Inevitable Fall of Wolsey

• Henry’s strategy to put pressure on the Pope was to threaten to reform the English Church and distance it from Rome.
• The dismissal of Wolsey would be part of that strategy. Wolsey would be charged with an offence called ‘praemunire’ that is serving the Pope before the king.
• Henry called parliament in 1529 and Wolsey’s opponents stirred up anticlerical sentiments and attacks on Wolsey.
• Sir Thomas More was instructed to deliver a speech in the House of Lords, denouncing Wolsey.
• Anne Boleyn and her faction believed that Wolsey was deliberately failing to get the annulment; they put pressure on the king to get rid of him.
• Although the king was reluctant to get rid of Wolsey, perhaps because he had served him so well, the root cause of his dismissal was not aristocratic opposition or popular anticlericalism but because he could not obtain the annulment. Thus he finally lost the king’s trust.