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In a thread recently this was posted:
The Church of England was created by a man that asked the Pope for permission to disobey the bible to marry his brother's wife. The argument was that because his brother and his future wife not have sexual relations, they were not married. This was true, so the King of England could marry his brother's virgin wife.
After four of his five children died, leaving him only a daughter to inherit the Kingdom of England, he broke from the Catholic Church and cast the devoted Catholic English into a earthly hell.
And appealing to the devil does nothing. His first daughter ruled England. Then his second bastard protestant daughter, whose mother he murdered, ruled England and unleashed absolute hell.
I cannot begin to imagine being a member of the church of England. As is the soiled history could be in any way justified.
After four of his five children died, leaving him only a daughter to inherit the Kingdom of England, he broke from the Catholic Church and cast the devoted Catholic English into a earthly hell.
And appealing to the devil does nothing. His first daughter ruled England. Then his second bastard protestant daughter, whose mother he murdered, ruled England and unleashed absolute hell.
I cannot begin to imagine being a member of the church of England. As is the soiled history could be in any way justified.
It came a little from left of field and did not seem to belong to the thread, the argument or the matter at hand in that discussion and so I chose not to answer it in that thread, so as not to hijack the thread on a secondary matter. It is not that I agree with the matter posted or that there is no answer.
Firstly:
The Church of England was created by a man that asked the Pope for permission to disobey the bible to marry his brother's wife.
The assumption here is that the Church of England was the creation of Henry VIII , no doubt by the Act of Supremacy in November 1534 which declared the King and successors ‘the only supreme head on Earth of the Church of England’.
Henry VIII was essentially catholic to his bootstraps, and he was not a reformer, he was neither priest nor bishop, and sought none of that for himself. The Papacy had evolved and Popes exercised an authority in the manner of temporal Princes and Lords. The Act of Supremacy was to take that temporal authority from the Pope and place it in the hands of the King. This was to create a model similar to the authority structures of the various orthodox churches in the relationship with secular ruling authorities.
On the 14th of November 1501 Arthur (Henry VIII’s older brother) had married Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, to whom he had been betrothed since 1489, when Arthur was 3. This was no love match, but rather a treaty between England and Spain, the two great catholic powers, against the rising tide of the enemies of Rome. The marriage was indeed, as were many on the Royal Houses of Europe at the time, more strategic than sacramental.
Following the wedding in St Paul’s was the customary feast followed by the last public bedding of the English Royal Family. Arthur is said to have declared the next day that ‘he spent all night in Spain’, whatever that might mean.
A month or so later they moved to Ludlow Castle in Wales, where at some stage in March they both came down with a fever, from which Catherine recovered and Arthur died on the 2nd of April 1502.
The first issue in the national interest needed to be to determine if Catherine was pregnant or not. That involved waiting a few months. There seems to have been no declaration from Catherine at that time that there was no need to wait. There was also to matter of the the dowry, which the English did not wish to return.
Ultimately Catherine was not pregnant. And amid various discussions as to whom she might then be married, the Pope granted an annulment in December 1503. At this stage there was no plan that she might be married to Henry VIII, though there is some suggestion that she might have been married to Henry VII following the death his wife of Elizabeth of York in 1503, though clearly that never transpired, however would fit with the timing of the annulment.
At the end of the day there are two people who know if Arthur and Catherine slept together. They certainly had means motive and opportunity.
There are of course two verses from the Old Testament that address the matter of the the brother’s wife.
Deuteronomy 25:5
When a brother dies and has no son, his brother shall take his wife in marriage
When a brother dies and has no son, his brother shall take his wife in marriage
Leviticus 20:21
If a man takes his brother’s wife, it is impurity; he has uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.
If a man takes his brother’s wife, it is impurity; he has uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.
The invocation of Leviticus 20:21 on this matter is not a valid use of the text, as in Leviticus the clear discussion in the holiness code is discussing the matter when the brother is still alive. On that basis one would have to conclude that Henry VIII marrying Catherine was in fact the biblical fulfilment of the Deuteronomy 25:5 passage.
Notwithstanding this the annulment was not sought by Henry VIII (he was 12 at the time) but by Henry VII, his father, who it seems was generally not in favour of Henry VIII and Catherine wedding.
Secondly
The argument was that because his brother and his future wife not have sexual relations, they were not married. This was true, so the King of England could marry his brother's virgin wife.
Of course one of the difficulties this argument has is that the public bedding suggests otherwise. In reality Catherine was free to marry, either as a spinster or as a young widow. In the medieval mind she may have been a greater prize as a virgin spinster than as a slightly used widow, but most of that is medieval nonsense.
Of course we don’t know if it was true or not, however it was deemed to be true, and was the strength of the annulment of 1503, which was certainly not granted so Henry VIII could marry his brother’s virgin wife, because the strength of an annulment is that she was not his brother wife as the marriage had not been consummated.
Henry VIII married Catherine on the 11th of June 1509, and they were crowned together on the 24th of June 1509.
Thirdly
After four of his five children died, leaving him only a daughter to inherit the Kingdom of England, he broke from the Catholic Church and cast the devoted Catholic English into a earthly hell.
Children and known pregnancies Henry VIII and Catherine
- Jan 1510 - stillborn girl
- Jan 1511 - Henry Duke of Cornwall d 22 Feb
- Nov 1513 - stillborn boy
- Jan 1515 - stillborn boy
- Feb 1516 - Mary Tudor
- ??? 1517 - miscarriage
- Nov 1518 - girl, lived a few hours
I think it should be noted that Henry did not break from the Church, but rather from the Pope in terms of secular power. There were no re-ordinations, no immediate revisions of the rite, no breach of doctrine and no intent that the Church should be anything but the Church for all the people of England (catholic).
Fourthly
And appealing to the devil does nothing. His first daughter ruled England. Then his second bastard protestant daughter, whose mother he murdered, ruled England and unleashed absolute hell.
I am not sure what the reference of appealing to the devil is, save for it being a literary gloss. Mary Tudor did rule England, and, not to put too fine a point on it, she was not nicknamed Bloody Mary for nothing. Her revocation of the Act of Supremacy and her endeavour to return England to papal control was not without harsh measures and much bloodshed, and yes I think we would all acknowledge that they were harsh days.
Elizabeth 1 is rarely described as a bastard, and frankly I don’t think much of the term anyway, as children are not simply defined by the misdeeds of their biological progenitors. Anne Boleyn was executed during the reign of Henry VIII and I do not think that it speaks well of Henry VIII that the appalling sham trial and miscarriage of justice so perpetuated is, to my mind at least, a black mark against Henry.
Elizabeth I’s reign is variously described in history, and whilst there were good and bad points in that long reign, I don’t think that absolute hell is a reasonable description of the reign of Good Queen Bess.
Fifthly
I cannot begin to imagine being a member of the church of England. As is the soiled history could be in any way justified.
I am not sure what limits your imagination may have. The English Church has a long and proud history.
Christianity arrive in England probably in the first century, either by way of the Phoenician Trade Route to the tine mine in Glastonbury on by virtue of Christians among the Roman Legions. There is a strong tradition associating Joseph of Arimathea with Glastonbury, which has some practical sensibility dies to the trade route, and the probable need Joseph of Arimathea had for some protection in the wake of the crucifixion and resurrection.
Hippolytus records Aristobulus of Britannia as being one of the seventy two disciples mentioned in Luke 10:1, and indicated in Romans 16:10. The historic accuracy of this may be questioned, however the early tradition of such a view is apparent.
Alban is the first recorded British Martyr in the early to mid 3rd Century. There were six British Bishops at the Council of Arles in 314 AD, 16 years before the Council of Nicaea, so clearly by that stage the Church had some standing on the Island.
By the early 400’s following the teaching of Pelagius, a British Monk, whose teaching on free will drew ire from Augustine of Hippo and the Council of Carthage in 418 AD, and Pelagianism was rightly condemned as a heresy. The English Church of course admits it’s errors and failings, we have no other choice, and yet Pelagianism abounds today across all denominations of the Christian religion. The point being that the English Church existed and made its mark in the world.
The Saxon invasion of England (circa 450) put great pressure on the Celtic Christianity, forcing it back towards Wales and Ireland, and asserting various Saxon Pagan Religious practice.
Pope Gregory 1, famous for his quote ‘Non Angli, sed angeli ‘ (not angles but angels) reminds Anglicans that we do not accept the infallibility of the Pope. Nonetheless he commissioned Augustine to travel to England and convert the English. Much of our knowledge of the Augustinian Mission comes from the Venerable Bede and after having established his base in Kent, at Canterbury, where the community adopted a Benedictine rule, he went about the work of recovering England for the Christian Faith. Much of his time was spent in negotiation with the British Church already extant, though following some practices that did not accord with Roman practice. The English rites (probably old sarum) were a little to elaborate, and the Date of Easter they followed was in accord with the Byzantine Church. Number of compromises were made in the settlement of this, and the English Church adopted the latin date of Easter, and retained some of their own customs and prayers, but essentially fell into line.
There is a not insignificant list of English Saints, Martyrs’ and Holy Men and Women, all of whom weave a tapestry of the faith and culture of the tradition of faith in which we Anglicans stand.
1014 brought the Danish Invasion and Conquest, and the faith was alive, and Cnut seems happily to have fallen in line with English Church practice. He appointed Stigand as his Mass Priest. Stogand later became ArchBishop of Canterbury while Edward the Confessor was King, leading to his excommunication by the Pope, though he continued to serve as ArchBishop of Canterbury. Following Edwards Death and the hasty coronation of Harold Godwinson, William of Normandy (who was conceived out of wedlock) mounted the second invasion of England under the authority of the Pope whose banners were carried into the battle at Battle near Hastings. Following Williams success, and coronation - by Stigand (?) - William’s regime went about enforcing the latin rite, deposing the English Bishops and replacing them with Italians and Normans, and bringing England more directly under Papal influence, many Churches were replaced with Norman Structures, and the old rites destroyed and replaced with the approved rite. Stigand was imprisoned and died in custody of starvation. Lanfranc, Abbot of Bec became ArchBishop of Canterbury, followed by Anselm, also Abbot of Bec. The nature and character of the English Church was significantly suppressed and changed.
In some sense the Act of Supremacy, rather than being a rebellion was rather more a recovery of the earlier independence of the English Church.
There is much to be venerated in both of our traditions, neither of which is perfect.
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