Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to today's history lesson.

My name is Mr. Merritt and I'll be guiding you through today's lesson.

So, let's get started.

Today's lesson is looking at Thomas Cromwell and the Reformation Parliaments.

And by the end of today's lesson we'll be able to explain how the power of the king changed due to the Reformation Parliaments.

In order to do that, we need to use some key terms.

And our key terms for today are "parliaments", "act", and "supreme".

Parliament are the representatives from across the country who advise the king, approve taxes, and make laws.

An act is a written law passed by parliaments.

And supreme means the highest in rank or authority.

Today's lesson will consist of two separate learning cycles.

And our first learning cycle is looking at the Thomases.

So, let's get started.

Now, after Thomas Wolsey fell from power in 1529, his position as Lord Chancellor was taken up by the famous philosopher and lawyer, Sir Thomas More.

More's incredible work ethic meant that many of the legal cases that are piled up in the last year of Wolsey's power, when he was working on the King's Great Matter, were cleared up.

However, More would not last long in this position.

Although King Henry VIII had a great deal of respect for More, More's loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope meant that by 1532 he felt compelled to retire from his position due to the changes the church that Henry was pushing through at that point in time.

In his place, rose the politician and lawyer Thomas Cromwell.

Cromwell had had an interesting upbringing.

He was born in 1485 from common parents, so he was not noble.

He then traveled the continent as a teenager.

And he joined the French army as a mercenary whilst they were in Italy.

He later on sold indulgences on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church.

And it was whilst doing this that he came to learn about reformist ideas and became a reformist himself.

By the 1520s, he become a politician, lawyer, and advisor to Thomas Wolsey.

Cromwell actually defended Wolsey when he lost favour with Henry VIII, which, potentially, could have spelt the end of Cromwell's career even before it began.

But in actual fact, he actually impressed the king and it brought Cromwell closer to the king.

Cromwell's value to the king though really came from his role in parliaments.

Cromwell was very good at manipulating parliament into voting for acts that increased Henry's power.

And he did this through emotive speeches, which were designed to sway the opinions of politicians and also the ordinary people as well.

He gave speeches outside of parliament too.

As well as by drawing up a list of candidates for vacancies who he could make sure would vote correctly.

These people wouldn't actually get into parliament unless Cromwell said they could.

And they were therefore feel indebted to him and they would vote in the way that he wanted them to vote.

Cromwell was rewarded for his work with high-ranking positions such as Lord Privy Seal and Principal Secretary.

He had other positions as well, but those are two of the most important ones.

Throughout the Reformation Parliament, it was Cromwell who led the charge against the Catholic Church and pushed through Henry's plans to find ways to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

Right, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So, I'd like you to place Henry's key ministers in chronological order by writing the order in which they served him under their names.

So, you've got Thomas Cromwell, Thomas More, and Thomas Wolsey.

Whoever served Henry first, write "first" underneath their name, whoever was second, write "second", and whoever was last, write "third".

So pause the video whilst you do that, and I'll see you in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on okay with that task.

So, the first minister, the first of the Thomases to serve Henry, was Thomas Wolsey.

The second minister to serve Henry was Thomas More.

And the final minister to serve Henry was Thomas Cromwell.

So hopefully you got all of those correct.

Now, an important helper in the task of improving or increasing Henry's power through parliaments was another Thomas, a man called Thomas Cranmer.

The king had been impressed with the reports of Cranmer's legal arguments regarding the ending of the king's marriage.

It was purely by chance that Cranmer came into contact with the king.

Cranmer was actually very content, just effectively just be a scholar for his whole life.

By chance, he met two of Henry's ministers.

And he explained his arguments for them just over conversation about what Henry could say and do in order to end his marriage.

They were so impressed they told Henry.

And in response, Henry ordered Cranmer to appear before him and explain his arguments again.

So Cranmer went from effectively being just a scholar and just a political nobody, "I'm very happy being that", to kind of being thrust into this position of being very close to the king.

Henry actually ordered Cranmer to write an argument supported by Scripture, which is the holy writings of religion, as well as legal arguments to be distributed around the country.

And once that had been taken care of, they had actually been distributed around Europe as well so that everybody would know Henry's arguments for why he wanted to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

The Cranmer's work so impressed Henry that he was showered with rewards and titles.

In 1532, he was also made ambassador to Charles V in the Holy Roman Empire with the secret task of making contact with the reformist princes in the empire in order that Henry could have allies against the emperor.

So the Emperor Charles V was the nephew of his current wife, Catherine of Aragon.

It was Charles V that was preventing the pope from allowing Henry to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

So Henry was looking for allies within the Holy Roman Empire and it was Cranmer's secret mission to find those allies.

Shortly after this happened, in March, 1533, Cranmer then was made Archbishop of Canterbury.

And therefore with Thomas Cromwell and parliaments, Thomas Cranmer in the church and Thomas More sidelined, Henry was now in a fairly good position to force an end to his marriage with Catherine of Aragon.

Well, let's have another quick check for understanding now.

So, true or false?

Cranmer's arguments in favour of ending Henry's marriage to Catherine was supported by examples from French law.

Is that true or is that false?

Okay, if you chose false, then congratulations.

That is indeed the correct answer.

But let's justify that now.

Why is that a false statement?

Is it false because Cranmer's arguments were supported by examples from Italian law?

Or is it false because Cranmer's arguments were supported by examples from Scripture?

So, choose your justification now.

Okay, if you chose B, then congratulations.

That is the correct answer.

Right, let's go for our first task for today now.

So, I have a table on the screen in front of you.

And what I'd like you to do is to complete that table.

On one side, we have a list of the Thomases, and in the other side, we have the explanation of what role they played in Henry's governments.

So, what you need to do is fill in the gaps.

So, identify the Thomas if the role is already filled in, and explain what that role was if their name was already filled in.

So, pause the video whilst you do that, and I'll see you in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you've done okay with that task.

So, let's just go through this table now and make sure we're all happy with it.

So, our first Thomas in chronological order was Thomas Wolsey.

And his role was as Henry's Lord Chancellor as well as other positions as well.

And he fell from power in 1529.

We then have Sir Thomas More taking his place.

And his role, he was primarily a philosopher as well as a lawyer.

And then he became Lord Chancellor.

He then resigned in 1532 in protest of Henry's Church reforms.

After that, we have Thomas Cromwell, and he was Henry's Principal Secretary.

And he influenced parliament to vote for Henry's wishes.

And then finally, we have Thomas Cranmer.

And he was the Archbishop of Canterbury.

And he used legal and religious arguments in favour of ending Henry's marriage.

If you've got slightly different explanations of their role, that's absolutely fine as long as you've got the gist of what it is that they did for Henry.

Right, let's go for another task now then.

So, what I'd like you to do now is explain why Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer's work was so important in enabling Henry to end his marriage with Catherine of Aragon.

And I got some sentence starters on the screen there just to help you out as well.

So, "Thomas Cromwell helped Henry to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon by", and then "This was important because".

So you can fill those sentences in.

And then "Thomas Cranmer also helped Henry to end his marriage by", what did he do?

And "This was important because".

And explain why that was significant.

So pause the video whilst you do that, and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on okay with that task.

Let's think then about what you could have written.

So you could have said that "Thomas Cromwell helped Henry to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon by manipulating Parliament to vote for acts that increased Henry's power.

This is important because it gave Henry the power to end his own marriage".

And "Thomas Cranmer also helped Henry to end his marriage by writing legal and religious arguments to support Henry's decision.

This is important because it provided Henry with convincing reasons to end his marriage".

If you've got slightly different explanations to me, that's absolutely fine as long as you can identify what it is that Cromwell and Cranmer did and why it was important.

Alright, let's move on then to our second and final learning cycle for today, which is looking at the Reformation Parliaments.

Now, the Reformation Parliament was a series of parliamentary sessions beginning in November, 1529 and ending in April, 1536, which was an unusually long time for this period in English history.

Parliament didn't sit constantly during this period, but they sat regularly during this period, which is why it's referred to as a single parliament.

The goal of the Reformation Parliament shifted as the sessions wore on.

Initially, Henry wanted parliament introduce acts that pressured Pope Clement VII to give up his opposition to ending Henry's marriage to Catherine.

However, by mid 1532, it became clear that this tactic was simply not working and had very little hope of ever actually working.

So, the goal of the Reformation Parliament became to remove the power of the Pope in England and transfer that power to the king.

Pressure was first put upon the Pope in 1529 when the rights of the clergy, and the clergy refers to religious officials, to be tried in their own courts was removed.

Instead, if they were accused of any crimes, they would be tried in regular courts.

Generally speaking, the church courts, or the ecclesiastical courts as they were known, were significantly more lenient than the regular courts.

So this actually, potentially, was quite a dangerous move if you were a member of the clergy and if you were accused of a crime.

Previously, you might get a very light sentence.

Now, from this point on, you might get a very strict sentence.

In October, 1530, Cromwell increased the pressure further by charging all of the clergy with treason for praemunire, which means loyalty to the pope over that of the king.

In reality, the question of who should the people and who should the clergy owe their allegiance to primarily, is it the church, therefore is it the Pope, or is it the king in their respective country?

This had been a question which had been bounced around for hundreds of years, not just in England, but all over Europe.

And depending on who the pope was at the time, who the king was at the time would depend on who the clergy and the regular people's loyalty was primarily directed towards.

It was unusual for something like this, for this charge of praemunire to actually be levied against the clergy.

It was generally accepted that the clergy would have a split loyalty.

So, Henry agreed to forgive this crime in return for a payment of 118,000 pounds.

And to put that into context, in modern money, that's more than 52 million pounds.

So, it was a significant fine that Henry levied upon the church.

More money was then taken from the church in 1532 when taxes that were supposed to go to Rome were withheld and they were kept for the king instead.

Now, despite all of this pressure, despite the fact that members of the church now fund themselves with less privileges than they had them previously, despite the fact that the pope was not gaining the money that he was accustomed to from England, none of this actually works.

And the reason being is that England was, quite simply, just not important enough for Pope Clement VII to risk the wrath of the Holy Roman Empire and Charles V.

The Holy Roman Empire was significantly more powerful than England at this point in time and it offered much more of a threat to the pope, not least because the pope was actually the emperor's prisoner at this point in time.

And as a result of that, Charles V, who was the nephew of Catherine of Aragon, what he said goes in regards to the pope and his decision to end Henry's marriage at this point in time and he did not want an end to his aunt's marriage.

He thought that it had been humiliating for her and he didn't want that for her.

As a result of this, the Reformation Parliament changed tactics.

Now, in May, 1532, the Submission of the Clergy was enacted.

The clergy were forced to agree that Henry was the protector and supreme head of the English Church and clergy so far as the law of God allows.

And this meant that the Church in England could not make any religious laws without the king's authority, which was effectively remove the power of the pope in England.

This is then followed in April, 1533 by the Act in Restraint of Appeals.

And that forbade anybody from asking the pope to overturn any of Henry's legal or religious decisions.

So effectively, these acts prevented anyone from trying to overturn Archbishop Cranmer's decision to declare Henry's marriage to Catherine unlawful, which he did in May, 1533, or anyone of trying to overturn the marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn, which had already occurred in January, 1533.

So effectively, Henry now says that I am in charge of all religious and legal decisions, and what's more, it is illegal to try and ask anybody else, i.

e.

, the pope, to overturn these decisions.

So, he's just asserting his authority and then just shoring up his authority as well, making sure that there are no loopholes that anybody can go through to try and get this all overturned.

Okay, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So, I'd like you to complete the sentence on the screen in front of you.

So "The Reformation Parliament", somethings, "the powers of the monarchy".

Did it increase the powers of the monarchy, decrease the powers of the monarchy, or remove the powers of the monarchy?

Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose A, increased, then very well done.

That is indeed the correct answer.

Now, now that the King's Great Matter had been resolved, the king had got the ending of the marriage to Catherine of Aragon like he wanted.

He married Anne Boleyn just like he wanted.

Effectively, the work of the Reformation Parliament was done.

Their big job was complete.

They'd successfully done exactly what the king wanted.

However, it continued to pass further acts aimed at strengthening the king's power even further.

And the Act of Succession in March, 1534 declared Henry and Catherine's daughter, Princess Mary, to be illegitimate in favour of Anne and Henry's children.

And then the Act of Supremacy in November, 1534, stated that Henry had always been the supreme head of the Church of England.

And the Treason Act that followed meant that anyone who opposed this could be punished by death.

Similarly, the next law, the Act of Annates, gave Henry as supreme head all of the church taxes which have previously gone to Rome.

Despite all of these changes, the 1534 Act of Dispensations confirmed that Henry's church, which was now the Church of England, would essentially still follow the majority of Catholic beliefs.

And the reason being is that although Henry had broken from the Catholic Church in order to force an end to his marriage, in his heart, he was still a Catholic.

Well, it's another quick check for understanding now.

So, what title did Henry VIII receive from the 1534 Act of Supremacy?

Was it Almighty Lord of the Church of England?

Was it Imperial Governor of the Church of England?

Or, was it Supreme Head of the Church of England?

Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose C, Supreme Head of the Church of England, then very well done.

That is the correct answer.

And another quick check for understanding now are true of false statements.

So Henry VIII needed parliament in order to end his marriage with Catherine of Aragon.

Is that true or is that false?

Okay, if you chose true, then very well done.

That is indeed a true statement.

But let's justify it now.

Why is it a true statement?

Is it true because parliament passed a series of laws giving Henry power over the Church in England?

Or, is it true because Parliament raised a series of taxes which enabled Henry to bribe the pope to end his marriage?

So choose your justification now.

Okay, if you chose A, then very well done.

That is indeed the correct answer.

Right, let's go for another task now then.

So, I've got a series of acts on the screen there.

There are four acts that are brought in during the Reformation Parliament.

And what I'd like you to do is match the act to its effect.

So, we've got the Act of Supremacy, the Act of Dispensations, the Act in Restraints of Appeals, and the Act of Secession.

So, pause the video whilst you match these together, and I'll see you in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you've gone okay with that task.

Let's match them together now then.

So, the Act of Supremacy stated that Henry VIII was the Supreme Head of the Church of England.

The Act of Dispensations confirmed that the Church of England would still follow majority of Catholic beliefs.

The Act in Restraint of Appeals prevented anyone from asking the pope to overturn Henry's decisions.

And therefore the Act of Succession declared Princess Mary illegitimate in favour of Anne's children.

Hopefully you got all of those correct as well.

Right, let's go for our next task now.

So, what I'd like you now to do is to explain how the Reformation Parliament changed the power that King Henry VIII held.

And I'd like you to try and give at least two examples to support your point.

If you can give more examples than that, then that's fantastic.

But give at least two specific examples of how the Reformation Parliament changed the power that King Henry VIII held.

Pause the video whilst you do that, and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you've gotten okay with that task.

Let's think about then what you could have written.

So you could have said "The Reformation Parliament increased the power that King Henry VIII held by removing the power of the pope from England and giving that power to the king.

One way it did this was through the 1534 Act of Supremacy, which confirmed that Henry was the Supreme Head of the Church of England, making him the religious leader of England.

Another way it did this was through the 1534 Act of Dispensations, which provided Henry with all the taxes that previously went to the pope, making him extremely rich.

If you've got two different ways in which the Reformation Parliament increased the power of Henry, that's absolutely fine, as long as you explained how they did actually increase his power.

Right, let's summarize today's lesson now then.

So, Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer had a significant involvement in resolving the King's Great Matter in Henry's favour.

Cranmer provided legal and religious arguments to end Henry's marriage with Catherine, whilst Cromwell provided emotive arguments and pushed through acts in Parliament designed to increase Henry's power to end his marriage.

The Reformation Parliament passed a series of acts that removed papal power in England and transferred it to the king.

Due to these acts, he was able to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.

Thank you very much for joining me today.

Hopefully you've enjoyed yourself.

Hopefully you learnt something.

And hopefully I'll see you again next time.

Bye-bye.