Converts

This chapter examines the religious conversions in sixteenth-century England. Some historians have rightly warned us that there was more to the Reformation than a succession of individual religious conversions, noting that most people didn't undergo one. But without such conversions there could have been no Reformation, and attempting to untangle them draws us to the mysterious seed beds in which change first took root. For historians have to make sense of a paradox: that a convert's radical rejection of the old and familiar could not come out of nowhere; that it must somehow be grounded in earlier attitudes and experiences. The chapter first considers the English authorities' response to the Ninety-Five Theses of Martin Luther and to ‘Lutheran’ heresy before discussing William Tyndale's Worms New Testament and the public abjuration of heresy. It also analyses the deep and bitter divisions between heretics and Catholics over religion.

Time of Trial

This chapter examines England's reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church. In an oration in 1554, Reginald Pole, cardinal legate and Plantagenet prince, begged Parliament to remove impediments standing in the way of England taking its rightful place at the heart of a united Christendom. A bill repealing no fewer than nineteen Henrician acts, and nullifying the royal supremacy, was introduced into Parliament in late December and passed on 3 January. The chapter considers how the restoration of capital punishment for heresy led to judicial burning of heretics such as John Hooper, who wrote in one of his last letters from prison: ‘Now is the time of trial to see whether we fear more God or man’. It also discusses the book entitled A Profitable and Necessary Doctrine and concludes with an analysis of the campaign to reclaim the universities for Catholicism.

Josiah

This chapter examines Edward VI's accession to the throne in 1547 at the age of nine following the death of his father, Henry VIII. The weight of evangelical expectation resting on Edward's shoulders was made plain to him at his coronation on 20 February. A much quoted address on the occasion by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer — in which he hailed the young king as ‘a second Josiah’, the King of Judah who succeeded his father at the age of eight, and as a young adult destroyed altars and images erected to the worship of Baal — is a clever late-seventeenth-century forgery. The chapter discusses the changes and problems that marked Edward's reign, focusing on issues relating to royal visitation, the nature of the eucharist, liturgy and the introduction of a new Prayer Book, and the heresy of the anabaptists.

Wars of Religion

This chapter examines how Reformation changed what it meant to be a Christian in England, affecting not just what people believed but how they believed it. The late 1580s did not herald the end of endeavours to reform the worship, habits and thoughts of the people of England. But more than one grandiose project of Reformation peaked and ebbed in the period around 1587–1589. The chapter considers the precariousness of peace and Protestantism in Elizabethan England, the moral panic about Jesuits, the use of judicial torture that reflected some important claims about the limits of ‘religion’, and the division between papists and Protestants. It also discusses the results of the campaign to encourage the Protestant Church of England to become the best version of itself, with particular emphasis on the failure of bishops to make the case for continuing reformation that pushed Puritanism into becoming a political movement.

Alteration

This chapter focuses on the accession and coronation of Elizabeth I as queen of England in 1558. The reign of Elizabeth began with a declaration that nothing had changed. On the morning of Mary's death, a proclamation announcing the Queen's succession was read at Westminster, and at the Great Cross at Cheapside, and despatched to sheriffs in every county. It commanded Elizabeth's new subjects not to attempt ‘breach, alteration, or change of any order or usage presently established within this our realm’. The chapter first examines the evangelicals' response to the accession of Elizabeth before discussing some of the measures introduced by Parliament, including a bill to restore royal supremacy, and the nationwide royal visitation. It also considers some of Elizabeth's initiatives, particularly the Royal Injunctions which completed the alteration of religion.

Mumpsimus and Sumpsimus

This chapter examines the Act of Six Articles, passed in 1539 by Henry VIII to enforce under heavy penalties the fundamental doctrines of the Church of England. In many respects, the Six Articles were a disaster for the reformers, affirming a traditionalist line on all the propositions Norfolk placed before Parliament. For one, heresy and treason became thoroughly conflated. The Six Articles were a setback for evangelicals, and a shot in the arm for conservatives, but they did not signal any fundamental repudiation of the path Henry had followed since 1532. The chapter analyses the ways that the Act of Six Articles not only reinforced existing heresy laws and reasserted traditional Catholic doctrine as the basis of faith for the English Church, but also determined the political fate of Thomas Cromwell, archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, and the other reformist leaders.

Head and Members

This chapter examines the role of the bishops of Rome, or popes, as ‘vicars of St Peter’, and also as ‘vicars of Christ’. St Paul taught that the Church was the body of Christ. If the Church was a body, then clearly, as John Alcock, bishop of Ely, declared in 1497, ‘in every realm of Christianity, the head thereof is Christ’. The chapter first considers what ordinary English people thought about popes and the papacy before discussing the issue of royal taxation of the clergy and the appointment of clergy to English benefices. It then explores lines of demarcation between common law and canon law, along with the arrest, imprisonment and death of a merchant named Richard Hunne, who was accused of heresy. It also looks at the issue of reforming the Church of England and people.

Lights of the World

This chapter examines Jesus' words that You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world…Your light must shine so brightly before men that they can see your good works', and their special meaning for those who saw themselves as the apostles' direct descendants: the priests and bishops leading Christ's Church upon earth. The chapter considers how the priesthood's collective claim to present an icon of Christ to the people was mocked by disparities of wealth, status and power. It describes priests as technicians of salvation, distributors of sacramental grace, but also as instructors in knowledge and virtue. It then explores monastic reform as a moral, jurisdictional and political question, along with the ways that religious orders in fifteenth-century Europe were gripped by the spirit of ‘Observance’. It also discusses the circulation of negative stereotypes of monks and friars in late medieval England.

Admonitions

This chapter examines the so-called ‘Admonition Controversy’ involving the Church of England and its bishops during the reign of Elizabeth I. It begins with a discussion of the danger posed by Mary Queen of Scots, along with her disastrous personal circumstances, and proceeds by analysing the rebellion known as the Rising of the Northern Earls and the outbreak of Counter-Reformation in the north. It then considers Pope Pius V's promulgation of the bull called Regnans in Excelsis (Ruling in the highest) in 1570, Protestants' attempt to close ranks against Catholicism, and the pamphlets An Admonition to the Parliament and A Second Admonition to Parliament. It also looks at Edmund Grindal, archbishop of Canterbury, and concludes with an assessment of the official crackdown on prophesyings and Puritanism.

Slaying Antichrist

This chapter examines the economic problems and social unrest that in 1549 erupted into riot and rebellion during Edward VI's reign. Copies of the new Prayer Book were distributed, and the new liturgy was performed in place of the Latin mass on Whitsunday even in remote rural parishes. One of these was Sampford Courtenay, a small village in mid-Devon. The chapter first describes the events that led to the Sampford Courtenay rebellion, along with similar uprisings in Cornwall and in Norfolk. It then considers the Oxfordshire rebellion, a short but bloody civil war portrayed by many as a conflict between forces of Christ and Antichrist. It also discusses the sequence of events that led to the removal from power of Edward's uncle, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset. Finally, it analyses the assertion by evangelicals that radicals and Romanists both distorted the Word of God.