of the
Christian faith!” 9 J.S. Brewer, and R.H. Brodie, eds. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic of
the Reign of Henry VIII: Preserved in the Public Record Office, the British Museum and Elsewhere, vol. 1(London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1920), 739.
10 Ibid., 866; Herbert M. Vaughan, The Medici Popes (Leo X and Clement VII) (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1908), 286.
3
cooperative exchange of diplomatic and personal letters.
England was Florence’s primary trade partner, and so it is
not surprising that Henry supported Clement.11 Clement’s man in
London was Giovanni Cavalcanti, who was granted special trade
privileges and was deeply involved in the financial affairs of
Henry’s administration, serving as a sort of ad hoc Medici Bank.12
Clement needed the English markets because he was slowly losing
control of Florence. Eventually he would be in a state of almost
constant warfare to regain his native city, expending truly
enormous amounts of money in the process. In the end he
accomplished little and lost control.13
Political Concerns
The Reformation was simply the most recent complication to
the difficult political situation Clement inherited. Italy had
been a battlefield since 1494. Young Charles V had been elected
emperor in 1519. As the grandson of Ferdinand of Aragon, he had
11 Cinzia M. Sicca, “Consumption And Trade Of Art Between Italy and England In The First Half of The Sixteenth Century: The London House of The Bardi and Cavalcanti Company,” Renaissance Studies 16, no. 2 (June 2002): 163.
12 Brewer and Brodie, Letters and Papers, vol. I, 217, 536, 807; vol. III, 1535.
13 Peter Partner, Renaissance Rome 1500-1559: A Portrait of a Society (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1976), 28.
4
become the first king of a unified Spain in 1516, adding it to
his rule of the Netherlands and Burgundy. He was, in theory the
most powerful man in Europe. Two of his lands, Naples and
Navarre, were contested by Francois I the King of France; and
Rome was caught between the two powerful kings. Clement had
extensive experience with the military kingdoms, serving as papal
legate on numerous campaigns in the years before becoming pope.14
He had served in both France and Germany, therefore he knew the
courts of these magnates. He should have been able to handle the
complex political situation, but all he managed to do was
repeatedly choose the wrong side.
In 1526, Francois renewed attacks on Charles’ holdings in
Italy with the support of both Clement (who absolved him of
breaking a treaty) and Cardinal Wolsey.15 At the Diet of Speyer,
Charles hastily arranged a compromise with the German Lutherans
to gain their support and marched against the French.16 The
campaign became complicated; and in May 1527, the Lutheran 14 David Chambers, Popes, Cardinals and War: The Military Church in Renaissance and Early
Modern Europe (London: I.B.Tauris, 2006), 145.15 L. Elliott Binns, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Medieval Papacy (Hamden,
CT: Archon Books, 1967), 364.16 David Criswell, The Rise and Fall of the Holy Roman Empire: from Charlemagne to
Napoleon (Baltimore, MD: PublishAmerica, 2005), 455.
5
mercenaries and many of their Catholic comrades who had not been
paid for some time, sacked Rome. Clement barely escaped to the
Castle Sant’Angelo; and although Charles had not ordered the
sack, he was content to keep Clement imprisoned there until
December, when he allowed Clement to slip away to Orvieto.
The Crisis of the English King and His Spanish Queen
Unknown to the besieged Clement, Henry had asked Wolsey to
conduct a trial to determine the validity of his eighteen year
marriage to Catherine of Aragon. They had married only after her
first husband, his older brother Arthur, had died, and Pope
Julius II had granted a special dispensation. With only their
daughter Mary to succeed him, Henry needed a male heir. His
doctors told him Catherine would likely not bear any more
children. Wolsey was therefore asked to determine whether there
were grounds for divorcium a vincula – an invalidation of the marriage
contract.
The Initial Request and Ensuing Complications
On the surface of things, the argument was simple. If
Catherine and Arthur had consummated their marriage, then Henry’s
6
marriage to her violated canon law, and they were therefore
living in sin. If this was the case then for everyone’s sake, the
dispensation granted by Julius II should be reversed.17 Popes had
granted divorcium a vincula to kings before. In 1152, Pope Eugene III
had granted an annulment for Eleanor of Acquitaine from King
Louis IX of France so she could marry Henry II of England. More
recently, Louis XII of France had his marriage to Joan Duchess of
Berry annulled in 1498, on the grounds that she was sterile.
Although such cases were extraordinary, they did provide some
precedence.
Wolsey concluded that the marriage should be annulled but he
did not have the authority to grant it. Although as legate he
spoke a latere papae on matters of canon law, Wolsey’s authority did
not extend to reversing exceptions made by a pope. Only the
sitting pope could reverse such a papal decree.18 Wolsey
dispatched couriers to Clement, both while he was imprisoned and
17 Shannon McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 23.
18 The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed., s.v. “Papal Legate,” accessed March 31, 2015, http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192802903.001.0001/acref-9780192802903-e-4010; Walter Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages: A Study in the Ideological Relation of Clerical to Lay Power (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1962), 293.
7
after he had escaped to Orvieto, to make it clear that Henry was
going to proceed in seeking another wife and seeking the
necessary consent.19
Wolsey’s initial trial had been conducted in secret.
Clement’s imprisonment in Rome had caused him to delay, knowing
that Clement had to be out from under imperial control to grant
the annulment. “If the Pope’s holiness fortune either to be slain
or taken, as God forbid, it shall not a little hinder Your
Grace’s affairs,” he wrote to Henry.20 The delay allowed
Catherine to discover the plan. When Henry asked her to step
aside quietly, Catherine refused. She set about establishing that
her marriage to Arthur had not been consummated, and therefore
was not a valid marriage.21 (The inherent flaw in her argument
was that had this been the case, Julius would have annulled her
marriage to Arthur rather than granting a dispensation for her
marriage to Henry.) At every turn, she sought to accumulate 19 Brewer and Brodie, Letters and Papers, vol. 4, 1641; Vaughan, The Medici Popes,
325.20 Brewer and Brodie, Letters and Papers, vol. I, 189.21 Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon: The Spanish Queen of Henry VIII (New York:
Walker & Company, 2010), 233-235; Historical Dictionary of Catholicism, s.v. “divorce,” accessed April 1, 2015, http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX2780400169&v=2.1&u=vic_liberty&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asid=21b21d83474df39e8f26884ff822b037.
8
evidence supporting the validity of her marriage, writing letters
to her nephew, Charles, the pope, and Margaret of Austria,
another of Charles’ aunts.
Had Henry requested the annulment a year earlier, Clement
might have been more amenable.22 Wolsey had not shied away from
informing him that not granting Henry’s request imperiled
England’s allegiance to Rome, both financially and
ecclesiastically.23 All eyes were on Clement, but he seemed to be
trapped by the implications of the request. Some of Charles’
ambassadors in Rome claimed Clement even wept in frustration when
it became clear the matter would have to be heard before a
commission.24
To prevent Catherine from appealing the annulment to Charles
V, Wolsey requested that Clement make the annulment a decretal
commission, meaning it could not be appealed by anyone including
the emperor-elect.25 This put Clement at considerable risk of
imperials reprisal, and yet both Henry and Wolsey were insistent 22 Richard P. McBrien, Lives of the Popes (San Francisco: HarperCollins
Publishers, 1997), 280.23 Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon, 245.24 Ibid., 268.25 Catherine Fletcher, The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican
(New York: Palgrave MacMillian, 2012), 21-24.
9
that this was the only way they would accept a papal decision on
the matter. At the request of the English ambassador Gregorio
Casali, Clement reluctantly granted a secret decretal commission
in April 1528 as a sort of loose guarantee of the annulment; but
he ordered a general commission led by the cardinal-protector of
England, Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio.26 Wolsey’s response to his
emissaries made it clear that he felt this was a delaying
tactic.27
Indecision and Stalling
Campeggio was an old man suffering from severe gout, and
although Clement ordered him England in the autumn of 1528, he
did not arrive until the spring of 1529. His official commission
was to try the case alongside Wolsey, but Clement had ordered him
to delay the trial and attempt to either convince Henry to
abandon the request or push Catherine to enter a convent. Any
means necessary were to be employed to prevent the court from
making a ruling in the hope that Clement could come up with
another solution.28
26 Ibid., 28-29.27 Brewer and Brodie, Letters and Papers, vol. 4, 4167.28 Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon, 263.
10
Campeggio was an experienced diplomat who had been the papal
legate to the Diet of Nuremberg in 1524. He and Wolsey both
attempted to get Catherine to acquiesce, but she became even more
intractable. When the trial finally began over a year after
Campeggio began his trip to England, Catherine was already
convinced she had no chance of justice. She got a letter to the
Spanish ambassador, who sent it directly to Clement. The response
from Clement arrived in July, while Campeggio was stalling
proceedings. Clement would recall the case to Rome and hear it
himself.
Henry, who had exiled Catherine from his bed and was now
courting young Anne Boleyn as his next wife, was furious at the
delays. Wolsey, who had made enemies of Anne’s family in previous
situations, found himself the subject of Henry’s wrath.29 Henry
became convinced Wolsey had caused the delays intentionally – an
act of treason in Tudor England. He was imprisoned, stripped of
all government role, and then exiled to York. He died in 1530
while making his way to London to answer the charges. “Here is
the end and fall of arrogancy of such men…having more respect to
29 George Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey (1815, reprint, Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1905), 83-85.
11
worldly honor of his person than he had to his spiritual
profession…” wrote his companion George Cavendish.30
After his long-delayed coronation as emperor in 1530,
Charles V called on Clement to form a General Council and deal
with the Protestant schismatics. Clement made vague promises.
Charles seemed willing to not get involved in his aunt’s affairs,
but Clement equivocated. Such a General Council would upset the
French King Francois I who had opened negotiations with Henry
about an alliance that would be strong enough to keep Charles in
check. For that Francois needed Swiss and German Protestant
mercenaries, which meant he would block any action against
them.31
Meanwhile, Clement quietly held out hope that the problem
would disappear. In September 1530, he even unsubtly suggested to
Casale “that your majesty [Henry] might have a dispensation to
have two wives.”32 It is telling that Clement felt it would be
more expedient to advocate bigamy, which was not expressly
30 Ibid., 151.31 Wilfred Joseph Stiener, “The Negotiations of Clement VII and Francis
I concerning the Calling of a Church Council,” Church History: Studies in Christianity & Culture 30, no. 1 (March 1961): 106.
32 Brewer and Brodie, Letters and Papers, vol. 4, 6627.
12
against canon law, rather than approve the annulment. Catherine,
who was unaware of Clement’s suggestion, nonetheless wrote to him
that if he did not make a decision soon, disaster would follow.33
The Shift in Ecclesiastic Power in England
In the winter of 1530/31, Clement reluctantly took some
small, measured steps to curb Henry. He ordered Henry to appear
in Rome, demanding that he separate from Anne. Clement made it
clear that Henry was not to remarry and threatened him with
excommunication. By then, affairs had passed into the hands of
Wolsey’s former assistant, Thomas Cromwell. Determined to
demonstrate his loyalty, he had pushed acts through Parliament
that named Henry the Supreme Head of the English Church. The
clergy were even required to pay fines for having viewed Wolsey
as a superior to the king on spiritual matters. Clement’s hope of
appeasing Henry by accepting his choices of Edward Lee and Thomas
Cranmer (Archbishops of York and Canterbury, respectively) only
furthered the division since Cranmer, who had been the English
ambassador to the imperial court, was the Boleyn’s family
chaplain and leaned to Lutheranism. Henry’s court began
33 Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon, 293.
13
rigorously suppressing any sentiment toward the Roman See.34 The
foundations of cuius religio, eius religion had been established at the
Diet of Speyer (1526) and reinforced at Aubsburg (1531), with the
explicit consent of Charles V and implicit consent of the pope.35
Cromwell and Henry’s privy council now argued that as a Christian
prince, Henry was free to follow his religious conscience, which
quickly became the law of Britain.36
In the winter, Henry and Anne (newly elevated as Marquess of
Pembroke) signed the Treaty of Calais with Francois I. Francois
recognized the annulment and wrote to Clement opposing action
against Henry in a General Council. Charles was now also
expressing reluctance on the issue. In the intervening years, his
extensive campaigns had drained the resources of Spain and the
Empire. Both Henry’s new representative in Rome, Edmund Bonner,
and the French queen Eleanor of Austria (Charles’ sister) made it
clear to Henry that the imperial court would not oppose the
34 Glenn Richardson, Renaissance Monarchy: The Reigns of Henry VIII, Francis I and CharlesV (London: Arnold, 2002), 131-132.
35 The phrase does not occur in the decisions of these assemblies. It was coined by Joachim Stefani in 1582, but it reflects accurately the sentiment of Augsburg.
36 Felicity Heal, Reformation in Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 3-4.
14
annulment.37 In his correspondence with the pope, Bonner began
taking the annulment as a given. He argued only against
excommunicating Henry.
Henry and the now-pregnant Anne returned from France and
were married in a secret ceremony in January 1533. In May, Thomas
Cranmer presided over the final trial concerning Henry and
Catherine’s marriage. He announced the marriage void and,
although he gave some correspondents the impression that Henry
acted without his knowledge in at least a few matters, delivered
the news to Catherine.38 Clement immediately excommunicated Henry
and threatened interdict, but the impact was muted at best.
Thomas Cromwell, who now served as Henry’s chief political
advisor, had already made it illegal to appeal Cranmer’s
decision. Parliament pronounced papal bulls invalid in England, a
de facto decretal commission. Clement was too late. Henry acted
with the consent of his own bishops and was already Supreme Head
of the Church in England. Cranmer argued that the Church could
37 J. H. Elliot, Imperial Spain 1469–1716 (New York: Penguin Books, 2002), 208.
38 Thomas Cranmer, “To Mr. Hawkyns the Ambassador at the Emperor's Court” in Original Letters Illustrative of English History, including Numerous Royal Letters vol. III, ed. Henry Ellis (London: Harding, Triphook, and Lepard, 1825), 34-39.
15
not err, and yet Clement had, therefore it was Clement who was
not faithful and Henry who was. The Church under Henry was
therefore the true Church and Clement’s claims to authority were
invalid.39
The Cost of Clement’s Indecision
The sack of 1527 left Rome in ruins, but Leo’s mismanagement
and Clement’s indecision marked the ruin of the papal authority
in most of Europe. Since Innocent III, the papacy had claimed to
assert universal rule over all of Christian society, but the
Renaissance had seen a growing understanding of the capacity for
laymen to act independent of religious authority. As Walter
Ullmann has stated it, “Prevailing practices and ways of living
of the higher clergy kindled the critical-liberal spirit of
laymen and the lower sacerdotal strata.”40
Clement’s handling of the annulment reinforced the idea that
secular authority should not be placed in the hands of a pontiff
too removed to deal with the situation or a hierarchy which was
prone to contradiction and partisanship. What is more, Cranmer’s
39 Thomas Cranmer, “Concerning the King’s Supremacy,” in Ellis, 23-31.40 Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, 452-453.
16
argument that the Church could be corrupted to the point that it
no longer held valid authority was a political statement of
Lutheran reformed ideals.
Charles and Clement both seem to have expected the other to
act in the matter of Henry’s request. In truth, Charles’ domains
were so vast and so complex that his delicately balanced affairs
could not be upset by dealing with his aunt’s refusal to accept
Henry’s requests. He had imprisoned Clement in 1527 only by a
happy accident; but were he to attempt to support Clement against
Henry now, Charles would have risked compromising the delicate
compromise between Protestants and Catholics that he needed to
oppose the rising threat of the Turks in the east. The tension of
the affair, however, marked another stage in the breakdown of the
papal-imperial relationship. Charles’ son Philip II of Spain
would take Henry’s place as fidei defensor, but the relationship
with Charles’ other holding, the German Empire which passed to
his brother Ferdinand, became increasingly strained. At Augsburg,
Ferdinand had negotiated the deal that enshrined cuius religio as
German law, ending any hope that Germany would come back fully
into the papal fold. Without imperial sponsorship, the papacy’s
17
influence in northern Europe slowly declined although it
continued to hold sway in Iberia, Italy and southern France. The
chaos of the Wars of Religion, which lasted until 1648, followed.
During Clement’s period of indecision, Henry became
increasingly convinced that Rome, and those loyal to it in his
court, were a threat. The execution of Thomas More in 1534 on the
charges of treason was evidence of the tremendous shift in
attitude.41 Although Britain was involved in its own religion
conflicts (The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, 1639-1651), they were
not involved in any further Italian or continental wars with
religious overtones. England and the Vatican did not have formal
diplomatic relations until 1914.42
The financial ties between Britain and Italy were all but
severed as well. England had long been dominated by native
churchmen and intellectuals. Although faithful to the Church,
there was ample history of the English kings diverting
ecclesiastical resources for the good of the Crown. Henry
41 Peter Marshall, “The Last Years” in The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More,ed. George M. Logan (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 134-135.
42 House of Commons of the United Kingdom, “Command Paper 7736: Dispatchto Sir Henry Howard,” Accounts and Papers: 1914-1916, vol. LXXXIII, 633.
18
enshrined this, seizing monasteries and church treasuries
throughout his kingdom to pay off his continental debts and
stabilize Britain’s economy. These were not only wealthy
monasteries, but also the possessors of enormous historical
treasures which now belonged to the Crown and were made available
to the scholars at Oxford and Cambridge.
19
Conclusion
In late 1533, Clement’s secretary Johann Widmannstetter
presented a series of lectures at the Vatican. His subject matter
was the work of the Polish astronomer Nikolaus Kopernikus.
Clement, ever a patron of the arts and sciences, was fascinated.
He presented Widmannstetter with a magnificent gift in
appreciation of his efforts. Perhaps nothing demonstrates
Clement’s shortcomings than that he did not even think to
congratulate Kopernikus but focused only on Widmannstetter who
did nothing himself except speak. Clement was myopic and unable
to perceive ramifications of his actions or the words of others
beyond the immediate context.
Clement delayed taking significant action on Henry’s request
for six years. In the eyes of many observers, Henry VIII went
from being fidei defensor to fidei destructor. At the crucial moments,
Clement could not see beyond a dread that Henry would abandon
him.43 Fear of the complex political repercussions paralyzed him.
Even his closest friend Paolo Giovio disapproved of Clement’s
43 Brewer and Brodie, Letters and Papers, vol. 4, 1662-1663.
20
delay, although he supported the ultimate conclusion.44.
Certainly, the problems were not of his making, but Clement’s
lack of action cannot be blamed only on circumstances. Other
popes had faced similarly difficult situations, but they dealt
with them.
A capable manager at a lower level under his cousin, he
could not deal with the affairs of states. He could appreciate
the magnitude of what was being asked of him and act in kind. He
lost control of Florence. He lost control of England. There were
serious flaws in the medieval Roman Church. Luther had first
exposed them, but it was Clement whose actions mark the moment
when they came to light. Henry’s request was not out of the
ordinary or out of keeping with the behavior of the Tudors in
general. Clement’s overly conservative approach to a changing
world was a weakness that Henry’s court exploited successfully.
Although Henry’s motivation was largely political, both Wolsey
and Cranmer provided theological justification that appealed to
him as a faithful son of the Church. It set a precedent for the
44 McBrien, Lives of the Popes, 551; T. C. Price Zimmermann, “A Note on Clement VII and the Divorce of Henry VIII,” The English Historical Review 82, no. 324 (July 1967): 549.
21
idea that an institution, regardless of its authority, could be
corrupted to the point that it was no longer the institution it
claimed to be. This justification would later be used by the
American colonies to break their allegiance with the English
crown.
22
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