The changed perception of Henry’s reign over the twenty-five years after he largely stopped writing poetry was such that the opinion that he ‘had degenerated into tyranny was, by 1547, a commonplace […] both at home and abroad’. These perceptions ‘had as much to do with the character of the sovereign and the processes of political participation he favored as with the operation of his judicial system’. In his early performance as king, Henry emphasized spontaneity, implying accessibility; although the element of power was always present, it was also carefully contained. Perhaps what followed was merely the inevitable course of his original ambition, perhaps it was the result of several various disappointments, not least his loss of multiple children and the decline in his personal health. Whatever the case, in the 1530s, ‘when Henry, by launching his Great Matter, embarked upon a political journey a sizeable proportion […] of his advisers did not approve of, and which was evidently against the wishes of the mass of his people, he was forced to abandon […] those models of behaviour that gave his rule cultural legitimacy’. In light of this public resistance, Henry tried to reemphasize his willingness to accept good counsel; Greg Walker notes, for example, that ‘the proclamation proscribing erroneous books and biblical translation, issued on 22 June 1530 stressed that the King was acting, not on his own initiative but after widespread consultation’.