Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/443

 Protestant Revolt in Switzerland and England 323 increased by the appearance at court of a black-eyed girl of six- teen, named Anne Boleyn, with whom the king fell in love. Wolsey's failure to persuade the Pope to permit a divorce ex- cited the king's anger, and, with rank ingratitude for his minister's great services, Henry drove him from office (1529) and seized his property. From a life of wealth which was fairly royal, Wol- sey was precipitated into extreme poverty and soon died. Henry induced Parliament to cut off some of the Pope's revenue from England, but as this did not persuade Clement VII to grant the divorce, Henry lost patience and secretly married Anne Boleyn, relying on getting a divorce from Catherine later. Parliament, which did whatever Henry VIII asked, declared Henry's marriage with Catherine unlawful and that with Anne Boleyn legal. 546. How Henry VIII threw off the Papal Authority. In 1534 the English Parliament completed the revolt of the English Church from the Pope by assigning to the king the right to ap- point all the English prelates, and to enjoy all the revenues of the Church. In the Act of Supremacy Parliament declared the king to be "the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England," and that he should enjoy all the powers which the title naturally carried with it. 547. Henry VIII no Protestant. It must be carefully ob- served that Henry VIII was not a Protestant in the Lutheran sense of the word. He was led, it is true, by Clement VII 's refusal to declare his first marriage illegal, to break the bond between the English and the Roman Church and to induce the English clergy and Parliament to acknowledge the king as su- preme head in the religious, as well as in the worldly, interests of the country. Important as this was, it did not lead Henry to accept the teachings of Protestant leaders, like Luther, Zwingli, or Calvin, and he cruelly persecuted some of their followers. Henry, however, authorized a new translation of the Bible into English. A fine edition of this was printed (1539), and every parish was ordered to obtain a copy and place it in the parish church, where all the people could readily make use of it.