The Tudor Popes
The papacy has long played an important role in the history of England, going back to 596 when Pope Gregory the Great sent St Augustine of Canterbury to convert the Anglo-Saxons. Pope John XV made peace between the Saxons and the Normans in 991 and when things changed Pope Nicholas II blessed the Norman invasion for William the Conqueror to claim his rights. Pope Hadrian IV, the only English pope thus far in Church history, sanctioned English rule over Ireland, Pope Innocent II supported King Stephen in his war against Empress Mathilda and Pope Alexander III supported the great English saint, Thomas a Becket, in his struggles with King Henry II. It was a history of alternating cooperation and hostility. For example, when King Richard I was taken prisoner by Emperor Henry VI, Pope Celestine III helped bring about his eventual release by excommunicating his captors. Contrarily, when the infamous King John attacked the Church in England, Pope Innocent III had him excommunicated and the entire country placed under the interdict until John relented. When the Great Schism came, England was among the nations which remained loyal to the legitimate though less appealing Pope Urban VI.
All of this, contributed to a general attitude of laxity regarding England and problems there on the part of the Church, and when the storm of the Tudor reign started to blow, few were inclined to take it as seriously as they should. After all, there had been problems in the past, but England was devoutly Catholic and these had always managed to work themselves out with no major problems. England was the Garden of Mary, the Dowry of Mary, known for its loyalty to the See of Peter and legends about Christ visiting as a child, St Joseph of Arimathea taking the Holy Grail there and the most Marian country in Europe. In short, England was the last place anyone expected there to be trouble with the Church and Rome. Yet, trouble did come, and the first steps were taken In 1503 when, at the request of the first Tudor monarch, King Henry VII, Pope Julius II, the famous "Warrior Pope" granted a dispensation so that Prince Henry of Wales could marry the widow of his brother Arthur, the Spanish Princess Catherine of Aragon. It was hardly a newsworthy event as it was quite normal for the Church to grant one form of dispensation or another for royal weddings. When the young prince duly became King Henry VIII he continued to enjoy good relations with the papacy, especially when they gained a common enemy. When the French King Louis XII called for the pope to be deposed, Julius II formed the Holy League to oppose him. King Henry was happy to join the coalition and Pope Julius II was ultimately successful in driving the French out of Italy. To show his thanks, Julius awarded Henry the Golden Rose. Later on, Henry VIII would receive two more Golden Roses, one from Pope Leo X and another from Pope Clement VII.
Julius was followed on the Petrine throne by Pope Leo X, son of the Medici prince Lorenzo the Magnificent. It was Leo X who had to face the start of the Protestant revolt led by the renegade German monk Martin Luther. King Henry VIII was outraged at the rebellion and indeed despite all of his later actions would remain a lifelong enemy of Lutheran Protestantism. Henry VIII, being a learned man, took it upon himself to counter the Lutheran teachings by writing a book called "A Defense of the Seven Sacraments" with the help of his trusted friend Saint Thomas More. Pope Leo X was so impressed by this intellectual counter-attack that he awarded Henry VIII the title of Fidei Defensor - Defender of the Faith which, in spite of everything that has happened since, the Queen of Britain still holds to this day. Pope Leo X died at the end of that year, 1521, and so did not live to see what later became of his "defender of the faith". When the cardinals met to elect a successor, Henry VIII pushed for the election of Cardinal Wolsey, his Lord Chancellor, but was unsuccessful.
It was after the death of Leo X that the full fury of the Protestant storm struck. Following the one year reign of the austere Dutchman Pope Hadrian VI, the papacy went back to the Medici clan, this time in the person of Pope Clement VII. Henry had again pushed for the election of Cardinal Wolsey, and it seemed more likely this time around, but again the English cardinal was passed over. The new Pope Clement had the disadvantage of facing the full fury of the Protestants while at the same time being caught in the middle of the rivalry between the King of France and the Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The situation became most severe when Charles V invaded Italy and in May 1527 Imperial troops, many of them German Lutherans, sacked Rome in an orgy of violence and destruction that shocked the civilized world. Were it not for the heroism of the Swiss Guards, Clement VII himself would have likely been killed. As it was, he managed to barricade himself in Castel Sant?Angelo until he was able to escape disguised as a gardener and peace with Charles V was later restored.
Most significantly, it was in this same year that Henry VIII fell in lust with Anne Boleyn, which ultimately led him to seek an annulment of his marriage to Queen Catherine from Pope Clement VII. Once again, Clement VII was in an extremely difficult position. He did not wish to alienate Henry VIII, especially at a time such as he was in, yet at the same time he knew that if he bent the rules for Henry, Emperor Charles V would certainly become his enemy again as Charles was the nephew of Queen Catherine. To sort through the matter, Clement VII sent Cardinal Campeggio to England for a formal trial of the case. Queen Catherine was urged to retire to a nunnery, but she would not relent, she would not allow the lie to spread that she and Henry were not validly married and that their daughter was illegitimate. Finally, the case was recalled to Rome and Clement VII ruled that there was no grounds for annulment, the marriage was valid in the eyes of God and the Church and Henry would have to learn to live with that.
But, of course, Henry didn't live with it and was determined to have his own way. He married Anne in secret and later Archbishop Thomas Cranmer gave him his divorce and Anne was crowned Queen. Pope Clement VII responded by excommunicating the King and declaring his divorce and his marriage to Anne null and void. The papal nuncio was recalled and relations between Rome and England ceased. Eventually, Henry had himself declared head of his own national Church of England. This ultimately led to bloodshed and revolution and repression in England with the suppression of the monasteries, the Pilgrimage of Grace and the intrigues that surrounded the multiple marriages of Henry VIII.
The reign of Pope Paul III saw the continuation of this standoff as things became worse for the Church in England under King Edward VI. While Henry VIII had broken with Catholicism, he had never totally embraced Protestantism either, but this was done with a vengeance by those who ruled in the name of the boy-king Edward. The next significant change came with the succession of Queen Mary I to the throne, the daughter of Queen Catherine of Aragon, and like her mother a strong woman and a very devout Catholic. With the help of Reginald Cardinal Pole, who was himself considered a possible choice for pope, the breach with Rome was healed and England was absolved of her divorce from the Church so to speak and welcomed back into the fold by Pope Julius III on July 6, 1553. Queen Mary has for so long been painted as an unthinking slave of the Church, however, the actual relationship between the Queen and the Pope might surprise those unfamiliar with the whole story. What became the largest issue in her relations with the Pope was also the cause of many of the problems with her own people and that was her marriage to King Philip II of Spain. Philip himself was a zealous Catholic, but he managed to run afoul of Pope Paul IV, a very suspicious man by nature and a former inquisitor. Paul IV reversed the alliance Clement VII had with the Hapsburgs and instead allied with France to remove the Spanish presence in Italy. This resulted in war between King Philip, and by extension Queen Mary, against France and the Pope. This was extremely hard on Queen Mary as she had no wish to be opposed to Rome, nor did she like the absence of her husband at such a time and the loss of Calais, the last English foothold in France.
With the death of Queen Mary came the accession of the last of the Tudors and the one with the most antagonistic relationship with the papacy, that is Queen Elizabeth I. Despite being illegitimate in the eyes of the Church, and thus inapplicable for the job of Queen (which should have gone to Mary Queen of Scots) the Church nonetheless gave Elizabeth a chance to prove them wrong and live up to the promises she had made to her dying sister to uphold the Catholic faith after she was gone. Of course, Elizabeth did none of it, quickly breaking with Rome again and purposely replacing adoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary with adoration of herself, Elizabeth the supposed Virgin Queen. Pope Paul IV, in a measure that now included Elizabeth, pronounced that the Catholic faithful had the right to depose any monarch which supported heresy in their countries. Paul was succeeded on the papal throne by the shorter reigning Pope Pius IV who tried to appeal to the conscience of Queen Elizabeth to reform her ways and return to the embrace of the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, the Queen refused to even receive his message.
The next bishop of Rome, however, was not nearly so peaceful in dealing with the Tudor Queen. A former Dominican Inquisitor, Pope St Pius V was the ultimate Catholic Reformation pontiff. He was austere, upright, combative, devoted to the faith and determined to meet all enemies of the Church, internal and external, with force to the utmost. On February 25, 1570 Pope St Pius V issued the bull Regnans in Excelsis in which he referred to Elizabeth as, "the pretended Queen of England, the serpent of wickedness". He excommunicated the Queen, declared that English Catholics were absolved of their allegiance to her and that all who supported her effectively made themselves the enemies of God and of the Church. The following year the Parliament made it treasonous to criticize the Queen, bring papal bulls or indeed any religious icons or articles into the country. Catholicism was banned and Protestantism became mandatory. The Queen and the Pope were avowed enemies and while Elizabeth aided Protestant rebels in Scotland, France and Holland, talk was everywhere in England that the Pope was plotting with King Philip and other Catholics for the invasion of England and the replacement of Elizabeth with Mary Queen of Scots. However, relations between Philip II and St Pius V were never so cozy as everyone believed and Elizabeth was still going strong when the pontiff died in 1572.
His successor was Pope Gregory XIII who reaffirmed the excommunication of Elizabeth and sent Catholic priests into England secretly to keep the faith alive and try to make a start in winning the soul of the country back for the Church. It was also Gregory XIII who supposedly told two anonymous English lords that Queen Elizabeth was a, "guilty woman who is the cause of so much intriguing to the Catholic faith and the loss of so many million souls. There is no doubt that whoever sends her out of the world with the pious intention of doing God service, not only does not sin but gains merit". Of course, Elizabeth was to seize on this news and used it to feed her campaign of anti-Catholicism. Contrary to what was spread at the time, Gregory had no part in any assassination attempts against the Queen. The extent of his actions against England included two failed efforts to send papal troops to Ireland to instigate a Catholic uprising there were Elizabeth had carried out horrible persecutions against the Irish Catholics. Like St Pius V though, Gregory XIII was to die while the Tudor Queen was still going strong.
He was succeeded by Pope Sixtus V who gave his apostolic blessing to King Philip II in sending the Spanish Armada to invade England. He even agreed to leave the question of who would rule England up to Philip as long as they restored England to the Catholic faith. However, it proved to be a project which ultimately failed due to bad weather and better English ships. Sixtus V, however, was not quite the zealot that his predecessors were, and after such a run of bad luck in dealing with the Tudor Queen, he was able to admit her undeniable abilities, though perhaps more as one might marvel at the schemes of an evil genius. He said of Elizabeth, "She certainly is a great queen, and were she only a Catholic, she would be our dearly beloved daughter. Just look how well she governs! She is only a woman, only mistress of half an island, and yet she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by the Empire, by all!" After being thwarted at every turn, Sixtus seems to have developed a sense of humor about the whole situation and joked that if he were permitted to marry Elizabeth they could have ruled the world.
More popes followed, but it became clear that Protestantism was in England to stay as Elizabeth had done what her father could not and used the patriotism card to make the Church of England popular and accepted, equating Catholicism with being foreign and treasonous. Yet, despite the Elizabethan paranoia, and that which was to follow, the Catholics of England proved to be loyal both then and ever after. As it happened, the reigning Pope at the time the Tudor dynasty came to an end was Clement VIII, who had taken the same name as the pontiff with whom Henry VIII first broke from Rome. Likewise, just as it was Elizabeth I who broke off all relations with the Pope, supposedly forever, it was a government of Queen Elizabeth II which restored diplomatic relations with the Holy See.