CLEP Western Civ I

Answer: C - Henry VIII’s most fundamental motive for reformation was his desire for a legitimate male heir, which he never had with his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. He became infatuated with his mistress Anne Boleyn (who swore that she would give him the son he desired) and decided to end his marriage to Catherine in order to remarry. The Church refused his request for an annulment, which bothered him on two accounts. First, the thing he cared about more than anything else was having a legitimate male heir (he already had a legitimate daughter and an illegitimate son). Second, he came to resent the pope telling him what to do in his own country. He began the English Reformation so that he could legally re-marry and have a legitimate son (he believed). (Had he only been motivated by love for Anne Boleyn, he likely wouldn’t have pushed the issue so far with the Church. Henry was acutely opposed to Reformation before his “Great Matter,” and even after the Anglican Church was created, he remained very conservative in his religious doctrine. England didn’t become truly Protestant until the reign of his daughter, Elizabeth I.