Henry VIII's Playbook for Taking Over the Church

About this episode

Henry VIII didn't dismantle the Church in England. He took it over, one step at a time, and the plan looks an awful lot like a hostile corporate takeover. Squeeze the leadership, take the board, cut off Rome, audit everything, find some dirt, close the small houses first, and then come for the big ones. In this episode I walk through the whole playbook, from the 1531 fine on the clergy to the abbot of Glastonbury being dragged up the Tor in 1539. And I make the case for the people it was run on, the monks, nuns and friars who lost their homes, and the towns that lost their hospital, almshouse and biggest employer. (Full disclosure, I'm an Episcopalian, so this is me looking hard at the other side.) TudorCon is October 23 to 25, and you can join from anywhere with TudorCon From Home. The main room is livestreamed and every talk is recorded: https://tudorcon.englandcast.com/tudorcon-from-home/ Get my weekly newsletter, with Tudor news, a vocab word and the stuff that doesn't fit in videos: https://www.englandcast.com/newsletter-sign-up/ What happened to the monks and nuns afterwards: https://www.englandcast.com/2025/04/dissolution-of-the-monasteries-2/ #HenryVIII #Tudo