Henry wanted a divorce. Since Queen Catherine could not bear him a son, his heart was set on the beautiful Anne Boleyn. But the Catholic Church, which regulated marriage in Western Europe, would not allow it. Therefore, on December 18, 1534, King Henry VIII severed England's ties with the Pope and declared himself Supreme Head of the newly established Church of England. Henry’s self-proclaimed religious authority provided him the freedom to divorce or marry whenever he wished, renewing his hopes for a son – a male heir who would ensure political stability for both England and Henry’s dynasty.
Then the king soon became disenchanted with his new marriage. After several moral and criminal accusations were made against Anne, Henry had her beheaded, making way for another wife, and yet another, finally totaling six successive wives and three surviving children. His young son, Edward VI, was crowned king after Henry’s death, but when the teenager died, it opened the royal door for Henry’s militantly Catholic daughter, Mary Tudor. At Mary’s death, Henry’s last surviving child, Elizabeth I, took the throne, securing the kingdom for a more moderate style of Protestant faith – one that required less bloodshed.
Henry could not have anticipated how his divorce and severing ties with Catholicism would lead to endless religious divisions, even within his own Church of England. It was these fractures that eventually led to the emergence of Puritans, Separatists, and Quakers, who would cross the ocean a century later, establishing new religious colonies on the American continent.
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“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it..., So ought men to love their wives, as their own bodies: he that loveth his wife, loveth himself.... Therefore everyone of you, do ye so: let everyone love his wife, even as himself, and let the wife see that she fear her husband.”
(Ephesians 5:25, 28, 33; 1599 Geneva Bible)
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