Editing Dissolution of the monasteries (section)

===Declaration as Head of the Church===

On famously failing to receive from the Pope a declaration of nullity regarding his marriage, Henry had himself declared [[Supreme Head of the Church of England]] in February 1531, and instigated a programme of legislation to establish this Royal Supremacy in law. In April 1533, an [[Act in Restraint of Appeals]] eliminated the right of clergy to appeal to "foreign tribunals" (Rome) over the King's head in any matter. All ecclesiastical charges and levies that had previously been payable to Rome would now go to the King. By the [[Submission of the Clergy]], the English clergy and religious orders subscribed to the proposition that the King was, and had always been, the Supreme Head of the Church in England. Consequently, in Henry's view, any act of monastic resistance to royal authority would be more than just treasonable; it would also be a breach of the monastic [[vow of obedience]]. 

Under heavy threats, almost all religious houses joined the rest of the Church in acceding to the Royal Supremacy; and in swearing to uphold the validity of the King's divorce and remarriage. Opposition was concentrated in the houses of Carthusian monks, [[Observant Franciscan]] friars and Bridgettine monks and nuns. Great efforts were made to cajole, bribe, trick and threaten these houses into formal compliance, with those religious who continued in their resistance being liable to imprisonment until they submitted or if they persisted, to execution for treason. All the houses of the Observant Friars were handed over to the mainstream Franciscan order; the friars from the [[Greenwich]] house were imprisoned, where many died from ill-treatment. The Carthusians eventually submitted, other than the monks of the London house which was suppressed; some of the monks were executed for high treason in 1535, and others starved to death in prison. Also opposing the Supremacy and consequently imprisoned were Bridgettine monks from [[Syon Abbey]]. The Syon nuns, being strictly enclosed, escaped sanction at this stage, the personal compliance of the abbess being taken as sufficient for the government's purposes. {{ citation needed| date= October 2019}}

Historians, often Anglican, have downplayed the difficulties above, and the various [[Dissolution_of_the_monasteries#Politics|bloody rebellions]], and attributed compliance to native xenophobia or reserve rather than to real threats. For example, twentieth century author G. W. O. Woodward wrote {{quote|text=All but a very few took it without demur. They were, after all, Englishmen, and shared the common prejudice of their contemporaries against the pretensions of foreign Italian prelates.{{sfn|Woodward|1974|p=19}} }}