But the Pope, much as he feared Henry, feared the Emperor Charles V., the nephew of Queen Katherine, much more, and Wolsey, on his side, was anxious not to offend the Pope, as his ambition was to succeed him, so it all ended in his going back to Henry without having the desired permission. Henry was furious, and Wolsey, disgraced, died broken-hearted. The king’s next step was to defy the Pope, and to send round to all the ministers in Europe, asking them whether in their opinion his marriage with Katherine had been a legal one. But their answer in almost every case was the opposite answer to what Henry had determined on, and their opposition only increased his determination, till at last, urged thereto by Thomas Cromwell, Wolsey’s successor in his favour, he took the bold step of declaring that he himself was the head of the Church in England, the defender of the faith, and that therefore the Pope had no power to forbid the divorce. He was clever enough to know that for many a long day the independent spirit of the English nation had rebelled against the power of the Pope in the land; that the revival of learning had set men thinking for themselves; that the teaching of Luther and the other reformers had prepared the way for a great change in England, and that he could count on his Parliament to support him in declaring himself supreme head of the Church in this land. Thus whilst pretending to cleanse and purify the Church, and reform the many errors which had crept in, Henry really was true to his general policy of sweeping out of the way any obstacle to his wishes. The Pope had opposed him, so from henceforward he would deprive the Pope of all authority in England. He divorced Katherine, and married Anne Boleyn, while those few men who refused to go against their conscience by declaring the king to be in the right on this question of his marriage, when they felt him to be in the wrong, did so at the cost of their lives.