Breaking Bad: Henry VIII
I have a friend to thank for reminding me that, like Walter White the character portrayed by Bryan Cranston in the Netflix series “Breaking Bad,” Henry VIII was once—at least in appearances—an outstanding citizen, and, in the monarch’s case, a respected member of the Church; indeed, the king was a recognized Defender of the Faith—before he lost his way and went off the rails.
In 1521, Pope Leo X gave Henry the title “Defender of the Faith” after he …
… published a book called Defense of the Seven Sacraments.1 In it the king defended the seven major doctrines of the Catholic Church against the criticisms of the rebellious monk (Martin Luther). Henry started to write it in 1519 while he was reading Martin Luther’s attack on indulgences.
The king said that Luther…
... contemns the ancient Doctors of the church and derides the new ones in the highest degree; loads with reproaches the Chief Bishop of the church. Finally, he so undervalues customs, doctrine, manners, laws, decrees and faith of the church (yea, the whole church itself) that he almost denies there is any such thing as a church, except perhaps such a one as himself makes up of two or three heretics, of whom himself is chief.
Henry’s book, dedicated to the pope, had two themes, both of which would turn out to be ironic—the sanctity of marriage and the supremacy of the pope. Ironic, because Henry didn’t honor the sanctity of his own marriage. He wanted to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, supposedly because she failed to produce a male heir to the throne. When the pope refused to annul the marriage, the king renounced the papacy’s authority, and he consequently divorced her and married Anne Boleyn.
In 1530, Henry was stripped of the title “Defender of the Faith” by Pope Paul III, after the king broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and established himself as the head of the new Church of England.2
As Kurt Vonnegut would say: “So it goes.”
Assertio septem sacramentorum (was the title, published in Latin).
Defender of the Faith: Ten Weird Facts About the Coronation, Ray Comfort (Bridge Logos, Newberry FL, 2023)