From the year 1521, when Henry VIII attacked the theology of Martin Luther in his celebrated Assertio septem sacramentorum, to 1540, when he reiterated his theological Romanism by ordering the execution of Thomas Cromwell and Dr. Robert Barnes, English policy respecting Lutheranism went full cycle. Between those dates on which the conservative position of Henry VIII was so emphatically stated, the king of England departed from orthodoxy and came very near to espousing the theology of the Lutheran reformers of Wittenberg, Germany. The royal dalliance with heresy during those years was not unconnected with the king\u27s success in securing his divorce, the dissolution of the monasteries, and the title Supreme Head, under Christ, of the Church of England.\u27\u2
