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

ii

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.

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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.

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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

Bibliography

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