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All the negotiations with the Pope were getting nowhere so Cromwell urged Henry to make a break with Rome. The English clergy, after being told they would all be arrested for treason if they disagreed, agreed to support Henry. Henry then got things slightly in the wrong order as he married Anne Boleyn in January and in May, Archbishop Cranmer, who had replaced Wolsey as Archbishop of Canterbury, cancelled Henry’s marriage to Catherine and five days later declared his marriage to Anne legal.

In September Anne gave birth, meaning she was pregnant when they married in January. In the middle of this the Pope excommunicated Henry, which means he shut him out of the Catholic Church; so much for being defender of the faith. Henry then formed the Church of England and became Head of it. In 1534 the Act of Supremacy confirmed Henry was Head of the church. In 1535 Henry executed Thomas More, who had been his chancellor as More would not swear to the Act of Succession which had made Anne’s children successors to Henry. Worryingly, for Anne, she only had one so far and this was also a daughter.

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