Reformation without the People: How the English Became Protestant
A religious revival or a sudden change of heart by the English people did not bring the Protestant Reformation to England. King Henry VIII created the Church of England for personal reasons and never truly became Protestant in belief and practice. The schism with Rome did, however, allow for the political and ecclesiastical infiltration of Protestants that set in motion a thorough reformation under Edward VI and Elizabeth I.
Protestantism under Henry VIII
Henry broke with the pope and claimed authority over the English church because he wanted to put away his queen, Catherine of Aragon, and marry his mistress Anne Boleyn.
Around 1525, he was suddenly enlightened to the biblical revelation of Leviticus 20:21 that it was an abomination for him to have his brother’s wife.[1] Opponents refuted this claim, pointing to a passage in Deuteronomy, in which God commanded the Israelite men to take their deceased brothers’ wives, to show that the Leviticus passage did not refer to dead brothers.[2]
Nevertheless, Henry was determined that he needed a new queen that would give him a son to inherit the throne. [3] When the pope did not endorse Henry’s divorce of Catherine and marriage to Anne, Henry grew impatient and looked for local avenues to gain what he wanted. When Archbishop William Warham died in 1532, Henry appointed the Protestant Thomas Cranmer to succeed Warham.[4] In May 1533, Cranmer officially annulled the marriage between Henry and Catherine.[5]
Events, however, would soon show that the English people were not ready for reformation in the 1530s. The English Catholic clergy under Archbishop Warham had made significant reforms during the time of Luther’s attacks on the Catholic Church that neutralized many of the Protestant claims of theological and economic corruption.
The attack on purgatory and icons in England had a very limited effect on the general population, and the sale of indulgences was not as common among English Catholics. Therefore, opposition to the Roman Church on this front remained an academic debate and did not provoke widespread grassroots revolt.[6]
Furthermore, Henry had previously shown no affinity toward Lutherans and other Protestants, who tried to disperse Martin Luther’s works in his country.[7] Under Henry’s rule, Wolsey and English Church authorities vigorously imprisoned Luther’s followers.
At Wolsey’s request, Henry wrote Assertio septem sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum (“Declaration of the Seven Sacraments Against Martin Luther”) for which Pope Leo X gave him the title of “Defender of the Faith.”[8],[9] Even as late as 1530, on the eve of schism, Henry instructed secular authorities to assist ecclesiastical authorities in stamping out heretics.[10] This order was taken seriously by Thomas More, who became chancellor in 1529. More turned from simply burning Protestant books to burning those who carried them.[11]
But, the marriage crisis provided a common enemy with the Protestants. Henry attacked the pope and asserted absolute authority over the English Church[12] In the early and mid-30s, parliament deprived the pope of English revenue and redirected that revenue to the new order of king and country.[13] In 1536, Henry’s administration seized over 800 religious houses. Some of this wealth was retained by the crown and the rest sold, further adding to Henry’s coffers.[14]
Although Henry did not wrest the English Church away from Rome out of religious motivation, he was no humanist cynic in disguise. He personally held enough Protestant beliefs to stomach the new order. Furthermore, his break with Rome allowed Protestant reformers to gain positions of political and ecclesiastical leadership that produced the authorization of English bibles, eventually leading to a thorough reformation of the English people by the turn of the following century.
There were, however, limits to Henry’s adopted Protestantism. The king still held onto many traditional beliefs–many of them stark breaks from the Protestant direction of Cranmer & Co. These included the claim that grace is dependent on works, elevating saints from intercessors to mediators, elevating marriage to a sacrament, and allowing for images as long as they are not worshiped as gods.[15]
Henry even called for a Great Council of Nobles in 1537, in which he conceded to Catholics by watering down his Ten Articles on church doctrine. Two things inspired the council: his deepening rift with his ministers in doctrine on masses for the dead and the jolting Pilgrimage of Grace, in which 40,000 Englishmen took up arms to fight against the new order of Protestant ‘heretics’.[16]
Henry also supported the conservative bishops in Cranmer’s negotiations with the Lutherans. These conservative holdovers refused to condemn what the Lutherans referred to as the four abuses: clerical celibacy, monastic vows, communion in one kind, and private masses. At this, the Germans retreated in disgust, claiming, “Harry only wants to sit as Antichrist in the temple of God,” and that Henry might as well be pope. “The rich treasures, the rich incomes of the Church, these are the Gospel according to Harry!”[17]
This doctrinal rift set Cromwell and Cranmer on the wrong side of the conservative bishops and the king, which eventually brought both their executions–Cromwell under Henry and Cranmer under Catholic Queen Mary I.[18]
Protestantism under Edward VI
When Henry’s son Edward took the throne, Henry had recatholicized the Church and the country a great deal. The nine-year-old Edward, however, was a staunch Protestant.[19] This owed partly to Henry’s giving his son humanist tutors, who in that day were usually Protestants.
Edward’s uncle, the Earl of Hertford, Edward Seymour, became Lord Protector and immediately implemented Protestant policies. These included encouraging iconoclasm, introducing English prayers into the Latin mass, the repeal of the 1543 Act that prohibited unlimited Bible-reading, and allowing priests to marry.[20]
The Uniformity Bill of 1549, which substituted Latin services with the Book of Common Prayer, carried significant constitutional significance in that it was “the first time an English parliament clearly and unequivocally assumed control of the doctrine and ceremonies of the Church.”[21]
But Hertford also alienated many on the Privy Council with his disastrous foreign policy and highhanded domestic policies. In 1551, he was accused of treason and, thanks in part to the Earl of Warwick who had been made Duke of Northumberland, was executed on January 22, 1552. Northumberland then took his place.[22], [23]
Northumberland was later executed during the Marian regime, even though he renounced his Protestant faith. It’s believed by many that he had only acquiesced to Protestantism for the sake of power or because he believed, as a servant of the Crown, it was his duty to ascribe to the belief system of his monarch.[24]
The six years of the Edwardian reign showed what was to come once Elizabeth restored Protestantism after the aberration of Mary’s regime. Protestant preachers, both English exiles and foreign immigrants, flooded the island from the continent with the intent of converting the English to Protestant doctrine. This they carried out, both verbally and through literature. The writings and teachings of Calvin and Zwingli became especially popular under Edward.[25]
Protestantism under Elizabeth I
Elizabeth too had been brought up under humanist tutors and was also a devoted Protestant; although, she found it politically expedient to conform during Mary’s years in the interest of self-preservation.[26] She replaced Mary’s advisers and bishops with advisers who had served under Edward. She showed, however, that she was more open to tolerating diversity of opinion in secular affairs, leaving all of the judges that served under Mary on the bench.
In political matters, at the beginning of her reign, Elizabeth pursued a moderate policy to avoid alienating her Catholic subjects or bringing the wrath of Catholic Europe on her nation. She still had to contend with an unruly Scotland, which at the time was still very Catholic. Once a war with France ended, however, she returned to many of the repressions that the regimes of Henry and Edward had imposed on religious nonconformists.[27]
After making peace with France in 1559, she her policy including the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, which reaffirmed the supremacy of the monarch over the church. She also revised the 42 Articles under Edward down to 39, strengthening the Calvinist elements.[28]
Despite Protestantism’s political victory, the majority of the English population was still not fully committed to the new church. The Protestant political regimes had caused English commoners to change their affiliation but not their beliefs and secret practices.
Protestantism is much more a religion of the mind and less of habit. Reformers found it difficult to convince busy peasants to take time to delve into personal study and reflection of God’s word. With the visual images of Christianity removed, many felt no affinity with the new ecclesiastical order.[29] Others were willfully ignorant of the doctrinal disputes and saw no point in learning why they were no longer Catholic.
According to contemporary William Perkins, “they just wanted an easy life: not too much preaching, not too much moral discipline, not too much Sabbath observance, not too much learning of catechism, not too much religion!”[30]
In 1566, a commission examined 152 churches to see how many had complied with the Articles and Injunctions of 1559. Sixty had only recently begun to comply, and 25 had only done so partially.[31] Furthermore, the commoners’ refusal to attend Protestant church services and their apathy when forced to did not help the cause from a belief standpoint.
To complicate matters, finding Protestant preachers was becoming increasingly difficult. Here Elizabeth’s political concerns clashed with the priorities of her more zealous Privy Council. She ordered Archbishop Grindal to limit the already small number of licensed preachers because she was concerned it would provoke continued refusal of church attendance by the masses. This provoked a backlash by Grindal and the Council, and the queen did not press the issue.[32]
The infiltration of priests from the continent provoked the anti-Catholic Statute of 1581, which made it treasonous to be absolved from schism and reconciled to Rome and increased the fines for lack of church attendance, or recusancy. As war broke out between England and Spain, Elizabeth began persecuting Catholics like she had not done previously. Over 150 Catholics were executed for treason in the 1580s and 1590s, many of them immigrant missionary priests.[33]
It would take Protestant preachers until the end of the century to convert the vast majority of the English population to the belief system that had taken over the country politically, proving legislative reformation easier than actual reformation of hearts and minds.[34]
Despite the common people’s apathy toward the new faith, the political apparatus that Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth put in place made it easier for Protestant preachers and laymen to change hearts and minds. Legislation made it illegal to preach Catholic doctrine, and it eventually became illegal to be a Catholic priest. With no priests, Catholicism was doomed to a slow death.
What if Henry had stayed faithful to his wife?
England’s Protestant Reformation had an enormous impact on world history. A Catholic monarch would most likely have involved England on the side of Spain against the Dutch Protestants. The Spanish Armada would have never been defeated because there would have been no need to invade a Catholic England. It’s also possible that England might have joined the Catholic side during the Thirty Years War, bankrupting the country, while exterminating Protestantism in Europe. An impoverished, war-weary England, however, would have colonized North America no better than France.
The religious history of the United Kingdom would have been much different, and the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States of America would likely not exist in current form if Henry had not insisted on divorcing his wife and marrying his mistress.
Notes
[1] Alan G.R. Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State: The Commonwealth of England 1529-1660, New York: Longman Group Limited, 1984, 19.
[2] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 19.
[3] Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics and Society under the Tudors, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, 88-90.
[4] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 21.
[5] Haigh, English Reformations, 116.
[6] Haigh, English Reformations, 86.
[7] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 15-16.
[8] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 19.
[9] “Defender of the Faith: English Royal Titles,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/topic/defender-of-the-faith.
[10] Haigh, English Reformations, 67.
[11] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 21.
[12] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 22.
[13] Smith, “The Emergence of a Nation State,” 29.
[14] Haigh, English Reformations, 133, 134.
[15] Haigh, English Reformations, 132.
[16] Haigh, English Reformations, 134.
[17] Haigh, English Reformations, 168.
[18] Haigh, English Reformations, 168.
[19] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 67.
[20] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 70.
[21] “Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector of England,” Luminarium: Encyclopedia Project, http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/edwardseymour.htm.
[22] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 74.
[23] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 75.
[24] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 107.
[25] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 111.
[26] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 246.
[27] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 263.
[28] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 111.
[29] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 275.
[30] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 32.
[31] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 286.
[32] Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State, 111.
[33] Haigh, English Reformations, 288.
[34] Haigh, English Reformations, 290.
