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to stall Henry.

Henry sent his secretary, William Knight, to gain audience with Pope Clement IV and ask for an annulment claiming that the dispensation Pope Julius II had given Katherine after Arthur died was provided under false pretenses. Henry, in fact, believed that Katherine lied and that she and Arthur did indeed consummate their marriage. Thus the Bible states that Henry would not be able to provide a male heir for the throne of England. However because the Pope was a prisoner of the Holy Roman Empire, Knight was unable to meet with him and returned to Henry without achieving much of anything. Back at home Katherine had the people of England in her pocket. She was a kind and giving Queen, and her people loved her dearly, in direct contrast to the disdain they felt for Anne Boleyn.

Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, was not only the nephew of Katherine but he was the one who had imprisoned the Pope. Henry now looked to Cardinal Wolsey to get his annulment from Katherine so he could marry Anne. While Wolsey tried desperately to get an annulment it was rather unlikely that the Pope, a prisoner of Katherine's nephew, was about to just hand it over. To that end Pope Clement simply told Henry that he wasn't allowed to marry Anne until Rome had made a decision and let it go at that. Having failed his king, Wolsey was released from his position in 1529. He later conspired with Katherine through secret letters to have Anne exiled and was subsequently arrested. In 1530 he died before he was convicted of treason.

In 1531 Katherine was banished from court. Her rooms were given to Anne Boleyn and her attendants. Thomas Cranmer was given the position of Archbishop of Canterbury and sat in judgement over Henry's legal battles to divorce Katherine. Thomas Cromwell, a lawyer who favored Anne, began bringing a litany of acts before Parliament in 1532, including the Submission of the Clergy, essentially stating that the king was the supreme head of the Church as ordained by God himself. In that case Henry could grant his own annulment because he didn't have the Pope to answer to anymore.

After traveling to Calais in the winter of 1532 to meet with the French King and gain France's support in their marriage, Henry and Anne returned to Dover and were secretly married. She was immediately pregnant. Henry and Anne participated in the customary second wedding in January 1533 and Henry moved to make everything legal so that the child Anne was carrying would be deemed legitimate.

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