Catherine of Aragon

A great matter

In 1525, Henry VIII would met someone who would change not just him but the course of history Anne Boleyn, who as well as her sister Mary Boleyn became ladies in waiting to Catherine of Aragon. Anne was about ten to seventeen years younger than Henry, being born in either 1501 or 1507. Henry began to pursue her, after he got tired of her sister Mary, and by this time Catherine was no able to have anymore children at this time. Henry soon started to believe that his marriage was a sin and curse from god and sought confirmation from the bible, which he interpreted to say that if a man marries his dead brothers widow/wife, the couple would be childless, which isn't true because Catherine and Henry did have a child together Mary, but he just said that as an excuse because he didn't have a soon and he fought that only men could do the job of being a ruler. Even if her marriage to Arthur hadn't been consummated which Catherine denied, Henry's interpretation of that biblical passage meant that their marriage was invalid and wrong in the eyes of god. The pope at the time of Catherine's and Henry's marriage had the right to overrule the claimed scriptural impediment that Henry made, and would become a hot topic in Henry's battle campaign for an annulment from the present pope. 

It soon became one absorbing object of Henry's desire to secure an annulment or divorce against his wife Catherine. Catherine was defiant  when it was suggested that she quietly retire to a nunnery, and said: "God never called me to a nunnery. I am the kings true a legitimate wife. 

The pope was, at the time, was the prisoner of Catherine's nephew Emperor Charles V following the sack of Rome in May 1527, William Knight the kings secretary, had difficulty in obtaining access to him. In the end Henry envoy had to return without accomplishing much. Henry now had no choice but to put this great matter into the hands of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who did all he could to secure a decision in Henry's favor. 

The pope had no intention of allowing a decision to be reached in England, and his legate was recalled.(How far the pope was influenced by Charles V is difficult to say, but it is clear Henry saw that the pope was unlikely to annul his marriage to the emperor's aunt.)The pope forbade Henry to marry again before a decision was given in Rome. Wolsey had failed and was dismissed from public office in 1529. Wolsey then began a secret plot to have Anne Boleyn forced into exile and began communicating with the pope to that end. When this was discovered, Henry ordered Wolsey's arrest and, had he not been terminally ill and died in 1530, he might have been beheaded for treason. 

A year later, Catherine was banished from court, and her old rooms were given to Anne Boleyn. Catherine wrote a letter to Charles V in 1531 saying: 

My tribulations are so great, my life so disturbed by the plans daily invented to further the King's wicked intention, the surprises which the King gives me, with certain persons of his council, are so mortal, and my treatment is what god knows, that it is enough to shorten ten lives, much more than mine. 

 When Henry decided to annul his marriage to Catherine, John Fisher became her most trusted counsellor and one of her chief supporters. He appeared in the legates' court on her behalf, where he shocked people with the directness of his language, and by declaring that like John the Baptist, he was ready to die on behalf of the indissolubility of marriage. Henry was so enraged by this that he wrote a long Latin address to the legates in answer to Fisher's speech. Fisher's copy of this still exists, with the manuscript annotations in the margin which show how little he feared Henry's anger. The removal of the cause to Rome Ended Fisher's Role in the matter, but Henry never forgave him. Other people who supported Catherine's case included Thomas More; Henry's own sister Mary Tudor, Queen of France; Maria de Salinas; Holy Roman Emperor Charles V; Pope Paul III; and Protestant Reformers Martin Luther and William Tyndale.