On the 31st of May a special legatine court was assembled at Blackfriars in London. The court was convened to hear the case for the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. The court was presided over by Lorenzo Campeggio, Papal Legate to England, and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, statesman, churchman, and right-hand man of the king. 

An annulment was necessary because the royal marriage had irretrievably broken down. The Queen had one job - to produce a male heir to the throne. The Tudor dynasty had been established by Henry VII and his mother Margaret Beaufort at the tail end of the Wars of the Roses. After nearly 30 years of bickering and bloodshed surrounding the throne, Henry Tudor ushered in a reign of relative peace. His son Henry VIII was expected to keep the Tudor legacy alive, but he couldn’t accomplish this task without a male heir to take his place. When Catherine only produced one daughter and five miscarriages, Henry put her away in favor of another wife. The young and attractive Anne Boleyn had caught his eye. Unfortunately, Catherine, the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, refused to go quietly. She insisted that their daughter Mary, was more than sufficient to occupy the throne. 

England had never had a Queen Regnant, apart from a brief unsuccessful stint by Matilda in the latter part of the 11th century to occupy the throne. The king had to be a man. Catherine, whose mother Isabella had been a queen in her own right and had worked closely with her husband to forge Spain disagreed. 

What resulted was a royal tussle referred to as the King’s Great Matter. Eventually, Catherine of Aragon was set aside and the king married Anne Boleyn. However, in setting aside his wife, the king also set aside the authority of the Pope. The Pope refused to grant an annulment or a divorce. At this point, Henry began to make plans to remove England from the authority of the Papacy to form the Church of England.