To what extent does religion explain parliaments changing influence?

During the early 16th century, the church played a prime political, economic and humanitarian role while the parliament played a small one serving the monarch. Given this, countries were bound to the church, its rules and restrictions. However, it was a royal dynasty called 'The Tudors' that challenged the church ideologies and its concepts and strengthened parliament control. In 1485, the Battle of Bosworth Field fell victory to Henry VII. The victory secured a place for a dynasty called the Tudors, and Henry VII aimed to stabilize and establish this regime. After his death, his son Henry VII was equally determined to honour his family. This led to his obsession with …show more content…
In 1534, Henry VII wanted to annul his wife because she wasn’t competent enough to give him an heir to the throne, a vitality that would secure the legacy of the Tudors. However, the Pope didn’t grant him the annulment, which led to the break of Rome, the heart of the church. Henry VII turned his back to the church and turned to the Parliament to achieve his aim. Given this, they created the longest running parliament in history called the ‘reformation parliament’. The Reformation Parliament introduced different ways to think about relationships between the crown and the parliament and started gaining a good reputation for assertiveness and passing an enormous range of legislations. The house confiscated church land and changed the overall infrastructure of England. The lands that used to be religious and the issue of their retention heightened the role of the parliament. These new functions created a greater balance because the monarch cooperated with the parliament instead of alone. The religious restrictions drove Henry to break with Rome, and the king was no longer associated with the church but with the house, which became increasingly