page_title: English Reformation
section_title: Parliamentary debate and legislation
hierarchical_section_title: English Reformation / Henrician Reformation / Parliamentary debate and legislation
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Thomas Cromwell
context_page_description: The English Reformation took place in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. These events were, in part, associated with the wider European Protestant Reformation, a religious and political movement that affected the practice of Christianity in western and central Europe. Causes included the invention of the printing press, increased circulation of the Bible and the transmission of new knowledge and ideas among scholars, the upper and middle classes and readers in general. The phases of the English Reformation, which also covered Wales and Ireland, were largely driven by changes in government policy, to which public opinion gradually accommodated itself.
  Based on Henry VIII's desire for an annulment of his marriage, the English Reformation began as more of a political affair than a theological dispute. The reality of political differences between Rome and England allowed growing theological disputes to come to the fore. Until the break with Rome, the Pope and general councils of the church decided doctrine. Church law was governed by canon law with final jurisdiction in Rome.
context_section_description: In 1529, the King summoned Parliament to deal with annulment, thus bringing together those who wanted reform but who disagreed what form it should take; it became known as the Reformation Parliament. There were common lawyers who resented the privileges of the clergy to summon laity to their courts; there were those who had been influenced by Lutheranism and were hostile to the theology of Rome; Thomas Cromwell was both. Henry's chancellor, Thomas More, successor to Wolsey, also wanted reform: he wanted new laws against heresy.
  Cromwell was a lawyer and a member of Parliament—a Protestant who saw how Parliament could be used to advance the Royal Supremacy, which Henry wanted, and to further Protestant beliefs and practices Cromwell and his friends wanted. One of his closest friends was Thomas Cranmer, soon to be made an archbishop.
  In the matter of the annulment, no progress seemed possible. The Pope seemed more afraid of Emperor Charles V than of Henry. Anne and Cromwell and their allies wished simply to ignore the Pope, but in October 1530 a meeting of clergy and lawyers advised that Parliament could not empower the archbishop to act against the Pope's prohibition. Henry thus resolved to bully the priests.
caption: Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (c. 1485–1540), Henry VIII's chief minister 1532–40.
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