Archbishop Warham, who had presided at the Convocation which made the
submission of the clergy, died in August 1532; and Henry resolved that
Cranmer, notwithstanding his unwillingness, should succeed him as
Archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer conscientiously believed that the
royal supremacy was a good thing, and would cure many of the
ecclesiastical evils which no appeals to the Pope seemed able to reform;
and he was also convinced that the marriage of Henry with Catharine had
been one for which not even the highest ecclesiastical authority could
give a dispensation. He was prepared to carry out the King's wishes in
both respects. He could not be an acceptable Primate to the Roman Curia.
Yet Henry, by threatening the Pope with the loss of the _annates_,
actually compelled him to send Bulls to England, and that with unusual
speed, ratifying the appointment to the Primacy of a man who was known
to believe in the nullity of the King's marriage, and to be ready to
give effect to his opinion; and this at a time when the Parliament of
England had declared that the Primate's court was the supreme
ecclesiastical tribunal for the English Church and people. The deed made
the Curia really responsible for almost all that followed in England.
For Parliament in February 1533, acting on the submission of the clergy,
had passed an Act prohibiting all appeals to Rome from the Archbishop's
court, and ordering that, if any appeals were taken, they must be to the
King's Court of Chancery. This was the celebrated Act of Restraint of
Appeals.[412]
In the beginning of 1533 (Jan. 25th), Henry VIII. was privately married
to Anne Boleyn. He had taken the Pope's advice in this one particular,
to get married without waiting for the Divorce; but soon afterwards
(April 5th) he got from the Convocation of Canterbury a document
declaring that the Pope had no power to grant a dispensation in such a
case as the marriage of Henry with Catharine;[413] and the Act of
Restraint of Appeals had made such a decision practically final so far
as England was concerned.
Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury on March 30th, 1533.
His opinions were known. He had been one of the Cambridge "Germans"; he
had freely consorted with Lutheran divines in Germany; he had begun to
pray in private for the abolition of the Pope's power in England as
early as 1525; and it was not without reason that Chapuys called him a
"Lutheran."[414]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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