In Praise of King Henry VIII
(a much maligned monarch placed in his proper context)

FOREWORD

In this 500th anniversary year of the accession to the throne of King Henry VIII it seems appropriate and desirable that he should be better understood. Most people know something about his many wives but in many cases that is all they know and that imperfectly.There is much more to the man than that and we owe to him much more than most of us know.

Determined attempts have been made recently to revive and promote the idea that the English Reformation would never have occurred if Henry VIII had not lusted for Anne Boleyn. This idea is so wide of historical truth as to make it certain that there is motive behind the suggestion. It would seem to be an attempt to ease the way towards a return to Rome along a path labelled ECUMENISM- a return which would be not only deceitful but also black treachery.

No doubt Henry lusted for Anne Boleyn but equally, as a monarch, he had need of a male heir. Whatever it was politic for Henry to show he was surrounded by people of Protestant inclination - Anne Boleyn whom he married - Jane Seymour whom he married - Catharine Parr whom he married. In addition there were the clerics - Archbishop Cranmer, Bishops Hooper, Latimer and Ridley, all of whom were burned alive on the orders of Queen Mary. Then there were the tutors of his children Princess Elizabeth and Prince Edward.

Catholic or Protestant, the wives who were executed perished for adultery - in the case of Anne Boleyn probably alleged rather than actual, in the case of Catherine Howard probably actual. It was the standard punishment for such an offence touching the King's person according to the temper of the time.

To get the full picture however it is necessary to go back to the origins of Christianity in the British Isles. The commonly told story repeated by successive Archbishops of Canterbury is that Christianity was brought to Britain by St Augustine in AD 597. That is not true. It deserves to rank with Father Christmas and the tooth fairy as one of those convenient fictions upon which our society is built.

What he brought was Roman Catholicism. He found a vibrant Church in place with its own hierarchy of Bishops whose authority extended throughout what is now England as well as parts of Scotland and most of Ireland. They had the Scriptures and a Christian calendar which owed nothing to Rome. The best evidence for this lies in the words of the Venerable Bede who was a Roman enthusiast. He faithfully records how, on his arrival, St Augustine convened a Council of all the British Bishops. They came from all parts and were not impressed by this interloper and particularly by his lack of respect.

What followed, formalised at the Synod of Whitby in AD 664 but not accepted for decades by clergy in the north and in Ireland, was an usurpation. It was an usurpation at the top because it was Kings and Courts that converted to Roman Catholicism.

The Church which St Augustine found was possibly much older than Rome. Celtic British Bishops were recorded present at the Council of Arles AD 312/313 where they claimed, and were accorded, precedence on account of the seniority of their Church. They were present at the Council of Nicaea where the Christian Creed was agreed. The Bishop of Rome (the title Pope did not materialise for centuries) was only represented at Nicaea and was of little account. The Church Father Iraneous who lived in the second half of the 2nd Century was in touch with Britain. The earliest written reference I am aware of comes in the works of the Carthaginian (Phoenician) Tertullian who wrote that Christianity had conquered parts of the British Isles not yet tamed by the Legions. He disappears from view about AD 200.

There is little evidence for the origins of the Celtic Church in Britain. My assertion that it was very early is based upon logical inference from what we know for certain. Fundamental is the established trade link with the Eastern Mediterranean which makes it possible. The Alexandrian Calendar and the lead fonts establish a link with what was the cradle of Christianity from the earliest days. Gildas who was a Glastonbury monk and would have known the records before they were destroyed by fire during the reign of Henry II, wrote that Christianity came to Britain during the reign of Tiberias Caesar "as we all know". Tiberias was emperor at the time of the crucifixion. Gildas was writing in the 6th century. There is some evidence of an early wattle church at Glastonbury and a grant of land free of taxes which still existed when the Doomsday record was taken.

The Celtic British Church produced St Patrick who was never a Roman Catholic. His father was a deacon in the British Church. Patrick was sent not to Rome for instruction but to the Coptic/Egyptian monastery on the island of Lerins adjacent to Marseilles - more evidence of travel. There he encountered the Desert Father's concept of monasticism which he took to Ireland to such effect.

Around AD 360 the British Church produced a theologian - Pelagius, who was all the rage in Rome - that was after Emperor Constantine had established Christianity. He disputed the idea of original sin maintaining that every child was born free of sin. According to Pelagius every child had the choice whether to sin or not to sin This idea was roundly condemned by his opponent St Augustine of Hippo who had some early acquaintance with sin. Pelagius was eventually declared heretical and ended his life in poverty in Jerusalem. The British Church may well have produced the Emperor Constantine who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. According to the spin doctor Eusebius, who was responsible for the myth of the miraculous conversion ahead of the battle for the Milvian bridge, Constantine was born in Nicomedia and his mother was a local barmaid. According to the Oxford History of Roman Britain published around 1960, before it became fashionable for scholars to have ideological bias, his mother was a Celtic British Christian, "definitely not a princess". It is an intriguing thought that if this version is right Constantine took Christianity from York to Rome. Gildas agrees with the Oxford version or vice versa.

The origins of the Roman Church are equally obscure. It is claimed to have been founded by St Peter but there is no evidence that he was ever in Rome. There is no mention of such a presence in the Acts of the Apostles though there is plenty about St Paul who was there, and he was there in chains on a charge which amounted to rabble rousing for which he was finally executed. One would have thought that the man whose destiny it was to found God's Church on earth would have merited a mention in its official early history.

Before Emperor Constantine Christianity was proscribed for Roman citizens. Certainly there were Christians in Rome and they probably had leaders as Muslims do in Britain today. They were mostly however the flotsam of society - Jews who believed that Jesus was the biblical Messiah - as well as immigrants from Asia Minor and North Africa. They were persecuted from time to time and frequently prosecuted for refusing military service, for refusal to worship the divine Emperor and most frequently for cannibalism. The latter charge may well have arisen from the doctrine of transubstantiation.

It seems unlikely to me that there could have been a church. Christian Jews had their synagogue and no need for a church. Any organisation purporting to be a Christian Church would have brought down official wrath. The synagogue was tolerated. Nevertheless there must have been a significant and growing number in the Empire for Diocletian to have mounted a campaign aimed at their extermination over a decade and more.

In my opinion the Roman Church prior to Constantine was a fourth century construct; an origin myth. Although the title Pontifex Maximus came to be used the title Pope did not come into use until centuries later. The idea that St Peter was the first Pope is stretching things just a bit. There was no Latin bible until St Jerome's translation from the Hebrew and Greek in AD 383.

Constantine's father was Emperor of the West - one of Diocletian's co-emperors. His responsibility included Britannia, Gaul and Spain. Returning to the garrison town of York from an expedition to hammer the Picts (in Scotland) Constantius died. The Roman army in Britain immediately proclaimed his son Constantine Emperor of the West in his stead.

After Diocletian retired Constantine set about removing his co-emperors which he succeeded in doing. His most significant action as sole Emperor was the Edict of Milan granting toleration to all sects (AD 313). This was the point at which frantic Church building began not least by Constantine. His massive basilica, now St John Lateran, still stands in Rome.

He also instigated extensive clearance of the destruction wrought by Romans in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. In this work his mother St Helena was closely involved.

Christianity in due course became the state religion of the Roman Empire but Constantine was not happy with Rome and set about building a splendid new capital which became Constantinople, now Istanbul.

After Rome fell to the vandals in AD 476 Constantinople continued to flourish until after a brief period of decline it was overrun by Islam in AD 1203. The present Orthodox Churches of Russia and Greece with the Coptic Church are survivors of Eastern Mediterranean Christianity.

From the time that England became a firmly controlled unified monarchy tension began to grow between Royal and Papal power. Duke William of Normandy (William the Conqueror) believed that as King of England he achieved a degree of emancipation from Papal control. His son Rufus definitely regarded Papal interference with disfavour. King John (of Magna Carta fame) had a spat with the Pope which resulted in closure of churches and the refusal of clergy to officiate at christenings, weddings or funerals. The dispute between Henry II and Becket was about Church power. Henry thought that having appointed his friend Becket to be Archbishop of Canterbury he had his man in place. He found that Becket was the Pope's man. Becket was killed. That episode ended however in the shameful submission and humiliation of King Henry.

Throughout the mediaeval era measures were taken to limit Church power. Benefit of Clergy which meant that priests were not subject to the law of the land was removed. Successive Statutes of Praemunire confirmed the royal authority. By the time that the Tudor dynasty arrived with Henry VII the Pope had lost the power to appoint Bishops in his own Church. For a long time levies intended for the Vatican had been finding their way into the King's treasury without demur from the Bishops who were the King's appointees. A break was inevitable. Henry VIII's need for a male heir was the trigger.

I referred to usurpation earlier. We have no knowledge of how far down that went. There would have been a great deal of conformity in the interests of staying alive and in the course of time the new order would have become the established order as generation succeeded generation. The lower orders at that time were neither literate nor articulate.

It was not until the views of grass roots dissidents came to be shared by the greatest Oxford scholar of his day - John Wycliffe, Master of Balliol - that we get an inkling of what may have been there for a very long time. The Lollards were a kind of lay preacher who moved about at risk of life and limb preaching a simpler Christianity. They repudiated the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and held that there was no need of priests to mediate between man and his maker. From his eminence and politically protected by John of Gaunt, Wycliffe expounded these views in the 14th century, a hundred years before Martin Luther.

He also organised teams of translators in the Bodleian Library who produced an English Bible and found scribes to produce hand written copies. These were distributed by the Lollards. It meant death to be found in possession.

At the time of Henry VIII the printing press had arrived. William Tyndale, of necessity working in secret on the continent, was producing large numbers of his own translation in a smaller format which had to be smuggled into Britain. These found a ready market in spite of the danger. Finally Henry decreed that an English Bible should be available to the congregation in every church.

It is easy to underestimate the philosophical effect of the protestant boy King Edward VI but it was events which consolidated the Protestant Reformation.

The first was the short reign of bloody Queen Mary. Edward VI's nominated successor, Lady Jane Grey, lasted just 9 days before the Catholic faction persuaded the Privy Council of the superior claim of Henry VIII's Catholic daughter.

In the Catholic terror, which Mary unleashed, nearly 300 victims from an Archbishop to little children were burned alive for heresy. Although over a relatively short period, that was equal in ferocity to anything the Spaniards had done in the Netherlands so graphically depicted by some Flemish artists. Upon Mary's death, which few mourned, Elizabeth came as welcome relief

Then came the manifest hostility of the Pope to Elizabeth, The fact that she was declared illegitimate, that she was excommunicated, that license was granted to anybody to assassinate her for reward in this life and absolution for the next, was compounded by the threat of the Spanish Armada and the threat of invasion. It was feared that this could lead to the return of the savagery of Queen Mary. That Catholics meant danger became embedded in the popular mind.

All that was the backdrop to events in the following century which saw first the gunpowder plot, then the civil war, the republic experiment, the restoration of the monarchy, the rejection of the would be Catholic James II and the installation of the Protestant champion William of Orange and his wife Mary.

Throughout the period the Papal claim to authority backed by Catholics in the country ran like a thread. The 1688 political settlement, which barred Catholics from the crown, from every public office and denied to them the right to establish churches save one embassy chapel in London, brought a long respite from armed conflict. This was disturbed only by a French attempt to seize Ireland on behalf of the deposed James II (defeated at the Boyne) and two French supported attempts to restore the Stuarts in 1715 and 1745 which, though dangerous, were little more than skirmishes.

Development of industrial and imperial strength during the 19th century rendered Protestant England invulnerable but in the 20th century the rise of Germany in Europe and the USA cut England down to size and increased vulnerability. By "loyalty and good behaviour" during the period of maximum strength Catholics earned the removal of most restrictions. Today only the bar against the crown remains and that under constant threat.

With increasing vulnerability the Papal claim was revived. Had Hitler succeeded in uniting Europe under German control Pope Pius 12th would have been riding pillion. Destruction of political opponents, carried out of course by the Gestapo, would have surpassed anything seen before. Anyone in doubt should look at the behaviour of the Gestapo in other occupied countries - particularly Poland and Russia - where the population was regarded as sub human

Hitler having failed, almost immediately a new scheme was hatched. It was nothing less than a revival of the Holy Roman Empire. As part of the plan England would be embedded in a catholic community where it could be dismantled and rendered impotent.

In 2007 England is beset by the old enemy with the old aim to regain the control repudiated by King Henry VIII. Virtually all newspapers in the British Isles are owned, edited and very largely written by Catholics. The BBC and other media are heavily infiltrated. You may identify some of them by their Scottish or Irish accents but not all. The sources of information available to the British public are skewed and controlled. It is a tribute to their sanity that they remain fundamentally hostile to the so-called European project. Not many Catholics will be found amongst the opposition.

It is beginning to emerge that the political elite which has caused things to go as far as they have may have been deflected from its duty by large scale corruption as well as by infiltration. At the same time the democratic process which should regulate and control them has been corrupted to such an extent that the choice presented to the electorate is between tweedledum and tweedledee.

Elections, however, have not yet been abolished so the opportunity still exists to clean out the Augean Stables and finally to assert the freedom bequeathed to future generations by King Henry VIII.