It’s easy to pick up a touchy fact that makes all of us married women a bit angry—she was the other woman in a divorce case—without realizing the complexity of the times. Many believed Henry’s marriage to his brother’s wife had been wrong; it had indeed required the pope to dispense of that fact. They believed that England could come to ruin, or be gobbled by the Spanish, without a male heir. They understood that other queens had quietly retired to abbeys when they’d been unable to “do their duty.” Normally, royal marriages were not love matches. They existed to purpose and that purpose must be fulfilled.
Anne evokes emotion because she was, and always will remain, larger than life. And because she died in such a great and terrible way at the hand of the man pledged to love and protect her.
12. Besides the fascinating machinations of Henry VIII and his noble contemporaries, Henry’s reign was an important period in the history and evolution of Christianity. In your opinion, what are some of the most profound, lasting changes that resulted from the Henry/Anne/ Katherine triangle?
It was the time when men truly began to reason from Scripture itself for themselves—as Henry and those he employed did to ascertain the validity of his marriage. By the end of Henry’s reign there were Bibles in English in every church in England. God was now on His way to being at home in both the cathedral and the croft.