The Gospel and Henry VIII

Abstract

During the last decade of Henry VIII's life, his Protestant subjects struggled to reconcile two loyalties: to their Gospel and to their king. This book tells the story of that struggle and describes how a radicalised English Protestantism emerged from it. Focusing on the critical but neglected period 1539–47, Dr Ryrie argues that these years were not the 'conservative reaction' of conventional historiography, but a time of political fluidity and ambiguity. Most evangelicals continued to hope that the king would favour their cause, and remained doctrinally moderate and politically conformist. The author examines this moderate reformism in a range of settings - in the book trade, in the universities, at court and in underground congregations. He also describes its gradual eclipse, as shifting royal policy and the dynamics of the evangelical movement itself pushed reformers towards the more radical, confrontational Protestantism which was to shape the English identity for centuries.

Thomas Becon's Henrician Writings: Composition and County Patronage, 1541–1543

“…Where both the 1542 and 1543 editions of the Potacion for Lent had used the phrase "Sacrament of the Altare," his revised 1560 version substituted the phrase "Sacrament of Christs body and bloud." 71 A subtle and more contemporary protest of the apparently conservative content of this work can been glimpsed in an addition that Becon's printer John Mayler made to the second edition of this work. A well-known sacramentary who had been charged in 1540 with "calling the blessed sacrement of the Altare/the baken god" and claiming "that the blessed masse is called beyond the see/the mysse for […] all ys amisse in yt," Mayler had a track record of editing his publications to suit his beliefs, even deleting from his edition of the Hilsey Primer the extensive instruction on "hearynge of the Masse" and the prayers to be said during the elevation of the Host.…”

“…Rather, as Alec Ryrie has shown, it was the policy of many evangelicals during the final decade of the reign of Henry VIII. 64 For example, on 8 March 1539 John Butler wrote to his connections in Zurich that: ceremonies are still tolerated, but explanations to them are added; so that now holy water, as it is called, is for no other purpose than to refresh our minds with the remembrance of the sprinkling of the blood of Christ; the bread signifies the breaking of the body of the same; the pax, which is wont to be carried about, sets before our eyes the reconciliation of God and man […] The mass is not asserted to be a sacrifice for the living and the dead, but only a representation of Christ's passion. 65 Though certainly beyond the pale of royal orthodoxy, these interpretations were the result of selective hearing on the part of evangelicals.…”

England's Last Medieval Heresy Hunt: Gloucestershire 1540

“…The dissolution of the monasteries was completed; evangelical printing continued to be permitted; and most significantly, the king's principal evangelical hatchet-man, Thomas Cromwell, remained in power and was even created earl of Essex. 34 Initially, Bell's progress was slow. Cromwell's fall Chancellor Bagarde was able to bring articles of heresy against him in the bishop's name.…”

“…In July 1540, there was an attempt at a full-scale heresy purge in London, an attempt which backfired badly: there were now simply too many heretics in London for the prisons to hold. 58 Heresy was no longer an annoying but controllable parasite; it had become a cancer that threatened to eat away at the bones of Catholic society. From this time onwards, the pursuit of religious dissidents in England would be targeted at its leaders and teachers, for 23 in a country that was beginning to be divided by religion the wider constituencies of dissent simply could not be controlled by the means available to the early modern state.…”

Politics, Religion and the English Reformation, 1533-1547: Some Problems and Issues

“…Theologically, the Act asserted only Henry's own religious orthodoxy, and Henry's orthodoxy, as Ryrie says, 'did not map neatly onto the sharp division between Catholic and Protestant which later generations knew'. 6 If the Act of Six Articles did not signal the onset of a conservative religious reaction, neither was Catherine Howard the conservatives' political pawn. The 'freak wave' of Henry's desire had made her queen.…”