On famously failing to receive from the Pope a declaration of nullity regarding his marriage, Henry

had himself declared Supreme Head of the Church of England in February 1531, and instigated a
programme of legislation to establish this Royal Supremacy in law and enforce its acceptance
throughout his realm. In April 1533, an Act in Restraint of Appeals eliminated the right of clergy to
appeal to "foreign tribunals" (Rome) over the King's head in any spiritual or financial matter. All
ecclesiastical charges and levies that had previously been payable to Rome, would now go to the
King. By the Submission of the Clergy, the English clergy and religious orders subscribed to the
proposition that the King was, and had always been, the Supreme Head of the Church in England.
Consequently, in Henry's view, any act of monastic resistance to royal authority would not only be
treasonable, but also a breach of the monastic vow of obedience. Under heavy threats, almost all
religious houses joined the rest of the Church in acceding to the Royal Supremacy; and in swearing
to uphold the validity of the King's divorce and remarriage. Opposition was concentrated in the
houses of Carthusian monks, Observant Franciscan friars and Bridgettine monks and nuns, which
were to the Government's embarrassment, exactly those orders where the religious life was
acknowledged as being fully observed. Great efforts were made to cajole, bribe, trick and threaten
these houses into formal compliance, with those religious who continued in their resistance being
liable to imprisonment until they submitted or if they persisted, to execution for treason. All the
houses of the Observant Friars were handed over to the mainstream Franciscan order; the friars
from the Greenwich house were imprisoned, where many died from ill-treatment. The Carthusians
eventually submitted, other than the monks of the London house which was suppressed; some of
the monks were executed for high treason in 1535, and others starved to death in prison. Also
opposing the Supremacy and consequently imprisoned were leading Bridgettine monks from Syon
Abbey, although the Syon nuns, being strictly enclosed, escaped sanction at this stage, the personal
compliance of the abbess being taken as sufficient for the government's purposes. [citation needed]