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Even before he split with the Church of Rome, the English king Henry VIII was no stranger to controversy. In 1521 the young king published a Defence of the Seven Sacraments in response to the German monk Martin Luther’s attacks on the authority of the Pope. Henry’s book, written in Latin, offers an argument strongly in favour of traditional medieval doctrine, and excoriates Luther for his ‘impertinent calumnies’. Given Henry’s later career, the book is also notable for its defence of papal authority and the indissolubility of marriage.

Scholars largely agree that although the King doubtless received some assistance, the book was largely Henry’s own work. It evokes an image of an educated Renaissance prince keen to engage with contemporary biblical scholarship. Yet Henry also had less scholarly reasons for writing his book: in return for the King’s literary efforts, the Pope gave Henry a title he had long coveted, ‘Defender of the Faith’.

Today New Zealand remains one of only three Commonwealth countries – the other two are Britain and Canada – to continue to use Henry’s title as part of the official style of the head of state.

Henry’s personal religious beliefs remain something of a mystery; he certainly despised Martin Luther. Nevertheless, a political break with the Roman Church over the question of his marriage later led Henry to become the first English king to support the publication of an English Bible.

Canterbury’s copy of Henry's Defence is a version printed in Paris in 1562. It was one of many polemics reprinted on the eve of the conflict between Protestants and Catholics that became known as the ‘French Wars of Religion’. The book, which entered the University collection via that of John Grimes, the first Roman Catholic bishop of Christchurch, is a reminder that the Reformation debates over the Bible had tremendous political and social consequences for Europeans; it is also New Zealand’s oldest tangible link to its British constitutional inheritance.