Welsh Journals

THE EDWARDIAN REFORMATION IN WALES1 Glanmor Williams Whatever Henry VIII may have been, he was not a Protestant. Always much interested in theology, he showed that, when he put his mind to it, he had genuine knowledge and ability in that field. A man of conservative bent, he was profoundly shocked by the publication of Martin Luther's heresies and, with assistance from some of his leading advisers, he hotly repudiated the heresiarch's doctrines in his well-known book, Assertio Septem Sacramentorum. When his achieve- ment was recognized by the pope with the grant of the title, Fidei Defensor, Henry was deeply gratified by the reflection that he now had a title to compare with those traditionally bestowed on the king of France as 'the Most Christian King' however inappropriate that label might often be in practice! and the rulers of Spain as 'the Catholic Kings'. Yet, even during his orthodox period, Henry had always cherished an exalted view of his own position and authority as king vis-a-vis the Church. This was vastly complicated by the problems arising in the 1520s out of the state of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Her failure to produce a male heir essential if the central issue of early Tudor politics, the succession to the throne, was to be satisfactorily solved combined with the king's infatuation for Anne Boleyn, who refused to grant him her favours except as his lawfully wedded wife, ultimately obliged Henry to force a major breach with the past. Having failed to bully or cajole the pope into granting him an annulment of his first marriage, he had in the end been led to oust papal authority over the Church within his realm and had set himself up as its Supreme Head, insofar as the law of God allowed. This proved to be more than a campaign merely to solve his immediate problems with his wife and his mistress. The permanence of the arrangement was revealed after the death of Catherine and the execution of Anne in 1536. Henry, even then, made no move whatsoever to bring about a reconciliation with the papacy and took a very brutal line with those, like John Fisher