The journey of king and country from Catholicism to the Church of England
Words by DEREK WILSON
Between 1530 and 1546, England turned its back on its Catholic past and moved decisively towards its Protestant future. But was King Henry VIII ultimately responsible?
To some, that may seem a strange question – most of us were taught about the English Reformation in school. The king broke with Rome to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. He dissolved the monasteries and suppressed the Pilgrimage of Grace, a rebellion raised in protest of his religious changes. Henry made himself head of the Church in England and supervised new doctrinal formularies, executing those wanting to restore the ‘old religion’.
But the fate of nations is rarely, if ever, decided solely by individuals, however powerful. England’s Reformation was the result of complex cross-currents. So it is worth asking the question ‘just what part did Henry VIII actually play in the Reformation?’
In early 16th-century England, authority was shared between civil and ecclesiastical bodies. The Church and the Crown had their own courts, taxes and sanctions. Bishops and monastic leaders owned one-third of the nation’s landed wealth – the inevitable conflict between Church and State had been going on for centuries.
In practice, European monarchs negotiated the balance of rights and responsibilities with Rome – for instance, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain gained the right to appoint all their senior clergy in 1486. As well as this kind of political interplay, there was mounting concern in several countries about corruption in the Church and both reformers in the clergy and non-ecclesiastical critics were pressing with increasing insistence for a papal clean-up. Some rulers even joined the chorus of complaint.
But not Henry VIII. He was genuinely devout and considered himself a loyal son of the Holy Church. In fact, when Lutheran ‘heresies’ began to appear in Europe, he was one of the first to show support for Rome. Luther’s ideas began to create a stir in 1518 and, within a year, Henry set about preparing a riposte. His Defence of the Seven Sacraments (co-written with Thomas More) was published in 1521 and earned him the grant of a papal title, ‘Defender of the Faith’.
This was when heretic hunting began in England. Bonfires were made of Lutheran books. Suspected heretics were detained in the Midlands and the Home Counties. 50 ‘evangelicals’ in Buckinghamshire were ordered to do public penance for their beliefs. Some were burned at the stake.
The word ‘evangelical’ came from the Greek word for ‘gospel’ and indicated those who looked to the written Bible for their insp
