Divorce to Catherine

Under other circumstances, it wouldn’t have been too difficult for England’s king to get a papal dispensation to set aside his first wife and marry another in order to produce a male heir. “There was a clear understanding among the princely houses of Europe that the continuation of the dynasty was the ruler's number one priority,” says Pettegree.

But timing was not on Henry’s side. That same year—1527—the imperial troops of the Holy Roman Empire had attacked and destroyed Rome itself, forcing Pope Clement VII to flee the Vatican through a secret tunnel and take shelter in the Castel Sant’Angelo. At the time, the title of Holy Roman Emperor belonged to King Charles V of Spain—Catherine of Aragon’s beloved nephew.

With the papacy almost entirely under imperial sway, Clement VII was not inclined to grant Henry a divorce from the emperor’s aunt. But he didn’t want to completely deny Henry either, so he stretched out negotiations with the king’s minister, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, over several years, even as Henry grew increasingly frustrated.

Eager to marry Anne, Henry appointed Cranmer as the Archbishop of Canterbury, after which Cranmer quickly granted Henry’s divorce from Catherine.

In June 1533, the heavily pregnant Anne Boleyn was crowned queen of England in a lavish ceremony.