On this day in history, just four days before the coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn, and just the day before the coronation celebrations kicked off, Thomas Cranmer, the recently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, proclaimed the validity of the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
This proclamation at Lambeth Palace was the result of a secret enquiry carried out by the archbishop following the ruling of the special court set up at Dunstable Priory to hear the case for the annulment of Henry VIII’s first marriage. That court dissolved the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Convocation had already determined, on 5th April 1533, that the Pope had no power to dispense in the case of a man marrying his brother’s widow, and that it was contrary to God’s law, i.e. that Pope Julius II should never have granted a dispensation for Henry VIII to marry Catherine, his brother’s widow.
This proclamation was confirmation that the king’s second marriage was true and valid and that the child that Anne was carrying was Henry VIII’s legitimate heir. Anne Boleyn was the rightful queen.
