Our Man in Rome: Catherine Fletcher’s The Divorce of Henry VIII and the Limits of Liberal Micro History

 Catherine Fletcher’s The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican has received enthusiastic praise from the British cultural scene. The compliments are typical: described as a “brilliant feat of original research,” an “eye-opening” look at Tudor diplomacy, and a fresh contribution to a period thought to be overstudied after centuries of scholarship. However, these praises say more about the current intellectual climate than about the true historical importance of Fletcher’s work.

Fletcher is undoubtedly a skilled historian. Her discovery of Gregorio Casali — a mostly overlooked diplomatic agent working in Rome for Henry VIII — is a significant archival achievement. She writes clearly and with narrative flair, and her depiction of Casali’s environment, from papal court intrigues to the shady dealings of bribery and influence-peddling, is both engaging and insightful. However, the book’s strengths are closely tied to its limitations. Despite its detailed micro-history, it does not provide a broader historical explanation. It vividly describes Henry’s efforts to secure his divorce but offers little about why the English Reformation happened or the social forces behind it.

The Liberal Fetish for the “Untold Story”

The book’s premise—telling the divorce crisis from the perspective of a minor diplomatic figure—embodies a common trend in modern liberal historiography. This trend has moved away from viewing history primarily as shaped by social forces. Instead, it emphasises the “untold story,” focusing on forgotten individuals and marginal actors. This perspective is not politically neutral; it mirrors an ideological fatigue among the ruling class, which now tends to see history as a series of personal dramas, bureaucratic manoeuvres, and chance episodes rather than a broader social process.

Casali is a fascinating figure: a young Italian nobleman, well-connected, resourceful, and skilled at navigating the corrupt intricacies of the papal court. Fletcher provides a detailed account of his activities—covering bribes, gifts, thefts, and negotiations—building on her earlier research about gift-giving and corruption in early modern Rome. However, this narrow focus on Casali limits the broader perspective. The book ultimately becomes a study of diplomatic techniques rather than a deeper exploration of the significant transformations taking place across Europe.

Tudor England & The Birth of Capitalist Social Relations

Karl Marx did not produce a single comprehensive treatise on Tudor England. However, in his economic writings and historical notes, he consistently regarded the sixteenth century as a pivotal moment — when the old feudal system started to break down, and the roots of capitalism were established. To Marx, the Tudors were more than just vibrant monarchs or figures in a national story; they oversaw a social revolution.

Marx’s key insight is that feudalism fell not due to political schemes or royal personalities, but because the expansion of commodity production undermined its economic base, the monetisation of labour duties, and the rise of a rural bourgeoisie. In Capital, Marx straightforwardly characterises the late medieval crisis as: “The expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil is the basis of the whole process.” (Capital, Vol. I)

This expropriation—the violent detachment of the peasantry from their land—lies at the core of Marx’s analysis of Tudor England. It serves as the foundation for the formation of a proletariat. During the Tudor period, particularly under Henry VII and Henry VIII, the traditional feudal relations were already in rapid decline: feudal dues were increasingly converted into cash payments, lords depended more on paid retainers than on feudal levies, and commercial agriculture grew, fuelled by rising wool prices. A new class of “improving landlords” appeared, focused on profit rather than feudal duties. Marx regarded these changes not as mere isolated reforms but as the initial phases of capitalist accumulation.

The Dissolution of the Monasteries: Primitive Accumulation in Action

Marx’s detailed analysis of Tudor England focuses on the dissolution of the monasteries, viewing it as a prime example of primitive accumulation. This violent, state-led process laid the groundwork for capitalism. These monasteries were more than religious sites; they were significant landowners, employers, and social welfare centres. Their dissolution between 1536 and 1541 led to a major transfer of property from the church to secular authority, the emergence of a new landowning class that became the backbone of the English bourgeoisie, and the eviction of tens of thousands of tenants, which sped up the rise of a landless workforce. Marx stated, “The Reformation in England was a gigantic process of spoliation.” (Capital, Vol. I)

This “spoliation” was integral to Henry’s divorce and served as the driving force behind the English Reformation. Marx highlights that the Tudor monarchy had a paradoxical role, simultaneously acting as: the dismantler of feudal chaos by suppressing noble private armies; the catalyst of capitalist development through enclosure, expropriation, and market enforcement; and the protector of absolutism by resisting the political demands of the emerging bourgeoisie. This contradiction clarifies why Tudor support from the commercial classes persisted in the 15th and 16th centuries, while the Stuart monarchy—bearing the same absolutist framework—was ultimately overthrown by those same classes in the 17th century.

Although Marx did not live to document the complete history of this transition, Christopher Hill later posed the question in explicitly Marxian terms: why did the alliance between Crown and Parliament break down? The explanation is rooted in the very process Marx described — the expansion of capitalist forces that clashed with monarchical absolutism.

Enclosure: The Creation of the Proletariat

Marx’s most striking descriptions of Tudor England focus on the enclosure movement. He vividly portrays the forced eviction of peasants, using language that foreshadows the WSWS’s commentary on modern social devastation: “The history of this expropriation is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire.” (Capital, Vol. I) During the Tudor era: common lands were enclosed, peasants were forcibly ousted, vagabondage laws criminalised the displaced, and labour discipline was enforced through whipping, branding, and execution. Marx viewed these harsh measures as the tumultuous birth of capitalism—marking the rise of a class compelled to sell their labour.

Henry VIII and the Reformation: A Social, Not Personal, Crisis

Marx rejected the idea, still upheld by revisionists, that Henry’s split from Rome was merely personal or theological. Instead, he saw it as a political act reflecting a deeper social change: the English state asserting its sovereignty over the Church’s universal authority. This move stopped the flow of wealth to Rome and broke the Catholic Church’s ideological dominance, allowing space for bourgeois religious movements like Calvinism and Puritanism. Additionally, property relations across the nation were reshaped. According to Marx, Henry VIII was not just a tyrant motivated by sexual frustration but a complex agent of historical change—a king whose personal motives intersected with larger structural forces he could neither fully grasp nor control.

The Long Arc Toward Revolution

Marx’s scattered observations on Tudor England suggest a broader conclusion: the 1640s English Revolution was not an unpredictable outburst but the result of a long-standing historical process. The Tudors dismantled feudalism, while the Stuarts aimed to uphold absolutism. As the bourgeoisie grew stronger through the very processes Marx describes, it ultimately challenged and overthrew the state that had facilitated its emergence. Scholars like Hill, Dobb, and Tawney expanded this idea into a comprehensive Marxist view of English history. However, the core remains Marx’s: the Reformation and Tudor revolution marked key phases in the shift from feudalism to capitalism.

What Fletcher Cannot See

Henry VIII's divorce was part of a larger social upheaval that had been unfolding over centuries. The late medieval system—often called “bastard feudalism”—was in decline. The emergence of market economy, the rise of the bourgeoisie, and the increased monetisation of feudal duties all chipped away at the old societal structure. Events like the Black Death, the Peasants’ Revolt, and the centralisation of royal power under the Tudors mark stages in a prolonged shift from feudalism to capitalism.

This transition was neither smooth nor merely the result of monarchs' whims. Instead, it was fuelled by the clash between rising economic powers and the political-religious institutions of medieval Europe. Luther’s 1517 revolt was more than a theological dispute; it embodied a social revolution’s ideological core. Similarly, the English Reformation cannot be reduced—despite revisionist historians' claims—to Henry’s sexual frustrations or the supposed "deficiencies of his reproductive system.” Such explanations, still popular in some academic circles, are fundamentally flawed. They ignore the roles of class forces, economic interests, and political conflicts.

David Walsh, writing on the WSWS, highlighted that Henry’s split from Rome signalled the rise of economic forces incompatible with feudal society and the growth of a national identity. The Act of Supremacy in 1534 was more than just a legal move; it formally established a new political order. The dissolution of the monasteries was not merely a consequence of Henry’s marital issues but a significant transfer of property that sped up the development of capitalist relations in England.

None of this is covered in Fletcher’s book. The Reformation serves as a backdrop, a distant rumble behind diplomatic scenes. The reader might think history is shaped by clever agents, secret negotiations, and the personal worries of kings — exactly the perspective the WSWS has always challenged.

The Historical Question Fletcher Cannot Pose.

Christopher Hill, a renowned Marxist historian, posed a key question: why did the Tudor monarchy, once backed by the emerging merchant classes, turn into a tyrannical regime? Why did the alliance between Crown and Parliament—created to oppose the feudal nobility and the authority of Rome—break down so dramatically in the 1640s? This question cannot be answered by examining Casali’s letters or the protocol of papal gift-giving. Instead, it demands an understanding of broad historical trends in England: the rise of capitalist relations, the conflicts within the early modern state, and the eventual outbreak of civil war and revolution. Fletcher’s book, limited to a very narrow narrative scope, cannot address these issues. This is not a lack of research but a flaw in the choice of historical approach.

The Divorce of Henry VIII is a well‑written, thoroughly researched, and often engaging work of micro‑history. It succeeds on its own terms. But those terms are inadequate. The book offers a detailed account of diplomatic manoeuvring while leaving untouched the social forces that shaped the Reformation and the modern world. Readers seeking to understand the historical significance of Henry’s break with Rome — not merely its bureaucratic mechanics — must turn to the Marxist tradition: Hill, Tawney, and the analyses published on the WSWS. Fletcher has recovered a forgotten man. But the history that matters remains elsewhere.

Tudor England: Sources and Bibliography

I. Primary Marx & Engels Sources

Karl Marx

• Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. I. (Especially Part VIII: “So‑Called Primitive Accumulation.”)
• Capital, Vol. III.
• Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy.
• Pre‑Capitalist Economic Formations.
• Theories of Surplus Value, Vols. I–III.
• The German Ideology (with Engels).
• Critique of the Gotha Programme.
• Letters to Vera Zasulich (for Marx’s reflections on communal property and historical transitions).

Friedrich Engels

• The Peasant War in Germany.
• Anti‑Dühring.
• Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
• The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.
• England in 1845 and 1885: The Condition of the Working Class in England (for later consequences of Tudor-era transformations).

II. Marxist Historians on Feudalism → Capitalism

Christopher Hill

• The English Revolution 1640.
• Society and Puritanism in Pre‑Revolutionary England.
• The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714.
• The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution.
• Economic Problems of the Church: From Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament.
• Puritanism and Revolution.
• Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution.
• Change and Continuity in Seventeenth‑Century England.
• Reformation to Industrial Revolution (with R. H. Tawney).

R. H. Tawney

• The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century.
• Religion and the Rise of Capitalism.
• The Rise of the Gentry, 1558–1640 (classic debate with Trevor‑Roper).

Maurice Dobb

• Studies in the Development of Capitalism.
• The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (Dobb–Sweezy debate).

Eric Hobsbawm

• The Age of Revolution.
• Industry and Empire.
• Labouring Men (essays on class formation).

E. P. Thompson

• The Making of the English Working Class.
• Customs in Common (especially essays on enclosure and moral economy).

Rodney Hilton

• Bond Men Made Free: Medieval Peasant Movements and the English Rising of 1381.
• The English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages.
• Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism.

III. Marxist and Materialist Studies of Tudor England

On the Tudor State, Reformation, and Social Transformation

• Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641.
• G. R. Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government (not Marxist, but essential for state formation).
• A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation.
• Jack Scarisbrick, Henry VIII.
• Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation: A History (broad but indispensable).
• Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged (on law, labour discipline, and early capitalism).
• Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution (on class conflict and the English bourgeoisie).

On Enclosure, Primitive Accumulation, and Agrarian Change

• J. A. Yelling, Common Field and Enclosure in England, 1450–1850.
• Joan Thirsk, The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Vols. IV–V.
• E. Kerridge, Agrarian Problems in the Sixteenth Century and After.
• W. G. Hoskins, The Age of Plunder: The England of Henry VIII.
• Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (for enclosure as social catastrophe).

IV. WSWS and Contemporary Marxist Analysis

David Walsh (WSWS)

• “Elizabeth and a Weakened Historical Sense,” World Socialist Web Site, 3 December 1998.
• “Christopher Hill and the English Revolution,” WSWS essays and obituaries.
• “The English Revolution and the Development of Historical Materialism” (WSWS commentary).

Nick Beams (WSWS)

• Essays on primitive accumulation, capitalism’s origins, and Marx’s method.

Tom Mackaman (WSWS)

• Articles on early modern class formation and historical method.

WSWS Cultural & Historical Analysis

• Reviews of Hill, Tawney, and debates on the transition from feudalism to capitalism.
• WSWS coverage of contemporary attacks on materialist historiography.

V. Tudor Political, Social, and Economic History (Non‑Marxist but Essential)

General Tudor Studies

• John Guy, Tudor England.
• Susan Brigden, New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors.
• Steven Gunn, Henry VII’s New Men and the Making of Tudor England.
• Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars (Catholic England before the Reformation).
• Ethan Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation.

Diplomacy, Rome, and Henry’s Divorce

• Catherine Fletcher, The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican.
• Catherine Fletcher, Diplomatic Renaissance: The Papal Court and Early Modern Politics.
• G. W. Bernard, The King’s Reformation (revisionist counterpoint).

VI. Primary Sources for Tudor England

• Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII (21 volumes).
• State Papers Online: Early Modern Government.
• The Acts of the Privy Council.
• The Statutes of the Realm (for enclosure laws, vagrancy acts, and Reformation legislation).
• The Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London.
• The Zurich Letters (Reformation correspondence).
• The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Exeter Conspiracy