Henry VIII of England and the Forbidden Way

The English Way is currently in excellent health in terms of the number of pilgrims, but since its beginnings it has gone through moments that were not so easy for those who wanted to reach the Apostle from the United Kingdom.

There was a time when the political tensions of the period, love, and religion became intertwined to close the doors of Santiago to British devotees. The main responsible for this event has a first and last name: King Henry VIII of England.

During the Middle Ages, the British Isles were one of the main sources of pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela. Although sea journeys were full of dangers, their speed made them far more direct than crossing all of Europe on foot. Ports such as Southampton or Plymouth saw, over the months, ships departing towards Galicia filled with pilgrims who ended up filling the Galician villages, in what could be considered the golden age of the English Way.

But this situation changed rapidly at the beginning of the 16th century. Henry VIII of England, a king obsessed with securing a male heir for the crown and in love with Anne Boleyn, requested the annulment of his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon from Pope Clement VII, who responded negatively to his request. The English monarch did not take kindly to what had happened and made the drastic decision to enact in 1534 the so-called Act of Supremacy, which broke ties with the Catholic Church.

This religious situation had devastating consequences for the English Way. The emerging Anglicanism, later followed by Protestant Puritanism, rejected any veneration of saints, relics, and, of course, pilgrimages. In 1538 the blow was decisive, and Henry VIII ultimately prohibited all pilgrimages outright. These journeys were punishable by imprisonment or even death, which led to the depopulation of English pilgrims in Galician towns, with immediate consequences such as the dissolution of hostels and monasteries, along with the closure of English confraternities that helped finance pilgrims.

firsthand the landscape beauty, historical heritage, and profound personal journey that this route offers.