Henry VIII is, arguably, England’s best-known king: the subject of countless academic monographs, journal articles, and conferences, not to mention popular biographies and television series. It is extraordinary, therefore, that we still lack any study of Henry’s excommunication by Pope Paul III – an event of profound significance in the eyes of contemporaries both at home and abroad.

This paper charts the protracted and complex process through which this excommunication came to pass, exploring how the issue of Henry’s censure by the papacy developed over the 1530s through analysis of a series of ambassadorial reports and papal briefs issued in the lead-up to the final bull of excommunication promulgated in 1538.

As well as shedding new light on European perceptions of the English Reformation, the paper argues that, to an extent never fully recognised by historians, the spectre of papal censure hanging over England throughout the 1530s subtly informed key religious, diplomatic, and economic decisions taken by Henry as he recast England’s relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. A focus on the excommunication, we shall see, offers the opportunity to see a defining and well-trodden period in Tudor history in a new and unfamiliar light.