January 5 | Pope Clement VII Forbids Henry VIII to Remarry
Otherwise titled “the origin story of The Church of England”
I am reading The Other Boleyn Girl right now so I was delighted to find this fun history factoid! If you are familiar with the hullabaloo that was Henry VIII trying to ditch his wife, Queen Katherine of Aragon, you’ll know why today was so dang important. If you don’t, we’ll cover it really quickly.
Circa 1509, things are great with Henry and Katherine. They get married when they’re both young and hot and they’re this totally beloved power couple ruling England in 1509. Katherine becomes pregnant right away, which is great because she has one job: make boys. Okay, it gets sad here and the marriage is about to fall apart. The first baby is a stillborn girl. This is 16th century England though, so infant mortality isn’t that unusual. She suits right back up and gets pregnant again, this time delivering a son who dies seven weeks after he is born. Two more stillborn sons follow, until finally the Princess Mary is born and survives infancy. Katherine produces only one living child and that a girl so Henry is about to lose his GD mind.
Now as men in power often do, Henry has a wandering eye and nobody to tell him no, so when Anne Boleyn (maybe you’ve heard of her?) shows up in the Tudor court, he takes notice and especially the part where she’s young enough to be a baby factory. Historical lore says she was all kinds of educated and witty and whatnot, so she was probably good company too. In any case, Henry starts sniffing around for a legit reason to divorce Katherine.
By all accounts, Henry is a pretty devout Catholic, so he doesn’t want to just toss out his long suffering wife without due cause and accordingly, he hauls out the Bible, a bunch of lawyers and petitions the Pope to annul the marriage as invalid on the basis that Katherine was indeed married to his big brother who died at age 15 (she was). Big time back and forth with Rome because the Pope is not really having it. Katherine’s nephew, The Holy Roman Emporer Charles V actually KIDNAPS the Pope which also complicates things (can you believe!). On January 5th 1531, Pope Clement VII (maybe under duress?) makes his decision and it’s a hard no. He warns Henry that if he remarries, he’ll be excommunicated.
This is devastating for Henry and his cause, but not so devastating that he decides to just sit tight with Katherine. Anne is HOT and she can have BABIES. In a true stroke of confidence that I frankly aspire to, he decides that any idea that pops in his head is divinely inspired and placed there by God. He invents the Divine Right of Kings and then goes ahead and marries Anne Boleyn anyway. Clement makes good on his word and Henry is excommunicated. No biggie, he’ll also just invent the entire Church of England and become the supreme head of it.
Oh and the Church of England still exists and Will and Harry’s dad, King Charles III is the head. Fun! Almost 500 years later!
Additional reading if this whets your whistle some -