Table Of ContentHENRY VIII
Also in the Yale English Monarchs Series
ATHELSTAN by Sarah Foot
EDWARD THE CONFESSOR by Frank Barlow
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR by David Douglas*
WILLIAM RUFUS by Frank Barlow
HENRY I by Warren Hollister
KING STEPHEN by Edmund King
HENRY II by W. L. Warren*
RICHARD I by John Gillingham
KING JOHN by W L. Warren*
EDWARD I by Michael Prestwich
EDWARD II by Seymour Phillips
RICHARD II by Nigel Saul
HENRY V by Christopher Allmand
HENRY VI by Bertram Wolffe
EDWARD IV by Charles Ross
RICHARD III by Charles Ross
HENRY VII by S. B. Chrimes
HENRY VIII by J. J. Scarisbrick
EDWARD VI by Jennifer Loach
MARY I by John Edwards
JAMES II by John Miller
QUEEN ANNE by Edward Gregg
GEORGE I by Ragnhild Hatton
GEORGE II by Andrew C. Thompson
GEORGE III by Jeremy Black
GEORGE IV by E. A. Smith
* Available in the U.S. from University of California Press
HENRY V i l i
jj Scarisbrick
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW HAVEN AND LONDON
First published in Great Britain in 1968 by Eyre Methuen Ltd
First published in paperback in 1981 by Eyre Methuen Ltd
This edition first published by Yale University Press in 1997
Copyright © 1969 J.J. Scarisbrick
New edition © 1997 J.J. Scarisbrick
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any
form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S.
Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written
permission from the publishers.
Printed in Great Britain by Good News Press, Ongar
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 97-60217
ISBN 978-0-300-07210-5 (hbk.)
ISBN 978-0-300-07158-0 (pbk.)
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
357910 864
CONTENTS
Foreword to the Yale Edition ix
Preface xix
Abbreviations xxi
I The New King 3
II The Renewal of the Hundred Years War 21
III The Coming of Wolsey 4i
IV The Quest for Peace 67
V The Virtuous Prince 97
VI The Repudiation of the Habsburgs *35
VII The Canon Law of the Divorce 163
VIII The Struggle for the Divorce 198
IX The Campaign against the Church 241
X The Royal Supremacy 305
XI England and Europe, 1537 to 1540 355
XII The Royal Supremacy and Theology 384
XIII The Return to War 424
XIV The Last Months 458
XV Henry the King 498
Appendix I 529
Appendix II 53°
Manuscript Sources 53i
Bibliography 533
Index 543
V
ILLUSTRATIONS
Map of Western Europe during the reign of Henry VIII page 530
vii
FOREWORD TO THE
YALE EDITION
In the thirty years since this book was completed, there has been an
outpouring of writings - primary materials, general surveys, monographs,
articles in learned journals and unpublished dissertations, of which only
the more prominent can be noted here - which have enriched our
understanding of the second Tudor monarch’s long reign. Naturally, my
own views have evolved during these decades, especially because of what
others have argued, but partly also because of my own continuing re
search; and more than once a chance remark has prompted a new line of
thought. I have also profited from teaching graduates and undergraduates,
especially the latter in a third-year Special Subject entitled ‘England in the
1530s’, which ran for the whole of my twenty-five happy years in the
Department of History at the University of Warwick and produced a
formidable crop of often distinguished student essays.
There has been a good deal written on the religious history of the period,
most of it, especially Eamon Duffy’s monumental study, presenting a
much more positive view of late-medieval life in England than the tradi
tional Whig/Protestant account of the Reformation had allowed.1 In my
view, the pendulum may have swung too far in the ‘Catholic’ direction, but
I have never believed that the pre-Reformation Church in England was
mortally corrupt and about to be set upon by rampant anticlericalism.
More recently I have found further reason for refuting the idea that the
Reformation was ‘waiting to happen’ or was ever a truly popular move
ment.2
By far the most important contribution to the political history of the
1 Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580
(New Haven and London, 1992).
2 In my The Reformation and the English People (Oxford, 1984). Richard Rex, Henry
VIII and the Reformation (Cambridge, 1993) is the best recent overview (and see also his
The Theology ofJohn Fisher (Cambridge, 1991), a fine piece of historical theology). Other
noteworthy recent contributions include M. Bowker, The Henrician Reformation: The
Diocese of Lincoln under John Longland, 1521-1647 (Cambridge, 1981); S. E. Brigden,
London and the Reformation (Oxford, 1989) and C. Haigh, The English Reformation Revised
(Cambridge, 1987). In his Reform and Reformation: England 1505-1558 (London, 1977)
Sir Geoffrey Elton gave his final verdict on the period. A. G. Dickens has made a
spirited response to the revisionists in a new edition of his The English Reformation (2nd.
edn., London, 1989).
IX
FOREWORD TO THE YALE EDITION
reign has been Peter Gwyn’s huge life of Thomas Wolsey.3 Wonderfully
thorough and sensible (if perhaps too long), this is a radical and consider
ably overdue rehabilitation of one of England’s greatest chancellors. I had
myself taken a more favourable view of Wolsey than was current at the
time and had since seen other reasons for challenging the portrayal of him
by, for example, the merciless A. F. Pollard.4 To read Peter Gwyn’s
comprehensive reappraisal was therefore deeply gratifying. Curiously,
however, though Gwyn and I arrive at roughly equal overall assessments
of the man, we distribute the weights differently between the two sides of
the scales. Thus I argued that Wolsey’s foreign policy was a peace policy
first and foremost: ‘Erasmian’ even and, by modern standards, en
lightened. Gwyn argues cogently that Wolsey, like a later cardinal, namely
Richelieu, was governed by raison d’etat. He did what pleased his prince and
served his country’s best interests, as he perceived them. This ‘patriotic’
pragmatism made him sometimes a warmonger and sometimes a devotee
of peace, even of Universal Peace - as in 1518. The reader must judge
which of us is right. Conversely, Gwyn regards Wolsey as a serious,
reforming churchman and skilfully argues in his defence. I am less
convinced of the cardinal’s complete allegiance to the angels’ side. Wolsey
was certainly not the worldly scandal which his enemies portrayed; but I
still have serious doubts about the depth, as distinct from the sincerity, of
his spirituality. Happily, however, we both agree that he was a ‘Common
wealth’ man and honestly concerned for the poor and for justice.
I now see that I was wrong to suggest that Catherine of Aragon’s
marriage to Henry was canonically suspect because of a technical flaw in
the papal dispensation by which Henry had married her after her marriage
to his brother Arthur. I argued that, if that first marriage to Arthur had not
been consummated, as Catherine insisted it had not, the dispensation
should have tackled only the strangely named impediment of ‘public
honesty’ between her and Henry, whereas it dealt with affinity between
them; and affinity is produced by coitus. I now see the error in my
argument. It is this. Where no deception has occurred and a dispensation
would still have been granted if the correct facts were known, the principle
of ‘supplet Ecclesia’ (‘the Church makes good the shortcoming’) applies.
Common sense, equity, takes precedence over legalism. So, yes, the
dispensation which enabled Henry to marry Catherine in 1509 was aimed
at an affinity which, according to Catherine, did not exist and left an equal
3 P. Gwyn, The King’s Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (London, 1990).
4 J. J. Scarisbrick, ‘Cardinal Wolsey and the Common Weal’ in E. W. Ives, R. J.
Knecht and J. J. Scarisbrick, Wealth and Power in Tudor England: Essays presented to S. T.
Bindoff (1978). J. A. Guy’s The Cardinal’s Court: The Impact of Thomas Wolsey on Star
Chamber (Hassocks, 1977) had reassessed Wolsey’s legal career.
x
