Henry VIII's Reign of Terror
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How did Henry VIII turn a marriage crisis into the English Reformation?
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Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and welcome to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to Samurais. Relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage, and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.
What does a king do when the law, the church and the international order all stand between him and the future he believes God intends? Henry's answer was extraordinary. He changed the rules. During the 1530s, England was remade. The authority of the Pope was rejected, Parliament declared the realm an empire. Henry made himself supreme head of the Church of England. Monasteries began to disappear, and ideas about sovereignty, obedience, and treason were transformed. Much of this revolution was accomplished not on battlefields, but through statutes, sermons, oaths, and formidable legal arguments. Yet behind the paperwork stood something far more frightening. The executioner's block. Men and women who had once served Henry, loved him, or enjoyed his favour, discovered that conscience could become disobedience.
Disobedience could become treason. And treason could mean death. At the centre of these extraordinary years was Anne Berlin. Her marriage to Henry had become bound up with the destruction of the old order. Less than three years after becoming his queen, she too was dead. This is the third episode in our four part journey through the life of Henry VIII. Once again I am joined by Dr. Joanne Paul, author of Tyrant, a forthcoming new study of Henry VIII, as we enter the darkest and most consequential decade of his reign. How did a king's determination to secure his marriage and dynasty become a revolution in church and state? And at what point did royal authority become tyranny? Okay, Doctor Joanne Paul, we are back with Henry.
It is the fifteen thirties. And actually A very important thing happens in August of fifteen thirty, which is of course the death of Thomas Warsey.
Yeah, so Thomas Woolsey appears to have been making various attempts to crawl his way back into favor. At least that's the way it looks over the months of 1530. At the same time, there is a plot to finally bring him down. Uh and that's what wins over the course of fifteen thirty. So he's arrested in Yorkshire. And slowly brought down to London, William Kingston is sent up from London to bring him to the tower to face charges of treason. They've gathered a case against him, and he dies along the way. And he dies along the way but probably would have been beheaded. Almost certainly it's it's looking that way. Again, with a bit of hindsight and other similar cases that happen through the fifteen thirties and into the fifteen forties, i it looks very much like it's following a pattern that we'll see later on.
Because when we left the story, the
Appeal to Rome. the legantine court that had been summoned in order to dissolve the marriage of Henry the Eighth and Catherine of Aragon had failed.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Henry VIII turn a marriage crisis into the English Reformation?
0:01–7:06
2
What was the significance of Thomas Wolsey’s downfall in the 1530s?
7:06–14:13
3
How did the Crown use legal charges of treason to suppress dissent?
14:13–20:45
4
Why was the execution of Richard Roos by boiling considered a terror tactic?
20:45–27:18
5
What role did the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Succession play in Henry’s consolidation of power?
27:18–33:48
6
How did the Treasons Act of 1534 expand the king’s ability to label speech as treason?
33:48–41:18
7
What was the Pilgrimage of Grace and how did Henry respond to the northern rebellion?
41:18–47:00
8
How did the birth of Edward VI finally secure Henry’s dynastic ambitions?
47:00–54:00