Henry VIII, the Reign

​​​​Mary Rose and the Divorce

No Place for Catherine in Wolsey’s New Francophile England              

By the time Knight had delivered the rebuke, Wolsey had already decided his interests were better served away from the Habsburgs. The de facto ruler of England had decided to ally himself with the Valois dynasty and began talks, secretly from Henry at first, with French agents, and in August the following year signed the Treaty of the More. The formal alliance would probably have been reached more quickly but for the events in Pavia on Francis’s birthday, 24 February 1525.

When Wolsey made that decision to break with the Habsburgs, possibly during the Christmas of 1523, England’s break with Rome began.

Wolsey never forgave Charles. The union between England and the empire and between the Tudors and the Habsburgs had been secured with the marriage of Henry to Catherine of Aragon. So far as Wolsey was concerned, this union, both the marriage and the political alliance, had to go; it was unsustainable and Henry must divorce Catherine.

Catherine of Aragon

Louise, Francis I's Mother

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