May 23, 1533

Annulment of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon's marriage

Cranmer declares Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon null

Catherine was living only a few miles from Dunstable, yet refused to enter a court whose authority she rejected.

Dunstable Priory, 23 May 1533

At Dunstable Priory on 23 May 1533, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer issued the formal sentence declaring null the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.

His court had sat on 10, 12, 16, 17 and 23 May. Catherine rejected the tribunal's competence and did not appear, so the proceedings treated her as contumacious.

A surviving manuscript catalogue identifies Cranmer's letter to Henry reporting his pronouncement of the sentence that day.

Void from the beginning

The judgment held that Henry's marriage to his brother Arthur's widow had been contracted contrary to divine law, and was therefore void from its beginning.

Contemporary English documents often call the decision a "divorce," but its legal theory was nullity: the court claimed that no valid marriage had ever existed.

Five days later Cranmer separately declared Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn valid, and Anne was crowned on 1 June.

Two irreconcilable judgments

Catherine refused the resulting title "Princess Dowager" and continued to regard herself as Henry's wife and Queen of England.

Neither she nor the papal authorities recognized Cranmer's jurisdiction or his conclusion. The papal tribunal issued its own final ruling in March 1534, upholding the Catherine marriage.

Sources

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What the sources leave uncertain

Contemporary English documents frequently call the decision a ‘divorce,’ but its legal theory was annulment or nullity: the court claimed that no valid marriage had existed from the beginning.
Catherine and papal authorities did not recognize Cranmer’s jurisdiction or conclusion. The papal tribunal’s final ruling in March 1534 upheld the Catherine marriage.