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The Rise, Reign and Fall of Anne Boleyn, Part One© Ellen McDaniel-Weissler Henry VIII's own sister, Queen Margaret of Scotland, and his best friend Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, had both been granted repeated divorces on flimsier grounds than the future of a nation or the validity of a marriage contract. Furthermore, the Pope was fully aware of the threat to England - and any other Catholic nation - of the growing movement towards Protestantism in the schismatic person of Martin Luther and his heretical doctrines, not to mention the increasingly popular use of Tyndale's English translation of the Bible, which finally allowed parishioners (those who could read) to decipher and interpret the word of God for themselves, instead of depending on the convenient wordings of the Church. It was paramount, therefore, to keep England in the Catholic fold, to appease her increasingly influential king (who, after all, had been named "Defender of the Faith" by the Pope for his refutation of Luther's "95 Theses"), and to give the Protestant forces no further grist for their mill. Henry must have assumed, upon first applying to Pope Clement, that his divorce was as good as done - a simple stroke of the pen, and his way to marriage with his elusive sweetheart would be clear. He was to learn far, far otherwise.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/91... http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/7... http://www.britannia.com/history/monarch... http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/tudor.h...
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