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In his desperation to marry Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII would unleash a subversive philosophy that would challenge the authority of the monarchs who followed him.
On 19 January 1511, in the second year of his reign as king of England, Henry VIII made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk with his first wife Catherine of Aragon. He approached the shrine barefoot to give thanks for the birth of their son Henry, and later presented 'a magnificent collar of fine rubies' to be hung about the image of the Virgin Mary. From 1509 to 1538, he paid for a 'king's candle' to be kept burning there, and twice annually gave 100 shillings to William Haly, the 'king's priest', to recite a Mass on his behalf.
Walsingham – or 'Little Nazareth', as it had become known – was one of the most famous miracle-working shrines in Christendom, second only in England to the site of the murder of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. It was home to an Augustinian priory, founded in 1153, and a friary, both of which had grown rich catering to the thousands of pilgrims who flocked to the site. Henry was following in the footsteps of previous monarchs, such as his father Henry VII and, before him, Edward III, Edward I and Henry III. In England over the preceding centuries, the relationship between the Catholic Church and the crown had remained largely unchanged – and seemed unchangeable.
Our Lady of Walsingham, alas, did not respond favourably to King Hal's devotions: his son died within a few weeks of his visit. And long before his reign was over, Henry's quest for a legitimate heir and successor to the throne was to lead to the destruction of the shrine at Walsingham and the overturning of the power and influence of the entire Catholic Church in England.
Breaking with the pope
Throughout the country, the face of England's Christian faith was to be altered utterly as Henry broke with the pope in Rome, established an independent Church of England and, between 1536 and 1539, shut down 'idolatrous' shrines such as Walsingham alongside the dissolution of the monasteries. As John Stow wrote in 1538:
The images of our Lady of Walsingham and Ipswich were brought to London, with all the jewels that hung about them, and divers other images both in England and Wales, whereunto any common pilgrimage was used, for avoiding idolatry, all of which were burned by [Henry's minister] Thomas Cromwell.
What started as an attempt by Henry to rid himself of a wife, Catherine of Aragon, who proved unable to bear him a son and heir, turned into something much more radical and far reaching when the pope refused him an annulment. Spurred on by his advisers, Henry discovered that, by taking on the papacy, he could solve not only the problems of his succession but various other difficulties of the monarchy as well.
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