The Tudors for Dummies (AvaxHome Download) (19 page)

Encouraging Protestantism In This Chapter

Nudging towards reform

Reforming and rewriting: the new prayer books

Putting down the western rebellion

Dealing with dissent

W hen Henry VIII died a lot of confusion over religious matters existed.

The break with Rome was political and among the king's advisers

were moderate, humanist reformers, some of whom were secret Protestants.

Between 1547 and 1553 they `came out' and made the Church of England

Protestant.

The religious situation that the new king, Edward VI, faced looked like this:

Diehard Catholics carried on worship in the old way with Latin masses

and traditional types of service.

Conservatives � like Arundel and Southampton, who were on the Council

until Dudley axed them � despised the pope but still believed in tradi-

tional types of worship like the mass. The vast majority of people were

probably conservatives.

Moderate Protestants thought (like the humanists) that a lot of the

Catholic services were mumbo-jumbo.

Strong Protestants followed the ideas of Luther and other European

reformers who believed the Catholic Church was full of idolatry and the

pope was the Antichrist.

See what we mean by confusing? In this chapter we explore the bumpy ride

towards Protestanism during Edward's reign.

Choosing Reform: Gently Does It

Understanding people's motivation as far as religion goes in the 16th century

is tough nowadays. People today live in a very different age when organised

religion no longer has the huge hold it had in the past. Telling real religious

conviction from people grabbing opportunities and paying lip service is also

quite difficult, but here's a general overview:

The reformers in Henry VIII's Council were largely a political party and

they fought the conservatives tooth and nail in the last years of his reign.

Some key people, especially Henry VIII's wife Catherine Parr (see

Chapter 5) and Archbishop Cranmer (see Chapter 6), were genuine

religious reformers.

Most people in the corridors of power and elsewhere did their political sums

and waited to see which way the religious wind blew before taking sides.

It may be that some people were influenced by the young king's education.

After all, when he turned 18 in 1555, Edward would rule in his own right and

call the religious tune.

Sewing the seeds

Because Edward was taught by reformers � men like John Cheke � it was

likely that the boy would choose a Protestant Church when he came of age.

This is what Edward's protector Somerset (see Chapter 7 for more on the

king's protectorate) assumed, pushing ideas of the Royal Supremacy (see

Chapter 6) to remind everyone who now ran the Church.

As soon as Henry was dead, something of a floodgate opened. Reformers in

London began writing Protestant pamphlets, smashing saints' statues and

sticking their own heads above the religious parapet, demanding changes

in all directions. Somerset's government did little to stop all this because he

became convinced that Protestantism was the way forward.

As we explain in the Chapter 7, what most people in the past found difficult to

accept was change. London has always been at the cutting edge of new stuff,

but the farther away you went in the 16th century, the more likely you were to

meet deep conservatism and mistrust of new-fangled ideas. In the West Country,

Wales and parts of the North like Lancashire, people longed for the old security

of the Catholic Church and had serious doubts about the Royal Supremacy. Chapter 8: Encouraging Protestantism 135 Testing the water with new bishops Traditionally, when a king died royal officials' jobs ended. In practice this was rarely the case and it never affected churchmen. But when Henry VIII died, Cranmer sent out new letters of appointment to the bishops. The message was clear: Cranmer and the quietly Protestant Council were giving out the jobs.

Opposition came straight away from Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, (surprise, surprise!) because the man hated Protestants. He argued that it was the job of the supreme head of the Church to defend not undermine it, and that he held his own job by virtue of being a priest, not because the king had given it to him (although, in fact, Henry had).

In the meantime, moves towards Protestantism were happening all over the place. People sang evening prayer in English, not Latin, in the Chapel Royal; a preacher at Paul's Cross (the trendy place for far-out sermons outside the cathedral in London) said it was okay to eat meat during Lent; and smashing of statues continued.

Moving on: Visitations and homilies In the summer of 1547 Cranmer took two cautious steps towards reform:

The royal visitation: Cranmer backed Protector Somerset in carrying

out a royal visitation like the one that had destroyed the monasteries in

1538 (see Chapter 6). Objections came from Bishop Gardiner (of course)

and Edmund Bonner (bishop of London), both of whom were banged

up in Fleet Prison. Under the visitation, the country was divided into six

areas and 30 visitors were given the job of checking out churches. They

insisted that churchmen should teach and speak the Lord's Prayer in

English.

The homilies: Cranmer wrote 12 homilies (sermons) that he expected

churches to use in services. The homilies were Protestant in tone but

within the law of Henry VIII's Act of Six Articles (see Chapter 6), except

for the one about justification through faith, which sounded horribly

Lutheran in that it talked about finding salvation through faith alone and

said nothing about doing good works.

Gardiner, true to form, went ballistic, claiming that Cranmer had gone too far, proving how out of touch the bishop of Winchester was with the direction in which the Church was now travelling.

Edward VI's first Parliament abolished the Act of Six Articles. Now the Church of England was in a sort of limbo � who knew exactly what to believe? In that sense, Gardiner's opinion was as good as anybody else's. 136 Part III: Remembering the Forgotten Tudors: Edward VI and Mary

Dissolving the chantries by law

The chantries were private chapels set up to pray for the souls of the dead.

Some of these were cheapskate affairs, where a single priest (like John Rous

at Guy's Cliffe; see Chapter 2) said mass once a month for a year or two to

whole colleges of clergymen saying prayers forever. Forever literally meant in

perpetuity, with younger monks taking over from older ones when they died.

This process was designed to help those souls believed to be in purgatory,

but for years people (Henry VIII included) had been questioning the existence

of purgatory.

Parliament had voted in 1545 to shut the chantries down and give the cash

to the king. This hadn't happened. So in 1547 the topic was on the front

burner again. This time Parliament argued that prayers for the dead were

pointless and clashed with the justification by faith ideas of the Protestants.

Justification by faith (or solo fide in the original Latin) meant that all you had

to do was put all your faith in God, and he would do the rest.

Result? All chantries closed, another nail in the Catholic coffin; oh, and

Edward VI got land worth �600,000.

The removal of the chantries hit ordinary people in a way the destruction of

the monasteries hadn't. Some of Somerset's commissioners got frosty recep-

tions, but as usual even opponents cashed in by buying ex-Church land so

they didn't feel too badly about it.

Trying to make things clear

Without the Six Articles as a framework, extreme conservatives and extreme

reformers were all trying to make headway according to their own beliefs. So

the Council stepped in and said:

Extreme Protestants must slow down.

Everybody had to fast during Lent.

Nobody should go it alone with new religious ideas.

The Council knows best and is sorting it all out.

The communion service was changed by Parliament, working with Cranmer,

ready for Easter 1548, and Cranmer also set up an English version of the mass �

it was up to individual priests whether they used it or not.

On 11 February the Council told Cranmer to tell the bishops to scrap all saints'

images from churches and chapels. Henry had made a similar effort (see the

Rood of Grace in Chapter 6), but now the directive was for real. Conservatives

like bishops Tunstall of Durham and Heath of Worcester did little more than

pass Cranmer's word on. But by the end of 1548 the writing was on the wall.

The mass was still there (just about) but more change was to come.

Introducing the First Prayer Book

For centuries the Catholic Church had used slightly different types of Latin

service depending on where you lived around the country. Archbishop

Cranmer streamlined the service to a single common version in English.

Changing content and language

In 1544 Henry VIII had let Cranmer translate the mass into English.

Churchmen used the English mass now and again in the Chapel Royal, but

never in the country at large.

The whole point of having the Bible and church services in English was so that

everyone could understand what was going on. The Catholics didn't object to

this for its own sake but they did have a problem:

The Catholic Church did as the pope said, but Henry had brought an end

to that in England.

The Catholic Church relied on Latin as a common European language

dating back to the 5th century.

Priests understood Latin (in theory!) so the congregation didn't have to. This

sounds very odd today. The magic phrase hocus pocus comes from the peo-

ple's garbled version of the communion service � hoc est corpus � `This is the

body [of Christ]'.

The Protestant point of view was:

Church services should be collective acts of worship in a language every-

body understood.

The job of the priest was just to lead the congregation.

First, Cranmer took the most common type of mass � the Sarum (Salisbury)

Use � and changed it. He shortened the rite for the dying, taking out all

mention of purgatory. He also removed anything about transubstantiation

(the idea that bread and wine taken during communion become the body

and blood of Christ) and the priest's role being miraculous. God was `real'

without being physical � that put the reforming cat among the conservative

pigeons. Private masses were now out � no congregation; no mass. 138 Part III: Remembering the Forgotten Tudors: Edward VI and Mary

Next, Cranmer presented the first draft of his new prayer book � the Book of

Common Prayer � to a church conference at Chertsey Abbey in September

1548. The attendees tinkered with the new book slightly and then passed it

to the bishops for approval in October. By December, the book was part of a

parliamentary bill.

The purpose of this Bill of Uniformity was to sort out the Church once and

for all in a `uniform, quiet and Godly order'. All parishes were to have the new

prayer book (which they had to buy) by Whitsun (May) and churches faced

punishments for not accepting the book.

In the House of Lords only two of the temporal peers voted against it but the

spiritual peers (the bishops) were split ten-to-eight in favour.

Passing the Bill of Uniformity was a huge step forward for Parliament, which

from now on became the place to decide all matters about the Church. The

Church of England was accepted by law and so it remains today. The law

was a step up in terms of the power of Parliament because the Commons and

Lords were no longer just a rubber stamp for the king. This was to have seri-

ous repercussions for the Stuarts in the next century.

Making enemies

Of course, not everyone welcomed Cranmer's reforms and prayer book:

Some parish priests went on using the Latin mass until their bishops

stopped them.

Some priests ignored the bit in the prayer book about speaking with a

`clear and distinct voice' and mumbled instead. Some of their congrega-

tions probably assumed the mass was still hocus pocus.

The king's sister, Mary, was most unimpressed (see the nearby sidebar

`Mary, Mary, quite contrary').

Extreme Protestants didn't believe the reforms had gone far enough.

Rebelling in the West

Most resistance to the prayer book came from farthest away from London. In

Cornwall most people didn't even speak English, but had their own version of

Gaelic, and they and the men of Devon rebelled. Figure 8-1 provides a general

lie of the land.

Trouble first broke out on Whit Monday, 1549, in the village of Sampford

Courtenay where the priest was forced to stick to the Latin mass. The area

had been badly hit by the destruction of the chantries (see `Dissolving the

chantries by law', earlier in this chapter), and local land issues probably

existed (this was the time of Kett's Rebellion in East Anglia; see Chapter 7). Chapter 8: Encouraging Protestantism 139

Glastonbury

Barnstaple

N

SOMERSET

Morebath

Tiverton

Sa mp f o r d Co u r t e n a y

1549

DEVON Exeter

Cl y s t St . M a r y

O a k h a mp t o n

CORNWALL

B odm i n

Pl ymouth

Figure 8-1:

Western

England.

When a local gentleman tried to talk sense to everybody a mob murdered

him on 9 June. With no strong nobleman on hand to step in (Henry VIII had

removed the Courtenay earls of Devon), mobs grew and discontent spread

from Bodmin in Cornwall. People talked of a march on London (as with the

Pilgrimage of Grace � see Chapter 6 � and Kett's Rebellion).

Mary, Mary, quite contrary

One person seriously peeved by Cranmer's an heir to the throne, her position was acutely

changes was Princess Mary. A devout Catholic, embarrassing for the Council.

she invited anybody who wanted to go to

As always, Mary got the backing of cousin

join her in the old Latin mass at her house in

Charles V, who said he would take action if

Hunsdon, Hertfordshire at Whitsun 1548. She let

her right to worship was challenged again. The

it be known that the new services would never

Council in turn agreed that Mary could get on

happen in any area she controlled.

with her Latin mass with a few servants only,

Mary went head to head with the Council, com- but she mustn't hold her mass in public. Mary

plaining that they had no right to tinker with ignored them.

religion while the king was a child. As she was 140 Part III: Remembering the Forgotten Tudors: Edward VI and Mary

Sir Thomas Pomeroy was the only rebel leader with any status and he used

the revolt to try and get back the fortune he'd squandered. The rebels sent 15

demands to the Council, which included:

Scrapping all religious changes since 1547

Reinstating the Six Articles (see Chapter 6)

Bringing Reginald Pole, who'd been kicked out by Henry VIII (see

Chapter 4), back to England

The whole thing sounded like the work of Catholic priests and even Bishop

Gardiner couldn't believe what the rebels were demanding.

Getting heavy

Cranmer was furious with the response from the West, especially when the

rebels called his new form of service `a Christmas game'. The rebels besieged

Exeter and cut off supplies to the city on 2 July. Many people inside the walls

backed the rebels and constantly demanded the city open its gates.

Somerset had to act, so he sent Sir Peter Carew, a Devon landowner, to

negotiate. He failed. Somerset then sent Lord John Russell with a 1,400-man

force to put the rebellion down. Russell was joined by Lord Grey's cavalry

and William Herbert's 2,000 Welshmen. It was unfortunate that Russell didn't

have enough men or clear instructions as to what to do. He clashed with the

rebels at Ferry Bridges near Exeter on 27 July but the result was a draw.

Russell now marched on Exeter itself and the rebels, led by Humphrey

Arundell, a Catholic landowner from Helland, near Bodmin, pulled back to

the village of Clyst St Mary. After a three-day fight, losses were heavy on both

sides. Arundell limped west with neither cavalry nor artillery to help him

while Russell entered Exeter.

Russell at last caught the rebels at Sampford Courtenay where the whole pro-

test had begun, and he smashed them with his Italian harquebusiers (muske-

teers). Arundell was beaten at Launceston and the ring-leaders were hanged.

This was a far more serious � and bloody � rising than Kett's and the Council

dealt with it harshly.

Taking in the refugees

As soon as word got round that England was going Protestant, refugees started to

trickle in from places where the Catholic Church was all-powerful: France, Spain,

Italy, the Low Countries and the Rhineland. Many of the refugees were skilled

workers and they set up businesses in London, Norwich and Southampton. A load

of Flemish weavers even settled in Glastonbury in Somerset. Chapter 8: Encouraging Protestantism 141

These refugees were allowed to worship in their own way in the `stranger

churches' they set up, not bothered by the Book of Common Prayer.

Vallerand Poullin, a famous scholar, ran the French church in London and the

Polish nobleman-turned-pastor John a Lasco ran the Dutch church.

Many of these refugees were Zwinglians, following the Swiss reformer's ideas

rather than those of Luther, the German monk who'd begun the Reformation.

Most important was Heinrich Bullinger who had friends in high places after

Bishop John Hooper, whom Henry VIII had exiled to Zurich, came back to

preach to the Court in 1549 under Somerset's protection.

England wasn't open house, however. Not everyone was welcome and nobody

wanted the Anabaptists, who believed in adult baptism, because the majority

saw them as being too extreme and troublemakers.

Continuing with Cranmer,

hoping with Hooper

The fall of Somerset in October 1549 (see Chapter 7) barely broke the reform-

ers' stride. Cranmer brought in yet more changes. Now only three holy orders

existed: bishop, priest and deacon. All the others � priors, abbots, prioresses,

abbesses, monks, nuns, friars, clerks, chaplains and pardoners � had gone.

Countering the Counter-Reformation A Church that had called the shots in Martin Bucer, one of those top scholars Christendom for 1,400 years wasn't just going to consulted by Henry VIII over his divorce roll over, and the Council of Trent (Italy), which from Catherine of Aragon, quarrelled with began in 1545, marked the Catholic Church's the Lutherans so accepted Cranmer's offer fight back against the rise of Protestantism of a teaching job at Cambridge University. throughout Europe. The Council met frequently

Peter Martyr took up Cranmer's offer in northern Italy and elsewhere over the next

of a similar job at Oxford University, but few years. Leading Catholic churchmen backed

Oxford was always more right-wing than the Society of Jesus and the torture of the

Cambridge and his fellow lecturers gave Inquisition, denouncing the Protestant ideas

him a hard time. Martyr made suggestions wherever they existed throughout Europe.

for Cranmer's revised prayer book (see So, Cranmer called in Protestant heavies to `Getting Radical: The Second Prayer Book'. make England's position clear.

Philip Melanchthon, leader of the Lutherans

now that Luther was dead, said no when

offered a post in England.