British Prime Minister Tony Blair was in good humor as he welcomed EU leaders to the European summit held in Henry VIII's Hampton Court Palace just outside London.

"As King Henry VIII said to his wives, 'I won't keep you long!'" was Mr. Blair's welcoming joke, reminding his European colleagues of the palace's long history, going back to the 16th century.

Ironically, it was that famous king of England who first decided to sever England's main tie with the continent and began to build the framework for four centuries of British foreign policy.

Another irony was in the timing of the EU summit, sandwiched between the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar on Oct. 21 and the 400th anniversary of the famous Gunpowder Plot on Nov. 5. Both were attempts to force England back into mainstream Catholic Europe.

Henry VIII is one of those people who did the right thing for the wrong reason. He broke with Rome, which opened the way for England to have its own Bible in English and, in time, freedom of religion. But his motive was to rid himself of his first wife (since she had not provided him with a male heir) and then take another and another ... until eventually his sixth wife outlived him.

But Henry had unleashed an ecclesiastical and spiritual revolution that was to continue for centuries, the same centuries that saw Britain's preeminence in the world.

"During his [Henry's] last years a radical but powerful minority of his subjects, inspired by their reading of the printed scriptures...denounced as idolatrous superstitions many of the leading tenets of the medieval Church—transubstantiation, the confessional, the efficacy of indulgences and papal remission of sin, of pilgrimages, relics and the intercession of the saints" (Sir Arthur Bryant, Protestant Island, 1967, p. 10).

Henry usurped the pope's authority, with himself now the supreme head of the Church of England, but others were to lead what became a religious revolution.

His second daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, was to become one of the most significant female political figures in history, securing England's freedom from Rome and encouraging the Protestant Reformation, as well as laying the groundwork for the future British Empire and the United States of America, fulfilling the promises made to the sons of the biblical patriarch Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, thousands of years earlier. Ephraim was to "become a multitude of nations" (Genesis 48:19), while his elder brother Manasseh was to be a "great" nation.

"During the reign of Elizabeth the seamen of London and the West Country challenged the monopoly of the Indies that a papal decree had given to Spain and Portugal. Throwing down the gauntlet to the former—the world's greatest empire and the militant champion of the Roman Church and Counter-Reformation—they plundered the Spanish Main and, under Drake, broke into the closed Pacific, and...circumnavigated the globe" (ibid., p. 11).

At the end of Elizabeth's reign, in 1603, a Protestant Scotland joined with a Protestant England to form a new union, Great Britain.

"By the beginning of the seventeenth century...the English were a Protestant people who had turned their backs on the social institutions of their Catholic past—monasticism, the Latin liturgy, the worship of the Host, shrines, relics, the pilgrimage, and the chantry chapel's obits for the dead. Instead, the reading and individual interpretation of the Bible—made available in a series of great English translations, culminating in the beautiful Authorized Version of 1611—made them, with their growing love of individual liberty, a people, not of one, but of many sects and creeds" (ibid.).

Within a century of the break with Rome, "England produced the world's greatest seaman, Drake, its greatest poet, Shakespeare, and its greatest scientist, Newton. Under [Elizabeth] her people laid the foundations of their future maritime ascendancy and, under her Stuart successors, founded beyond the Atlantic the thirteen colonies which were to become the United States of America. What is remarkable is how much, with their material limitations, this little nation of five millions achieved" (ibid., p. 12).

"By their energy, curiosity and good sense they helped to lay the foundations of the modern world" (ibid., p. 13).

Filled with an incredible enthusiasm for the Bible, the English people "...believed implicitly that the world was governed by moral law. Released from the international bureaucratic and doctrinal strait-jacket of Roman orthodoxy, they differed, often violently, as to the character of that law. But they still believed that God—its embodiment and enforcer—was all-seeing and that men and nations who transgressed it would be punished" (ibid., p. 12).

The struggle for freedom was tied very closely to the British peoples' enthusiasm for the Bible and their desire to take the Bible to the furthest corners of the earth. It was an Englishman, John Wycliffe, who first translated the Bible in the 1300s. Condemned as a heretic by the Roman Church, Wycliffe's dream of making the Bible available to all was not fully realized until 153 years after his death, following the invention of the printing press and Henry VIII's break with Rome.

How long did this enthusiasm for God and the Bible last? "It did not cease for 350 years. 1900 was the first year in which religious works (at least in England) did not outnumber all other publications" (Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence, 2000, p. 10).

British policy for 400 years: Stay out of Europe

During this period, successive British governments did not want to involve themselves in European affairs any more than they had to do so. Only if British interests were threatened by the rise of a powerful dictator on the continent of Europe would Britain intervene. Britain's future and its security were best served "beyond the seas" with its empire and powerful navy.

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was an attempt to blow up the king and parliament and restore the Catholic faith in England, placing the country again under the authority of Rome. There were to be other attempts by European nations to bring England and its colonies, including the American colonies, under control.

Two centuries later, the most serious one came from Napoleon, whose desire was to invade and conquer England. After his coronation by the pope in 1804, Napoleon determined to invade, but his powerful combined French and Spanish fleet was defeated by the smaller English fleet under the command of British Admiral Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar just off the southwest coast of Spain.

England at the time was the only European power standing up to Napoleon. Later other nations were to join and Napoleon's attempt at world conquest was thwarted.

"Thanks to Nelson, Britain's command of the seas was firmly established, a fact that demolished Napoleon's fantasy of conquering Britain and helped shape the geopolitical realities of the world for at least the next 100 years" ("The Battle That Changed the World," U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 24, 2005).

With history in mind, it's ironic that today Great Britain is subject to the 1957 Treaty of Rome that founded what is now the European Union (EU), while many of its ruling elite want to sign up to the new proposed constitution, also agreed to in Rome, a constitution that would create a federal superstate dominated by Germany and France.

Whatever the future with Europe may hold for the British people, the country at this time remains committed to the European Union, reversing the foreign policy of four centuries.

It may not be the only reason for the change of direction, but the rapid decline of the influence of the Bible and the Protestant religion has been a major factor.

Until a century ago the British people wanted to stay out of Europe, seeing themselves as a distinctly Protestant people with a civilizing mission to the world. That enthusiasm and commitment have gone and the nation now flounders, with many hesitant about further involvement with Europe, but with no obvious alternative in sight.

The Old Testament prophet Hosea wrote that "Ephraim also is like a silly dove, without sense" (Hosea 7:11), meaning that it is easily deceived. For 400 years the ancestors of today's Britons stayed out of European affairs as much as possible, relying on their empire, naval supremacy and God for their security. Two generations of Britons have committed themselves to membership in the European Union, tying their future security and prosperity to former enemies.

History suggests that Britain will one day regret its involvement with Europe. Many Britons do now. But the British people have lost their former identity as a Protestant people, committed to the Bible, separating them from predominantly Catholic Europe.

Interestingly, the book quoted earlier, Protestant Island, by the late British historian Sir Arthur Bryant, was written before Britain entered the European Union. The perspective of Britain's place in the world changed dramatically when the country chose to turn its back on its empire and commonwealth and embrace the European ideal.

Much more significant is the fact that Britain lost its identity as people who looked to and who believed in the God of the Bible. The consequences of this shift will cascade into the prophesied end-time events, sweeping Britain and the United States into a devastation that few could foresee without the Bible.

To learn what will happen, as well as who the descendants of Ephraim are today, request our booklet, The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy. WNP