After serving Cardinal Wolsey from 1514, he succeeded him as the king’s chief adviser. He presided over the king’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon (1533) and his break with the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the dissolution of the monasteries and a series of administrative measures, such as the Act of Supremacy (1534), designed to strengthen the Crown. He fell from favour over Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves and was executed on a charge of treason.