16. The Rupture with the Pope.--The pope, Clement VII, evaded a direct answer to Henry's appeal. Catherine was the aunt of Charles V, and perhaps Clement feared that he would offend that monarch--to whom he looked to suppress the Reformation in Germany--if he granted the divorce. Henry, impatient of these enforced delays, consulted the universities of Europe, and as most of them pronounced marriage with a deceased brother's wife unlawful, he divorced Catherine without the consent of the pope. A quarrel ensued between the king and the pontiff, which resulted in the former casting off the authority of the latter, and the pope excommunicated the king. In 1533 Henry was declared head of the British church and Defender of the Faith, by the English parliament. He thereupon ejected the monks from their possessions, disposed of their property at his own good pleasure, and abolished in toto the authority of the pope in England.
17. No other country in all Europe was so well prepared for the Sixteenth Century revolution as England. A century and a half before either Luther or Zwingle were heard of, John Wycliffe proclaimed against the corruption and abuses of the Catholic church, denounced the pope as anti-Christ,[45] and preached against the doctrine of transubstantiation. He also { 260} translated the Scriptures and circulated them among the common people. Two years before his death, however, he was summoned before a church council by which, notwithstanding he defended himself with great ability, many of his doctrines were condemned, and he himself was restricted in his ministry to the parish of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, where he died. [See note 7, end of section.] His teachings, however, had made a deep impression upon his countrymen, and he left many followers, who were called by their opponents Lollards. The Lollards were a proscribed sect in England, and as they avoided persecution, but little was heard of them. Still they cherished the doctrines of their leader, and transmitted them to their children, so that when Luther and the other continental reformers began their work, there were many in England who sympathized with them; and when Henry VIII considered it to his interests to revolt against the authority of the pope, he found large numbers of his people not only ready to support him in casting off that authority, but anxious to go much farther in that revolt than the king desired. [See note 6, end of section.] They had viewed the rupture between the king and the pope with deep satisfaction; but they were soon to learn that the defection of the monarch was not to bring religious liberty to England, or establish there the doctrines of Wycliffe or Luther. It was but a change of masters that had taken place, and the king was as despotic as the pope. [See note 9, end of section.] Although Henry had thrown off the authority of the pontiff, he would tolerate but few changes in the forms and ceremonies of religion. More changes were introduced in the reign of Edward VI, the son of Henry VIII by Jane Seymore; and still more in the reign of Elizabeth, his daughter by Anne Boleyn.