CROMWELL

• The Act of Supremacy (1534) made the King head of the Church
• The Treasons Act (1534) allowed anyone to accuse someone else of treason, making it easier to execute people who opposed the king
• Wolsey was replaced by Thomas More as Lord Chancellor - a layman, with strong humanist beliefs.

  • Where Wolsey was prepared to seize opportunities and act flexibly in terms of his master, More was a man of high and rigid principles, especially in religious manners.
  • The emergence of Thomas Cromwell brought this phase of Conciliar government to an end.
  • Cromwell rose after Wolsey’s death because he had a proposal to solve the ‘King’s Great Matter’.
  • He made an enemy with the Duke of Norfolk during his time as Chief minister, as the was opposed to Cromwell’s religious reforms.
• Church (1)

  Exploiting the weakness:

  • Church’s claim to legal supremacy had been challenged, and it was asserted that the English law had superiority over canon law.
  • This helped prepare the way parliamentary attack on the Church’s power - which was masterminded by Cromwell.
  • Henry had gained more justification by means of the Collectanea Satis Copiosa. 
• Church (2)

  PRESSURING THE POPE:

  • 1531 - Clergy collectively accused of praemunire & fined
  • 1532 - Act in Conditional Restraint of Annates
  • 1532 - House of Commons Supplication against Ordinaries
  • 1532 - Formal submission of the clergy to Henry VIII.