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“In Henry’s case, the problem was he had already had to go to the Pope to marry his first wife, Catherine of Aragorn, inasmuch as the marriage would have been considered incestuous, because she was his brother’s widow.”

LOL...well I hope you aren’t looking to me to defend Henry’s virtue. Then again, I wouldn’t expect you to defend the Popes virtue at the time either in naming Henry “defender of the Faith” - which at the time was the Catholic faith.

I’m sure the fact that the Pope was related to the King of Spain had nothing to do with his favoritism of Spain over England.

Hi RFEngineer,
from http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon41.html

“The court life initiated by his father evolved into a cornerstone of Tudor government in the reign of Henry VIII. After his father’s staunch, stolid rule, the energetic, youthful and handsome king avoided governing in person, much preferring to journey the countryside hunting and reviewing his subjects. Matters of state were left in the hands of others, most notably Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York. Cardinal Wolsey virtually ruled England until his failure to secure the papal annulment that Henry needed to marry Anne Boleyn in 1533. Wolsey was quite capable as Lord Chancellor, but his own interests were served more than that of the king: as powerful as he was, he still was subject to Henry’s favor - losing Henry’s confidence proved to be his downfall. The early part of Henry’s reign, however, saw the young king invade France, defeat Scottish forces at the Battle of Foldden Field (in which James IV of Scotland was slain), and write a treatise denouncing Martin Luther’s Reformist ideals, for which the pope awarded Henry the title “Defender of the Faith”.”

Not to make a correction or anything but ALL of these guys were fairly close relatives within the same family ~ and quite a few of them were red-heads AND NO ONE is quite sure where that came from ~ just remember, Columbus was also a red-head, worked for a member of this family (Rene d'Anjou) and then two other members of this family (Ferdinand and Isabella).

The French Religious Wars occurred in the middle of his reign, and they started WITHIN the family ~ the leaders on both sides were his cousins. The later 30 Years War also found the same family mixing it up hither and yon. Like to note here that EVEN the Swedish crown had more than it's fair share of Bourbonaise families in its background ~ even back to the first Vasa King's Great Grandmother.

What you do is start with the Angevin Vespers (1282) when that regime was first driven from Naples and Sicily (King of the Two Sicilies) and roll forward 300 years to 1582, and you have an incredible period of fast population growth, incredible economic development, constant warfare within Europe and between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, and the Mongols and Turks, and finally the Thirty Years War where the shape of nation states was finally established in the body of treaties and agreements called the Peace of Westphalia.

During that entire period of time essentially one family pulled all the levers in each and every country.

By the time you get up to Charles II of England(etc) every head of every country also had in his or her ancestry an early Magyar prince. Otherwise it was still the same crowd who were, as I mentioned, virtually all redheads with bad tempers!

He didn’t favor Spain over England for any reason except that Henry was simply wrong.

Incidentally, Henry was initially very pro-Catholic and actually wrote pamphlets supporting the Church and opposing the Protestants. It was just when, like Luther, he ran into something the Church wasn’t willing to allow, that he turned on the Church. Even so he never considered himself a Protestant.

In any case, as the old saying go, all heresy begins below the belt. It’s always because of somebody who wants to do some sexual thing that is not permitted (this includes Luther, the Albigensians, the Cathars...you name it).

Henty VIII had a legit beef with Rome. The Vatican had certainly granted stranger royal annulments than the one he was asking for. However, you're on the money in that it was the Vatican that gave Henry a Papal Dispensation to marry Catherine of Aragon in the first place. After all the trouble that took, it was unrealistic of Henry to expect the Vatican to un-dispence a Dispensation, especially with the Queen's relatives besieging the plce.

But there's an economic back-story here. The church controlled about 25% of the British economy, with vast tracts of the best developed farmlands in the realm belonging to the monastic orders, substantial holdings by the Bishops, and many prerogatives that effectively left them a law unto themselves. When the trouble between the King and the Church began, the economic issues made a radical solution financially attractive.

Henry VIII was no "Protestant." He merely wanted to run the Roman Catholic Church in England without Romans. He seized Church property, sold it on the cheap, or gave it to his pals, and built a strong anti-Rome constituency, which became more "Protestant," after Henry's death, and Edward's and Elizabeth's Reforms.

Me, I hope the Pope just sets up an Anglo-Catholic outfit in communion with Rome, sort of like the Greek, Chaldean, Syrian, Coptic, etc. rites that drop by the Vatican to have an espresso once in a while, keep the Pope's picture in the office, and with whom the Pope checks in by phone before doing anything really big. Other than that, they have their own liturgy, trick hats, and customs different from Monsignor O'Houlihan's parish.