Abstract
Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII and the youngest daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, was born in 1485. This paper examines her life and role in history, including her days as an educated princess in Spain, her marriage to Henry, and his subsequent divorce from her after she failed to provide him with an heir.

From the Paper
"In July of 1533, Henry ordered Catherine to Buckden in Huntingdonshire,
where she remained until her death. He also ordered that she should not be treated as a queen, but as a "dowger princess". Catherine loved Henry until the end, and refused to believe that the marriage was over. Just before she died, she wrote a letter to Henry, addressing him as ""My most dear lord, king and husband"...and signing the letter "I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things"" (Mattingly, pg. 308). Catherine of Aragon was destined to marry a king and until her death she continued to believe she was still Henry's queen."

Tags:Duke, of, York, Anne, Boleyn

From the Paper
"Garrett Mattingly, in Catherine of Aragon, aims to create a more complex and significant portrait of Catherine and her life than previously drawn by others:
[I]t was borne in upon me that the Queen Catherine
. . . was a different person, more cultured and thoughtful, more forceful and decisive, than the one I had read about elsewhere. . . . (i).
Catherine has been portrayed as a woman whose significance was measured almost entirely by her relationship with men, with Henry, with the Pope, with the need of others for her to bear a son, or as a rival to Ann Boleyn for Henry's affections. She is often seen as a person who had little to contribute aside from child-bearing, aside from her marriage, aside from her role as symbolic leader."

Tags:book, review, non-fiction, biography

Abstract
This is a historiography paper that judges the opinions of scholars on the topic of Henry VIII's first divorce from the 1500s to the present. It traces the evolution of religious arguments, feminist criticism, trends in objectivity or subjectivity and the central issues emphasized. Documents used include those written by King Henry VIII himself in justification of his actions, Protestants writing to defeat their church and beliefs against the catholic counter-reformation, a 19th century female scholar more sensitive to Catherine's position and a variety of modern scholars emphasizing the diversity of scholarship available in the present day.

From the Paper
"Authors in the nineteenth century placed greater importance on Henry's desire to have a male heir. Mrs. Hope describes Henry's despair at having Catherine bear him three sons, only for them to die soon after birth . She believes that he knew his only hope for a son lay in divorcing Catherine and marrying a younger wife, even though it would lead to a quarrel with her nephew the Emperor. Hope also finds proof of Henry's desire when, at the birth of Princess Elizabeth in 1533, he expressed disappointment. Writing from a Catholic point of view, it is easier for Hope to reconcile herself with Henry's choices being driven by political ends, then to suggest the King was disappointed with his faith. J.A. Founde agrees that the problem of succession was of utmost importance at the time to Henry. He points out that in the previous century a disputed succession had led to a civil war, and that during Henry's reign people were aware that if the King should die without an heir the war of the Roses might be renewed."

Tags:protestants, heir, catholics, marriage, anne, boleyn

Abstract
The paper shows how King Henry VIII created the modern conceptual model for English governance. The paper details the events of Henry's reign including his divorce of Catherine of Aragon and his marriage and eventual beheading of Ann Boleyn, and highlights his changing relationship with both Parliament and the Pope. The paper also discusses Henry's institutional foundation of secularism and his support of high culture in the court.

From the Paper
"King Henry VIII was one of the most formative influences upon England during the early Renaissance. He created the modern conceptual model for English governance, an England that depended upon human, monarchal authority, rather than Church influence. The relationship between Parliament and King developed under Henry was unique for its day, and later enabled England to engage in electoral reforms, rather than undergo violent rebellions to enfranchise the populace like the European Continent in the 19th century."

Tags:Elizabeth, Church, governance, Parliament, poetry, drama, culture

From the Paper
"The purpose of this research is to examine why Thomas More, chancellor of England at the time of Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn, refused to support Henry's request for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and remarriage to Boleyn. The plan of the research will be to set forth the essential elements of the conflict, including the issues that confronted the major players, and then to discuss, with reference to the text of contemporaneous documents of church and state, More's position as articulated in them and in More's public and private correspondence.


The essential elements of the conflict over More's refusal to support the annulment can be seen in the wide context of conflicting spiritual and political priorities that dominated Europe during the Renaissance, and in the narrower context of...:

Abstract
In this article, the writer first looks at the immediate circumstances in which Henry VIII first conceived the idea of divorce from Catherine. The paper then points out that there were also other surrounding factors that must be taken into consideration when considering whether Henry VIII's break with Rome really was driven by Henry's sole desire for divorce. The paper points out that some scholars say the role of Cardinal Wolsey, the king's advisor, was crucial in so far as he supposedly suggested the plan to the King himself; some point to the influence of Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon on his decisions; still others believe that the broader force of anti-clericalism ultimately played an important part since it helped transform a mere issue of divorce into one of a conflict between Church and State. The paper concludes that despite all these important factors, the chief factor for the break with Rome can be found with Henry himself and in his undoubted passion for Anne whose role in shoring up Henry's affection towards her and determination for the cause was far from unimportant in a desire that resulted in England rejecting the authority of the papacy.

Outline:
Introduction
The Strength of Henry's Desire
The Influence of Anne Boleyn
The Place of Anti-clericalism
Conclusions

From the Paper
"More fundamentally, it is questionable whether the Cardinal himself really did have intentions to become Pope. When Wolsey did obtain a position as a Cardinal in Rome, he frequently absented himself away from the place, even declining recommendations that he should go for his own benefit. Following accusations that his titular Church of St Cicilia was involved with embezzlement, he hardly exuded an air of concern about this as reflecting badly on his character and hence his potential candidacy. Nor did he make any serious attempt at cultivating a network of people on whom he could rely when it came to electing a Pope. Realistically, there was only one influential supporter, Campeggio, an acquaintance merely by virtue of him being a legate in England. Otherwise, Wolsey half-heartedly looked to minor figures that could not be expected to hold real clout. Even Silvestro Gigli, a diplomat, was treated rather indifferently in the role of go-between with Rome, so that Gigli was frequently moved to complain that Wolsey was not keeping him, and thus Rome, informed about developments in England."

Tags:Anne, Boleyn, Catherine, of, Aragon, marriage

Abstract
This paper discusses the steps leading up to Henry VIII's break from the Catholic Church and papal domination. The paper focuses on Henry's marriage to Catherine and his relationship with Ann Boleyn as motivating factors for his departure from the Roman Church.

From the Paper
"In the early sixteenth century, Europe was the stage for many grand social and political changes all of which altered the way in which man viewed himself and the world around him. No event, however, was more influential in the life of the individual than the ..."

Tags:Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon, Cardinal Wolsey, Pope, Protestant Reformation, Rome

Abstract
This paper offers an extensive discussion on the effects of the permeation of state authority into English village life. The paper focuses on the village of Morebath and explains the resistance to the shift from Catholicism to Protestantism. It claims that the process of Protestantization came, not because of a pure theological dispute that involved the common people, but because of a power struggle between King Henry VIII and the Pope over the king's right to gain an annulment from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

From the Paper
"From the reign of Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, England experienced a gradual, but ultimately seismic shift in the way that the population was permitted to worship, could experience the divine in terms of their religious practices, expressed their religious views, and the ways they could relate to their institutions of belief. At first, "the Catholic world-view...was the religion of most English people on the eve of the Reformation." (Duffy 2) When "Martin Luther's attack on the Catholic Church and the authority of the Pope first began to spread outside Germany" England stood apart from the fray and Henry VIII was called the 'defender of the faith' by the reigning Pope. (Duffy 84) But Catholic England was reborn under the guiding hand of Elizabeth I into a moderate, officially Protestant land where the monarch was the head of the church, not the pope"

Tags:religion, Christianity, Britain, power, struggle

Abstract
This paper examines the life of Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (1475-1530) who was the Lord Chancellor to King Henry VIII. It provides a brief outline of his life from his childhood, education, rise in the church and finally to his position under the King. It looks at how Wolsey was treated as a trusted and capable, if ambitious, man who carried out the King's will but often did so in ways that he devised himself and not infrequently, developed strategies of his own that were sanctioned by the King. It analyzes whether Wolsey's eventual disgrace and fall and Henry's willingness to treat him as a scapegoat merit the term pawn and how Wolsey's status as his own man, rather than a pawn of the King, must be judged in terms of what he wished to accomplish rather than by current standards.

From the Paper
"Wolsey was the son of a prosperous grazier and his brilliance secured him a place at Magdalene College Oxford. He was ordained in 1498 and began his relatively slow climb to eminence by serving various influential men until, in 1507, he became chaplain to Henry VII and, in 1509, was appointed almoner and counselor to Henry VIII. From that point on Wolsey's rise proceeded at great speed--in both the ecclesiastical and secular realms. In 1514 he was appointed archbishop of York and in 1515 he was elevated to cardinal and to Lord Chancellor. Wolsey always coveted the position of archbishop of Canterbury, who was usually the effective head of the English church since the only other archbishopric in England, York, took in only the impoverished northern reaches. Gaining the cardinal's hat helped him achieve greater prominence in the church but it was not until, in 1518, Wolsey achieved the unusual status of papal legate (legatus a latere), or papal viceroy, that the cardinal became "as supreme over the English Church as Henry's favor made him over the English state" (Bindoff 83)."

Tags:church, divorce, catherine, of, aragon, lord, chancellor

Abstract
Sir Thomas More, also known as Saint Thomas More (because of sanctification by the Catholic Church), is probably best known for his confrontation with King Henry VIII, for which he lost his life. He was a statesman as well as a political and social philosopher. The paper shows that his most famous work is "Utopia", a book in which he created his version of a perfect society and gave his name to such conceptions ever after as "utopias." The paper analyzes the 1966 film "A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann) which recounts the story of More's refusal to change the law to allow King Henry VIII to divorce. The paper shows that the essence of the film is true to history, but there are elements in the film which are not.

From the Paper
"Contemporary evidence shows that More was a docile servant to Wolsey, while the film shows More railing against the Cardinal. More depended on Wolsey for position and advancement and so was careful not to give offense until after Wolsey fell from disgrace because he failed to gain papal approval for Henry's divorce. While More did later write with ironic wit about those who had flattered Wolsey, Marius says it is clear that More offered just as much flattery as the others (Marius, "A Man for All Seasons" 72)."

Tags:Reformation, Catherine, of, Aragon, Anne, Boleyn, Thomas, Cromwell