CHAPTER ONE The Origins Martin Luther worked as a teacher in Wittenberg The Mayflower’s trip to the New World may have lasted only a few months but in another sense it took more than one hundred years to take place A line can be drawn from the actions of a monk in Germany to the settlement in Plymouth Germany part of the Catholic Church’s Holy Roman Empire that spread across much of Europe In the 1510s Luther had become angry about the Church’s practice of awarding indulgences to its followers What upset him most was it appeared that Catholics who had sinned could buy forgiveness with a donation to the Church Luther believed that man’s relationship with God shouldn’t be influenced by money His form of protest was to write out a list of complaints and to nail it to the front door of a Martin Luther caused a sensation when he nailed a list of complaints against the Catholic Church on a church door in Germany The Origins 9
Wittenberg church on October 31 1517 That was the best way at the time to start a discussion One of his complaints read Any truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt even without indulgence letters The list was called The 95 Theses and it caused a sensation A debate about the mission of the church spread through parts of Europe Luther was excommunicated from the Catholic Church within a few years for his viewpoints but his beliefs gradually took hold in Northern Europe Within a few decades Catholicism had lost its grip in that region and was replaced by Lutheranism The movement became known as the Reformation Henry VIII Causes a Split The scene of the story shifts to sixteenth-century England ruled by King Henry VIII He had taken the throne at the age of seventeen in 1509 and married Catherine of Aragon They had a daughter Mary but the King wanted to have a male heir to the throne In the past a lack of a male heir had led to civil war By the 1520s Catherine was in her late thirties and far less likely to bear the King a son In 1527 Henry VIII asked the Pope for an annulment of his marriage so that he could marry Anne Boleyn Divorce and remarriage are still not allowed by the Church The request was turned down but the King married Anne anyway in 1532 He was excommunicated in 1538 for among other things annulling his own marriage and remarrying dissolving the monasteries in England and defacing religious shrines The king created the Church of England in 1534 He gave himself the title the Supreme Head of the Church of England This may sound like a simple attempt by Henry VIII to grab power and that was an issue However there had been a feeling among British royalty that the population should be loyal to the monarch and not a religious leader of another 10 Plymouth and the Settlement of New England
Catherine of Aragon speaks with King Henry VIII during proceedings to annul their marriage The annulment brought big changes to England country The Church of England formally separated itself from the Catholic Church but it maintained many of the traditions and rituals that had been part of its organizational structure for generations That didn’t make everyone happy In hindsight any major change in life will be greeted with a wide range of opinions Some will prefer to stick with the old ways that worked fine 11 The Origins
