What reasons are there to why Henry VIII spilt with Rome?
From a very simplistic point of view, he was tired of his wife, Catherine, and had fallen in love with one of her ladies, Anne Boleyn. But there was really more to it than that. Catherine of Aragon was the intended bride for Henry’s older brother, Arthur (she was the daughter of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, the Spanish monarchs who largely united Spain by their marriage and completed the reconquest of Spain from the Moorish occupation). She came to England, married Arthur, and he died of tuberculosis within months. To keep the Spanish alliance, Henry VII suggested that his surviving son, Henry, marry Catherine. This required a dispensation from the Pope, because of ‘affinity’–because she was Henry’s sister-in-law, marriage to her without proper dispensation would have been considered incest. This dragged on for a number of years; Henry VII, even though the dispensation had been granted, kept putting off the wedding. Bear in mind that Catherine was some six years older
