Clement VII became the Pope in 1523, and held the role for almost eleven years. In that time, he often showed the talents as a politician and diplomat that had recommended him to the attention of the council of cardinals in the first place. But his contemporaries thought him too little concerned by the threat of Protestantism, and Henry VIII, King of England, would prove them right.
Twenty years earlier, Clement’s predecessor Julius II had provided the not yet king Henry with a papal dispensation to allow him to marry Katherine of Aragon in the first place. Clement was disinclined to go against that – a disinclination likely given more force by the fact that Clement was essentially the prisoner of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Katherine’s nephew, at the time. He refused to grant the annulment and advised Henry to instead seek a divorce from Katherine. Henry would instead divorce the church in England from the Catholic Church, strengthening the Protestant cause to the detriment of Rome.
