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Why was Thomas Cranmer sent to Rome in 1530?
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Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer, detail of an oil painting by Gerlach Flicke, 1545; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
In 1530, Thomas Cranmer was sent to Rome as an important member of an embassy led by the earl of Wiltshire. The primary purpose of this mission was to plead the cause of Henry VIII’s desire to be freed from his marriage to Catherine of Aragon before the papal tribunal.
While Cranmer was received by the pope with marked courtesy and appointed grand penitentiary of England, the embassy did not achieve a practical decision regarding the king's divorce question.1