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[quote=Anonymous][quote]She didn’t convert him to Protestant. She was also a catholic - but he wanted a divorce and to remarry and the Pope didn’t let him so he had a tantrum and declared himself the head of a new church.[/quote]

Not quite accurate. Henry had an older brother Arthur who was expected to become king. That brother married Catherine of Aragon. After--according to lore--one night together, he was sent back to his books. He died unexpectedly, leaving Catherine his widow. Her father was the powerful Philip of Spain. What to do with the widow was a real problem. It wasn't clear whether he, who was I think 14 on their wedding night, had actually consummated the marriage.

The obvious solution was to marry her off to Henry, i.e., give Philip what he had bargained for: a daughter married to the Crown Prince of England. In Catholicism, you cannot marry your brother's widow. The pope granted Henry--really the English government--a dispensation from this rule so the marriage could take place.

Henry didn't want a divorce; he wanted an annulment. He wanted his marriage to Catherine to be annulled on the ground that he had married his brother's widow, which was prohibited. His argument was that this is God's law and the pope had no power to grant a dispensation. Understandably, the Church refused to state that a pope did not have this authority. So, Henry declared himself the observant Catholic who wouldn't accept the Pope's manipulation of God's law. He self-annulled his marriage to Catherine.

Now, in Catholicism, it's not only prohibited to marry your brother's widow, you are prohibited from having sex with the sibling of anyone you've slept with. It's basically the same prohibition. Ironically, by arguing that the Church could not grant him the dispensation to marry Catherine, Henry enforced the prohibition of having sex with the sibling of anyone you've had sex with. (Catherine had potentially done this by having sex with Arthur and his brother Henry.) By sleeping with Anne after sleeping with Mary, Henry also violated God's law, especially in the minds of the common people.

After giving birth to Elizabeth, Anne had several miscarriages. According to lore, one of these was a nearly full term male who was horribly deformed. Midwives allegedly saw this child and the news of how deformed it was spread through the kingdom. Such deformities were commonly viewed as God's punishment of sinful parents. So Henry's inability to have a male heir with Anne was seen as his punishment by God for abandoning Catherine AND for having slept with her after sleeping with her sister Mary.

That's why Henry charged Anne with witchcraft and with infidelity. He was trying to create the case that the deformity was the result of ANNE"S sins, not his.

Anne's brother was a leading Protestant and Anne's knowledge of the scriptures was very much  formed by this brother, who probably convinced her to use what influence she had over Henry to steer him towards the Protestants and away from Catholicism. It was in her best interest to do this because Protestants did not have the same stricture against having intercourse with someone who has had sex with your sibling. [/quote]

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