Nige Tassell asks Dr Owen Emmerson about the possible chain of events had Henry VIII been deposed by the Holy Roman Emperor
When, in 1533, Henry VIII defied Pope Clement VII and married Anne Boleyn, the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, was apoplectic. Frustrated at Clement’s impotence in the face of Henry’s insubordination, Charles sought papal assurances concerning the English king’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Charles V’s aunt. Clement threatened excommunication, which Henry ignored, thereby setting in motion the English Reformation. If the pope was toothless, a full-scale invasion of England by Charles wouldn’t be.
“There were undoubtedly great fears at Henry’s court that such an invasion was possible,” says Dr Owen Emmerson, author of a number of books on Tudor history, including, with Kate McCaffrey and Alison Palmer, Catherine and Anne: Queens, Rivals, Mothers. “Henry’s new minister Thomas Cromwell knew well that riots in support of Catherine would have been warmly met by faithful English Catholics. He was also acutely aware that letters encouraging an invasion of England were being sent by Charles’s ambassador, Eustace Chapuys. His dispatches reveal a court terrified at the potential of Charles’s invasion. According to Chapuys, the mere hint of an impending attack would have ‘the king and court taking flight like a frightened flock of birds’.”
Fortunately for Henry, the Holy Roman Emperor was already heavily engaged elsewhere. “Charles’s ongoing commitment to war with France and the Ottoman empire took precedence. His propensity to wage war was a costly one, exhausting his revenues. The Ottoman expansion into Europe was a persistent threat and Charles fought continually with Suleiman the Magnificent, so opening yet another front would have contained unnecessary risks for him.”
Despite Chapuys’s apparent observations about the fear within Henry’s court, Dr Emmerson has no doubt that the king wouldn’t have shirked the fight had an invasion materialised. Whether he would have been victorious is another thing altogether. If he had, what is certain is that “his profile at home and abroad would have been substantially bolstered. Those in support of the Boleyn marriage may have moved harsher still against Catherine and Mary. Henry would have surely felt reassured that his radical course was correct and moved more quickly and
