Yet a number of years passed before Henry VIII laid violent hands upon the Church. In the meanwhile, he proved himself a devoted Roman Catholic. He scented the new Lutheran heresy and sought speedily to exterminate it. He even wrote in 1521 with his own royal pen a bitter arraignment of the new theology, and sent his book, which he called _The Defence of the Seven Sacraments_, with a delightful dedicatory epistle to the pope. For his prompt piety and filial orthodoxy, he received from the bishop of Rome the proud title of _Fidei Defensor_, or Defender of the Faith, a title which he jealously bore until his death, and which his successors, the sovereigns of Great Britain, with like humor have continued to bear ever since. He seemed not even to question the pope's political claims. He allied himself on several occasions with Leo X in the great game of European politics. His chief minister and adviser in England for many years was Thomas Wolsey, the most conspicuous ecclesiastic in his kingdom and a cardinal of the Roman Church. [Sidenote: The Marriage Difficulty of Henry VIII] Under these circumstances it is difficult to see how the Anglican Church would have immediately broken away from Catholic unity had it not been for the peculiar marital troubles of Henry VIII. The king had been married eighteen years to Catherine of Aragon, and had been presented by her with six children (of whom only one daughter, the Princess Mary, had survived), when one day he informed her that they had been living all those years in mortal sin and that their union was not true marriage. The queen could hardly be expected to agree with such a definition, and there ensued a legal suit between the royal pair. To Henry VIII the matter was really quite simple. Henry was tired of Catherine and wanted to get rid of her; he believed the queen could bear him no more children and yet he ardently desired a male heir; rumor reported that the susceptible king had recently been smitten by the brilliant black eyes of a certain Anne Boleyn, a maid-in-waiting at the court. The purpose of Henry was obvious; so was the means, he thought. For it had occurred to him that Catherine was his elder brother's widow, and, therefore, had no right, by church law, to marry him. To be sure, a papal dispensation had been obtained from Pope Julius II authorizing the marriage, but why not now obtain a revocation of that dispensation from the reigning Pope Clement VII? Thus the marriage with Catherine could be declared null and void, and Henry would be a bachelor, thirty-six years of age, free to wed some princess, or haply Anne Boleyn. [Sidenote: Difficult Position of the Pope]