The Tudor Imprint on the Modern Church of England

The Tudor Imprint on the Modern Church of England

The Tudor Imprint on the Modern Church of England
For this assignment I have chosen to delve into the era of my ancestors. For three generations, from my father to my great-grand nanny, each child has been baptized in the Anglican Church, the church of King Henry the VIII. The main goal for this essay is for me to utilize my knowledge and passion for one of history’s most influential monarch families, the Tudors, in the hopes of divulging the roles which they played in changing the views on religion in England, and thus creating the Church of England we know today.
King Henry the VIII is often thought of as the monarch who broke with the Roman Catholic Church, causing much prosecution and suffering to befall his country of England. Granted, Henry was only attracted to the Protestant (the radical religious movement of the time) viewpoints mildly, and only when it suited him. The credit for the Protestant influences within Anglicanism is given to his son Edward VI and his daughter, Elizabeth I.
Henry’s older brother Arthur was to be king after King Henry VII died. Arthur was betrothed to Katherine of Aragon at the age of two. When she was sixteen years old in 1501, Arthur and Katherine married with the greatest future ahead. Less than six months later, Arthur was dead of the ‘sweating sickness’ and Henry was to be king. After Arthur’s death, Henry and Katherine were betrothed in the interest of keeping the Spanish and English alliance intact. But when Henry was of age to wed, Henry the VII had second thoughts and the betrothal was repudiated. As a result, the future for Katherine was uncertain for a grueling four years. When Henry the VII died, the first thing the new King Henry the VIII did was marry his beloved Catherine of Aragon. They were married on June 11th, 1509 and crowned in a joint coronation ceremony on June 24th, 1509 (2).
Religion was the core of Katherine’s upbringing. Her parents, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, were given...

Similar Essays