The impact of the Reformation on church

and religion, 1535-c.1541

How far did the church in England move away from the Catholic church in these

years?How far was religious policy driven by Henry

or by his advisers?

The debate

• Most commentators see the religious changes instigated by the Reformation Parliament and continued into the 1540s as evidence of the influence of faction over Henry.

• The period between 1535 and 1538 sees the protestant faction, with Thomas Cromwell as its leader, hold sway. This explains the apparent ‘protestant’ nature of the Act of Ten Articles, the Bishops Book and the Injunctions of 1536 and 1538. The Anne of Cleves marriage sees the fall of this group and of Cromwell who is executed in 1540.

• The period between 1539 and 1543, on the other hand, sees the ascendency of the ‘catholic’ faction under the arch-conservatives Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. It is their ascendency that explains the burning of John Lambert in 1538, the Act of Six Articles of 1539, the publication of the King’s Book in 1543, and the burning of Anne Askew in 1546 for denying the real presence.

• It is the presence and importance of faction that explains the confusion in the last six years of Henry’s reign, where on the one hand he supports prayers for the dead, and on the other he launches an attack on chantries.

George W. Bernard, The King’s Reformation • By contrast, George Bernard argues that the

religious policy was consistently that of Henry himself, rather than a product of different influences of conservative and reforming factions.

• In Bernard’s view, Henry harnessed the rhetoric of Lutheran and Erasmian reform in the interests of achieving the Royal Supremacy, but religiously he remained a conservative throughout, and sought to steer a ‘middle path’ between Rome on the one hand and Wittenberg on the other.

The Act of Ten Articles• One view of the Act of Ten Articles as about foreign policy - to see this statement

of Christian Orthodoxy within the post-papal English church as emerging because of the prospect of an alliance with the Schmalkaldic League - the protestant German princes opposed to the emperor Charles V. In the event, conservative Henry was not willing to adopt the more radical views of the German princes.

• From Bernard’s point of view, it makes more sense to see the Act of Ten Articles as a response to worries about extremism and an attempt to find a ‘middle path’ between the more radically minded bishops who had supported Henry’s claim to the Royal Supremacy and the more conservative bishops who had acquiesced but whose theological views were in fact closer to Henry’s own.

• The Act of Ten Articles therefore reflects the challenge of combining the views of conservative bishops that were closer to Henry’s own views with those of the more radical bishops that had supported the Royal Supremacy but who were more Lutheran or Zwinglian in persuasion.

• There was therefore much that was ambiguous, even contradictory in the Ten Articles, in matters of justification by faith alone, purgatory, mass, the sacraments.

• The Act was not passed in parliament but only through Convocation, so did not have the force of law. The Ten Articles should rather be seen as a fairly rushed ‘interim’ statement in which difficult issues are avoided.

Act of Ten Articles (1536)

We have always esteemed and thought… that it most chiefly belongeth unto our said charge diligently and foresee and cause, that not only the most holy word and commandments of God should most sincerely be believed, and most reverently be observed and kept of our subjects but also that unity and concord in opinion, namely in such things as doth concern our religion may increase and go forthward, and all occasion of dissent and discord touching the same be reversed and utterly extinguished.

Transubstantiation, purgatory• The discussion of the sacrament of the altar, transubstantiation not mentioned

- but as Elton points out, the bishops ‘effectively endorsed the doctrine of transubstantiation without saying so explicitly.’ In the ceremony of the mass, it declared, Christ’s body and blood were actually present ‘substantially’.

• The article on purgatory rejects ‘popish purgatory’, rejecting the idea that masses might deliver souls to heaven, but nonetheless declared that prayers and masses for the departed were beneficial.

• This was a departure from current practice, but also a long way from its complete rejection.

• William Barlow - new bishop of St David’s - and sympathetic to reform records that the discussion of purgatory was earnest and debated. They could find no explicit justification for it except in an apocrvaphyl passage in 2 Maccabees (21:40-5) that seemed to allow praying for the dead. The place to where souls departed ‘be to us uncertain by scripture’, but prayers for the dead are still ‘a very good and charitable deed.’

• The bishops concluded that no one should be grieved by the continuation of such prayers, but that it was much necessary that ‘such abuses be clearly put away under which the name of purgatory hath been advanced, as to make men believe that thorough the bishop of Rome’s pardons, souls might clearly be delivered of purgatory…’

Articles on penance and justification• The statement on penance at first declares that justification

proceeds ‘not for the worthiness of any merit or work done by the penitent, but only for the merits of the blood and passion of our saviour Jesu Christ’ - statement that seems to endorse a Lutheran position of justification by faith alone.

• Yet the article went on to state that also necessary were Christ’s words, grace and favour, continued in his gospel and the sacraments, confession to a priest to attain certain faith…

• The article contained a whole series of retreats from the bold principle of justification by faith alone including: ‘These precepts and works of charity be necessary works to our salvation; by penance and and such good works… we shall not only obtain everlasting life, but we shall deserve remission or mitigation of these present pains and afflictions in this world.’

• The article concerning justification declared that it was attained ‘by contrition and faith joined with charity’. God requires us ‘after we be justified (only by the merits of Christ’s blood and passion) we must also have good works of charity.’

Ambiguities and tensions…• On 12th July, Henry required bishops to order parish priests to pray ‘for the souls that be departed, abiding the mercy of almighty God, that it may please him the rather at the contemplation of our prayers to grant them the fruition of his presence.’

• In return for exempting Oxford and Cambridge colleges from new general clerical taxation, he required them to hold twice-yearly masses in perpetuity for himself and his family.

• Yet during the summer months, act suppressing the smaller monasteries was implemented.

• Thomas Starkey, scholar and would-be councillor to the king thought it certain that many would judge the suppression ‘to be against the order of charity, and injurious to them that be dead… and the souls departed seem thereby to be defrauded….’

• Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, wrote - ‘the founding of monasteries argued purgatory to be; so the the pulling of them down argueth it not to be. What uncharitableness and cruelness seemeth it to be to destroy monasteries if purgatory be.’

Images and ceremonies• Once again the attitude was not to break completely with the past, but to curb

its excesses. Ceremonies were defended as good in principle, yet many abuses that characterised current practice were condemned.

• Images were defended. They were ‘representers of virtue and good example… the kindlers and stirrers of men’s minds’.

• ‘All other like laudable customs, rites, and ceremonies be not to be contemned and cast away, but to be used and continued as things good and laudable, to put us in remembrance of those spiritual things that they do signify,… renewing them in our memories from time to time…. none of these have power to remit sin, but only to stir and lift up our minds unto God, by whom only our sins can be forgiven.’

• Ceremonies were therefore endorsed as having a didactic and symbolic rather than a sacramental function. Holy water, candles at Candlemas, ashes on Ash Wednesday, palms on Palm Sunday, and the veneration of the crucifix and the consecrated host were all intended ‘to put us in remembrance for those spiritual things that they do signify.’

• There is a sense in which all of this is not so different from what many late medieval churchmen would have believed, but what is lost is the emotional tone of late medieval piety.

The Sacraments• There was a similar ambiguity in the presentation of just three of the sacraments

as commanded expressly by God and necessary to salvation - baptism, penance and the sacrament of the altar.

• This could be seen as a step on the way to am ore full-blooded protestant reform -

• Rex and Haigh point out that this does not need to be interpreted as radical, however. As Bernard argues it could be seen as ‘adiaphoristic’ - a position that says that while certain beliefs are essential other beliefs and practices may be useful, making their precise details ‘indifferent’

• The three sacraments that are mentioned are explained in a largely orthodox way, and the other four sacraments were not explicitly rejected. It seems unlikely that either Henry or his more conservative bishops would have surrendered four sacraments.

• Henry had assembled the prelates in Convocation ‘to set forth plainly sincerely and purely as many of the said sacraments as the time that they might then conveniently tarry together would give them leave substantially to entreat of.’

• To counter seditious talk, the king had the prelates assemble again to have the other four sacraments added.

• The difficulty with the Act of Ten Articles was that it provided so much scope for being hijacked by either conservatives or radicals who might attack abuses either in the hope of conserving purified practice or to radicals who saw within them the opportunity for complete abolition.

Injunctions to the Clergy (August, 1536)•These were essentially an elaboration of the Ten Articles. They were intended to enforce the ‘certain articles… lately devised and put forth by the King’s Authority’. They required the clergy to expound the Ten Articles in sermons;

•The injunctions forbade sermons about images, relics and miracles, reflecting a concern that preaching on controversial topics would lead to disorder. Instead, parishioners were to be urged to apply themselves ‘to the keeping of God’s commandments and fulfilling of his works of charity.’ The clergy were to ‘persuade them that it doth conduce more toward their souls’ health if they do give that to the poor and needy that they thought to bestow upon the said images or relics.’

•Henry had published a proclamation as supreme head that the feast of the saints to whom a church was dedicated should in future be kept on the first Sunday in October and not on the traditional saint’s day, and this was reiterated in the injunctions, as was discouragement from pilgrimage.

•None of this was intended to mean a step towards the extremes of Wittenberg or Zurich, but in the contexts of the dissolution for the smaller monasteries in the summer and autumn of 1536 this is undoubtedly how it may have appeared to many.

•Holy days and pilgrimages were part of the life of all English men and women: more than any measures taken until now this would affect everyone directly.

•Rectors were also commanded to provide Bibles in English and Latin for for people to read in church but this article was largely ignored.

The Institution of a Christian Man or The Bishop’s Book (1537)

• During the Autumn of 1536, Cromwell had called together a number of bishops to resolve a range of doctrinal and liturgical issues and to determine canon law.

• The Bishops’ Book was more Lutheran in its views. Salvation by faith was emphasised and there was no mention of transubstantiation. However, the four sacraments omitted from the Ten Articles (confirmation, marriage, holy orders and last rites) are found here, but are given less importance than Baptism, Confession and Holy Communion).

• It lacked royal approval. When Henry did examine it, he sent Cranmer 250 changes whose main thrust would ensure that ‘good works’ and not just faith played a part in salvation.

Cromwell’s Injunctions of September 1538• Once again the prospect of forming an alliance with the Schmalkaldic

league emerged and Cromwell issued a second set of Injunctions - perhaps more radical than the first.

• Now images that were the object of pilgrimage were to be taken down. Candles before images were forbidden and sermons were to be preached against the veneration of images and relics. This reflected the context of the attacks being made against the monasteries. In February 1538 the Rood of Grace from Boxley Abbey was destroyed at St Paul’s Cross in London and in July, images of the virgin from Waslingham and Ipswich were burnt.

• Cromwell campaigned against superstition, pilgrimage and in particular, pilgrimage to the shrine of St Thomas Becket - the saint who had stood up to Henry II’s attempts to take control of the church in England. In the light of the Royal Supremacy, Thomas Becket could hardly be celebrated.

• The most significant aspect of the injunctions of 1538 was that this time Cromwell was more serious about placing a bible in every church in England. The result was the so-called ‘Great Bible’.

An English Bible

• The 1538 Injunctions made a more determined effort to introduce an English Bible in to every parish in the land.

• Cromwell commissioned Miles Coverdale to produce a Great Bible. However, the printing in Paris (not London) was delayed… and when the bibles did appear, the reformers’ influence over the king was beginning to crumble (Pendrill).

• The Frontispiece gave expression to the idea of Royal Supremacy, for it presented Henry as second only to God, flanked by Cranmer and Cromwell, handing down the word of God to the faithful.

• Whereas Lutherans had emphasised Christian liberty and faith alone as the basis of salvation, the essence of the Henrician Reformation was that of obedience to the Word of God, which for Henry, meant obedience to the king (an idea expressed in Stephen Gardiner’s work ‘On True Obedience’ of 1535).

• The idea would later receive embodiment in the title page on the chained bibles that were distributed to every Church in England in 1539, which showed Henry handing down the ‘verbo dei’ to the archbishops who then passed it on to their bishops and then down to the flock.

• In 1543, Henry would restrict access to the Bible on the basis of wealth.

Haec me constitutum est decretum ut in universo imperio et regno meo tremiscant et pareant deum - This has been decreed so that everyone in my entire kingdom and empire might fear and obey the living God.

1538 – a year of crisis?• For most historians, the events of the years 1539-41 reflect the ascendency

of the conservative, catholic faction at court, led by Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, and the Bishop of Durham Cuthbert Tunstall.

• The event that focussed Henry’s attention was the ten year truce signed between Charles V and Francis I at Nice on June 18th, followed by further peace talks on July 15th at Aigues-Mortes in the presence of the pope, where they declared war on all schismatics.

• Finally, on December 17th, 1538, Pope Paul III excommunicated Henry and called for the ‘most cruel and abominable tyrant’ to be deposed. The excommunication was accompanied by the withdrawal of Imperial and French ambassadors from London.

• The threat was perhaps intensified by the presence of Reginald Pole at the papal court, made cardinal in 1536, and with a claim to the throne not dissimilar to Henry’s own. The Pole family were descended from the younger brother of Edward IV and Richard III, Duke Clarence.

• At the time of the Pilgrimage of Grace there had been rumours of a Catholic crusade to oust Henry; now such a crusade appeared to become a reality.

Henry’s ResponseHenry’s policy for avoiding invasion by a joint imperial-French army authorized by the pope was multi-layered. It included:

• Strengthening physical defences;• At this point Henry did a great deal to develop the navy. In 1539 there was 120 ships

at the mouth of the Thames and a further 30 in Portsmouth – a considerable increase on the 5 ships Henry had inherited from his father. In addition, Henry ordered the modernisation of all coastal defences along the south coast, using materials from nearby monasteries to effect repairs.

• The destruction of the ‘Pole’ family in England – the extermination of the white rose…• Arranged by Thomas Cromwell – the so-called ‘Exeter conspiracy’, which had come

to light earlier in the year, was really a figment of Henry’s imagination, planted there by Cromwell, but perhaps best understood as a means of plucking the last white rose at a sensitive time. It brought down Henry Pole, Lord Montague and Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, another of Henry’s cousins, both of whom were executed in December 1538.

• Strengthening his claims to orthodoxy – thereby undermining the papal condemnation, by prosecuting heresy and issuing a statement of orthodoxy.

• Making an alliance with Charles V’s enemies in Germany.• This was the purpose of the marriage of Anne of Cleves arranged by Thomas Cromwell

Strengthening claims to orthodoxy, 1538-9

In the meantime, Henry appears to have wanted to bolster his credentials as an orthodox Christian ruler. In this sense, the crisis of 1538 can be seen as the turning point in the fortunes of the conservative faction at court.

• One way Henry could demonstrate his catholic credentials was through the pursuit of heresy.

• John Lambert had been a member of the White Horse Tavern discussion group – nicknamed ‘Little Germany’ – and which included Edward Foxe, Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, Robert Barnes and (perhaps surprisingly) the arch-conservative Stephen Gardiner.

• He had survived accusations of heresy under Warham in 1531 and again by the Duke of Norfolk in 1536, but his denial of the real presence in 1538 led to him being burnt on 22nd November 1538.

• On the day of his execution, Henry issued a royal proclamation that upheld the ‘real presence’, clerical celibacy and forbade heretical literature.

• Henry summoned parliament in 1539 to consider a new doctrinal statement. This time, it was passed by parliament so had the force of law, but its intended audience was not merely domestic but also foreign and was intended to show that despite his break with Rome, Henry was still essentially Catholic.

The Act of Six Articles of 1539

• The Act made it a crime to deny the orthodoxy of:

• Transubstantiation

• communion in one kind (wafer not wine)

• Masses for the dead

• auricular confession

• clerical celibacy

• vows of chastity

• Denying the first of these was punishable by burning, and the others punishable by hanging or life imprisonment.

• As a result of this Act, two of the more radical bishops resigned their posts - Hugh Latimer (bishop of Worcester) and Nicholas Shaxton (Bishop of Salisbury).

The fall of Cromwell

1540 also saw the fall of Cromwell, ostensibly because he was suspected of sacramentalism (i.e. denying the real presence), but because of the conspiring of Howard and Gardiner against his protestant influence.

In this view, Norfolk used his niece, Catherine Howard, to strengthen his influence over the King at a point where Cromwell had damaged his standing with the king through the debacle over the Cleves marriage.

George Bernard, in The King’s Reformation, sees Cromwell’s downfall as less about Cromwell’s protestantism than about strengthening Henry’s claims as a Catholic monarch – and impressing Charles V and Francis I.

• One of Cromwell’s religious allies, Robert Barnes, who had been involved in the negotiations over the Cleves marriage, had preached in favour of justification by faint in response to Stephen Gardiner’s recent sermon campaigns The result was that he and two other heretics, Jerome and Garrett (all former members of the White Horse Tavern group) were sent to the tower.

• Cromwell was executed on 28th June 1540 and Barnes, Jerome and Garrett were executed two days later.

‘The Church of England moved significantly away from the Catholic Church in the years between 1535 and

1541’• On the one hand, Henry moved the Church in England away from the Catholic church

• Ecclesiologically, Henry separated the church in England from Rome through a series of legislative measures, including Acts in Restraint of Appeals, of Supremacy and in Extinguishing the Power of the Bishop of Rome.

• The Dissolution together with the Dispensations Act, the Act of First Fruits and Tenths meant that the monies of the church were absorbed by the state.

• The belief that was central to traditional religious practice – purgatory – though never explicitly denied was dealt a hammer blow by the Dissolution of the Monasteries and attacks on pilgrimage and images.

• The Act of Ten Articles only discusses 3 sacraments and offers some emphasis upon justification by faith.

• Cromwell’s Injunctions of 1536 an 1538 challenged traditional practices surrounding images and shrines and above all emphasised the authority of the Bible which was placed in translation in every church in England.

• On the other hand, theologically, the Henrician Reformation was consistently conservative. • Transubstantiation was upheld in all but name in the Act of Ten Articles and then explicitly

in the Act of Six Articles. All Seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church were upheld throughout the period 1535-1540.

• The Act of Six Articles of 1539 defended traditional practices such as auricular confession, communion in one kind, clerical celibacy and vows of chastity, all of which ran counter to Lutheran practice.

• In 1539 Henry executed John Lambert and in 1540 Thomas Cromwell together with former members of the White Horse Tavern discussion group, for denying the real presence or upholding justification by faith.

ConclusionRadical in an ecclesiological terms, the Reformation in England was theologically conservative. The ‘middle path’ argued by Bernard is broadly consistent with the evidence and would appear to reflect Henry’s position, indicated by his defence of the seven sacraments against Luther in 1520. The Royal Supremacy brought about a fundamental break with Rome, and was concerned to reform existing practice rather than to change fundamental principles. If justification by faith was the essence of Lutheranism, then obedience to the word of God and to the king – was the hallmark of the Henrician Reformation. In doctrinal terms, the Church in England did not move far from Rome on key doctrines such as justification and transubstantiation. Purgatory was never explicitly denied, nor was justification by faith explicitly adopted. The 1536 Act of Ten Articles only discussed three sacraments but the remaining four were not removed. The Act of Six Articles in 1539 discussed all seven, and traditional practices rejected by Lutherans were officially endorsed – including auricular confession, clerical celibacy, masses for the dead and communion in one kind. There does appear to have been some development of views on images and the placement of the vernacular bible, perhaps reflecting changing circumstances of the Pilgrimage of Grace and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but the underlying sentiments – calling for obedience, unity and reform of existing practice – were nonetheless consistent. The appearance of change reflects the willingness of government to harness the rhetoric of radical reform, but not necessarily its substance.

Historians’ views

G.W. Bernard, The King’s Reformation (2005) Henry wanted to have his religious cake and eat it; he wanted his royal supremacy, he wanted the destruction of the monasteries and the shrines; but he also wanted to maintain orthodoxy and unity. At times the tensions between these aims were too great and Cromwell in 1540 paid the price. Henry was ruthless in his disposal of ministers (Wolsey) and wives (Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves) who for whatever reason no longer suited his purposes or who crossed his will. Henry from the start had been prepared to sacrifice the lives and happiness of people.

Richard Rex – The English Reformation:Whereas Lutherans had emphasised Christian liberty and faith alone as the basis of salvation, the essence of the Henrician Reformation was that of obedience to the Word of God, which for Henry, meant obedience to the king (an idea expressed in Stephen Gardiner’s work ‘On True Obedience’ of 1535).