He stayed dedicated to his decision to marry Anne and a turning point came in 1532, when the Act in Restraint of Annates was passed by Parliament. Annates was the first year's income for certain clerical appointments, which were then in turn paid to the Pope. This was one of the main sources of income from Britain to Rome and from then forward that income would stay in Britain. Protestant ideas had been sweeping through Europe since 1517 and Henry's parliament had already had debates, starting in 1529, about the abuses of the Church. .
As recorded by Edward Hall, an MP at the time, some of the concerns were as follows: money had to be paid to Cardinal Wolsey after noblemen had been made executors in wills; money was taken from the poor for routine services, even livestock; clergy used essential grazing land and made it inaccessible to the poor; abbots and priors were making money from tan houses in the cloth and wool trade, thereby competing with merchants not involved in the Church; the general wealth of abbots and priors compared to the poor they supposedly served; and too many priests were non-resident, collecting money from parishes that they rarely serviced. These ideas were being discussed at a time when criticizing the Church was considered heresy.
The main driving force behind movements against the Church was Thomas Cromwell. Wolsey had not been able to resolve the matter with Rome and Cromwell stressed his belief to the King that Henry should be the sole ruler and that he should have no rival in power. This idea was also supported by Thomas Crammer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This was the introduction of the concept of joint kingly/papal authority. 'Collectanea satis Copiosa' refers to evidence gathered by a small group of intellectuals that showed that prior Popes had stolen power from the monarchy and that power held by the Church in England before the Reformation was held fraudulently.
