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Henry VIII (born 1491, ruled 1509-1547). The second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York was one of England's strongest and least popular monarchs. He was born at Greenwich on June 28, 1491. The first English ruler to be educated under the influence of the Renai ....

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.... Then too, Henry had fallen in love with a lady of the court, Anne Boleyn. When the pope (Clement VII) would not annul his marriage, Henry turned against Wolsey, deprived him of his office of chancellor, and had him arrested on a charge of treason. He then obtained a divorce through Thomas Cranmer, whom he had made archbishop of Canterbury, and it was soon announced that he had married Anne Boleyn. The pope was thus defied. All ties that bound the English church to Rome were broken. Appeals to the pope's court were forbidden, all payments to Rome were stopped, and the pope's authority in England was abolished. In 1534 the Act of Suprem ....