Henry VIII’s divorce

It took Henry VIII nearly seven years to get his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Because it took so long and because Henry lost patience, Henry cut off the English Church from Rome and pillaged its assets in one of the most monstrous bits of robbery in English history. But why did the divorce take so long? Who was to blame? Was it the Pope? Was it Catherine? Was it Cardinal Wolsey? Or, was it Henry himself? This talk explores the arguments that were deployed by Henry’s lawyers, and considers a grotesque sequence of royal incompetence.