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Claire | June 18, 2013
A special legatine court had been set up at Blackfriars on 31st May 1529 by Cardinal Wolsey and Cardinal Campeggio, the papal legate, to examine Henry VIII’s case for the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Both Henry and Catherine had been summoned to appear before the Cardinals on 18th June but only
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Claire | May 31, 2013
On 31st May 1529, the formal trial to investigate Henry VIII’s case for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was opened at Blackfriars. A papal bull in April 1528 had given Cardinal Wolsey the authority to “to take cognisance of all matters concerning the King’s divorce” in England, with the assistance of
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Claire | May 28, 2013
On 28th May 1533, five days after the special court at Dunstable Priory had declared Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon invalid, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer proclaimed the validity of Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn after a special enquiry at Lambeth Palace. The proclamation was just in time for Anne Boleyn’s coronation pageantry, which
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Claire | May 23, 2013
We’ve spent the last few weeks in 1536, counting down to Anne Boleyn’s execution, but now we swing from 1536 to counting down to Anne’s coronation in 1533. On 23rd May 1533, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer announced the sentence of the special court that had met had Dunstable Priory, Bedfordshire, to examine Henry VIII’s case for
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Claire | May 17, 2013
On 17th May 1536, at Lambeth, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, in the presence of Sir Thomas Audley, the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Oxford and others, declared that the marriage between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn was null and void.1 This sentence of “nullity” meant that it was as if the marriage had never happened
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Claire | April 20, 2013
On 20th April 1534 Elizabeth Barton, a Benedictine nun who became known as “the Nun of Kent” or “the Holy Maid of Kent”, was hanged for treason at the gallows at Tyburn along with Father Edward Bocking (a monk and Barton’s spiritual adviser), Richard Masters (her parish priest), Richard Risby (warden of the Observant Friary
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Claire | March 7, 2013
On this day in history, 7th March 1530, Pope Clement VII issued the following bull: “Bull, notifying that on the appeal of queen Katharine from the judgment of the Legates, who had declared her contumacious for refusing their jurisdiction as being not impartial, the Pope had committed the cause, at her request, to Master Paul
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Claire | July 12, 2012
Thank you so much to Catherine Fletcher, historian and author of “The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican”, for this guest article. You can read my review of Catherine’s book over on our review site – click here. Over to Catherine… In the six years it took Henry to end
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