 In 1517, English merchants were given preferential merchant status-including the right to bear arms in the region.For a period of time, English sales of Sherry (or "Sherris sack" or just "sack", as it was sometimes known) were large and they continued to grow till the foreign relations between England and Spain declined with Henry VIII's divorce from the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon.In addition to triggering the English Reformation and the break from the Roman Catholic Church, it also brought every English merchant in Spain under the watch of the Spanish Inquisition.