J.P.Sommerville

 

 

The English Reformation II


Clement VII under the boot of Henry VIII

Interpreting the English Reformation
 

Henry VIII's religion

bulletHenry VIII held no Protestant convictions. He objected to papal control of the English Church not for doctrinal reasons, but because he believed that he should be its Supreme Head.
In 1521 Henry VIII published a book in defense of the seven sacraments against the ideas of Martin Luther (in the actual writing he was helped by Sir Thomas More,) and willingly accepted from the Pope the reward of the title of "Defender of the Faith."


Title page of Henry's anti-Lutheran tract,
 dedicated to the pope.
bullet Henry VII had the Protestant Thomas Bilney burnt in 1531 for his "heretical" beliefs, and sent John Frith to the flames in 1533.
bulletHenry did allow the publication of the Bible in English in 1537, but in 1543 common people were forbidden to read it, and in 1545 Henry complained that the ordinary people continued to debate religious questions.


Thomas Cromwell
(c.1485-1540)


Edward Seymour
(c.1500-52)
 
bullet Some of Henry's advisors did have Protestant sympathies - especially Thomas Cromwell, the Seymour family, Cranmer, and Henry's last wife Catherine Parr. During the 1530s, Henry's need for diplomatic links with the Lutheran princes of Germany led him to take a more conciliatory attitude to Protestant doctrine in the Ten Articles (1536.)
 


Henry VIII giving "The Byble in Englyshe" to his grateful people
 

The Protestant view

bullet The religious conservatism of Henry VIII made it seem that the impetus for Reformation must have come from below. The history of the English Reformation was long dominated by a Protestant interpretation that stressed its virtual inevitability.
bullet

The Protestant interpretation saw government policy as merely enabling popular anticlericalism and Protestant inclinations to gain ground.

"This disposition of the people and King Henry's quarrelling with the Pope, made the way easy for the first change; … And all people being fond of new things and the discoveries of the impostures of the priests and the lewdness of the monks increasing their dislike of them, it was no wonder the Reformation went on with so little tumult and precipitation till King Edward's time."

(Burnet, History of the Reformation).
 
bullet Thomas Cromwell did take positive steps to advance the spread of Protestantism - in particular his patronage of Miles Coverdale's translation of the bible into English. In his Injunctions of 1536 and 1538, Cromwell also exhorted the clergy to preach against "popish idolatry and superstition."
bulletThe traditional historiography saw Protestantism as quietly but relentlessly spreading under Henrician reaction, as well as Cromwellian encouragement.
 


Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire
Bought by Sir William Sharington after the Dissolution

 The distribution of the lands and buildings of the dissolved monasteries also helped establish the Reformation in England by giving English gentlemen a very material reason to prevent its reversal.
 

The Catholic view

 

bulletIn place of the traditional Protestant view, a rival interpretation of the English Reformation portrays it as an unpopular imposition from above forced down the throats of a reluctant populace by a tyrannical government.
bulletThe Catholic view stresses the vitality and popularity of Catholic worship and ritual in pre-Reformation England.
 

"… late medieval Catholicism exerted an enormously strong, diverse, and vigorous hold over the imagination and loyalty of the people up to the very moment of Reformation."

(Duffy, Stripping of the Altars)
 

bullet These Catholic revisionists likewise minimize the extent of Lollard or Protestant beliefs until the government propaganda campaigns of Edward VI's reign. Even anticlericalism (on this view) was occasional and isolated, not endemic.
bullet On this interpretation, the Reformation from above was opposed both tacitly (by reluctance to institute government orders, and quiet provision for a change in the times) and violently (by outbreaks such as the Cornish Prayer Book rebellion of 1549, and the Pilgrimage of Grace in northern England in 1536-7.)

Rood screen of saints
Saint Catherine's, Ludham
 

 

Other considerations

bullet It is worth noting that if committed Protestants were a tiny minority, so were enthusiastic Catholics. Almost no layman raised a voice against Henry VIII's policies in Parliament, although considerable freedom of speech was given there.


Bishop John Fisher
(1469-1535)

 With the exception of John Fisher, no English bishop took a firm stand against Henry's policies. (Contrast the resignation of the Marian episcopacy en masse, rather than collaborate with Elizabeth I's religious changes after 1558.)
 
bullet That the political nation could frustrate unpopular measures had been made clear in the case of the Amicable Grant; in contrast, the break with Rome aroused much less public opposition; it was only long after Henry had ousted the pope that the Pilgrimage of Grace occurred.
bullet When opposition to the Reformation did erupt, its motives were often mixed with material considerations:  opponents of the Annates act of 1532 were merchants fearful of trade sanctions; the Pilgrimage of Grace was led by men whose political ambitions had been frustrated by Thomas Cromwell.

     Next section