the Council for redress, and cases were also brought by an accusation by the King's attorney general. Procedure in the court consisted of the accusation, an answer by the accused, the collection of evidence, and the hearing of witnesses, all of which served as information for the decision of the court. The court enforced the common law and made it work (Willson and Pralls 176).
The law and the church clashed under Henry VII, who had a sense of himself as absolute monarch, able to do whatever he wanted in order to accomplish what he desired. When the laws stood in his way, he changed the laws or destroyed those (like Sir Thomas More) who challenged his right to do so. Henry VIII was king of England from 1509 to 1547, and he instigated the Reformation of the English church in order to secure a divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Thomas Cromwell proposed that England break with the papacy so that the archbishop of Canterbury, the highest officer in the English church, could grant the divorce. The necessary legislation was pas
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