Right Church — Wrong Pew

July 11, 1533 –
The Church of England came into being on this date. The story of its origins is shrouded in sex and therefore historically important.

Henry VIII ascended to the English throne in 1509, an energetic young man of seventeen. He immediately decided he needed a male heir. This became the enduring theme of his reign, and he consequently came to be known as the Son King—or, to his detractors, the Heir Head.

Henry was such a devout Catholic that he earned the title Defender of the Faith without even stepping into the ring. His first wife, whom he’d married before becoming king, was Catherine of Aragon, who earned the nickname “Catherine of Aragon.” Catherine made an excellent queen until she failed to produce a son, at which point her job performance was reevaluated.

By the 1530s, Henry had decided he was married to the wrong queen. Now around forty, he did what many middle-aged men do – he got himself a convertible couch and a new wife.

The couch caused no controversy. The new wife, however, required official permission from the Pope, who – being Catholic – declined to authorize a divorce.

Henry divorced Catherine anyway, and on July 11, 1533, the Catholic Church effectively seceded from the Church of England in retaliation.

With the Pope having stormed off, Henry appointed himself head of the Church of England. Still the Defender of the Faith, he penned the Act of Supremacy, a bold legal document proving that the Church of England was better than the Catholic Church, that Henry was better than the Pope, and that a single white king was back on the market.

Sir Thomas More, then Lord Chancellor and one of Henry’s closest confidants, refused to swear to the Act of Supremacy. On July 6, 1535, he was promoted to the rank of Sir Thomas Somewhat Less.

From this point forward, Henry began marrying and divorcing women on a near-sporting basis. The divorce process was now much more efficient, having removed the pesky bottleneck of papal approval. In fact, Henry turned the whole affair into a kind of royal game: each wife would be blindfolded and asked to produce a male heir.

This practice came to be known as Bluff King Hal, and centuries later it served as the inspiration for the popular French game Hungry Hungry Guillotine.