This split was the biggest coup in Jewish history, without removing England from the hold of Catholicism, the world would be a very different place today. The influence of the Marranos in England began under Henry VIII (1509–1547). It initially coincided with that of the Venetians, who, in the 1530s, gained the upper hand over the king’s government by heavily indebting it. The moneylenders also played a crucial role in Henry’s matrimonial life, favoring his divorce from his first wife Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. The rupture of the king’s marriage foreshadowed that of the Spain-England alliance he had sealed, as well as his schism with the Catholic Church. Francesco Zorzi, a Franciscan monk from Venice, conversant in Hebrew and a collector of rabbinical and kabbalistic works, advised Henry VIII in his request for a divorce between 1527 and 1533. Another influential advisor was Thomas Cromwell, an obscure adventurer who, after serving rich merchants in Venice, returned to England, managed important affairs for the Church, and was elected to Parliament in 1523, becoming “chief minister” in 1532. Having gained the confidence of Henry VIII, he encouraged him to become the new Constantine by founding the Anglican Church, then became his business agent for the confiscation of church property, which he largely diverted for his own profit. Thomas Cromwell was surely a creature of the Venetian Marranos, if he was not a Marrano himself. Under Henry VIII, England became the stronghold of antipopeism, and its rivalry against powerful Catholic Spain was exacerbated. Deeply involved in the development of printing in Antwerp and Amsterdam, the Calvinist Marranos actively contributed to the propaganda against Philip II, Spain, and Catholicism. In 1566 they triggered a revolt in Antwerp that spread to all the cities of Holland. In one year, 4,000 priests, monks, and nuns were killed, 12,000 nuns driven out of their convents, thousands of churches desecrated and ransacked, and countless monasteries destroyed with their libraries. Many Spanish contemporaries, like the poet Francisco de Quevedo (1580–1645), discerned a Jewish conspiracy at the source of these revolts and the concurrent decline of Spain.209 The revolts led to the independence of the United Provinces in 1579 (which Spain did not recognize until 1648). When Philip II temporarily took over Antwerp in 1585, Jews, Marranos, and Calvinists transferred their economic activity to Amsterdam.