Posted By Claire on July 12, 2012 Thank you so much to Catherine
Fletcher, historian and author of “The Divorce of Henry VIII:
The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican”, for this guest
article. You can read my review of Catherine’s book over on our
review site – click here. Over to Catherine… In the six years it
took Henry to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, dozens of
people were employed in the ‘divorce’ negotiations. Who were the
key players, and what do we know about their relationships with
Anne? Henry did not initially plan to break with Rome. In 1527,
as he first began working towards marrying Anne, he and his
advisers hoped to persuade Pope Clement VII to agree that
Henry’s marriage to Catherine had never been valid. It took
almost three years of serious negotiating – and another three of
delaying tactics – before the final rift came. Against the
backdrop of a disastrous war on the Italian peninsula, Henry
dispatched a series of envoys to the papal court. But they
struggled to persuade Clement,