七百萬英里聖潔山

Tom asked:

The last couple of evenings, thanks to Netflix, we have watched the
motion picture, Anne of the Thousand Days, starring Richard Burton as
Henry VIII and Geneviève Bujold as Anne Boleyn. I viewed it in a
motion picture theater when it first was released, and had not seen it
again until now. I was thankful and relieved that my memories of it
were accurate; it plays as well today as it did more than 40 years
ago.

[I was transfixed when I first saw that movie, because Geneviève
Bujold -- at least as she was made up for that movie -- could have
been the identical twin sister of a woman with whom I was very deeply
romantically involved at the time. Geneviève Bujold, however, was
born two days earlier than I was, and my lady friend was ten months
younger than I was. Ah, youth.]

My question is this: at one point in the drama, Cromwell, attempting
to convince Henry to defy the pope, suggests to Henry that by
confiscating the wealth of England's (Roman) monasteries, Henry could
avail himself of greater wealth than could be realized from "the gold
mines of the New World."

This conversation, of course, had to be prior to Henry's marriage to
Anne Boleyn, which took place in the spring of 1533.

As we all know, In 1400 and 92, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

At most, then, Cromwell was speaking to Henry less than 41 years after
Columbus's voyage of discovery. By that time, then, were gold mines
operating in the New World and producing real returns for Spain?

Serious question.

Cortez's conquest of the Aztec Empire was pretty much concluded by 1521. The encomienda system was put in place very shortly thereafter. It is not unreasonable to assume that in 1533 Hank and Annie knew that there was gold in the Americas.

The anachronistic part, if any, would be the "New World". In 1533 it likelier would still have been The Indies, or something similar. Magellan and Drake would have to sail before it became certain that they were dealing with a continent that was not east Asia.