This crisis was developing in the late 1520s at the same time as Henry was becoming infatuated with the much younger (than either him or Catherine) Anne Boleyn. He’d had an affair with her sister, Mary Boleyn, but Anne was more aspirational than Mary and wouldn’t have sex with him unless they were married – a technique known at the time as ‘doing an Elizabeth Woodville’. If Woodville’s resolve had caused a few problems and a minor civil war, Boleyn’s ended up changing the whole nation’s belief system as well as doing almost as much long-term damage to the Catholic church as Martin Luther had.
