Henry VIII and the Reformation Parliament

1

Introduction

WHAT IS A REACTING GAME?

This is a reacting game. Reacting games use complex role-play to teach about particular moments in history. Students read from specially designed game books that lay out the background history and explain the ideas and issues in conflict at the time. The class becomes a public body; students, in role, become particular persons from the period, often members of factional alliances. Their purpose is to advance a policy agenda and achieve their victory objectives by formal speeches, informal debate, negotiations, vote-taking, and conspiracy. After a few preparatory lectures, the game begins, and the students are in charge; the instructor serves as an adviser. Outcomes sometimes vary from the actual history; a debriefing, postmortem session sets the record straight.

HOW TO PLAY THIS GAME

The following is an outline of what you, the students, will encounter in reacting and of what you will be expected to do.

1. Game Setup

The instructor will spend some time before the beginning of the game helping you to understand the historical background. During the setup period, you will read several different kinds of material:

The game book (from which you are reading now), which includes background history, rules and elements of the game, primary sources, and essential documents

One or more accompanying books, which, if recommended, provide additional information and arguments for use during the game

A role sheet, describing the faction to which you belong and, in many cases, the historical person you will model in the game

Read all of this contextual material and all of these sources and documents before the game begins (or as much as possible, catching up once the game is underway). And just as important, go back and reread these materials throughout the game. A second and third reading while in role will deepen your understanding and alter your perspective, for ideas take on a different coloration when seen through the eyes of a partisan actor. Students who have carefully read the materials and who know well the rules of the game will invariably do better than those who rely on general impressions and uncertain memories.

2. Game Play

Once the game begins, usually one student, randomly chosen, elected, or identified by role, will preside over the class sessions. Your instructor then becomes the Gamemaster (GM) and takes a seat in the back of the room. While not in control, the Gamemaster may do any of the following:

Pass notes to individual players or to factions

Announce the effects of game actions on outside parties (such as neighboring countries), or the effects of outside events on the game (such as declarations of war)

Perform scheduled interventions, often determined by die rolls

Interrupt proceedings that have gone off track or debates that have become overheated

The student serving as president or chair may still act in a partisan fashion, speaking in support of faction and individual interests. But this person is nonetheless expected to observe basic standards of fairness. As a failsafe device, some reacting games employ the Podium Rule, which allows a student who has not been recognized to approach the podium and wait for a chance to speak. Once at the podium, the student has the floor and must be heard.

Most role descriptions contain private, secret information which students are expected to guard. You are advised, therefore, to exercise caution when discussing your role with others. Faction-mates are generally safe and reliable, though even they may not always be with you. Unfortunately, keeping your own counsel, or saying nothing to anyone, is not an option. You must speak with others, because never will a role contain all that its player needs to know, and never will one faction have the voting strength to prevail without allies. Collaboration and coalition-building are at the heart of every game.

In games where the factions are tightly knit groups with fixed objectives, finding a persuadable ally can be difficult. That is why characters called Indeterminates are often included. Indeterminates operate outside the established factions. They tend to be minor historical figures, composite characters, or representative types. Not all Indeterminates are entirely neutral; some are predisposed one way or the other, and all decide for this or that faction as the game nears its close. If you belong to a faction, cultivating these Indeterminates is in your interest, because they provide the most obvious source of outside support.

The classroom may sometimes be noisy with multiple points of focus, because side conversations, note-passing, and players out of their seats are common and accepted practices in reacting. But these practices also are disruptive and can spoil the effect of speeches at the podium. Nothing is accomplished by trying to talk over the din to persons not listening, so insist on order and quiet before proceeding. Ask the president or chair to assist you, if necessary, and the Gamemaster as a last resort. And never be friendless at the podium. Arrange to have at least one supporter second your proposal, come to your defense, or admonish those in the assembly not paying attention.

Always assume, when spoken to by a fellow student—whether in class or out of class—that that person is speaking to you in role. If you need to address a classmate out of role, employ a visual sign, like crossed fingers, to indicate your changed status. It is inappropriate to trade on out-of-class relationships when asking for support or to attack classmates directly. You are characters in a game; attacks should be against the characters that other students are playing, not against them personally.

Wherever the game imaginatively puts you, it will surely not put you in the classroom of a twenty-first-century American college. Accordingly, the colloquialisms and familiarities of today’s college life are out of place.

3. Game Requirements

The instructor will explain the specific requirements for the class. In general, though, a reacting game will have students perform three distinct activities:

Reading and Writing. This standard academic work is carried on more purposefully in a reacting game, because what you read is put to immediate use, and what you write is meant to persuade others to act in preferred ways. The reading load may vary with roles (for that done as research is in addition to that done as preparation); the writing requirement is typically ten pages per game spread over an indefinite number of papers (the instructor may make adjustments). Papers are often policy statements, but they might be as well autobiographies, poems, newspaper articles, messages circulated clandestinely, or after-game reflections. In most cases papers are posted on the class website in advance of the next game session for examination by others. Papers written provide the bases of speeches delivered.

Public Speaking and Debate. In most games every player is expected to deliver at least one formal speech from the podium (the length of the game and the size of the class will affect the number of speeches). Debate is what occurs after a speech is delivered. Debate is impromptu, raucous, and fast paced, and it results in decisions voted on by the body. Reacting instructors may disallow students to read their papers when at the podium or may insist that students wean themselves from this dependency as the game progresses.

Strategizing. Communication among students is a pervasive feature of reacting games. You will find yourselves writing emails, texting, attending out-of-class meetings, or gathering for meals on a fairly regular basis. The purpose of these communications is to lay out a strategy for advancing your agenda and thwarting the agenda of your opponents, or to hatch plots to ensnare individuals troubling to your cause.

4. Skill Development

A reacting role-playing game provides students the opportunity to develop a host of academic and life skills:

Persuasive writing

Public speaking

Problem-solving

Leadership

Teamwork

Adaptation to fast-changing circumstances

Work under pressure with deadlines to meet

PROLOGUE: A PARLIAMENTARIAN’S TALE

Up ahead you see the torches illuminating the towers of the Great Stone Gateway. The gateway guards the southern entrance to London Bridge, and the flaming torches announce that the bridge is closed for the evening. That news is most unsettling, since your accommodations lie on the other side of the Thames. You left your coastal home days ago, in plenty of time, you thought, for the opening ceremonies of the newly summoned Parliament, of which you are a member. But the overland coach suffered numerous breakdowns on England’s rutted roads, and it has arrived too late for passage over the bridge. You could hire a ferryman to carry you to the north bank, but the people milling around warn against a nighttime crossing. It seems that you are stuck in London’s Southwark suburb, and you’re due at Blackfriars tomorrow noon.

Lodging, you are told, can be found upriver a short distance. You thank these strangers for their kind assistance; they snicker as you depart. For upriver are the brothels, called stew houses, and the prostitutes, called Winchester geese. As it happens, you are a little surprised to encounter so many women out and about. Still, it is flattering that they notice you and comforting that they invite you in. When you ask for a room and inquire as to the cost, the declared price astounds you, until the matron at the desk specifies the services provided. You are embarrassed by your naïveté and concerned for your reputation, for what, you wonder, would the world think if a parliamentarian were ever caught in an establishment such as this? But you reason that it is too late to be wandering farther up Bankside, the road that runs along the river’s southern bank, especially since more of the same is all that awaits you. So you take the room, but with assurances to yourself that the balance of the evening hours will be spent elsewhere, in more respectable surroundings.

You spy an arena nearby, in fact, two of them. They are theaters, you suppose, for London is the country’s largest and most cultured city. (But, no, they won’t be theaters for some decades yet, when they become the sites of the Rose, the Swan, the Globe, and the Hope Theaters. The recreational tastes of this generation of Londoners are somewhat less refined—bear-baiting and bull-baiting are the entertainments within.) You enter and observe in the center of the ring not an actor, as you imagined, but a huge black bear, chained at the leg, surrounded by a pack of snarling, yelping dogs. The spectators, in full-throated holler themselves, root on the dogs, root on the bear, depending on which of the animals they have placed their bets. A similar contest is underway in the adjacent arena, you are told, but with an untethered bull struggling to gore the swarming dogs before they succeed in tearing at its legs and bringing it down. You quickly are caught up in the excitement, notwithstanding the vulgarity of it all, and so fail to notice that a melee has broken out in the seats above. Soon the fighting in the stands exceeds that in the ring, and soon after a constable arrives supported by a squad of police. No attempt is made to separate the guilty from the innocent; all are driven outside, wrapped in an encircling rope, and as one large crowd escorted down Bankside to Winchester House.

Your fellow detainees explain that the bishop of Winchester, with his London residence near London Bridge, has jurisdiction over the south bank of the Thames and that within his palace is a jail called the Clink. It is to the Clink that you are sent, placed in a cell with four other men, though none of them the rowdies from the bear-baiting fracas. On the contrary, they are sober, somber, and severe, engaged in earnest talk about Scripture and the church. Huddled around a candle, they thumb the pages of a Bible or recite biblical passages from memory. One declaims: It is evident that no man is justified before God by law. And another answers: For by grace you have been saved through faith, not because of works. They are not disputing; they are supporting and confirming what each believes. On they go, quoting the Bible and fortifying their courage. You later learn that they are sectaries accused of heresy and facing interrogation before an ecclesiastical tribunal in the coming days. They pay you no mind, but eventually the jailer does, who communicates to his superior your asserted status as a parliamentarian and your indignant protestation over false arrest. Satisfied on both counts, the warden tenders his apology and releases you from custody just as the sun is rising. It is late November, which means that morning is well underway. But there is yet time to collect your belongings, left at the stew house, to attend morning services, and to partake of breakfast at a tavern before crossing into London and traveling up Thames Street to Blackfriars Monastery.

The mass you attend is at the chapel of St. Thomas of Canterbury on London Bridge, which is not only a bridge but a street lined and covered with shops, offices, taverns, and inns—to say nothing of a chapel, octagonal in shape and constructed of stone. The service is punctuated by a sermon, delivered by a skillful and erudite prelate, who denounces what he calls the Bohemian infection of the one true faith and who defends the teachings and practices of the church. You make the required donation on departing and ponder the fate of your jailhouse companions, whom you now suspect are the very Bohemians the prelate was denouncing.

Breakfast is taken at a tavern farther down the bridge. The breakfast fare is merely fair, but the conversation at the nearby table is quite exceptional indeed. The patrons there are lamenting the humiliation of the queen and deriding the king for his lust, his arrogance, and his heresy—words of rebuke not ordinarily heard—and are speculating that the emperor might just invade England to deliver his aunt from harm. The cause of their displeasure is hardly a mystery, for all of England is aware that the king now regards his marriage of twenty years as invalid and his daughter by that marriage as illegitimate; also, that the king, in his quest for an annulment, gives friendly hearing to innovative and unorthodox ideas. The diners’ conversation reminds you that your one previous visit to the city, as a child, coincided with the arrival of a Spanish princess sent to England to marry royalty and reign as queen. That was not twenty but twenty-eight years ago, and the fact that the princess came earlier and married twice is the source of all the controversy. The queen is still at court but made to endure the presence of a mistress treated as a wife.

Old London Bridge with Southwark Cathedral in the lower foreground, circa 1530. Illustration by Herbert Railton.

When finally over the bridge and in London proper, you observe an ecclesiastical establishment beyond all reckoning: the imposing St. Dunstan’s-in-the-East, commanding the heights near the Tower of London; the curious, twin-naved St. Helen’s, dedicated to the mother of Emperor Constantine; the great St. Paul’s Cathedral, with its central spire almost touching the heavens; religious houses of every drab coloration—Greyfriars, Whitefriars, Blackfriars; gilded crosses at every street corner; and over one hundred parish churches inside the city walls alone. You conclude that more piety must reside in London than in any city on earth, more even than in Rome. But as you pass by one of these parish churches, a quarrel breaks out within. Some parishioners are in high dudgeon over the fee charged for the burial of a child. The curate responds to their complaints by explaining how this and other fees go to the purchase of holy relics. But the parishioners are unappeased, and as they push toward the front door, the curate, ahead of them, is shoved down the church steps. He argues no more but picks himself up and runs toward the protection of a friary nearby, with the angry laymen in hot pursuit. Perhaps Londoners are not as pious as you first supposed—and the paper at your feet provides immediate confirmation. It is a broadsheet titled A Supplication for the Beggars. Looking ahead, you see that it litters the street and is nailed to posts and walls along the way. One quick glance at the opening paragraph tells you that anticlerical passions run deep and that the church stands accused of multiple and long-standing offenses.

Map of Tudor London, circa 1530.

Indeed, much else is not well in this splendid city on the Thames. Off the main thoroughfares lives a population of beggars, crowded into hovels along streets stinking from sewage and from mud. The sight of you, a well-dressed stranger, draws them forth, whereupon many tell tales about how they were sturdy plowmen once, until the conversion of tilled fields to pasture for sheep removed them from their homes and reduced them to beggary. You pity their plight and hope that Parliament can attend to their needs, but coming yourself from a port city in the south, you know well the importance of the wool trade to the country’s prosperity. Fixing this problem, you suppose, may require some wise and careful lawmaking.

Beyond St. Paul’s on the right and Baynard’s Castle on the left lies Blackfriars Monastery, your destination. The hour is late; you have barely time to dispose of your belongings before taking your place in the receiving line of commoners. When you do, there is tittering, pointing, and guffawing all up and down the line. And when these antics change to the honking sound of geese, you realize what has happened: news of your evening at the stew house and in the Clink reached Blackfriars before you. You are mortified. But no defense can you offer, because at that very moment the procession of lords and royalty begins. First come the lords spiritual, led by the archbishop; then come the ceremonial officials, the lord chancellor among them; the king himself, attended by courtiers, comes next; after whom, and finishing the parade, come the lords temporal, led by the dukes. These bejeweled noblemen march over the covered footbridge connecting Blackfriars with Bridewell, a royal palace situated just across the Fleet River flowing into the Thames. As the king approaches, a courtier whispers in his ear; and as the king passes, he winks at you. Your mortification deepens.

The king and lords retire to the monastery’s church, where a solemn high mass is sung by the royal choristers. After the mass—to which the commoners are not admitted—the combined party assembles in the great chamber for the opening session of Parliament (but with all subsequent sessions to take place at Westminster, a mile or so upriver.). At one end of the chamber sits the king, on his throne. Down the chamber, on his right, sit the bishops and abbots, and on his left the dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons. Opposite the king, behind a rail, you and your fellow commoners stand. The king rises, and with him all the lords. When the room is perfectly still, the king, scepter in hand, begins to speak: Our liege subjects, we have summoned you here, in Parliament assembled …

And so it begins. But where, you wonder, will it end? Will revolution come to England, as it has come to the continent? Will war come, too? Will England remain loyal to the Catholic faith and obedient to the pope, or will Lutheran heresy become the new creed? Will the monarchy assert its supremacy and confiscate church lands? The crown is currently without a male successor. Will the king divorce his wife and disinherit his daughter? And if he does, will a new wife produce an heir to continue the Tudor line? Despite the pomp and circumstance, despite the excitement of participating in a momentous historical event, your mood is anxious and distressed, for you know that the times are troubled and that the future is uncertain.

Plus, you now have a reputation to live down.

CHRONOLOGY

1485—ascension of Henry Tudor to the throne as King Henry VII

1485 (December)—birth of Catherine of Aragon to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain

1486 (September)—birth of Arthur Tudor, first son of Henry VII

1489—birth of Margaret Tudor, first daughter of Henry VII

1491 (June)—birth of Henry Tudor, second son of Henry VII

1492—discovery of America by Christopher Columbus

1494—invasion of Italy by Charles VIII of France and exile of Medici from Florence

1496—birth of Mary Tudor, second daughter of Henry VII

1498—restoration of Florentine republic under Piero Soderini, with Niccolò Machiavelli as assistant

1499—invasion of Italy by Louis XII of France

1501 (November)—marriage of Prince Arthur and Catherine of Aragon

1501 (or 1507)—birth of Anne Boleyn

1502 (April)—death of Arthur

1503—election of Pope Julius II

1509 (April)—death of Henry VII

1509 (June)—marriage of Henry and Catherine

1509 (June)—coronation of Henry VIII, king of England

1513—election of Pope Leo X

1513 (August)—Battle of Spurs (minor English victory over France)

1513 (September)—Battle of Flodden Field (major English victory over Scotland, resulting in death of Scottish king James IV, husband of Margaret Tudor)

1513—composition of Machiavelli’s The Prince

1514—Thomas Wolsey named archbishop of York

1514 (October)—marriage of Mary Tudor to Louis XII of France

1515 (January)—death of Louis XII

1515—coronation of Francis I, king of France

1515—Wolsey named cardinal, lord chancellor, and keeper of the great seal

1515—invasion of Italy by Francis I of France

1516—coronation of Charles I, king of Spain

1516—birth of Mary, daughter of Henry and Catherine

1516—publication of Desiderius Erasmus’s The Education of a Christian Prince

1516—publication of Thomas More’s Utopia

1517—beginning of Protestant Reformation

1518—Wolsey named papal legate

1518—Treaty of London (continental peace treaty negotiated by Wolsey)

1519—coronation of Charles V, Holy Roman emperor (previously, and still, Charles I of Spain)

1520—Field of Cloth of Gold (diplomatic meeting between England and France)

1520—publication of Martin Luther’s Three Treatises

1520—interrogation of Luther at Diet of Worms

1521—fall of Belgrade to Ottoman Turks

1522—English invasion of France (inconclusive and abandoned)

1523—election of Pope Clement VII

1524–25—Peasants’ Revolt in Germany

1525—Battle of Pavia (Spanish/Imperial victory over France, resulting in capture of Francis I)

1527—sack of Rome by Spanish/Imperial forces

1527—death of Machiavelli

1529 (June–July)—legatine court convened to hear nullity suit of Henry VIII

1529 (June)—Battle of Landriano (Spanish/Imperial victory over France)

1529 (October)—Wolsey convicted of praemunire and removed as lord chancellor

1529 (November)—Reformation Parliament convened

SIGNIFICANT CHARACTERS OF THE PERIOD

Individuals who appear, or who may appear, as named characters in the game are marked with an asterisk.

Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536): wife of Henry’s brother, Arthur, then wife of Henry (1509–33); aunt of Emperor Charles V

Thomas Audley* (1488–1544): speaker of the House of Commons (1529–32); later lord chancellor (1532–44)

Jean du Bellay (1491–1543): French ambassador; friend of Boleyns

Anne Boleyn* (1501 or 1507–36): Henry’s second wife (1533–36); executed on charges of adultery

Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde* (1477–1539): father of Anne; lord privy seal and member of the privy council

Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk* (1484–1545): youthful companion of Henry and husband of his sister, Mary Tudor (briefly queen of France); privy council co-president

Lorenzo Campeggio (1472–1539): cardinal and papal envoy to England (1528–35); absentee member of House of Lords as bishop of Salisbury

Eustace Chapuys* (1490?–1556): emperor’s ambassador to England (1529–45); leading member of the Catherine of Aragon faction

Charles V (1500–56): grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and of Maximilian of Germany; king of Spain (1516) and Holy Roman emperor (1519); acknowledged emperor by pope in 1530

Clement VII (1475–1534): Giulio de’ Medici; pope (1523–34)

Thomas Cranmer* (1489–1556): archbishop of Canterbury (1533–53), succeeding William Warham; chief architect of Henry’s divorce

Thomas Cromwell* (1485–1540): secretary to Wolsey; member of House of Commons; member of privy council; Henry’s principal minister after More and the driving force behind the English Reformation

Elizabeth (1533–1603): daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn; queen 1558–1603

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536): Dutch humanist; author of The Praise of Folly, Colloquies, The Education of a Christian Prince, Enchiridion; friend of More

Simon Fish (?–1531): anticlerical pamphleteer; author of A Supplication for the Beggars

John Fisher* (1469–1535): bishop of Rochester (1504–35); chancellor of Cambridge University; executed by Henry (1535)

Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond (1519–36): Henry’s illegitimate son by Elizabeth Blount

Edward Foxe (mid-1490s–1538): co-author of Collectanea satis copiosa (or King’s Book), which made the case for Henry’s divorce; reform bishop (1535–38)

Francis I (1494–1547): king of France (1515–47)

Stephen Gardiner* (1483–1555): bishop of Winchester (1531–51) and important privy council member after fall of Wolsey; out of favor himself for resisting the Supplication against the Ordinaries petition (1532)

Edward Hall (1498–1547): member of House of Commons (burgess for Wenlock in Shropshire) and principal native historian of the period (The Triumphant Reigne of Kyng Henry the VIII)

Henry VIII* (1491–1547): king of England (1509–47)

Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk* (1473–1554): privy council co-president; lord treasurer (1524–47); supreme peer; uncle of Anne Boleyn

Hugh Latimer (1485?–1555): unorthodox preacher patronized by Anne Boleyn; reform bishop (1535–39); executed for heresy during Mary’s reign

Edward Lee (1482–1544): archbishop of York succeeding Wolsey (1531–44); member of privy council and supporter of Henry

John Longland (1473–1547): scholarly bishop close to the king and changing with the times

Martin Luther (1483–1546): Augustinian monk who in protest over the sale of indulgences initiated the Protestant Reformation; author of over 500 publications

Mary (1516–58): daughter of Henry and Catherine of Aragon; queen 1553–58; returned England temporarily to the Catholic religion; nicknamed by her opponents Bloody Mary

Thomas More* (1478–1535): author of Utopia (1516); privy council member (1517–32); knight and undertreasurer of exchequer (1521–25); lord chancellor (1529–32); imprisoned (April 1534), then executed (July 1535) for refusing to take the Oath of Succession

Paul III (1468–1549): Alessandro Farnese; pope (1534–49)

Reginald Pole (1500–56): Henry’s cousin; cardinal (1536–56); enemy of Cromwell; author of De Unitate Ecclesiastica, a book attacking Henry and the Reformation; archbishop of Canterbury during Mary’s reign

Richard Rich (1496–1567): lawyer and onetime steward of Thomas More; lord chancellor in later years

Christopher St. German (1460?–1540): lawyer and doctor of law writing on relationship of common law and equity law; author of Dialogue between Doctor and Student, New Additions (to previous work), Treatise Concerning the Division between the Spirituality and the Temporality; not a member of Parliament but a source of Cromwell’s reform legislation

Jane Seymour (1508–37): Henry’s third wife and the mother of his only legitimate son, Edward (King Edward VI, 1547–53)

Thomas Starkey (1498–1538): Cromwell propagandist; author of An Exhortation to the People Instructing Them to Unity and Obedience

John Stokesley (1475–1539): bishop of London (1530–39)

Margaret Tudor (1489–1541): older sister of Henry; queen of Scotland (1502–13)

Mary Tudor (1496–1533): younger sister of Henry; queen of France (1514); duchess of Suffolk (1515–33)

Cuthbert Tunstall (1474–1559): conservative bishop; friend of More and Catherine

William Tyndale (1494–1536): leading English follower of Luther; translator of the New Testament; exile living in Antwerp; condemned for heresy and executed

Polydore Vergil (1470–1555): papal tax collector resident in England; historian of the period, with influence on Edward Hall

William Warham* (1450–1532): lord chancellor (1504–15); archbishop of Canterbury (1504–32); chancellor of Oxford University

Thomas Wolsey (1475?–1530): archbishop of York (1514–30) (and of lesser episcopates); cardinal, lord chancellor, and keeper of the great seal (1515–29); papal legate (1518–29); Henry’s chief minister until removed from office on charges of praemunire (1529); arrested the following year on charges of treason, but died before being imprisoned in the Tower of London

More extensive glossaries can be found at the back of the game’s supplementary text, J. Patrick Coby, Thomas Cromwell: Machiavellian Statecraft and the English Reformation (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2009).

2

Historical Background

THE KING’S GREAT MATTER

A fateful decision it was when the newly proclaimed boy-monarch, Henry VIII, chose to marry his deceased elder brother’s widow, Catherine. Catherine, or Catherine of Aragon, was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, the king and queen famous for having sent Columbus in 1492 on his voyage of discovery. In 1501 they sent their daughter Catherine to marry Arthur, Henry VII’s firstborn son and prince of Wales. Arthur was fifteen, Catherine almost sixteen. The marriage was short-lived, however, as the sickly Arthur died of consumption five months later. Seven years later, in 1509, Catherine (who had remained in England) was married to the seventeen-year-old Henry, Henry VII’s second-born son. Henry married Catherine, six years his senior, upon his father’s death, just days before his eighteenth birthday and his coronation as king. It was a magnanimous gesture, but one of dubious religious legality, for it is written in the Book of Leviticus (20:21): If a man takes his brother’s wife, it is impurity; he has uncovered his brother’s nakedness, they shall be childless. Henry VII, who first arranged the marriage, later decided against it, fearing that it would put in jeopardy the line of succession and unsettle an already shaky Tudor dynasty. But young Henry, now his own man, was determined to act magnanimously, and the pope in Rome (Julius II) had previously granted him a dispensation.

The marriage was not quite childless. Catherine did give birth to a daughter, Mary (1516–58), who would go on to become queen of England (r. 1553–58). But a male issue was what was required, and Catherine, though pregnant many times, never managed to produce a male heir who survived. By the mid-1520s, Catherine’s child-bearing years had passed, as had her youthful good looks. Indeed, she had become quite frumpy, while her husband—tall, strong, handsome, and athletic—was still in the prime of life, the picture-perfect Renaissance prince.

Henry had always been a beautiful specimen, and as king his opportunities for amorous dalliance were ample, if not limitless. One paramour of significance was Elizabeth Blount, a lady-in-waiting who bore Henry a son, Henry Fitzroy (Fitzroy being the standard name for a king’s bastard—fils du roi). So desperate was Henry for a male heir that he considered legitimizing Fitzroy, and to that end he had him named duke of Richmond. But the paramour of real consequence was Anne Boleyn (whose sister, Mary, Henry had already come to appreciate—a fact that would later prove damaging to Anne). Henry first noticed Anne in 1526. In 1527 he