The Marian RestorationReligion and Religious Change, c.1470-1558

‘Restoration’ or ‘Reformation’?

Restoration? Reformation?• Does ‘Catholicism’ necessarily

mean ‘backwards’ or ‘reversal’?

• Which Catholicism? Pre-Reformation Church not a

fixed entity Strength in vibrancy/ capacity to

house plurality of views Liturgy ever-evolving

Just negate EdVI; or HVIII too?◦ Difficult political issues: 20 years into

the break with Rome◦ Legitimacy of own

father/brother/Tudor regime.◦ Which point in Henry’s reign return

to? Pre-1532? 1532? 1543?

• To what extent involved in/touched by the Counter Reformation?

• Reformist currents picking up pace in Europe for a third of a century

• Not simply a ‘Protestant’ event

• Seen throughout course that terms ‘Prot’/ ‘Cath’ only becoming something resembling stable towards the end of EdVI’s reign.

• All reforming action occurred in context of Christian Humanism, recognised itself as ‘Catholic’.

Historiography

Traditional: an aberration Revisionist: surprisingly successful

Englishness = Protestant; Protestant = Progress; Progress was the purpose of History; therefore the Reformation’s success was inevitable/ liberating.

Mary’s attempts to pull the reign back to ‘Popish’ tyranny ill-advised and doomed to fail.

Moment of reunion with RC passed – Mary’s policies ill-advised and clumsily enacted.

Numerous problems:◦ Mary: (mad and cruel)◦ Bishops: (inept and cruel)◦ Cardinal Pole: (old, inept and cruel)◦ Organised opposition in Parliament:

(possibly Protestant and therefore civilised and sensible bulwarks against tyranny).

◦ All part of an anti-Catholic narrative which celebrated Reformation as liberation from tyranny – typified by Foxe, part of national identity for centuries.

Mid Tudor Crisis?

Duffy, Loades, Wooding, Freeman, Wizeman, Whitelock, Richards.

Catholicism popular:◦ Tied to the presentation of LMC as ‘vibrant’

Restoration in the parishes largely successful:

◦ Despite significant problems (finance)

Not simply bring back the past:◦ Regime that had to plan for the future.◦ Like EdVI – NO-ONE KNEW THAT MARY WAS

GOING TO DIE◦ Needed a plan going forward.◦ Significant changes to the liturgy of the Church:

if Catholicism ever ‘a cult of the living in the service of the dead’, certainly was not by 1558.

Duffy: not just in-tune with the rumblings of Counter Reformation, actually a pre-cursor for it.

If lived longer, would have been successful.

Reign with most current active research – sense that genuinely new things to say:◦Duffy/ Loades/ Wooding – shining remarkably positive

light on Mary’s Church and its achievements.◦Cannot understand the reign without recourse to

politics – story arguably a little different there.◦Tricky – and emotive – issue of the burnings still

problematic.

A ‘hinge’ of the C16th:◦Decide whether England’s Reformation completed or

not; or point at which a genuine Counter Reformation could have occurred in England.

1553: Problems

She was a she:◦ Ist Queen – no-one was

expecting her to rule, because no-one was expecting Edward to die a) young; b) heirless.

◦ Problem of succession. Need an heir, therefore need a husband. Who will that be, and how ensure not a king?

◦ Foreign power? Xenophobia; difficult balancing act in Europe.

◦ English noble? Problem of instability, patronage.

Emerging resistance theory:◦ How resist a monarch? ◦ Saw last lecture: not solidified

yet, but would be over the course of the reign.

◦ Only a handful of Prot thinkers – but ideas hard to kill.

Jane Grey:◦ Essentially come to the throne

after deposing a monarch. EdVI’s ‘Device For The Succession’

with Northumberland Jane supported by political

establishment – history could have been very different.

Very strong argument’s to Jane’s legitimacy on grounds of Edward’s nominating the succession and Mary’s illegitimacy (Eric Ives)

Was this a massive vote in favour of Tudor succession, rather than Catholicism?

◦ Only hammer home how precarious the Tudor regime was – in essence, a de facto elected monarchy which ruled by the people’s consent.

• What role was the Pope going to play in all of this?

Key figures: Cardinal Reginald Pole

◦ Significant part of the brains, energy and organisation behind Mary’s Church.

◦ HVIII’s cousin – had made an international stand against the divorce/Royal Supremacy.

◦ Earned him Cardinal’s hat; resulted in HVIII viciously executing most of his family for treason.

◦ Intimately connected to the Counter Reformation since mid-1530s.

◦ Part of a moderate wing of reformers, inspired by Christian Humanism and prepared to negotiate with Protestants (Regensburg 1541).

◦ Clash with hard-core wing of the Church – Carrafa, newly elected Paul IV; believed Pole’s view on Justification heretical.

◦ Left Mary’s Church in difficult position internationally Previous historians – meant untouched by CR Now, not the case – CR not Papal-led

alone.

Stephen Gardiner

◦ Bishop of Winchester.◦ Lord Chancellor.◦ Leading writer/

intellectual.◦ Thorn in the side of the

evangelicals since HVIII’s reign – always a blockade en route to Protestantism.

◦ Bitter rivalry with Cranmer escalated since 1532.

◦ Major figure in initiating heresy laws (and therefore persecutions).

◦ ‘Wily Winchester’ – evangelical bête noir.

Edmund Bonner

◦Bishop of London◦Swapped the position

back-and-forth with Nicholas Ridley as denominational changes occurred.

◦Conservative since the days of HVIII; vehement enforcement of the Act of Six Articles (1539); Bishops who oversaw most of the burnings.

◦ ‘Bloody Bonner’ (Foxe).

‘Restoration’ or ‘Reformation’?

‘Supreme Head’ Monasteries◦ Refused to use the title (even

though effectively possessed the same powers).

◦ Mary’s key aim was to unite England with Catholic Church (thus undoing the work of her father).

◦ Two decades of anti-Papal propaganda.

◦ Conservatives – uniting with the Pope a barrier against doctrinal deviation (Thomas More onwards)

◦ Mary keen to restore to an extent. Gave some of the lands which the crown had

taken back. But also continued to sell others (like HVIII &

EdVI). 800 abbeys dissolved by HVIII; only 7 re-

founded.◦ Huge problems – opposition in parliament

because MPs the ones who had benefitted from the sale of land under the Tudors.

◦ Not prepared to make moves towards return of Papal headship of the English church until lands safeguarded (meant no heresy laws, therefore no means of prosecuting Prots).

◦ July 1554 – Papal brief on the issue rejected by Mary’s council; Pole secured a deal that worked for everyone in November.

◦ After then, parliament prepared to repeal all religious legislation since 1529.

◦ Change of Popes kept the issue alive in politics – Paul IV denounced alienation of Church property, made relations frosty.

‘Restoration’ or ‘Reformation’?

Purgatory The Cult of Saints

◦ Very few confraternities founded.

◦ Obits and bede rolls less prominent in use

◦ Intercession prayer for the dead declined – in some regions, only 15% of parishes used them.

◦ ‘Cult of the living in the service of the dead’?

◦ Rupture in belief – even if not supported it, must have had an impact.

◦ Pre-Ref shrines/pilgrimage centres not revived.

◦ Images of Christ and Virgin restored at parish level, but saints much less so – decline of local cults (mainstay of LMC)

◦ Decline of side-altars for saints/guilds – few masses for splinter groups (unlike LMC)

◦ Read as success of evangelism – reformed Catholicism actually grow out of Prot?

◦ Ultimately – a more Christ-centred style of devotion.

Positives:

Propaganda The Bishops◦ Prot usually seen as ‘the religion of

the Word’ – Mary’s Church now understood to be very effective: a) in terms of propaganda; b) in the provision of religious material for laity; c) use of Latin propaganda to win international war.

◦ Miles Huggarde particularly important.

◦ Preaching – far more effective than previously understood. Pole’s CH of 1520s/30s previously

thought to be out-of-date – more interested in sacraments/ceremonies than evangelical fervour.

Rejected Ignatius Loyolla’s offer of Jesuits in 1555.

◦ Pole needed effective leadership

◦ Rapid purgation of Bishops by Mary

◦ Much new blood – many engaged in preaching etc: Thomas Watson (Lincoln); Richard Pate (Worcester – had been at Trent).

◦ All declined places in the Elizabethan Church – men of conviction.

The Mass

◦Centre-point of liturgy LMC; heightened under Mary.

◦Significant propaganda potential – tied Mary’s Church to her father’s, rendered Edward’s as the aberration.

◦Peace – in the absence of the Mass the CWealth fell apart.

◦What better demonstration of the verity of Christianity could there be than neighbourliness?

Counter Reformation?

◦ Problem of definition – Catholic or Counter?

◦ Had it even begun by this point – Trent not finalised until 1563.

◦ Duffy/ Thomas Mayer – Pole actually ahead of the European curve of Catholic Reform.

◦ 1555 – Pole summoned a legatine synod to London (aim to reform the clergy). Bishops to undertake regular visitations. Measures to tackle absenteeism. New book of homilies; catechism; translation of the New Testament. Homilies written by Dominican Bartolomé Carranza (basis for that of

Trent a few years later). Establish seminaries in every diocese to train priests. Little chance to succeed because of shortness of reign – but plans were

there. Undercut many Protestant criticisms of LMC.

Impact: the Parish

Had iconoclastic destruction of LMC gone too far to be pulled back; had evangelical ideas been too widely circulated to be reigned back in?

Destruction much cheaper than restoration – a huge task to restore.◦ Not just the case of buying lots of stuff.◦ Physical changes to the building of the Church.

Churchwarden’s accounts as a measure of how parishes responded (trace payments): ◦ Some areas considerable resistance (because of Prot or because fed up with interference in the

parish?)◦ Good records for diocese of Bath & Wells, but can be read either way.◦ Even in staunch Prot areas like Canterbury almost every parish had an altar, vestments and

Mass book by 1557.◦ Problem of obedience once again.

Revisionists and traditionalists agree that Marian Church not LMC resuscitated.◦ How read this?◦ Sign of its weakness?◦ Or sign of reformist capacity?

Politics

Persistent clashes with Parliament over money:◦ HVIII & EdVI impoverished the Church; reform cost money.◦ Attempts to restore First Fruits & 10ths; confiscation of property of

Church exiles – clashes.◦ Revenues essentially not recouped until 1556.

Paul IV (after May 1555):◦ dislike Pole; ◦ dislike Spanish (Neopolitan – Spain were colonial overlords);◦ went to war with Phillip II; ◦ recalled legates from Phillip’s lands (embarrassing for Pole); ◦ Mary’s intervention to prevent extradition to Rome made her the

Pope’s political enemy; delayed filling position of Bishops.

War with France (at Phillip’s biding – traditional enemy). ◦ Humiliating loss of Calais, January 1558.

Politics: marriage & martyrdom

Marriage to Phillip – son of Emperor Charles II, soon to be ruler of the Netherlands and (in 1556) Spain.◦ Marriage treaty limited Phillip’s

powers; excluded from throne should Mary die.

◦ Opposition not just Protestant. Careful not to remember 1588

before it happened.

◦ Gardiner (supported Earl of Devon as possible husband)

◦ Universally unpopular, if not unexpected – Habsburgs were the traditional allies of the English against the French. War not seem like a wise decision

(especially after recent campaigns in Scotland).

Wyatt:

◦ Rumours of Spanish cruelties in the New World; and of the Inquisition.

◦ Rebellion in January 1554 – only Sir Thomas Wyatt’s in Kent of any real threat, and troops actually made it to outskirts of London. Mary: public appearances roused resistance – mother of nation; marriage

not harm commons. Was it just Elizabeth who could inspire?

◦ Was this a ‘Protestant’ rebellion? Dickens and Thorp: yes.

◦ Mary listed Prot as a cause in her speeches (a ploy?)◦ Several prominent Prot clerics involved – John Ponet (former Bishop of

Winchester).◦ Hindered Mary’s reformation because tied Catholicism with Spanish overlordship.

Loades: no.◦ Secular/political – no concrete evidence of a disproportionate Protestant

involvement at elite or popular level.

◦ Nothing could be proven against Elizabeth.