The Reformations in Britain, 1520–1603 (Seminar Studies) [1 ed.] 1032021896, 9781032021898

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The Reformations in Britain, 1520–1603

This entirely fresh narrative of the “British Reformations” focuses on the emotional as well as the material experience of living through the ­reformations in Britain during the sixteenth century. The Protestant reformations that took place in England and Scotland ­during the sixteenth century were, even by the standards of the period, ­unusually and uniquely fractious and complicated. By combining ­politics, theology, and culture  – and by complementing its narrative with key ­documents from the period – this book arms readers to study, explore, and understand the British Reformations in new ways. More importantly, it considers this fascinating period in the round, understanding the r­ eformations as a religious and cultural movement that had impacts upon politics, society, and individuals which combined to profound and lasting effects. Above all, it shows how an empathetic study of sixteenth-century religious and cultural history can expand our understanding of the past  – and of how identities can form and be altered by powerful ideas and inspired individuals as well as mighty princes. Aided by a Who’s Who and Chronology, The Reformations in Britain is an invaluable resource for all students who study the religious and cultural history of sixteenth-century Britain. Anna French is a historian of the Reformation and Senior Lecturer in Early ­Modern History at the University of Liverpool. She is the author of Children of Wrath: Possession, Prophecy and the Young in Early Modern England (2015) and editor of Early Modern Childhood: An Introduction (2019).

Introduction to the series Series Editors Clive Emsley and Gordon Martel

History is the narrative constructed by historians from traces left by the past. Historical enquiry is often driven by contemporary issues, and in c­onsequence, historical narratives are constantly reconsidered, reconstructed, and reshaped. The fact that different historians have ­ different perspectives on issues means that there is often controversy and no universally agreed version of past events. Seminar Studies was designed to bridge the gap between current research and debate, and the broad, popular ­general ­surveys that often date rapidly. The volumes in the series are written by historians who are not only familiar with the latest research and current debates concerning their topic but who have themselves contributed to our understanding of the subject. The books are intended to provide the reader with a clear introduction to a major topic in history. They provide both a narrative of events and a critical analysis of contemporary interpretations. They include the kinds of tools generally omitted from specialist monographs: a chronology of events, a glossary of terms, and brief biographies of “who’s who”. They also include bibliographical essays in order to guide students to the literature on various aspects of the subject. Students and teachers alike will find that the selection of documents will stimulate the discussion and offer insight into the raw materials used by historians in their attempt to understand the past.

The Reformations in Britain, 1520–1603 Anna French

Cover image: Preaching before King James I at Pauls Cross in London 1616. Hand-coloured woodcut © North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy Stock Photo First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Anna French The right of Anna French to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: French, Anna, author. Title: The Reformations in Britain, 1520–1603 / Anna French. Description: New York : Routledge, 2022. | Series: Seminar studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021060022 (print) | LCCN 2021060023 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032021874 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032021898 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003182283 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Great Britain—History—Tudors, 1485–1603. | Great Britain—Social life and customs—16th century. | Reformation—Great Britain. | Great Britain—Church history—16th century. | Great Britain—Politics and government—1485–1603. Classification: LCC DA320 .F74 2022 (print) | LCC DA320 (ebook) | DDC 941.05—dc23/eng/20220105 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021060022 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021060023 ISBN: 978-1-032-02187-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-02189-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-18228-3 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003182283 Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Chronologyvii Who’s Whoxiii

Introduction “A Godly and Most Friendly Concord”  1 The “British” Dimension  4 The Medieval Church and Luther’s Break  6 A Brief Historiography of the Reformation  10

1

1 Politics The Reformation: Event or Process?  14 England: A Reformation of Rule?  16 Theories of Government: Political Philosophy and the Reformations  17 The “Henrician” Reformation: A Crisis of Succession?  19 Scottish Protestantism: Compromise and Kirk  23 From Edward to Elizabeth: Parliament and Piety  27 Royal Power and Religion Under Mary, Queen of Scots  35 The Reformation Completed? Settlement and Stability 37

14

2 Theologies Martin Luther, Augustine of Hippo, and the Problem of Sin  40 On the History of Ideas  42 The English Reformation: A Lutheran National Church? 45 Translation and “Calvinism”  50

40

vi  Contents Ecclesiology in Scotland: Presbyterianism and Episcopacy 54 “A Church But Half  ly Reformed”: Elizabethan England 59 3 Cultures The Reformation and Popular Piety  63 Recusancy and Resistance: Catholics  66 The Reformation of Ritual  70 Death and Dying in Reformation Britain  73 The Protestant Family  76 Belief in Action: Prayer and Providence  80 Unauthorised Belief: Witchcraft and the Supernatural  83 Popular Protestantism or Failed Reformation?  87

63

Documents

89

Bibliography123 Index130

Chronology

The reformations in Britain were complex and took place over many decades. Indeed, the first date in the below chronology is from the late fourteenth century! The below timeline is intended to make the point that the reformations can only be properly tracked over at least a century or so and must be read alongside each other if they are to be fully understood. Thus there is a column for events in England and Wales, another for Scotland’s reformation, and a third for important events further afield. All of these events and their disparate locations and actors interacted over time. Readers may also find it useful to use this chronology to situate the various events, people, and documents that appear in this book within their wider context: was a writer publishing before or after the vestments controversy or during a period of military conflict? The immediate contexts matter, too: theologians build on the writings that went before them and politicians are hemmed in by war or famine or rebellion. The processes of the reformations washed across the sixteenth century but also experienced particular moments – the retrenchment in England of the 1530s, for example, or the sudden if contingent Protestant victory in Scotland around 1560. In other words, a simple list of dates and events can never be the full story, but it can be a very good framework from which to hang the detail that can be found elsewhere in this book.

England/Wales 1381

1415 1456

Scotland

John Wycliffe dismissed from the University of Oxford for “Lollardy”. Printing of the Gutenberg Bible.

Elsewhere

Execution of Jan Hus in Bohemia. (Continued)

viii  Chronology (Continued) England/Wales 1485 1488 1502 1509 1511 1513

Henry VII seizes throne from Richard III, with papal approval. Death of Prince Arthur. Accession of Henry VIII; marriage to Catherine of Aragon. John Colet preaches on the errors of the clergy.

1517

Scotland

Accession of James IV.

James IV killed at the Battle of Flodden. Accession of James V.

1520 1521

Henry VIII named Defender of the Faith by the Pope.

1524 1527 1528 1530

Henry VIII begins to pursue a divorce. Fall of Cardinal Wolsey.

James V’s personal rule begins.

1529-36 The “Reformation Parliament” sits. 1532 Submission of the Clergy. Cranmer appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. 1533 Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn. 1534 Act of Supremacy. 1535

1536

Publication of the “Coverdale Bible”, an English translation drawing on the work of Tyndale. Act of union between England and Wales. Pilgrimage of Grace. Dissolution of the monasteries begins.

Elsewhere

Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses. Luther excommunicated. Diet of Worms; Luther unsuccessfully defends his views against papal attack. Peasants’ War in Germany; Luther distances himself.

Augsburg Confession offers Lutheran statement of faith.

Foundation of the Jesuit order.

Ordination of John Knox.

Calvin begins his reformation in Geneva; first Latin edition of The Institutes of Christian Religion.

Chronology ix England/Wales 1539

1540

Scotland

The Six Articles emphasises a “traditionalist turn” in Church matters; publication of the authorised Englishtranslated “Great Bible”. Fall of Thomas Cromwell.

1542

Accession of Mary, Queen of Scots. 1543 Conversion of Knox to Protestantism. 1544-46 War between England, Scotland, and France. 1545 Execution of the reformer George Wishart, mentor to Knox.

1546

Publication of first printed book in Welsh, includes the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments. 1547 Accession of Edward VI. Knox’s first exile. 1547-50 The “Rough Wooing”. 1549 First Book of Common The first reforming Prayer published. council sits. Knox The Prayer Book leaves to preach in Rebellion. England. 1550 John Hooper refuses to don vestments, in defiance of the Church authorities; the debate becomes known as “the vestments controversy”. 1551 Peace between England and Scotland agreed. 1552

Second Book of Common Prayer.

Elsewhere

The Diet of Regensburg fails to achieve religious unity between Catholics and Protestants in Germany.

First session of the Council of Trent (until 1547).

Second session of the Council of Trent (until 1552).

(Continued)

x  Chronology (Continued) England/Wales 1553 1554

1555 1556

1557

1558

1559

1560

1561

1562 1563 1565

Scotland

Forty-two articles Knox’s second exile. published. Accession of Mary I. Reginald Pole Regency of Mary of returns to England; Guise begins. reconciliation with Rome. Burning of the “Oxford Knox arrives in Martyrs”. Geneva. Execution of Cranmer; Pole appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. First Band of the Protestant Congregation in Scotland. Accession of Elizabeth Publication of The I. First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. Act of Uniformity; third Rebellion in Scotland, beginning in Perth. Book of Common Prayer; appointment of Matthew Parker as Archbishop of Canterbury. Death of Mary of Guise; Treaty of Leith agreed between England and France. Scotland’s “Reformation Parliament” sits, bans Latin Mass. Mary, Queen of Scots, returns to Edinburgh; neither revokes nor affirms Protestant Acts. First Book of Discipline drafted. Book of Common Order published. First edition of John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Queen Mary marries the Catholic Lord Darnley, sparking rebellion.

Elsewhere

“The Troubles at Frankfurt”.

Final Latin edition of The Institutes of Christian Religion published. Publication of the Geneva Bible.

The final session of the Council of Trent closes.

Chronology xi England/Wales 1566

1567

1568

1569 1570

1572

1574 1575 1577 1578 1579

Scotland

Elsewhere

Mary reasserts her Matthew Parker’s authority, gives birth “Advertisements” are to a boy. published, requiring clergy to agree to a range of authorised practices – including wearing vestments – in order to retain their living. Publication of Salesbury Murder of Darnley; and Davies’s Welsh Mary, now married to translation of the the Earl of Bothwell, Prayer Book and New is forced to abdicate Testament. by those opposed to him and her rule; accession of James VI. Publication of Scots Gaelic translation of the Book of Common Order. Publication of the Civil war begins. “Bishop’s Bible”, Mary imprisoned in a new authorised England. English translation. The rebellion of the Northern earls. Elizabeth Assassination of the excommunicated by Regent, the Earl of the Pope. Moray; appointment as regent of Lennox, father of Darnley. Admonition to Death of Knox. St Bartholomew’s Parliament. Appointment as Day Massacre, Regent of Earl of France. Morton. Arrival of first Jesuits. Edmund Grindal appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop Grindal sequestered. James VI assumes control of government, aged 12. George Buchanan publishes The Powers of the Crown in Scotland. (Continued)

xii  Chronology England/Wales 1581

1582 1583

1584

1587 1588

1589

1594

1597 1603

Whitgift appointed Archbishop of Canterbury; “subscription crisis”.

Scotland

Elsewhere

First presbyteries established; publication of the King’s Confession; execution of Morton for involvement in the murder of Darnley. The “Ruthven Raid”; death of George Buchanan.

The “Black Acts” – mixed settlement confirmed, with king’s authority emphasised. Mary, Queen of Scots executed. Marprelate Tracts. Spanish armada. Publication of Morgan’s Welsh translation of the Bible. Marriage of James VI to Anne of Denmark; Anne’s sailing to Scotland disrupted, reputedly by witchcraft. Orthodox theologian Richard Hooker publishes first part of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Treaty of Berwick aligns England and Scotland, names James VI as Elizabeth I’s heir apparent. James VI publishes Deamonologie. Accession to English Throne of James Stuart (VI and I).

Who’s Who

From Anne Boleyn to Christopher Goodman, John Whitgift to Mary of Guise, in this section you’ll find brief histories of some of the most significant figures of the British reformations. This book argues that the reformations were a population-level process that can’t be fully explained only by reference to the actions of individuals – although events had impacts on the lives of every single person who lived through them. Nevertheless, a number of names recur throughout this book, and in this section you’ll find thumbnail biographies of kings, theologians, writers, and even one or two “ordinary” people who were prominent in some way during the British reformations. As well as describing their particular contributions, I try to show how many of these individuals are also emblematic of one or another of the themes of the period and to emphasise their connections to other people, places, and events. Many of the names here are noticeably not British, and many of the English or Scottish people listed here spent significant periods of their life elsewhere; in this way, we see again how the “British” reformations were only one part of a much wider cultural moment. Thomas Becon (c. 1511–1567): A Protestant cleric and writer who studied under the leading reformer Hugh Latimer, Becon’s initial Lutheranism eventually hardened into a Reformed faith resembling Heinrich Zwingli’s. Resolutely committed to Protestantism, he was arrested for preaching in 1540 during the conservative phase of Henry VIII’s late reign and driven into exile during the reign of Mary I. He was particularly focused on writing works which explained the new theology to faithful, and ended his career as a clergyman in the Elizabethan Church. In his migration from Lutheranism to a more Reformed persuasion, we can map the progress of a certain strain of English religious thinking at this time, and in his more popular writings, we can identify the persistent interest among English divines in communicating the new theology to the masses [document 17]. Anne Boleyn (1501–1536): Mythologised by countless generations, Anne Boleyn’s role in the English Reformation was far more important than that merely of instigator of Henry VIII’s divorce or of mother of the future Edward VI. In some ways, Boleyn and her family brought Protestantism

xiv  Who’s Who to the English court. Certainly she was depicted as a convinced Protestant by Foxe in his Actes and Monuments. Less partially, however, Anne’s education had taken place in Europe, and she was exposed extensively to humanist learning, for example via Margaret of Navree, and Anne seems in particular to have adopted the early Protestants’ view that the scriptures should be widely available in the vernaculars of Europe – certainly she owned a French translation of the Bible by one of her tutors, Jacques Lefevre, as well as a copy of Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament. Having broken with Rome in order to achieve marriage to Anne, however, Henry quickly fell out with her – she was queen for just three years before she was executed for treason. On the scaffold, she addressed the “good Christian people” who had come to see her die; questions of religion defined her death as well as her life. Martin Bucer (1491–1551): One of the most influential Protestant theologians of the reformation era, Bucer’s thought stretched across Lutheran and Reformed doctrine. Based in Strasbourg during his early career, he corresponded with both Luther and Zwingli. Bucer spent much energy seeking to bring together the various shades of Protestant opinion, but to little success. He enjoyed better results in ecclesiology at Strasboug, where he followed Reformed opinion on the importance of moral “discipline” and achieved some level of unity among believers, while at the same time excluding more radical elements. He was particularly influential on the Church of England during the reign of Edward VI, during which he spent the last years of his life as Regius Professor Divinity at Cambridge. His greatest contribution to English religious life was perhaps found in his work on the Book of Common Prayer, the 1552 edition of which scholars agree reflected in part Bucer’s own approach to a less ceremonial liturgy [document 10]. George Buchanan (1506–1582): A  Scottish humanist and intellectual, Buchanan was for a time tutor to both Mary, Queen of Scots, and later the young James VI – and yet was also a prominent resistance theorist. Buchanan was born in the Highlands and a native Scots Gaelic speaker; he was educated at the University of Paris from 1520 and St  Andrews from 1525. He was deeply influenced by the humanist turn of Renaissance learning and espoused similar reformist views to Erasmus; he did not publicly align with the Protestants until as late at the mid-1560s, though he had aligned with Erasmus on the issue of the need for internal Church reform; furthermore, he may have adopted truly Calvinist ideas as early as the 1550s during his exile in France. Certainly by the 1560s, his resistance theory resembled that of Goodman and Knox. His most influential work was perhaps De Jure Regni apud Scotos (1579), which argued that it was lawful to resist tyrannical rule. John Calvin (1509–1564): Calvin was the leading Protestant reformer of the “Second Generation”, noted particularly for devising a complete system of ecclesiology – or Church governance – for Protestants and his theory

Who’s Who xv of “double predestination”. Calvin was a Frenchman whose most important work was undertaken in the Swiss city of Geneva, where he put into practice his “Presbyterian” Church system – and to which many exiled English and Scottish reformers fled during the 1550s. His Institutes of the Christian Religion (first edition, 1536) offered an important manual for the Scottish Kirk and English puritans, and the work of his Genevan compatriots on their English translation of the Bible was crucial to Protestant culture in the British Isles [document 15]. On his death, he was succeeded by Theodore Beza as the lead minister in Geneva, who maintained correspondence with a range of figures in England and Scotland. William Cecil (1529–1598): Elizabeth I’s chief minister, Cecil began his political career in the employ of Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector (or regent) between 1547 and 1549, before switching allegiance to John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. As such, he was heavily associated with the Protestant faction; nevertheless, during the reign of Mary I he conformed with Catholicism. His work for Northumberland on maintaining Princess Elizabeth’s estates made him a natural choice as an adviser for the new queen from 1559 – and he remained a key figure at court until his death. He was critical in co-ordinating the Elizabethan Church S­ ettlement and increasingly pursued anti-Catholic policies as the reign wore on. John Colet (1467–1519): An English clergyman and humanist, Colet is an excellent example of a pre-Reformation reformer – a man who recognised that the Church required some improvements and that the centrality of scripture to Christian faith should be reaffirmed but who also fervently believed that this could be achieved within the Church itself. A friend of Erasmus, Colet’s career is an important answer to the traditional accusation that English Catholicism was blind to the challenges of the sixteenth ­century – most obviously evidenced by his convocation sermon of 1512 [document 1] – and that the Reformation was somehow inevitable. Similarly, Colet’s arguments are evidence enough that all was not well in the English Church, which though popular was also subject to significant and widespread criticism. Colet is in this sense the quintessential pre-Reformation English clergyman and a writer whose works are worth attention. Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556): A  key figure of the early Reformation in England, Cranmer had long been a supporter of Erasmus but seemed to switch towards Lutheranism from the late 1520s onwards. He was a crucial early defender of the concept of royal supremacy. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Henry VIII in 1533 with the backing of the Boleyns, he succeeded the staunchly Catholic William Wareham and immediately began to address the matter of the king’s divorce. Nevertheless, Cranmer was a relative moderate, often disappointing both hardline reformers such as Hugh Latimer and more conservative figures such as Stephen Gardiner. This careful approach ensured he persisted through

xvi  Who’s Who both the orthodox turn of the 1530s and the more radical period under Edward VI, focusing in particular on pastoral matters and on shaping the English Church’s liturgy – both of which helped embed Protestantism within the English congregation. He was condemned to death by the Marian regime in 1556; having signed recantations of his Protestantism prior to the day of his execution, he reaffirmed his faith at the stake. Thomas Cromwell (1485–1540): Among the most remarkable of Henry VIII’s various ministers, Cromwell reached the highest office from relatively modest social origins. A  lawyer by background and seemingly a Lutheran in religion, his administrative energy and political skills were crucial to the institutional successes of the English Reformation. From negotiating the king’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon to overseeing the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Cromwell was a centralising influence throughout his period in service to Henry; at the same time, Cromwell was key to the publication of the Great Bible, the first authorised English translation of the Latin Vulgate. Partly due to the enmity of the religiously conservative faction at court and partly due to the failure of Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves – which Cromwell had arranged – he fell from favour in June 1540 and was executed in July. Thomas Darling (c. 1583–?): Thomas Darling was born in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, around 1583. He would later become a Puritan, convicted in 1603 of libel against the orthodox Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford. He was perhaps most notorious, however, for his involvement in the trial of the unauthorised and godly exorcist John Darrell. Darling himself claimed to have been possessed by demons in 1596 and to have been released by Darrell’s efforts. That the authorities paid such attention to a case such as Darling’s is evidence that ordinary people could accrue considerable religious and spiritual authority to themselves and that the consequences of Reformed theology were very hard to control. Richard Davies (1505–1581): Born in north Wales, though educated in Oxford, Davies proved to be one of the most important Welsh churchmen of the Elizabethan era. An exile at Geneva during the reign of Mary I, Davies returned to Wales almost immediately upon his return to England on the accession of Elizabeth. He was first made bishop of St Asaph in 1560, before being translated to the bishopric of St Davids in the southwest in 1561. A friend of Archbishop Parker and trusted as an adviser by Lord Burleigh and others, Davies oversaw a renewed energy for reform in Wales. By 1567, a Welsh translation of the New Testament, which he was instrumental in producing alongside the leading scholar  – and the edition’s primary translator – William Salesbury (1520–1584), was placed in every parish in Wales. The translation opened with a direct appeal to the Welsh people, going so far as to argue that Protestantism was a renewal of the ancient, purer Christianity of the ancient Britons whose heirs the early modern Welsh believed themselves to be. He also worked

Who’s Who xvii on English translations, contributing to the 1568 authorised translation of the Bible – evidence enough of the strong links between the principality and the English court at this time. Edward VI (1537–1553, r. 1547–1553): The son of Henry VIII and his third wife Jane Seymour, Edward VI acceded to the throne at the age of just 9, but he became a figurehead of the Protestant faction at court. He was educated by two committed reformers, John Cheke and Richard Cox, and his first regent was his uncle Edward Seymour – who had led the military conflict with Scotland known as the “Rough Wooing”, which had failed to force a marriage between Edward and Mary Stuart by military means. Despite the courtly intrigue which saw the regency constantly fought over, Edward’s reign saw significant religious and administrative achievements. Most historians agree that Edward was himself a convinced Protestant, and he was widely depicted by the evangelicals as a new Josiah, a zealous reformer from the Old Testament. His early death was a disaster for the evangelical party, which sought briefly to replace him with his cousin Lady Jane Grey; this effort lasted just nine days before the succession referred properly to Henry VIII’s oldest daughter Mary. Elizabeth I (1533–1603, r. 1559–1603): The youngest daughter of Henry VIII – her mother was his second wife, Anne Boleyn – Elizabeth I came to be the monarch who embedded the Protestant reformation in England. While her father had inaugurated the break with Rome and her brother had sought to introduce properly Reformed theology, it was Elizabeth whose long reign offered the stability necessary to establish a sustainable and long-term religious settlement. Made possible by the early death of her elder half-sister Mary, Elizabeth’s reign immediately re-established the Protestant Church of England and – in a mirror image of Mary’s more notorious regime – was no alien to the persecution of Catholics (increasingly so over time). Nevertheless, her caution and moderation ensured the beginnings of the so-called “via media”, a vision of “Anglicanism” which argues for a “middle way” between Reformed Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. Certainly her later reign was characterised by increasing anti-puritanism and further reform was clearly unlikely from the mid-1570s onwards. Stability – not doctrinal purity – was ultimately the goal of a queen who came to distrust “Calvinism”, for all her regime’s commitment to its Protestant Church. Desiderus Erasmus (1466–1536): A Dutch humanist who had many criticisms of the Catholic Church – but who never broke with it, preferring to advocate reform from within, despite expressing much respect and even admiration for Luther – Erasmus was one of the most fascinating figures of the early Reformation period. He maintained correspondence with almost every figure of significance in the Europe of his lifetime, including Sir Thomas More in England, the Lord Chancellor of England whose staunch Catholicism saw him unable to support the royal supremacy and

xviii  Who’s Who would see him executed by the Henrician regime in 1535. Nevertheless, Erasmus’s focus particularly on improving the quality of translation had a huge impact on the Protestant approach to reading the Bible, and his espousal of the cause of internal reform lent widespread force to criticism of the Church. His opposition to changes in doctrine, on which he often placed equal emphasis upon as on scripture, was the key disagreement he had with the Protestant reformers, who for their part privileged scripture, but nor did Catholics consider him a reliable ally. In this way, Erasmus became a figure torn between the increasingly polarised spirit of his age. John Foxe (c.1516–1587): Author of the Actes and Monuments [document 19], John Foxe did more than perhaps any other Protestant polemicist to forge a godly identity in the early years of the reign of Elizabeth I, and his influence stretched across both England and Scotland as well as further afield still. Describing the deaths of Protestant martyrs from Patrick Hamilton to Hugh Latimer and including famous bishops as well as the cases of otherwise unknown women and even children, Foxe’s text was luridly illustrated in a way that emphasised the supposed viciousness of Catholic persecution. His focus on the reign of Mary I in particular sought to delegitimise Catholicism, and his adoption of the Lollards of the fourteenth century as proto-Protestants helped create a history for the new faith which lent it further authority. Another of the divines from England and Scotland involved in the “Troubles at Frankfurt” (where he supported Knox and the more radical Genevan party), the experience of exile deeply affected Foxe, and his furious denunciations of Roman Catholicism proved unusually influential on generations of British Protestants and seriously damaging to their many Catholic contemporaries. Stephen Gardiner (1483–1555): An English cleric who would serve as Lord Chancellor to Mary I, Gardiner came to prominence during the Henrician Reformation as a leader of the orthodox party – that element of the Church of England which had a preference for remaining linked with Rome. Gardiner worked unsuccessfully with Wolsey in attempts to secure papal approval for the king’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon; when those around Henry such as Cromwell adopted more radical methods he opposed them. Despite his doctrinal opposition to Protestantism, Gardiner was able to find theologically orthodox reasons to justify the royal supremacy and had some success during the late 1530s in turning the English Church in a more conservative direction. Gardiner was thus sidelined under the evangelical regime of Edward VI, but under Mary I he reconciled with Rome and achieved high office, sitting in judgement on many Protestant clergy (though the burning of unrepentant ones were the purview of the secular authorities). Gardiner is an example of the persistence of orthodox religion in England through the early years of the reformation, and his example and thought would inspire others in later decades.

Who’s Who xix Christopher Goodman (1520–1603): An English clergyman who maintained a deep and abiding connection to Scotland and to John Knox, Christopher Goodman was especially influential in his expression of resistance theory and adapted the idea that it could be justifiable to oppose a “tyrant” specifically for the godly cause. A Marian exile who during the “Troubles at Frankfurt” took the Genevan side, Goodman was selected by the congregation at Geneva as their minister, alongside his friend Knox. Both men would publish excoriating attacks on Mary I, in Goodman’s case as part of his How Superior Powers Ought to be Obeyed of Their Subjects [document 12]; both men would back-pedal somewhat when a Protestant queen came to the throne of England. Though he returned to England, the Elizabethan Church offered little room for a man of his “Calvinist” leanings, and by the mid-1580s he was without office and living in retirement in Cheshire. Goodman’s experience was similar to many of the “hotter form of Protestant” during the 1570s and 1580s, although it does seem he was particularly distrusted for his connections to Knox and Geneva. Edmund Grindal (1519–1583): Born in relatively humble circumstances in Cumberland, Grindal would rise to the highest ecclesiastical office in England despite espousing rather more theologically innovative views than the queen under whom he served, Elizabeth I. An exile during the reign of Mary I, Grindal had been an actor in the so-called “Troubles at Frankfurt”, where he acted as a mediator between those who supported the 1552 English Prayer Book and those – including John Knox at Geneva – who insisted on further liturgical reform. This attempt to hold together the various “hotter sorts of Protestant” characterises Grindal’s Elizabethan career, which saw him play an influential role from 1559 onwards. Ultimately, however, even he proved too radical for the Elizabethan regime, and he was suspended from office, from 1577 until just before his death, for refusing to condemn “prophesyings” – that is, meetings of puritans for the purposes of training preachers. His fall from favour marked a shift in the character of late Elizabethan religious policy. Patrick Hamilton (1504–1528): A Scottish cleric and one of the kingdom’s earliest Protestant reformers, Patrick Hamilton is best remembered for Patrick’s Places, a significant work of theology which sought to introduce Lutheran thought into the Scottish context [document 4]. So important was Hamilton’s work seen to be that John Foxe would later include this text in his Actes and Monuments (first edition, 1563). Crucially, Hamilton had links with reformers across, having studied in Leuven and Paris, returning to Scotland to teach at St Andrews. His writings and preaching came to the attention of the authorities, however, who demanded he recant any belief in the teaching of Luther. He refused, and Hamilton’s trial and execution in 1528 became a rallying point for Scottish Protestants in the years to come.

xx  Who’s Who Samuel Harsnett (1561–1631): The son of a baker, Samuel Harsnett rose to become a conservative Archbishop of York via service under the antipuritan Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Bancroft. Harsnett’s conservatism was by no means orthodox: in the mid-1580s, he was disciplined by the then incumbent at Lambeth Palace, John Whitgift, for preaching against the Reformed doctrine of predestination. By 1597, however, he was chaplain to Bancroft while the latter was Bishop of London. At this time, Harsnett was particularly prominent in the persecution and trial of the unlicensed exorcist John Darrell [document 28]. His rise was part of a reactionary turn in late Elizabethan religion, where puritanism came to be seen by some not as part of the Church but a threat to it, which would accelerate in the late 1620s (Harsnett was appointed to York in 1629). Henry VIII (1491–1547, r. 1509–1547): The son of Henry VII, who had acceded to the throne by virtue of his defeat in battle of a king Tudor propaganda would come successfully to paint as a tyrant, Henry VIII was a monarch especially aware of his own authority. From the centralising policies of his government to the careful public image crafted for him by Hans Holbein and other court painters, the establishment of a stable state and dynasty was central to Henry’s vision of kingly action. His need to divorce Catherine of Aragon, whom he believed to be unable to give birth to the son he thought was necessary to achieve this aim, is often cited as the trigger event for the English reformation, but Henry himself was relatively conservative in religion: in 1521 he had condemned Luther in print and been named Defender of the Faith by the Pope. Attracted to Protestantism’s approach to princely authority, Henry’s religious policy would proceed in fits and starts – but it sat alongside a cultural and spiritual movement and had a life independent of “King’s Great Matter”. Richard Hooker (1554–1600): Perhaps the most influential of all English theologians, Richard Hooker more than any other single individual helped codify the shape and doctrine of the English Church. He has been claimed as the progenitor of the so-called “via media” – the “Anglican” middle way between Protestantism and Catholicism – but he was a man of his time, as embedded in Reformed theology as any other. His most significant work, the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, offered a specifically English ecclesiology, was nevertheless a critique of puritan excess and a defence of the Book of Common Prayer. In this, his work was part of the consolidation of the religious settlement that took place during the late Elizabethan period and the turn against the godly. More importantly, however, it was the first attempt to define and describe the Church of England in a systematic way. Future generations of Anglicans would turn to it as a foundational text. John Hooper (1495–1555): An English bishop of an avowedly Reformed persuasion, Hooper became Bishop of Gloucester in 1552 during the reign of

Who’s Who xxi Edward VI. His early life is somewhat unclear, but his first encounters with Reformed theology seem to have had a profound effect on him. He spent some time in exile in Protestant enclaves, such as Strasbourg and Zürich, but returned to England in 1549, where he was instrumental in helping establish the networks of Stranger Churches led by his friend Jan Łaski. In 1550, he entered prolonged dispute with the Church authorities when he refused to wear the required vestments as part of his appointment to the see of Gloucester. Men whose support he might have expected to attract, such as Bucer and Cranmer, urged caution – a good example of the moderation that many see as central to the development of the Protestant Church in England – and he eventually agreed to wear investiture gowns. Hooper was an unusual bishop in that he was ambivalent about the role of the episcopacy in Church governance, but his hopes to shape the Church of England from within were frustrated by the early death of Edward VI and accession of the Catholic Mary I. He was condemned as a heretic by Gardiner and, refusing to recant his Protestantism, was burned at the stake in February 1556. The vestments controversy he had inaugurated, however, would stretch long into the reign of Queen Elizabeth and offer an example of non-conformism for future generations of the godly. James V (1512–1542, r. 1513–1542): James ascended to the throne following the death of his father, James IV, at the Battle of Flodden against the English. He was just one year old; in turn, his father had acceded at only 15, and his daughter, Mary, would succeed her father aged just six days. James was thus a king of Scotland during an age of unusual political instability, and the religious shifts of the period did not improve matters. Educated by the Renaissance scholar and anticlerical playwright David Lyndsay, James’s regents were dismissed when he was just 12, in 1524. Nevertheless, he remained a tool of adults – first his mother and then the Earl of Angus – until 1528, when he asserted his independence at almost the same time Henry VIII was, south of the border, breaking with Rome. Though in many ways his Scotland was relatively permissive, James certainly adopted some anti-Protestant policies, burning as heretics a small number of Lutherans  – including Patrick Hamilton  – and promoting committed Catholics such as Cardinal Beaton. This and other factors led to open conflict with England late in James’ reign, and he fell ill shortly after defeat at the Battle of Solway Moss in 1542; he left a complex situation to the figures who would serve as regents for his infant daughter. James VI (1566–1625, r. 1567–1625): Also James I of England from 1603, James Stuart was the third successive Scottish monarch to accede to the throne as an infant. Named king after his father was murdered – and his mother, having unwisely remarried within weeks, was forced to abdicate – James reputedly remained suspicious and jealous of his royal authority throughout his life. Educated by George Buchanan and other principals of the Scottish reformation, however, he was unlike his mother, a Protestant – albeit one who believed in the important ecclesiological role of bishops.

xxii  Who’s Who James’s theory of the divine right of kings was his answer to the resistance theory espoused by Buchanan and others, and with the so-called “Black Acts” of 1583 – passed just four years after he had reached majority – he ensured that royal authority within the religious settlement of Scotland became a matter of law. A believer in and persecutor of witchcraft, and survivor of several attempts on his life, James eventually acceded to the English throne in 1603 by dint of his Tudor great-great-grandmother; he would take his religious thought to London, where the godly had great hopes that would, especially by his son Charles I, ultimately be dashed. John Knox (1514–1572): The principal theologian of the Scottish Reformation, Knox was an unusually fiery and persuasive preacher and apparently tireless in his pursuit of a fully Reformed Kirk. His early years are obscure, but he moved in the Protestant circles of George Wishart and is known to have been present when Wishart was arrested for heresy. He seems to have only narrowly avoided the same fate and spent much of the next decade or so in various exiles – first besieged with his fellow religionists at St Andrews Castle, then confined on French galleys, then in Edward VI’s England, and finally in Geneva, where he learned directly from the ecclesiological example of John Calvin. He returned to Scotland in 1559, where he was crucial in first the rebellion and then the reformation which swept the kingdom in the years immediately prior to Mary, Queen of Scots return from France. His vicious denunciations of Catholic monarchs helped build stiff Reformed resistance to “tyranny” [document 14], and his ideas remained an important and indefatigable influence on the evolving, and increasingly Reformed, Kirk liturgy – and indeed on the thinking of English puritans – right through to his death. Jan Łaski (1499–1560): A Polish reformer who had served in Basel alongside Huldrych Zwingli, Łaski is also known to English posterity as John à Lasco for his work at the “Stranger Churches” in London during the reign of Edward VI. These were independent churches established for foreign nationals and permitted to follow their own, often more radical, ecclesiology. From this position Łaski had particular influence on the nascent Anglican liturgy, emphasising how connected to wider theological trends the English reformation really was. He left England on the accession of Mary I and ended his career leading the Calvinists of Poland, where under Sigismund II significant space was given to Protestantism despite the king’s own Catholicism. He remained a correspondent of several figures in England, including John Hooper. Hugh Latimer (c. 1487–1555): Latimer was one of the leading reformers of the early English reformation, yet he began his career as a staunch Catholic. He seems first to have been convinced by the need for an English translation of the Bible – this at a time, in the 1520s, when Tyndale’s was the only (albeit incomplete) translation available and was widely distrusted by the authorities for its political as well as its religious radicalism. By 1530,

Who’s Who xxiii he was preaching reform at Cambridge and was made Bishop of Worcester in 1535. By 1539, his theology had become sufficiently reformist that he refused to subscribe to the conservative Six Articles and was stripped of his office and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He never again held high office, though he acted as a tutor to children of devoutly Protestant noble families, including the Duke of Suffolk’s. Entirely unrepentant, he was burned at the stake alongside Thomas Cranmer and Nicholas Ridley in 1555 as one of the so-called “Oxford Martyrs”. Latimer’s career is a fascinating study in the journey of the English Reformation from orthodox Catholicism to fiercely held Protestantism. Martin Luther (1483–1546): A reluctant revolutionary, Luther was a fierce believer in the tenets of the theology that bears his name but rarely seemed comfortable with the positions to which those beliefs pushed him. His famed Ninety-Five Theses were never meant to inaugurate a schism with the Church [document 2]; the radical excesses of the Peasants’ War left him desperate to create distance between his theology and its consequences, and the “Second Generation” of Reformers seemed to leave him behind. Arguably it was his disciple Melancthon who did most to systematise Luther’s thought; his virulent antisemitism poses serious problems for his contemporary readers; and by the end of his life he was no longer at the centre of the Reformation he had set in motion. In England and Scotland, for example, his initial influence on figures such as Hamilton and Tyndale was soon eclipsed by Calvin’s. Nevertheless, he was the instigating figure of a process which transformed first Europe and then the world, and in his productive struggles with the theology of Austine lay the tension between sin and salvation which has arguably powered Protestant Christianity ever since. David Lyndsay (1490–1555): Primarily remembered today as a poet and playwright, Lyndsay was a messenger and diplomat at the court of James IV as well as a tutor to his son James V throughout his minority. His work gives no sense that he adopted Protestantism but is nevertheless full of the anticlericalism which characterised much medieval culture and which was often tolerated not as heresy but satire [document 9]. In other words, Lyndsay is a good example of an orthodox thinker who was nevertheless capable of criticising the Catholic Church of Scotland and indeed of further afield. He has been seen as the first Scottish exponent of Renaissance thought, and indeed he wrote in the vernacular as well as Latin. He was a central figure in the culture of Scotland at a time of significant transition. Mary I (1516–1558, r. 1553–1558): The eldest daughter of Henry VIII, Mary, never renounced the Catholic faith of her mother Catherine of Aragon. Declared illegitimate by Henry in 1533, she was largely absent from court throughout the period of the “Henrician” reformation, and her adherence to Catholicism as part of her mother’s retinue was tolerated though she was forced publicly to accept royal supremacy and the

xxiv  Who’s Who break with Rome. She was restored to the line of succession in 1544 but remained confined to her estates through the reign of her younger brother Edward VI. On his death, Mary received much public support when the Edwardian regime sought to secure Protestantism by installing Lady Jane Grey as Queen; Mary’s success in defeating this effort demonstrates that her Catholicism was no barrier to her acceptance by her subjects. Surrounding herself with loyal and orthodox ministers such as Gardiner and Pole, Mary set about re-establishing Catholicism as the undisputed faith of England. Much has been written of “blood Mary” – not least by John Foxe, whose propaganda in his Book of Martyrs did much to colour her memory – but some have defended the Marian regime both for its re-establishment of connections with Europe  – via Mary’s marriage to Philip II of Spain and her intense dialogue with the Council of Trent – and for its administrative success. Nevertheless, in just five years the Marian regime burned nearly 300 Protestants at the stake; by contrast, Elizabeth executed around 200 Catholics across the forty years of her own reign. There is nothing to suggest, however, that anything but Mary’s early, heirless death would have prevented the re-establishment of Catholicism in England – even by the 1550s, the English Reformation could not be said to be a permanent revolution. Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587, r. 1542–1567): Ascending to the throne of Scotland at just six days old, Mary’s unhappy reign of Scotland coincided  with  – or helped inaugurate  – an unusually fractious period of Scottish politics. A  target first of England and then of French marriage proposals, despite Henry VIII’s “rough wooing” on behalf of his son Edward, she was eventually married to Francis II of France, and she spent 1548 to 1560 at the French court, far away from the intrigue of her regents. Returning to Scotland following the death of her husband, Mary retained her Catholicism and refused to confirm the Acts of the Reformation Parliament, though, crucially, she also declined to condemn them. An uneasy truce between the Queen and her Protestant Church was called, though Knox and others never reconciled to living under a Catholic monarch. Marriage continued to be the source of Mary’s problems, however: her marriage first to the Catholic Lord Darnley, with whom she had a son – the future James VI – and then, even more so, the Earl of Bothwell. This hardened opposition to her reign and she was forced to abdicate, eventually seeking refuge in England. There she became a fulcrum for the rising English anti-papist sentiment and suspicion of the period, and after years of imprisonment she was executed in 1587 for her alleged involvement in a plot against Queen Elizabeth. Mary of Guise (1515–1560): Wife of James V and regent for her daughter, Mary of Guise was a powerful player in Scottish politics throughout the 1540s and 1550s. Her relationship to the most prominent of the Catholic parties to the French Wars of Religion did not render her popular

Who’s Who xxv among the increasing numbers of Protestants in Scotland, and her close connections and intense interest in French politics also made her a destabilising figure from the English perspective. She succeeded the Earl of Arran as her daughter’s regent in 1554 and proved an effective administrator. She was careful not to offend Protestant opinion and critically allowed the number of Protestants in Scotland to grow throughout her regency. Nevertheless, when a group of Scottish noblemen coalesced as the “Lords of the Congregation”, they were soon joined by Arran himself, in a fusion of court intrigue and religious identity. Military conflict followed. Ultimately, Mary was not able to maintain Scottish unity in the face of confessional strife; she died at Edinburgh in June 1560; the Treaty of Edinburgh, making peace between England and Scotland and forcing the withdrawal of Mary’s French troops, followed in short order. Mary’s daughter returned to Edinburgh as Queen a few months later. Andrew Melville (1545–1622): The pre-eminent figure in Scottish Presbyterian circles following the death of John Knox, Melville was an opponent of bishops and even of the crown, disputing the “Black Acts” of 1584, which enforced in law the mixed model of the Scottish religious settlement. Having served as a professor at Geneva, Melville returned to Scotland in the mid-1570s and immediately assumed a position of leadership within the Kirk. His influence had much to do the with the continuing advancements in Church governance along Reformed lines during this period, but his anti-episcopal views brought him into regular conflict with James VI – at one point, he was removed as rector of St Andrews University on the king’s orders. In 1606 after James had been crowned king of England, Melville travelled to London and expressed shock, in a letter that found its way to king, at the ceremony still present in the English Church; he spent several years in an English prison before living out his last years as a professor of theology in France. In the contest between Melville and James, we can see the fragility of Scotland’s compromise ecclesiology, the tensions brought about by the union of the crowns in 1603, and the increasing conservatism of James’s own religious policy at the dawn of the seventeenth century. The reformations rolled on long past 1603. Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500–1558): An important figure of the Catholic Reformation, Pole was present at the Council of Trent and a key ally of Mary I in her attempt to reintroduce Catholicism in England. He is one of the many excellent examples of how events in the British Isles were intimately connected to ones in the rest of Europe. Educated at Padua – alongside Peter Martyr Vermigli, who would adopt a role on the opposite side of the Reformation to his classmate and act as a central figure in the regime Pole’s would replace – Pole turned down preferment in the English Church on his return to England, as obtaining office was dependent on supporting Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon. He remained

xxvi  Who’s Who in England until the mid-1530s but left again for Padua and did not return until Edward VI’s death in 1553. He was made a cardinal in 1536, was appointed to preside over the Council of Trent in 1542 (alongside two other papal legates), and was almost elected Pope in 1549. Mary I’s accession to the English throne offered him, as her new Archbishop of Canterbury, the chance to bring his native England back into the Catholic fold, and he was energetic in pursuing this revanchist policy; but in one of history’s great coincidences they both died on the same day in 1558, before their dream of reunion with Rome could be cemented. Pole favoured a reformed Catholicism capable of persuading Protestants to return to the fold  – he was even recalled to Rome in 1555 for heresy by the more conservative Pope Paul IV. His influence on the course of Roman Catholicism – included in the British Isles – via the Council of Trent long outlived him. Edward Seymour (1500–1552): Edward Seymour rose to prominence at court when his sister Jane became the third wife of Henry VIII in 1536, at which time he was made Viscount Beauchamp, in honour of the Seymour family estate at Hatch Beauchamp in Somerset. Though his sister died the next year shortly after giving birth to Henry’s first and only son, Edward continued to be granted a range of other military titles, and in 1544 he led the English military campaign against the Scots that became known as the “Rough Wooing”, during which he appealed to a shared Britishness in an attempt to propagandise against the Edinburgh government of the Earl of Arran [document 8]. On Henry’s death, some skilful manoeuvring saw Seymour made Lord Protector, effectively regent for the young king. The Edwardian regime embarked on a bold programme of further religious reform. The 1549 Prayer Book Rebellion did not discourage Seymour in this pursuit of further Protestantisation, but social unrest across England  – including Kett’s rebellion in Norfolk, over abuses by local landlords – hardened opinion at court against him. He was replaced by the Earl of Warwick in 1550 and executed for conspiring against the new regent in 1552; nevertheless, and perhaps tellingly, the evangelical moment did not pass. William Tyndale (1494–1536): A prominent figure of the early English reformation, Tyndale offers an insight into the radicalism of even this phase of England’s Protestantism [document 3]. Despite his apparent approval of the notion of royal supremacy, Tyndale’s theology proved too advanced for the tastes of the Henrician court, and yet his translations and other works were sufficiently popular to justify publication and multiple editions. Particularly through his friend Miles Coverdale, Tyndale’s rendering into English of the New Testament was especially influential and remained the favoured translation of the faithful until the publication of the Geneva Bible decades later – and continued to have lasting influence on all subsequent translations, including the King James Bible of 1604.

Who’s Who xxvii His religious thought was distinctive  – though influenced by Luther, it was also strongly inflected by the earlier English tradition of Lollardy, and in his suspicion of bishops he arguably presaged Calvin. In exile for the last decade of his life, Tyndale was executed for heresy in Antwerp in 1535. Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499–1562): One of the key voices of the Edwardian era, Peter Martyr Vermigli served as Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford from 1548 until 1553. As an Italian, Vermigli served as a Catholic priest from 1525 and slowly developed unorthodox views which in turn gradually led him towards Protestantism. Nevertheless, his break with the Church was forced on him by authorities in Lucca in 1542, where he was minister; he was openly declaring his Protestantism in Zürich by August of that year. He later moved to teach at Strasbourg, where he met Bucer. Invited to England by Cranmer in 1549, Vermigli’s Reformed theology was a formative influence both on the formerly Lutheran Cranmer and on the Church of England’s approach to the eucharist – a key issue of dispute within England at that time. His was a role widely acknowledged even at the time: during the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549, rioters in Oxford threatened Vermigli with death. He had direct input on the further reform of the Prayer Book in 1552 and was involved in the vestments controversy of 1550  – during which he significantly counselled obedience to Church authorities. He fled England upon Mary I’s accession to the throne and returned to Switzerland, where he died of fever in 1562. John Whitgift (1530–1604): Elizabeth I’s last Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift was appointed to Lambeth in 1583, succeeding Edmund Grindal – who had proved more sympathetic to the puritans than was comfortable for Queen Elizabeth. He was in this respect a good choice: he was the most anti-puritan of the Protestant archbishops to date and upon his appointment immediately insisted that all ministers subscribe to the Three Articles, which essentially enforced conformity with all Church liturgy and doctrine. This insistence on orthodoxy in part inspired the Marprelate Tracts, which were fiercely – and for many shockingly – antiepiscopal. On the contrary, Whitgift was a staunch defender of Calvinist predestination and was not interested in rolling back any prior reform. His primary interest seemed to be in ensuring the unity of the Church and discouraging puritan separatists. In this he was emblematic of a wider turn in late Elizabethan religious policy. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1473–1530): A loyal servant of both Rome and Westminster, Thomas Wolsey sought to ensure that Henry VIII could achieve his aims while remaining aligned with Rome. In this he failed, which, given his skills and influence, is as sure a sign as is available that King Henry demanded the impossible. Of extremely modest origins,

xxviii  Who’s Who Wolsey rose to be the pre-eminent churchman in England – as Cardinal, to which post he was appointed by Pope Leo X in 1515, rather than as Archbishop of York, to which post he had been named the year before and which in theory made him secondary to William Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury. As Lord Chancellor, he also exercised considerable and additional secular power. All of this was reliant, of course, on the king’s favour, which he lost in his inability to achieve a papal annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Wolsey seems never to have considered a break with Rome, though he had attempted some modest institutional reform in the teeth of opposition from Warham. Ultimately, his allegiance to his Catholic faith limited his room for manoeuvre, and he was accused of treason in 1530; he died while travelling to London to answer the charges. Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531): Zürich’s answer to Calvin, Zwingli’s Reformed theology was distinctive and often controversial. Much like Luther, he began to preach about the need for Catholic reform in the years just prior to 1520, proceeding over the next decade or so to introduce new liturgies to Zürich and develop rather different views of, for instance, the eucharist and the role of music in worship than Luther or Calvin. He died in battle in 1531, fighting against the Catholic cantons of Switzerland, a defeat which ultimately forced the end of any formal alliance between the various Protestant enclaves (though not their conversion back to Catholicism). The impact of Zwingli on the British reformations both directly and through his successor and disciple Heinrich Bullinger is often plain to see: he was an influence on George Wishart and Bullinger; a correspondent of John Hooper and his wife Anne; Zürich was a principal destination of many of the British exiles from the 1520s onwards; and even by the late Elizabethan period, Whitgift was known to recommend the reading of Bullinger. In this sense, we should look not just to Calvin for the source of Reformed thought in the British reformations but to Zwingli, Bullinger, and Zürich, too.

Introduction

“A Godly and Most Friendly Concord” In 1548, Edward Seymour, regent of the newly crowned King Edward VI of England, wrote to the people of Scotland. In his Epistle or Exhortation to Unity and Peace, Seymour wrote that the kingdoms should enter a voluntary union, creating a new state of equal partners that he called – reviving a concept from Classical precedent – “Great Britain” [document 8]. For Seymour, the binding agent of this unlikely new union would be shared religious fervour: both England and Scotland were innovating in the arenas of liturgy and doctrine, faith and spirituality, and this could form the basis of a new fraternity. Protestantism, Seymour argued, would bring England and Scotland together as never before. The two kingdoms should “by a godly Sacrament, make a Godly, perpetual, and most friendly unity and concord”; there was no need for the two kingdoms’ reformations to proceed in isolation. Seymour wrote for political purpose and not without a small element of the “or else” threat. This shouldn’t blind us, though, to the significance of his arguments. The English and Scottish reformations have too often been studied apart from each other and from the wider European movement of which they were part – as if they were all isolated faraway events of which either party knew nothing. This approach can lead to an insufficient understanding of the ways in which the “Reformation” was in truth an international, multi-faceted process that encompassed not just varied kingdoms and jurisdictions but many different peoples, cultures, beliefs, and societies. It is a core contention of this book that the “British” reformations can only be properly understood in their broadest context and simultaneously, and by close attention to all their often complex and difficult detail. That is, a traditional narrative of Henrician politics in Westminster both misunderstands the English reformation as a short period of radical change and flies too far above the individual acts of piety and devotion that were the real stuff of religious reform. Likewise, a view of the Scottish reformation that does not acknowledge the ways in which it was in intense dialogue with matters south of the border – and vice versa – pretends that each reformation was DOI: 10.4324/9781003182283-1

2  Introduction distinct, whereas in fact the century of reformation was a shared European experience which affected every soul in Christendom (1, 2, 114: numbers in parentheses refer to the entries in the bibliography throughout). This short book will therefore take in politics, theology, and culture across both the English and Scottish kingdoms to arrive at as complete a vision of the “British” reformations both as historical event and intellectual process as is possible within an accessible number of pages. It will focus on the religious programme that came to be known as Protestantism, since this is the agenda which was new at the time, the disrupting influence so to speak, but it will also investigate how Catholicism – a vibrant and vigorous faith which commanded the loyalty and devotion of many believers throughout this period – responded and reacted to the intellectual ferment of the sixteenth century. The goal of this book, then, is to show readers what it means to study religion and the reformations in particular in historical context. Reformation historians have over decades and centuries developed a set of ideas, narratives, and tools which each generation utilises to further enhance our understanding of the period and its underpinning ideas. In order to achieve its aim, then, this book will introduce readers to the key historical figures, core religious ideas, and over-arching cultural, social, and intellectual trends that shaped both the course of events and our understanding of them. To do so, it will begin by sketching in its first chapter the familiar “political” narrative of the Reformation: the kings, queens, Acts of Parliament, and violent conflicts that took place through the sixteenth century. It will then, in its second and third chapters, take a more thematic approach, looking first at religious ideas  – their power and how they spread  – and then at popular culture and how that, too, was affected by and drove the process of reform. Despite the thematic separation, each chapter will build on the next, so it is worth reading the book in order. The aim is to arrive at a brief but comprehensive survey of the reformations in Britain, necessarily understood as a broadly based historical phenomenon. On which note, a word about the plural that appears in the title of this book and throughout its pages: “reformations”. Many generations of scholars grew used to referring to “the” Reformation  – singular, definite ­article, capital “R”, and all. This proceeded from the assumption that ­Martin Luther’s break with Rome happened the moment he nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral [document 2] and that all that followed from this moment was part of the same basic “event”. More recently, this has been an argument that has become more difficult to maintain. Instead, Luther’s work in Germany is seen as a crucial part of the story – but not its only element. Instead, throughout the sixteenth century, historians have seen multiple religious changes, each of which is related to the others but also different: the “Second Generation” of reformers in Switzerland are a good example of this but so, too, is the Catholic Reformation pursued by the Council of Trent and so indeed are the various national reformations we see across Europe, including those in the

Introduction 3 “British Isles”, where our focus will largely be on the Protestant thought that captured both kingdoms – but where Catholicism, too, persisted and underwent its own reforms. The experiences and outcomes of the English and Scottish reformations alone were so different politically, theologically, and in terms of church governance that it is possible even on this relatively narrow canvas to see the wider proliferation of the period at work: there were many reformations taking place – or being attempted – concurrently or sequentially, each with their own character and almost always contingent or in contest. In recent years, then, historians have come to characterise the reformations as a complex and long-lasting process characterised by compromise and conflict, continuity and change. The period this book covers – from 1520 to 1603 – is therefore deliberately broad and even cuts across other volumes in this series (1, 55) in order to achieve this breadth and clarity of vision. Indeed, it is crucially important that readers of this book make extensive use of its bibliography. The present volume is an introduction to the study of the reformations in “Britain”. It is neither an exhaustive narrative of its events nor a full investigation of its theologies; it isn’t a complete historiographical review and it is not the fullest possible account of the translation of doctrine to the “ordinary” believer. Instead, it attempts to encompass all these things to offer curious new students of the period and its processes a single introduction to the established wisdom and future direction of an area of historical study that requires us to be alive to political and intellectual, cultural and emotional, theological and social histories. It is the argument of this book that this understanding of “the Reformation” as an especially multifaceted historical process is essential to gaining a proper appreciation of its causes, progress, and consequences. Therefore, for any given element that is covered within its pages, there is a wealth of work available to deepen, nuance, and enhance the reader’s further understanding. I have been entirely reliant on this remarkable scholarly corpus in preparing this brief guide to the reformations in Britain. The bibliography is the place to find some routes into this historiography, and I  reference relevant works through using numbers in brackets. The documents section, meanwhile, provides an opportunity to engage with the varied primary material of the period. The documents have been selected to support and enrich the themes and episodes featured in the body of the book and cover literary, visual, legal, spiritual, and popular ideas and forms. Each extract includes a brief introduction which attempts to sketch the document’s context. The documents are also referred to throughout the book, and further details can be inferred about them in this way – as well, of course, by attending to the bibliography and reading more widely. Wherever possible, I cite for each document what I hope to be the most widely accessible scholarly edition of the source in question. Where no such edition exists, I’ve given references to the original publication; many of these can be found via the excellent digital archives that now exist, chief among which is Early English Books Online.

4  Introduction Finally, there is a chronology of events, which should help readers keep track of the contexts in which events took place – and, crucially, their order! – but also help situate the intellectual and cultural developments alongside the various dates of battles and queens and archbishops. Indeed, the “Cast of Characters” section should also help readers situate individuals within their times and offers thumbnail sketches of the most important, significant, or influential individuals of this time. This volume emphasises throughout that what we are studying here is a cross-cultural process which was affected and in turn was affected by many people whose names perhaps we do not know. But there are also many names which recur – and these are the individuals that this final section is intended to round up and keep in one place for a reader new to the period.

The “British” Dimension It is worth pausing to consider the matter of “Britain”. When Edward Seymour evoked the ancient, semi-mythical kingdom of “Britain” in his letter to the Scots, he was attempting to trade on a shared history that was widely acknowledged by chroniclers and contemporaries of the period. In this vision of history, “England” and “Scotland” were newer entities, political adventures grafted onto more ancient precedent. Whether a particular chronicler argued that the Roman Brutus founded “Britain” or whether the kingdom found its roots in the semi-mythical Arthurian past, there was a widespread sense of a shared past which was politicised in a range of ways. The English, for example, could employ the idea of “Britain” to justify its expansionary project. In contrast, the Celtic extremities of the “British Isles” – Scotland, Wales, Cornwall  – placed special emphasis on the preRoman, pre-Saxon history of the islands. These earlier periods were ones in which the English were not yet even a people, much less the archipelago’s supposedly dominant political force. In Wales, for example, “Britain” evoked a pre-English past to which many Welsh people still felt heirs – despite their slow colonisation by England. Parts of Wales had been under the control of English kings since the eleventh century, and the whole of Wales had been annexed by the English crown as a “principality” in 1284. As the rebellions of Owen Glyndwyr (1359–1415) and others demonstrate, however, a sense of separate “Britishness” continued to have power in Wales well beyond those dates. Indeed, Elizabethan Welsh Protestants would call on this allegiance to win support for their reforms, arguing their new faith better reflected the ancient “British” church (14). Early in our own period, and through a series of Acts of Parliament between 1536 and 1542, the Henrician regime finally unified Wales and England under a single law code, bringing the two closer together than ever – and the Protestant Church of England would hold sway, too, over Wales and its six dioceses.

Introduction 5 In his own use of “Britain”, Seymour was certainly in part reflecting the imperial pretensions of the term. “Britain” – especially in English usage – could be a sort of code for an elusive all-island hegemony of which not just people in Scotland and Wales but often even parts of England were deeply sceptical. As we shall see in subsequent chapters, a little over ten years before Seymour wrote his letter, the rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace had shown that the north of England could express its independence of thought with some muscle; in the far south-west, too, Westminster had become used to being regularly defied by the Cornish Stannery, a miners’ assembly that retained the power to veto English law. The central English authorities under first Henry VII and then Henry VIII had moved therefore to limit the liberties of the periphery. Following its support for a rising against the Henry VII in 1498, for example, most of Cornwall’s historic privileges as a semi-autonomous duchy had been revoked. As we shall see, Henry VIII inherited a much more supine nobility than had troubled the throne throughout the fifteenth century. This centralising project of England’s, then, should lead us to read and deploy the term “British” rather critically (19). Historians have increasingly used the phrase “Atlantic archipelago” to describe the islands in the North Atlantic to distance themselves from the baggage of “Britain” or “British”. There is also, inevitably, the air of the jargonistic about this phrase, however, and consequently this book will use “British Isles” to accessibly refer to the geographic contiguities where its events took place. Readers should bear in mind at all times, however, that Scottish, Welsh, Manx, and Irish perspectives will look rightly askance at uncritical use of the term “British” and that such scepticism can be helpfully employed to avoid any of the Anglocentrism that still haunts the feast of the Atlantic archipelago’s reformations. Remember, then, that, although for convenience and to conserve space this book will  – unless specifically discussing Wales or Cornwall  – refer to “England” to discuss everywhere south of Berwick-upon-Tweed; it is always worth remembering that each of the kingdom’s regions – whether “principality”, shire or village – was different. Policy in Westminster might well generally have been policy also across every county and diocese in the land, but as we’ll see it progressed at different rates in different regions. On the other hand, the idea of “Britain” was not merely cynically employed by centralising authorities or men like Seymour; there was some romantic enthusiasm for it. James VI of Scotland, who at the close of this volume’s period of study would be on the verge of succeeding Elizabeth I of England and uniting the British crowns, was an advocate for the idea of “Great Britain”. For him, it was a sort of ecumenical umbrella under which to gather both groups of his subjects. Similarly, at the start of our period some enthusiasm could be found in Wales for the idea of a commonality with England rooted in the “British” past. The Tudors’ own origins were Welsh, and two forebears of Henry VII had supported Owain Glyndŵr’s

6  Introduction fifteenth-century resistance to over-weening English power. Consequently, the Tudors opted to identify themselves with the mythical figures of both Cadwalladr and Arthur, each variously held by chroniclers to have been the last Kings of Britain; both Henry VIII and Elizabeth I featured the red Welsh dragon on their coats of arms. In so doing, the Tudor monarchs situated their own claim to the throne as reviving an earlier fraternal bond between the peoples of the islands. This approach was certainly on one level an element of Tudor statecraft and propaganda, but it was all the stronger for its basis in reality – the Tudors were indeed products of Wales, after all. It is notable that, from 1485, there were no armed risings in Wales until the civil wars of the mid-seventeenth century (during the reign of James I’s son, Charles). Throughout the Reformation period, in other words, the idea of “Britain” may have well helped secure the Protestantising mission in Wales, and Protestantism in turn helped ensure that Wales hued at least a little closer to England’s idea of “Britain” (83). One element of this “British” story is, alas, largely absent from this volume, and that is Ireland’s. The Reformation in Ireland  – its progress, its impacts and the Christian traditions on which it operated and to which it gave rise – was, for a variety of local and unusual reasons, so intricate, and so often at one remove from the stories of England and Scotland, that space alone seriously inhibits this book’s ability to do them justice. As Diarmaid MacCulloch has put it, “the contrast in religious outcome between England and the other Tudor kingdom of Ireland could hardly be greater” (105), and he cites ham-fisted Tudor power politics for the dire progress of religious and ecclesiastical events in “the other Tudor kingdom”. It is to be regretted that, in the tight confines of this introduction to the reformations in Britain, the unique and fascinating case of Ireland cannot be fully encompassed, but it is worth stressing that it is a vital and important story all of its own which indeed deserves not to be an adjunct to others. For these reasons, Ireland will remain beyond this book’s narrative – not because it is not an important element of the “British” story, but because it is one most properly seen, as one historian has put it, as “Irish history” (54). Readers are encouraged, then, to supplement this volume with the vital and necessary detail to be found in some of the excellent work already written on this topic and period, and also to acknowledge that much more is yet to be written on the interaction between England, Scotland, and Ireland, and indeed on the course of the Irish Reformation itself (53, 125, 77, 124, 176).

The Medieval Church and Luther’s Break With the “British Isles” thus heavily caveated, we should now turn to what we might mean by “reformations” within that context. First, note the plural: it is important to note not just that the reformations were not an event but a process; it is also critical to understand that to write of a singular Reformation is to miss the point of the great variety of that historical phenomenon.

Introduction 7 There was, of course, a Protestant Reformation, but there was also – as we shall see when we review the reign of Mary I in England – a Catholic one; there were also several phases of each, from the Jesuitical response to Protestantism’s evangelism to the Council of Trents’ ecclesiastical reforms, and from Martin Luther’s initial break with Rome to the capital-R Reformed theologies of the second generation of Swiss reformers led by Calvin and Zwingli. Likewise, there were magisterial reformations and a few led more by people; there were political and personal reformations, few in the halls of power and others in the pews of provincial churches; and there were different reformations in different kingdoms. The reformations in Britain were both part of this Europe-wide context and also very particular, unique expressions of it. It is, then, an important aspect of this book that it does not pretend the reformations in Britain were separate to those that took place elsewhere in Europe. Indeed, Chapter Two will open with a brief inspection of Martin Luther’s life and intellectual context. To establish the scene for what follows, however, we should briefly introduce here the broader context in which the English and Scottish experiences would play out. Readers, as at every other point in this volume, should also refer onwards to lengthier treatments of this inordinately broad topic (23, 105). You might expect, given the fact that the Reformation (that is, the replacement of the Catholic Church with a new, Reformed Protestant one) was just around the corner, that the Catholic Church would be struggling at the dawn of the early modern period. Yet, this was far from the case. The Catholic Church was actually booming and was more active and supported than ever. Indeed, Catholicism and Europe were both still very much centred on the spiritual, moral, and also political authority of the Pope, who led the Church from the Vatican in Rome and whose ecclesiastical and episcopal structures helped provide shape and reach not just to Catholicism but to a Europe-wide cultural identity. This was not merely a bureaucratic or worldly exercise: at the other end of the spectrum to the Pope and the cardinals, far down the social ladder, the laity – the people – had in the decades around 1500 become increasingly pious and increasingly passionate about their faith. This revived piety was reflected in a number of ways. The late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries were a period of great church building. Religious houses and cathedrals sprung up all over Europe. In parts of England, old parish churches were remodelled and updated. For this to be able to happen, of course, it required the money of the parishioners – in England, for example, this money came from the newly formed and developing trades, such as the woollen industry. People were happy to pour their earnings into their faith and to pay to keep their churches – and their Church – in good order. They were happy to do these because they believed that God responded to good deeds – that good deeds on the earth reflected piety and true faith and would thus be rewarded in heaven.

8  Introduction People had genuine faith in their church, and they wouldn’t have been willing to part with their money otherwise. Yet this situation did lead to a change in the laity’s expectations. More so than ever before, priests, through accepting the hard-earned money of their parishioners, were becoming dependent on them. Priests needed their parishioners and the confraternities to provide the money they had become accustomed to receiving. As the donations of the laity became even more important, so the laity itself became a crucial underpinning of Church stability and power. Seen from a very particular – and perhaps anachronistic but possibly instructive – perspective, the laity in effect became customers – and the priests provided a service. The more money people were willing to hand over, the more they expected in return. People were looking for their church, their priests in particular, to be accountable – to be available. Herein lay a bit of a problem. Priests were often not very accountable and sometimes not even especially well-educated. Indeed, there are stories of priests who were unable to read and unable to interpret scripture for their congregations; priests who were frequently drunk, priests who travelled and often disappeared; priests who were unavailable to baptise babies or anoint the sick. It is important to remember that each Catholic Church, in each different country, was different. England, for example, functioned very well and was often cited as an example of a good, well-ordered church. English priests were fairly well-educated (they could read, for one) and were welltrained. They were also tightly regulated by a team of bishops who were eager to avoid scandal and who believed in excellent moral conduct. Other countries were less lucky. The growing population of the Netherlands, for example, was served by a Catholic Church so medieval and outmoded that it provided the entire population with just four (increasingly rich) bishops. In France, meanwhile, many of the bishops were also princes, who governed land and estates as well as providing the infrastructure for the local churches. This began to seem unjust, and the centuries-old tradition of anticlericalism again achieved a prominence in the wider culture. For a variety of reasons, it was in Germany that these objections came to be especially pronounced and urgent. Indeed, in the opinion of many contemporaries, the German people were served by an outmoded and sluggish Church – which, whether a fair judgement or not, led to much local discontentment. One of the main problems faced by the various and numerous statelets that made up what we would now refer to as Germany (and was then known as the Holy Roman Empire) was that the clergy – its parish priests  – were often comparatively poorly educated. Many, contemporaries advised, did not know much about theology, and some could not even read the Bible effectively. They were also often poor men, which meant that they were even more dependent than most on the wealth produced by their pious parishioners. The bishops, meanwhile, were, in the context of the geographically and politically complex picture of the Holy Roman Empire, often great princes as well as church leaders, ruling over vast estates and

Introduction 9 benefiting from feudal models of serfdom. Diarmaid MacCulloch has noted the difficulties this could occasion: “the greatest likelihood for trouble came where a particular local history led to the Church authorities enjoying an unusual concentration of resources or privileges within such places, so they might justly be regarded as parasites within the body politic” (105). This was especially the situation in Germany. The princely bishops were often seen by contemporaries to be financially benefiting from their people twice over  – first from their contributions to the Church and second from the produce of the land. These particular churchmen were also exempt from certain taxes. For example, when most people brought their farming produce to be sold at market, they had to pay a tax to do so; the princely bishops were not subject to the same requirement. They also had rights in the opposite direction: most controversially, the princely bishops could collect taxes from their priests if the latter wanted to keep a wife. Officially, the teachings of the Catholic Church endorsed clerical celibacy; nevertheless, in some areas of Germany, up to sixty per cent of priests paid the wife tax. These sorts of arrangement often led to increased and sometimes widespread bad feeling or anticlerical resentment. In all of this, they were representatives of a system which was under considerable assault even by orthodox thinkers such as Desiderus Erasmus and set against a Europe-wide trend towards emphasising the role not of the churchman but the prince (7). The Churches of England and Scotland had a much better reputation. Indeed, the Papacy was no stranger to ideas of reform, and when it convened the Fifth Lateran Council in 1512 – in an attempt to codify and make uniform the piecemeal ecclesiastical reform which was taking place across Europe, most obviously in the diocesan reform of France – the English priests in particular hoped to be an example of good church governance. England in particular was by the standards of Europe at the time an unusually united polity, and its national Church was by the standards of the period rather well run – but even in England the “provinces” were admittedly often rather distant. Wales, for example, was often cited as being located at the very periphery of the Church of England’s writ: Welsh priests commonly lived with concubines, for example, and visitations by overseeing authorities were very rare. Despite these administrative issues, however, a waning of pious enthusiasm cannot be detected in the years approaching the Reformation. In Scotland, the main churches of Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Perth were each populated by thirty priests a piece, and services were held for up to twelve hours daily. Despite an issue of funding properly educated priests, as late as the 1550s St Andrews saw an effort aimed at improving the situation significantly. In other dioceses, such as Aberdeen, Catholics would survive well after the Reformation: in both England and Scotland, then, the so-called “medieval Church” was vital and integrated with Scottish life (126). Nevertheless, the very title of this volume indicates that something happened to upend this situation. This book is about what happened when the Protestant Reformation – that set of ideas that began in a German context

10  Introduction but came to affect the whole of Europe  – came to a set of islands in the North Sea. Before we reach that story, however, it will be necessary to consider how we should read it – what tools we need to understand the sources we’ll consult to build as full a picture as possible of period and also what analytical frames historians of successive generations have places in the material, with what success and to what effect.

A Brief Historiography of the Reformation Historians tell stories – hopefully ones based on evidence, of course, but stories all the same. Furthermore, each generation of historians tends to offer a slightly different narrative, and the sum total of historical writing about a subject – its trends and themes over time – is known as “historiography” (102). It is, of course, worth investigating the historiographical background of the reformations to make note of the works of historians who have made this period the subject of their historical endeavours and to consider how, over generations, reformation history has been interpreted and re-read. It would be easy, no less, to write an entire book about this historiographical background, but here, for the purpose of brevity, we’ll stick to broadbrushstroke considerations. The historiography of the reformations and the attempts to understand why they took place began shortly after their occurrence and tended to be divided along confessional lines. Both Catholic and Protestant authors competed with rival narratives of why a religious chasm had been able to tear apart religious unity across Europe, as well as in Britain. These earlier historians included men such as Thomas Fuller, Gilbert Burnet, Charles Dodd, and John Lingard. Some of their interpretations, especially those read through a Protestant lens, saw the reformations as part of a providential history, one in which the “true” religion would emerge as the living faith of the British people. Indeed, such arguments followed the conceptions of an early English Protestant we will meet later in this book, John Foxe, who was viewed as a founder of the Anglican Church in England; meanwhile, historians of the Scottish reformations focused keenly on the legacy of their own leading divine, John Knox, and on the novel – in Britain at least – structure of the Scottish Kirk. This ecclesiological focus reflected the concerns of the time in which the first historians of the reformations were writing: where in England John Foxe was a leading voice in writing the history of the period, in Scotland Protestants such as George Buchanan did likewise; but Catholic exiles in the immediate aftermath of the Reformation, such as the Scots Thomas Dempster or David Chalmers for example, wrote specifically to speak up for the lost faith. This confessional conflict would have longstanding consequences for the field. Well into the nineteenth century, historical approaches remained divided by confession and belief, but they also became intermingled with political and imperialistic concerns: the Whig histories of writers such as G.M.

Introduction 11 Trevelyan placed Protestantism at the very heart of a “modernising” narrative that told the story of the inexorable rise of “Britain” (156); Presbyterian writers such as David Hay Fleming, meanwhile, emphasised the unanswerable power of preaching as the cause of profound historical change (52). Catholic authors such as Francis Gasquet, on the contrary, argued that the Reformed Church was a historical aberration (61); Protestant writers in turn continued to insist that reformed faith had sowed the seeds of imperialism and democracy. Of course, all of these readings, as we can see with hindsight, lack nuance and depth, and later historians have sought to ask deeper questions. Inevitably, then, the answers have also become more complicated. Indeed, twentieth-century historical attention turned to economic, social, and political readings of the reformations in an effort to add further balance and weight to narratives of the period. In the broadest of senses, these historians looked to the reformations as the “turning point” between a medieval past and a modern present. The Reformation period, it was argued by this generation of scholars, was the start of modern “secular liberalism”, with Martin Luther and his successors being held as challengers to traditional religion and intellectual authoritarianism. For others, the Reformation marked the beginning of modern individualism, with Max Weber’s arguments about a “Protestant work ethic” developed so that the period was seen as the seedbed for modern industriousness and capitalism (168). Such a perspective was closely related to Marxist interpretations, which depicted the reformers as powerful proletariats, who overthrew medieval feudalism and serfdom. These explorations and interpretations inevitably reflected wider historical trends during the twentieth century, and many of them are now seen as oldfashioned and at the very least rather partial. In the years since the mid-twentieth century, then, historians of religion and culture have returned to unpicking the theological and pastoral underpinnings and motivations of the reforming generations. Some historians attempted to argue that the reformations took place because of a failing late medieval church; those such as A.G. Dickens, for example, suggesting that the roots of Protestantism were seeded in the earlier confessional deviations of the Lollards (38, 177). Then came along the hugely influential works of Christopher Haigh (70), who revised such arguments, positing that the late medieval Catholic Church was in fact popular and thriving – a process that was mirrored in Scotland by the historians who had a few years earlier, from around 1950 or so, gathered around the Innes Review. Following these new interpretations and more complex understanding of the medieval Church, Eamon Duffy and John Bossy joined the historiographical conversation, both also venturing the idea that the Catholic Church had been, until the eve of the reformations, a successful institution (12, 42); in this they agreed broadly with Gordon Donaldson’s positive view of the Scottish Catholic Church’s vibrancy on the eve of the Reformation (40). Such interpretations, then, begged the question, why were there religious reformations at all?

12  Introduction In response, later historians, sometimes coined the “post-revisionists”, attempted to explore more nuanced aspects of the British reformations. They in turn looked closely at the roles played by committed individuals, by changes to practices of popular piety, and at the power of biblical translations. More recent historiography has also tended to recontextualise the British experience into the wider European one. This historiography has tended to look at more “popular” forms of literature to trace changes in beliefs about piety and faith (142, 163), print culture, beliefs about life-cycles and death (31, 116), family (56, 151), women (99, 27), and life in the parishes (43, 123). Indeed, a key reason for the religious fervour during this time, and the perceived “successes” of various strands of reform, was the lay population – the faith of the populace and their willingness to tie their beliefs (which were so intrinsically and unavoidably related to their beliefs about the salvations of their own souls) to new forms of religious practice and worship. The powerfulness of this fact cannot be underestimated. Much of this historical tradition follows in the footsteps of Patrick Collinson, who was less concerned with what happened before the reformations or with why they happened but rather with how, focusing on the beliefs of both those who did and didn’t conform to reformed belief (29); his influence can be seen in English historiography through the work of Alexandra Walsham and others (164). In Scotland, a similar and parallel move away from purely theological readings can be perceived in the work of, for example, Jane Dawson (36). In other words, understandings of the reformations in both England and Scotland have expanded in all directions. In the text that follows, then, we can see that British Reformation history – as well as the histories of the British reformations in relation to Europe – has moved on from a perhaps over-long “denominational” phase but also and from its traditionally Anglocentric approach. First, it remains important to consider the reformations as what they really were – that is, processes of religious change which occurred within both the Catholic and Protestant faiths, the characters of which we cannot fully understand if we don’t consider both sides of the “divide”. Second, students of the reformations now need to situate Britain clearly within its European context; furthermore, many historians have noted the tendency of historians to work either on Scotland or on England; the two reformations were certainly different but in sharing this European framework were also in intense dialogue. Additionally, the depth and breadth of the historiography emphasises that those studying and researching this wonderfully rich and varied period must be open to perceiving the reformations as a set of religious occurrences – not as one single event – which were extremely broad and able to shape a new culture across Europe and beyond. As students of this time in history, we need to be receptive to international influences, to cross-national discussion, to breaking language barriers, and to escaping unhelpful dualistic debates which view the reformations through a historiography orientated around

Introduction 13 confessional division or questions of whether religious change was inspired “from above” or “from below”. Indeed, the historiographical debates considered above, which often centred on the view that the reformations were imposed upon an unwilling populace, need to be moved to one side, so we can instead view the reformations as a sequence of moments in people’s lives, which drew on and incorporated many voices, many wills, and the emotional and inward lives of many individual believers. Furthermore, much recent discussion has now turned to consider the familial and emotional contexts of reformation belief. As recent “post-post-revisionist” work on the reformations is revealing (work which now also incorporates the voices of more diverse writers), the core concerns of early modern people – the factors and influences which shaped their mentalities and emotional lives – were related to religion and faith (58, 143, 160). Having thus reviewed and understood how generations of historians have sought to explain the reformations, we can perhaps accept that a total narrative of the period would at this point be at the very least prohibitively extensive and possibly even impossible (this has not stopped – and should not stop! – historians from trying, however, and in some cases they have done so with remarkable success (105)). What follows, then, is an attempt to encapsulate the “British” reformations in three separate ways which, when taken together, can arrive at as multi-faceted a vision of the period as possible to both do this complex history justice and fit within the covers of a necessarily slim volume. Consider this particular narrative an introduction, even a menu – because in any one of its many historiographical directions, there will be a great deal more reading to do. Like any other historian, you will eventually come to your own conclusions, on the basis of the widest possible range of evidence.

1 Politics

The Reformation: Event or Process? A view of the British reformations as a set of fundamentally political events has proved surprisingly resilient. From the machinations in marriage of Henry VIII to the vexed status of the Auld Alliance between France and Scotland, the middle years of the sixteenth century were certainly an unusually insecure period politically speaking. In England, acute anxiety still surrounded the right of the Tudors to their throne and centred specifically on Henry VIII’s capacity to produce a male heir. In Scotland, meanwhile, two successive monarchs  – first James V (1512–1452) and then his daughter, Mary I (1542–1587) – came to the throne while still infants, contributing to an unusually fractious tumult north of the border. This sense of insecurity was fed and was informed by the processes of the British reformations. Certainly the single defining experience of the early modern world was the so-called “confessionalisation”, which split Europe into opposing Christian tribes (76): on the one hand, Roman Catholics, who upheld the “old faith” and remained loyal to the Pope and the liturgies of his cardinals, bishops, and priests as well as to ceremony and traditional theology; and on the other hand, the Protestants, who rejected the authority of the Pope, taught simpler forms of worship and prized both the individual’s direct relationship to God and most especially to the Word of God as set down in the Bible. In England and Scotland alike, which would both shift towards the second camp, the most influential Protestant thinker would prove to be not Luther but John Calvin, a Frenchman who was in most ways more radical than his German forebear (1). But the confessional fate of either kingdom was far from set in stone, and politics was a key point of influential flux that contributed to the direction of events. It is hugely important, however, that we consider the implications of such a massive and permanent split in the Church more widely. The waves  – not ripples – of change to which the reformations gave rise really cannot be underestimated and cannot be limited in their causes or repercussions to the purely political realm. In the late middle ages, the Church was the dominant presence in the lives of all people: its celebrations structured the DOI: 10.4324/9781003182283-2

Politics 15 year, its buildings defined the landscape, and its very existence was sanctioned and enforced by law. If an individual did not go to Church, they could be prosecuted; if they denied the teachings accepted by their monarch, they could be burned. Politics and religion could not be separated from one another. A  split as fundamental as the reformations, then, had profound repercussions throughout Europe and on every level: politically, it certainly challenged the authority of the monarch, who were thought by most to derive their power from God; religiously it created two fiercely opposed camps, both of whom thought they had the monopoly on truth and neither of whose beliefs we can or should dismiss as mere garlands around secular aims or objectives; and culturally, it transformed the way people conceived of the world and of their fellow Christians; “Mentalities” is a word historians use to talk about how people of the past thought  – how they perceived of the world and how they imagined their place in it (35, 63). It’s hugely difficult, of course, to determine what thoughts went through the head of someone 400 years ago – indeed, in the fullest and most literal sense, it is impossible to do so. But it’s nonetheless hugely important to try to understand how people thought of their world if we are properly to study both them and it – if, that is, we are to understand the respective roles that politics, religion, and culture played in this remarkable period. The British kingdoms were in fact among the first to adopt Protestantism as their “state religion” – in other words, the faith endorsed, and enforced, by the authorities. Characterising the reformations in this way might imply rapid or radical change could be achieved instantly and by fiat. In fact, the English Reformation of the 1530s and onwards was in many ways conservative and piecemeal, powered only so far by Henry VIII’s desire to have full command of his own kingdom: for one, it had its set-backs under the reign of Henry’s Catholic daughter, Mary Tudor, who burned and persecuted Protestants in an attempt to regain England for Rome, the seat of Catholicism. Mary was in turn succeeded by the cautious but Protestant Elizabeth, who established a consensual form of Protestantism which came to be irreversible. This is why scholars often refer to the “long reformation” and describe religious change as a process. The Scottish reformation, by contrast and as we will explore, is often seen as having been pursued in the face of opposition from the crown – and it was consequently no less, indeed was perhaps more of, a process than even England’s experience. Neither kingdom woke up one morning to find themselves suddenly and incontestably Protestant; “confessionalisation” happened by degrees. In order to understand the reformations as not just an event but a process, we need to develop a sense of how it progressed. In this respect, politics, if it cannot tell us the whole story, is a very good place to start: how, when, and by whom certain decisions were made, and changes enacted, are critical part of the story of the British reformations  – though historians are confident it is not the whole of it. In the space afforded here, it is impossible

16  Politics to do justice to the complexity of the near-century of narrative the below will cover – every sentence has much to unpack, and the suggested reading will be critical to developing a deeper knowledge of any given episode. The intent here is instead to offer an events-based framework for understanding the progress of the British reformations, so that we can ultimately better understand its character. Politics is a good prism through which to perceive these events; but, as we will see, it was rarely their only motor.

England: A Reformation of Rule? The England of Henry VIII was a simultaneously stable and fissiparous place, both free of civil war for the first time in generations and at great and constant risk of a reversion. What counted in the internecine politics of this tense period – what gave people a seat at the table, as it were – was the ownership of land. The majority of England’s landowners were not noblemen, but the gentry, men who by law were commoners, and indeed some were merely small-holders, though others could often be richer in cash terms than Earls and Dukes. This might seem a small or trivial difference, but in terms of the impact it had on politics, the economy, and culture, it was hugely significant and separated the English experience from many of its continental neighbours, for example, France, but also its nearest neighbour in Scotland, where politics was much less centralised and far more based around the ancient noble houses. The early Tudor monarchs  – first Henry VII (1457–1509), who had wrested the throne from the now widely maligned Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and then his son Henry VIII (1491–1547) – slowly demilitarised the ancient aristocracy and accrued power to themselves. They achieved this first by centralising government, for example, by removing many of the rights of the semi-autonomous Duchy of Cornwall or by bringing Wales into closer union with England in a series of Acts of Parliament from the mid-1530s onwards. The Tudor regime also reoriented the nobility, which relatively recently had almost been the king’s equal in terms of power and authority, into something closer to employees: the essentially independent Marcher Lords of western England, for example, were abolished and the king’s writ now ran universally across all parts of his kingdom. Members of the increasingly enriched gentry – for example, the commoners Thomas Wolsley (135) and Thomas Cromwell (107) – were happy to contribute to this process, becoming uniquely effective agents of government, capable of enacting royal policy in a fashion that had been entirely impossible for earlier rulers of England. Not coincidentally, it was in this emerging “middle class” that Protestantism first took root in England, and their increasingly prominent role in the polity is an important element of the so-called “Henrician” Reformation. None of this meant, however, that either Henry felt secure. Both essentially sat on the throne as the result of victory in a bitter civil war, and there

Politics 17 was no reason why that civil war couldn’t break out again. The Wars of the Roses, which the Battle of Bosworth ended, had been at least in part a series of contests over the suitability of the various men who sat on the English throne. This placed extreme pressure on the early Tudors to cement their own claim. To do so, they promoted the perception of Richard III as a villain; in his place, they presented a vision of the Henrician hero and centralised their state under a benevolent – but stern – father figure. Both Henry VII and, even more so, Henry VIII sought to present themselves as paragons of the kingly virtues recognised at the time in the popular genre of the “Mirror for Princes”. This system of propaganda was sophisticated and all-encompassing (148) and would come to speak a great deal to the Reformation moment. Dissatisfaction with monarchs was not, of course, a uniquely English experience. In Scotland, too, “resistance theory” – the political and theological justification for opposing one’s monarch – was increasingly influential not only among subjects who found themselves saddled with bad monarchs but the many clerics who found themselves, in one way or another, on the wrong side of their particular sovereign’s religious persuasion. Resistance theory was a dangerous and double-edged development for early modern states: the notion that unfit monarchs could and should be opposed helped rulers who had gained their throne through conflict to authorise their supposedly more virtuous rule; but it also, like a genie out of the bottle, led them into a world in which others might suddenly argue that they in turn were unsuitable: in John Knox’s famous tirades against Mary, Queen of Scots, for instance, we see precisely this dynamic at combustible play [­document 14].

Theories of Government: Political Philosophy and the Reformations If concepts of rule were in flux in early modern England, few if any thinkers thought beyond monarchical systems. As we have already seen, the genre of the “Mirror of Princes” was an increasingly popular one in this period (103), and such works placed the sovereign at the very centre of consideration of the state. But what did it actually mean in this period to be a monarch? One way in which politics was central to the progress of the reformations was the way in which theories of government interacted with reforming theologies. Indeed, in this period, beliefs about monarchy and government were bound tightly into the very fabric of society – into faith, into conceptions of social structure and notions of the state. The monarch wasn’t merely a political leader or token figurehead, instead, the sovereign was meant to be, needed to be, the father of the people, the head of church and state, and God’s representative on the earth. As one historian has put it, “the authority of human fathers, indeed of all temporal rulers, rested on that of God the Father” (79). This patriarchal model placed additional demands upon female monarchs, as we shall see (99). These theories of government

18  Politics also changed and developed radically during the course of this period, often under pressure from religious change; but equally their central conceptions remained relatively consistent in many respects, though their implications did not. (21) Biblical precedent was critical here, but at the same time the first rulers recorded in the Bible had very small territories which essentially matched the extent of their family’s land. If this endorsed the concept of the king as a sort of head of the family, it also did not entirely map onto the much larger geographic areas over which early modern monarchs held suzerainty. Fortunately, early moderns could also draw on Classical precedent, and in political theory the author Aristotle was among the most influential of authorities across Renaissance and then Reformation Europe. His view had been that monarchy was the most appropriate means of governing a state, as in the figure of the singular sovereign could be found the most efficient means of serving the people (67): in other words, monarchy could be justified because it worked to the benefit of all. In 1599’s Le Passetemps, Jehan L’Hermite – tutor of Philip III of Spain – wrote of the figure of the father-sovereign: “He will be father and shelter for all/A shield for the child, and protection to the beggar”. Good kingship was not, then, arbitrary or tyrannical, rather, the just monarch ruled through consideration not of his own whims but of the needs of his subjects. This was his duty and obligation. On the contrary, it was not thought that a just father spared the birch. The greatest author of the Elizabethan period William Shakespeare expressed this view most clearly in a play staged at the very end of our period, Measure for Measure. At the beginning of this play, the state is in turmoil – laws unenforced and authority disrespected. The ruler opines: “Now, as fond fathers/Having bound up the threat’ning twigs of birch/Only to stick it in their children’s sight/For terror, not to use, in time the rod/Becomes more mocked than feared”. A key second plank still related to the idea of kingas-father can be seen in our third and final quote, however. In other words, discipline matters, too. In the early modern state, order was reciprocal: the monarch had duties to subjects, but in exchange the polity had duties in return (17). In this context, the “Mirrors of Princes” genre is an expression of the intense investment early modern thought made in the idea of a strong, thoughtful, moderate monarch. The most famous example of its kind, however, is perhaps also the most unrepresentative: in The Prince – first published in 1532, though composed rather earlier – Niccolò Machiavelli introduced into the discussion around sovereignty concepts of realpolitik. Machiavelli advocated for pragmatism in a ruler, who after all needed to get things done in difficult circumstances. For this reason, Macchiavelli advocated for the frank virtue of sometimes acting decisively and powerfully against the traditional visions of “fairness” and “liberality”. This was countered by thinkers like the humanist Desiderus Erasmus (in for instance Institutio principis Christiani [1516]), with whom Henry VIII’s counsellor Sir Thomas More

Politics 19 corresponded – and who did so much for the cause of Catholic reform in the years before Luther’s break with the Pope – and also George Buchanan (for example in De jure regni apud Scotos [1579]), a Scots writer who came to oppose royal authority as powerfully than any other thinker of the time: both of these thinkers in their own way argued that selfish action would eventually backfire against a monarch and result in rebellion rather than effective rule. Political theorists were especially agitated by this question during the ­Reformation period, for reasons that may seem obvious: where a monarch and a subject’s religious faith clashed, how was it possible to retain reciprocal bonds of respect and obedience? Increasingly, and especially in the fractious crucible of the Scottish Reformation, resistance to the monarch began to be for some an act urgently in need of justification. This is the stripe of spiritual-political thought came to be known as “resistance theory” and was perhaps most radically expressed by Christopher Goodman in his 1558 work How Superior Powers Ought To Be Obeyed Of Their Subjects [document 12]. On one level, the notion that the polity was justified in resisting a failing monarch was nothing new: as Shakespeare’s own history plays, from Richard II (c. 1595) to Richard III (c. 1592), helped dramatize, there had long been a tradition of rebellion against “bad” kings. But, in the context of the Reformation, and like a genie freed from a bottle, resistance theory also led monarchs into a world in which groups of subjects – opposed religious camps in fear for their immortal souls, perhaps – could suddenly argue that a monarch was unsuitable based on their interpretation of scripture. John Knox’s famous tirades against both Mary Tudor and Mary, Queen of Scots, for instance, are object studies in resistance theory justifying disobedience and even revolution. Early modern society, then, was one in which the role of the monarch was hotly debated and highly scrutinised. In order to defend themselves against the new resistance theory, monarchs such as Henry sought more than ever to present themselves as paragons of kingly virtue (148). Female monarchs, meanwhile, were forced to jump though even more difficult hoops (127). Men might have had an advantage – the ideal monarch was already in the popular imagination a king, not a queen – but all sovereigns had to work tirelessly and carefully to avoid being perceived to be a bad monarch. The Reformation only increased – and made simultaneously urgent and eternal – the ways in which they could be perceived as inadequate (120).

The “Henrician” Reformation: A Crisis of Succession? Henry VIII was a monarch intensely aware of the question of kingly authority and how best to perform and act in ways that most resembled its ­theoretical ideals (8). The sovereignty of the English throne has been seen as the essential question of England’s turn towards Protestantism in the 1530s. The “Henrician” Reformation, as it is often still called, was the period of the

20  Politics English Reformation that took place from around 1530 until Henry VIII’s death in January 1547. This period, defined by the “King’s Great Matter” and his “break with Rome”, is still seen by some historians as a set of religious changes devised and enacted by a single royal intelligence for the purpose of achieving primarily political and dynastic objectives (7). There is little doubting Henry VIII’s dominant – and often domineering – personality, and the shadow of succession certainly cast itself long across the Tudor statecraft of this period. Can, then, this short but critical stage of the English Reformation be seen to be a primarily political event, defined and driven by questions of monarchical rule? It is absolutely true that by the late 1520s, Henry’s childless marriage with Catherine of Aragon had become a personal frustration for the king and a potentially grave danger to the stability of the kingdom. As has already been seen, the assumption to the throne by Henry VII had represented a significant dynastic break with the Yorkist party of Richard III; much work was necessary to authorise this shift. The Papacy, ironically, had been one of Henry Tudor’s first supporters, issuing a Bull against his opponents as early as 1498. England’s diplomacy had also extended to achieving marriage for his eldest son, Arthur, to a Spanish princess, Catherine of Arargorn. When Arthur died in 1502, the spare became the heir – and the elder brother’s wife quickly became the younger’s, too. The hand of Catherine of Aragon had been a critical geopolitical move by Henry VII – an Anglo-Spanish alliance against France was seen as a key goal for England – and much energy was put behind obtaining a papal dispensation for the new match of Catherine with her erstwhile brother-in-law Henry (131). Unfortunately for the nascent Tudor dynasty, this much heralded marriage had proved childless. Having succeeded his father in 1509, Henry VIII’s intense awareness of how precarious his grip on the throne might be in the absence of a male heir powered the search for a new papal ruling on the marriage  – this time, an annulment. Unfortunately, the current Pope proved reluctant to overturn the decision of his predecessor that the marriage was appropriate. This locked the king in a marriage that could not produce a male heir and which, he believed, consequently threatened his dynasty. Tasked with finding a way out of this bind, Henry’s great servant, Cardinal Wolsey, failed either to convince the Papacy otherwise or have the case heard in English courts – it was Catherine herself who successfully argued that the proper jurisdiction was Rome’s. If she thought that this would save her marriage, however, she was proven very wrong (90). Henry had written against the new heresy of Lutheranism in the early 1520s and been granted the title Defender of the Faith for his pains. By 1529, however, he was beginning to be persuaded of Protestantism’s benefits: not only had his roving eye noticed a young reformer at court, Anne Boleyn, but Protestantism also offered the potential for a refutation of the papal authority which had so far denied him the divorce he was now fixed

Politics 21 upon. Following the fall of Wolsey as a result of his failures in the “great matter”, the rise of Thomas Cromwell (107) – another commoner promoted above his ancestral station, but this time one with a legal rather than an ecclesiastical background – brought to bear further reforming pressure on the problem, and matters began to move more quickly. The impression that politics was the driver of all this is not contradicted by the role Parliament, and in particular the Commons, quickly took in the drama. The Commons was the seat of the gentry, whom as we have seen held increasing prominence in English society, and they proved fellow travellers in Henry’s cause of reform. Parliament was called on August 9, 1529, and would sit in irregular session until 1536, passing all the legislation which defined the course of the “Henrician Reformation”. Known by contemporary historians as the “Reformation Parliament”, in truth at the time it would have had no sense of itself as a Protestantising body – in fact, far from it. In its opening session, Parliament stuck to relatively traditional and conservative anticlericalism, a long-standing tendency across European societies to accuse the Catholic clergy of over-weening privilege or out-sized influence. This resulted in two hundred prosecutions for a range of perceived transgressions, particularly in relation to the cumbersome, expensive, and widely disliked system of ecclesiastical courts. This general air of anticlericalism gave way to something of a more strategic programme from 1531; however, the Parliament began to agitate for an English translation of the Bible – a key demand of reformers – and the king, through Cromwell, began to address himself seriously both to church policy and achieving his longed-for divorce. The critical question here was jurisdiction and the primacy of law: who held ultimate authority in England? The 1531 Act of Praeminure answered this question decisively, demanding that English clergy accept Henry as Supreme Head of the Church. In rapid succession, the 1532 Submission of the Clergy [document 5] and 1533 Act in Restraint of Appeals ensured that the stage was set for the English Church to be able unilaterally to rule on the matter of the king’s marriage. It was in 1533, too, that the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, exercised the new jurisdiction of the English Church to formally declared Henry and Catherine’s marriage void and recognised his marriage to Queen Anne. The Act of Supremacy of 1534 formalised all of this [document 6], confirming the Crown at the zenith of Church governance and conferring on it powers of oversight; Cromwell would be made Vicar-General a year later. Thus the “King’s Reformation” was complete. This almost egregiously executive summary does not do justice, of course, to the intense political machinations that lay behind each of these pieces of critical legislation, their drafting, and their passing (27, 97). Cromwell in particular proved critical in effective stewardship of the programme through Parliament, and his understanding of and commitment to England’s secular law seems to have been a guiding principle. In some ways, however, it is the dogs that do not

22  Politics bark in this traditional telling of the “Henrician Reformation” that speak most eloquently: the Papacy did not excommunicate Henry until 1538, by which time Anne Boleyn was already dead; Parliament seems to have been more or less content to pass the king’s policy, even when in 1539 the Six Articles made clear it was in future to have a role only in setting penalties for non-conformity; of all the bishops in England, only one – John Fisher, a man whose pastoral focus might in a different set of circumstances have revitalised English Catholicism (18) – resigned as a result of the Act of Supremacy, and popular unrest was surprisingly absent from the whole process  – the Pilgrimage of Grace of 1536 brought widespread if short-lived disorder to the north of England and may also have spoken of deep unease about poor harvests in the preceding year, but it is most notable as an exception rather than the rule. This absence of widespread resistance is one of the great mysteries of the English Reformation. It might be that the populace was too scared, and the centralised state too over-mighty, to oppose the king’s will. It might be that resistance is better found in the small refusals, for example, to remove an altar from a parish church, that dot the records (113). It might be that anticlericalism, or a nascent Anglocentrism, offered space for the authorities to break with Rome without occasioning much domestic tumult. Some recent scholarship, however, has more persuasively emphasised the often overlooked radicalism of early English Protestantism (66): without the existing canvas of evangelicalism, Henrician reform would not have been imaginable. The king’s policy was not wholly radical, and it was of a piece with a wider cultural moment rather than operating at its leading edge. Even on the orthodox side, the zeitgeist was clear: in 1529, the same year that the Reformation Parliament first sat, Convocation – the synodical assembly at Canterbury – also met to discuss reform. That its own programme of changes to internal governance was overtaken by events does not erase the fact that the need for alterations to Church governance was widely accepted in England at this time. Anticlericalism – the view that the clergy of the English Church was deficient – was a widely accepted view, not least among much of the clergy (108). It is worth noting that this view has been challenged by some historians, most notably Christopher Haigh, and that the extent and influence of anticlericalism has been and is occasionally still hotly debated (69) but in the balance of opinion has settled on their being a general sense of malaise within England by the 1520s and especially among the members of the “Reformation Parliament” (26, 39). We are not without an evidential base for this consensus. The reliably orthodox John Colet’s famous sermon to Convocation of 1511, for example, blamed the failings of an ambitious, covetous clergy for a perceived proliferation of heresy [document 1]; from the other side, the fiery Protestant Simon Fish published in 1525 a pamphlet entitled A Supplication for Beggars which posited an over-mighty clergy as a threat to the state itself. The Church was thus beset from both sides. This scepticism around the clergy

Politics 23 did not necessarily signal a lack of enthusiasm for traditional piety. When, from 1536, the Reformation came for the monasteries it was not unheard of for local populations, for example at Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire (100) or Dunster in Somerset (86), sometimes to purchase their local priory church for the parish, demonstrating affection for what had gone if not precisely violent opposition to its passing. The monasteries were ancient elements of the religious fabric of England which many mourned (42). But they were also sometimes wealthy institutions, whose confiscated lands were often sold on by Cromwell’s increasingly profitable Court of Augmentations to the very same gentry who populated the Commons and who were of such increasing importance to England’s social fabric. Within this dual context, a doctrinally orthodox movement for ecclesiastical reform, such as that prosecuted by Cromwell, had much opportunity to flourish. The wealth of some of the larger monasteries evidenced in the monumental Valor Ecclesiasticus – the document drawn up during the visitations undertaken to every religious house in England by Cromwell’s agents, who left behind them a remarkable archive (74) – certainly demonstrates that though priors in poverty existed in number, so too did abbots amid plenty. The anticlericalism of the “Reformation Parliament” was not then unfounded or confected, and this gave royal policy room for manoeuvre among the bulk of the population. Even the abbots themselves rarely refused to surrender – only those of Glastonbury, Colchester, and Reading were executed rather than permit their house’s dissolution. A combination of a widespread agreement that reform was necessary, and a narrower but still present evangelicalism at large not just at court but within the country, meant that the king’s policy was devised and permitted within a much wider context than merely his enthusiasm for Anne Boleyn – and one which was reshaping how politics was expressed and enacted (121). Perhaps a nascent English Protestantism in part made Henry’s policies possible rather than the reverse.

Scottish Protestantism: Compromise and Kirk Despite all we have seen, it remains true that Protestants in England were not large in number in 1530. The intellectual context of humanism and Lutheranism, and the cultural milieu of anticlericalism and conservative reform, were powerful drivers of events, but Protestants themselves were not always in positions of great influence, and even when they were, they had to be cautious. In England, the great centres of Protestantism were probably the universities, and particularly Cambridge, where the Reformation’s first Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, studied. In Scotland, too, Protestantism was to be found earliest in urban centres such as Edinburgh and Perth and the university town of St Andrews. Still, the lack of any survival of ecclesiastical court records for this period does not allow us to track the growth of Protestantism through heresy trials (and what records we do have suggest that heresy convictions

24  Politics were vanishingly rare (11)). The origins of the Scottish reformation are therefore tangled and complex (140), but key among them was the broad and deep cross-fertilisation of intellectual activity that was occurring across Europe at this time. Humanism took root quickly in the internationalised milieu of Scotland, where many undertook at least an element of their education abroad, since the native universities were small and often still stuck on medieval scholasticism  – only Aberdeen, founded in 1497, focused on the new learning. Perhaps consequently, the growth of Humanism in Scotland gathered pace at this time: in 1496 the Education Act required all Scottish nobles – all lairds – to send their sons to grammar school, and this commitment to better education among the elite would have real impacts and consequences (33). The Scottish state was much less centralised than the English, and the Acts of its Parliament therefore boasted a writ that ran much less wide; but the Education Act’s statement of intent was clear, and an educated nobility would – in a kingdom where the aristocracy still mattered – paradoxically have a greater impact than was possible in England, where changes in the social order were already underway as we have seen. In Scotland, too, politics mattered to the course of its Reformation. Scotland experienced successive minorities through the late fifteenth and ­sixteenth centuries, and in 1513 James V ascended to the throne aged not yet eighteen months. His minority was a period of factional chaos for Scotland (48), including international intrigue and royal kidnappings, and on his majority James was fixed on rebuilding the crown’s finances and authority – by raising revenue and by revenging himself on the most troublesome of the noble families (24). He also remained religiously orthodox, although by the 1520s and 1530s many of his lairds were adopting an evangelicalism influenced by Luther, and heretical books proliferated however much the Scots Parliament sought to legislate against them [document 4]. Though the most notorious, of Patrick Hamilton, took place in 1528, of the fourteen executions for heresy that took place during James V’s reign, nine happened between 1538 and 1539 – a sign, perhaps, that something was building up steam among an increasingly evangelical populace (154). Nevertheless, for the most part James’s Scotland was at this time a relatively permissive place. Though, like Henry VIII, the king was granted many gifts by the Papacy for his defence of Catholicism, he also sponsored court satirists such as David Lyndsay – whose anticlerical views were often trenchant [document 9] – and remained primarily fixed on suppressing the factionalism that had so marred his minority rather than on the Protestantism that was beginning to overshadow his majority. Critically, too, Scots readers were capable of comprehending English, and this meant that an incendiary (if incomplete) translation of the Bible, by the radical English evangelical William Tyndale [document 3], began to have an impact north of the border, too. One historian of this period has argued that this shared focus on, and mutual intelligibility of, the vernacular “yoked the two reformations together” (140);

Politics 25 certainly ideas throughout this period crossed borders and boundaries at a rate which preoccupied sovereigns often failed to grasp or suppress. James V was certainly a monarch with many competing demands upon his attention. Not least of these was foreign policy, which was especially complex for a power like Scotland that found itself caught between the competing interests of more powerful states, especially France and England. In the early 1540s, Henry VIII’s military adventurism once again found his armies fighting in Normandy, and in 1542 this inevitably resulted in English troops sallying forth across the Scottish border. Most skirmishes between the English and the Scots in this period were often both desultory and bloody, and the Battle of Solway Moss was no different; nevertheless, it ended in humiliation for the Scottish troops. At this perilous moment for the kingdom, its sovereign died suddenly and unexpectedly on December  14, 1542, heralding yet another dangerous minority. This time, the new sovereign, Mary, was just six days old. At this critical juncture, the Scottish state continued to be far less united – and much less centralised – than England: as Tudor England’s state apparatus grew, making government more powerful, in Scotland, by contrast, central government remained much weaker, and many decisions were made in the regions. Meanwhile, members of Scotland’s elite were far more likely to look like the “old nobility” than in England. Where the political situation in England meant that it had been possible for a single state religion to be established and at least outwardly followed by all, in the more fractious polity of Scotland the nobility was split down the middle between Catholics and Protestants, with no one side able to win full recognition as the official state religion. This religious tension soured even the highest of politics. Though Mary’s father had been King of Scotland, her mother – Mary of Guise – was a powerful French noblewoman in her own right. While Mary’s first regent, the Earl of Arran, would as we’ll see spend much energy in an attempt to secure an English marriage for the infant queen, Mary of Guise was simultaneously attempting to arrange a French one. Ultimately, thumbing his nose at the Protestant Henry VIII, King Henri II of Catholic France proposed that Mary should marry his own son Francois. Mary, Queen of Scots, therefore dutifully took her place at the French court, and Mary of Guise – a scion of a family who in France’s own wars of religion proudly fought for the Pope – was in 1554 appointed regent in Edinburgh to Protestant horror. In other words, the Scottish reformation was in one sense intensely polit­ ical, wrapped up in court politics, dynastic succession, and international relations. Unlike the English experience, however, it was never an instrument of royal policy – in fact, it was quite the opposite. Nor, however, was it truly a reformation “from below”: Protestantism in Scotland was not a widespread or “popular” religion. Even by 1561, when Mary returned to Scotland following her French husband’s death, only a quarter of the population of Edinburgh would turn out for Reformed Communion. The

26  Politics Scottish reformation was carried out in the teeth of royal opposition but not by tribunes of the people. None of this was how things began, however: in 1542, the new queen’s first regent was the Earl of Arran, a man eager to achieve peace with the English through royal marriage. As part of his attempt to charm Henry’s court  – and to pursue his political vendetta with Scotland’s leading and orthodox clergyman, Cardinal Beaton – Arran made it known that he had sympathy for the evangelical cause. In many ways, this was a repeat of James V’s permissiveness, and it had much the same effect: the circulation of those heretical texts increased, evangelicals were emboldened, and anticlerical violence became a commonplace in the early months of 1543. Riots followed in September – including in that seat of humanist learning, Aberdeen – and Arran tried to back-pedal some of his support for the Protestant cause, returning several of the Catholic and French factions to power, including Cardinal Beaton. In December, the Scottish Parliament rejected the Treaty of Greenwich, signed by Arran and the English King just a few months prior. The treaty had promised not just Mary’s hand in marriage to Henry’s son Edward, but had held out the possibility of a Union of Crowns. The Parliament’s refusal of this offer, and the shift in the internal balance of power in Scotland it expressed, prompted England to embark upon a series of campaigns known to posterity as the “Rough Wooing” – a military effort to achieve the terms of the Treaty of Greenwich by force. As we saw from the letter to the Scottish people from Edward Seymour with which this volume opened, the English actions were often expressed in religious terms. When the English opted to invade Scotland once more in 1547, for example, they did so while paying lip service to fighting for their co-religionists north of the border and in fact often targeted Catholic clergy and churches in destructive raids that did much to weaken the Scottish Church where they found it. Beaton, Arran’s long-term enemy and the champion of the Auld Alliance with France, was assassinated in 1546 by nobles with Protestant links: he had ordered the execution of a prominent Protestant preacher, George Wishart, a few months before, and the Fife nobles who killed the cardinal in retribution also held St Andrew’s Castle for a year. But French reinforcements finally arrived in 1548, winning the siege of St Andrews – and at this point the Scottish Parliament finally agreed with the formidable Queen Mother, Mary of Guise, that the queen should marry the heir not to the English but the French throne, Francis (117, 136). This decision heralded a period of French ascendancy, in which – once again – the authorities’ focus was very deliberately not on religion. Mary of Guise’s policy priority was on achieving the marriage that had been promised and with it a permanent union of the Scottish and French crowns. This meant that she was decidedly reluctant to encourage opposition among any segment of the Scottish population, and perhaps consequently only two “heretics” were burned throughout her period as regent. This renewed approach of accommodation, however, was adopted alongside the innovations of the

Politics 27 new reformist Archbishop of St Andrews, John Hutchinson, who – first in 1549 and then again and with added emphasis in 1552 – instituted disciplinary measures against the clergy not dissimilar to those earlier pursued by England’s Reformation Parliament. 1552 also saw the production of a vernacular catechism – a key demand of reformers – and the Lord’s Prayer was ruled now to be addressed only to God and not the intercessory saints. The absence of an iron fist within this velvet glove  – Mary of Guise’s reluctance to punish heretics while Hutchinson tried to bring the more moderate of the alienated faithful back into the Church’s fold – gave space to Protestantism, and in 1557, five noble families banded together for mutual protection as the Lords of the Congregation [document 13]. Such declarations of support between noble houses were common but usually took place under at least ostensible royal authority; the Lords of the Congregation did not adopt that fig leaf and demanded the right to hold Protestant services which used vernacular prayers on their respective estates. The following summer, similar demands were made by worthies in Dundee. If the Church might have hoped for ad hoc regional accommodation with these lairds, it was instead faced with an increasingly unified rebellion: there was iconoclastic violence in Edinburgh in 1558, and Wishart’s disciple John Knox – r­ eturning from exile in Calvin’s Geneva to his native Scotland at this moment of sudden opportunity for Protestantism – preached to rioters in Perth. Every Protestant laird seemed now to be a Lord of the Congregation, and their forces occupied Edinburgh in the autumn of 1559, playing on antiFrench feeling to whip up support from the crowds. Queen Mary had been finally married to Francis of France in 1558, but this had only emphasised the lairds’ fears of French (and Catholic) dominance in their kingdom. The marriage did at least finally free Mary of Guise to play a bolder hand, but this room for manoeuvre came too late: not only had open rebellion begun in Scotland but in France the Wars of Religion between Protestant and Catholic nobles were occasioning such tumult that French troops could not be spared. Again, the international quality of the reformations had a decisive impact: conflict between Catholics and Protestants in one arena influenced the outcome of similar strife elsewhere. In the absence of French reinforcements, a combination of the English blockade of Leith in favour of the Protestant lairds in 1560 and Mary of Guise’s death there that same year broke the Catholic hegemony in Scotland: the Treaty of Edinburgh ensured the withdrawal of both English and French troops, and in August 1560, a “Reformation Parliament” sat in Edinburgh.

From Edward to Elizabeth: Parliament and Piety High politics were as decisive on the reformation in Scotland, then, as they had been in England – indeed, international geopolitics proved more influential north of the border even than in the south. What this brief summary of the political drama lacks, however, is an explanation of the ways in which

28  Politics the ideas that powered its actors managed to have such persuasive force on them. It was these intellectual and spiritual winds that so buffeted the politicians of the day, and as we have seen Scotland politicians often ignored, or attempted to command, the demand for religious change at its peril. In England during the 1540s and 1550s, too, shifting religious feeling dictated events. The final years of Henry VIII’s reign witnessed a see-sawing of the spiritual balance. Following the high-water mark of 1536, when the Act of Supremacy and the Ten Articles placed Henry not just at the apex of the Church but radically reduced the number of sacraments to three and left room for Lutheran interpretation in the Eucharist rite, royal policy seemed to once more take a conservative turn: first the Six Articles of 1539 represented a victory for the orthodox Bishop of Winchester Stephen Gardiner (and resulted in the resignation of the leading Protestant divine Hugh Latimer), and then in 1543, the King’s Book rejected the core Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith while Parliament restricted the reading of the Bible to men of the rank of gentleman or above. This apparent resurgence of conservatism sat alongside Cranmer’s persistent focus on matters of the vernacular – in 1544 a new Litany was produced, and in 1545 the King’s Prymer was published both in English – but the Latin remained in Mass and the Protestant direction of travel seemed to have been arrested. The courtly faction around Henry’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr, harboured reformist sympathies, however, and on the old king’s death in 1547 took their chance: one of their number, Edward Seymour, became regent for the new nine-year-old monarch Edward VI, and – as was common in early Tudor courts – the mood music changed as rapidly as the political personnel (106). The newly ascendant reformers now required that the decidedly Lutheran Paraphrases and Book of Homilies be in place at every parish church, and the severity of punishments for contravening the conservative Six Articles was significantly weakened by Parliament in the Treasons Act. In 1548, Gardiner himself was imprisoned in the Tower of London, and in the following year a new Book of Common Prayer was issued that ­represented, while not a total victory for Protestantism, certainly a revival of its hopes. The significance of the shift was evidenced by the protests against it in Exeter, the West Country, and East Anglia. In Cornwall, an archdeacon had been hung in the street in 1548, and when Cornish protestors against the Prayer Book rose up and marched through Devon in 1549, joining with the demonstrators besieging Exeter, a moment of opposition to Protestantism might have been arrived at. But the Cornish and their fellow revanchists requested not a return to Catholics but merely a rolling back of Church doctrine to the Six Articles of Henry VIII. Perhaps emboldened firstly by the modesty of their enemies and secondly by the breaking of the siege at Exeter, the reformers were not deterred – the 1552 Book of Common Prayer was decidedly more radical than its predecessor (57).

Politics 29 It is hard to explain away much of this effort and energy as merely ­ political” – instead, it was powered by and in turn generated genuine “ belief. Indeed, much of this renewed boldness was buttressed by arrivals of theologians from the Continent: at Oxford, Peter Martyr Vermigli was appointed Professor of Divinity; at Cambridge, it was Martin Bucer. Significantly, both men – who each influenced in particular first the 1552 Prayer Book [document 10] and the 1553 Forty-Two Articles that codified Edwardian theology [document 11] – were members of the second generation of Reformers, more radical still than Luther, for example, on the subject of the presence of Christ at the Eucharist, which for Bucer was non-existent. When Bucer helped devise the new rite for the ordination of priests – which emphasised the importance of that Protestant preoccupation of preaching – the Bishop of Worcester resigned. Gardiner was deprived of his see, too, and many of the new appointees that took their place, such as the divine John Hooper, proved so radical as to refuse even to wear vestments at their investiture (though Hooper was eventually talked down by more moderate Reformers such as Bucer, and he was appointed Bishop of Gloucester in full vestments in 1552). The reformations, it turned out, hadn’t ended with Henry and wasn’t just about royal marriage or state power. Vestment-refusers like Hooper were supported by yet another continental Reformer with huge influence in Edwardian England: the close friend of Zwingli and leader of London’s “Strangers’ Church”, Jan Łaski. Łaski’s influence  – his church, established by royal charter in 1550 and granted a former Augustinian friary in which to worship, produced an avowedly Reformed order of service which would help shape the Church of England’s own liturgies in its 1552 edition of the Book of Common Prayer – is a good example of how pockets of radical Protestantism came not just to find a home in England in the years following the death of Henry VIII, but a warm welcome (132). Given more time, this radical resurgence may have created in Edwardian England a truly Calvinist state. But the boy-king died in 1553 to be replaced by his sister, the Catholic Mary. Her reign has been remembered in bloody technicolour by posterity – thanks in large part to the success of Protestant propagandists such as John Foxe [document 19] – but some recent historians have recontextualised her attempt to restore Catholicism as a relatively restrained and logical policy platform (44). Certainly for Catholics at this time Mary’s reversion of the state religion felt like a return rather than a rupture. Gardiner was appointed Lord Chancellor, and, in an echo of Mary of Guise’s hopes in Scotland, an attempt was made – through Mary’s marriage to Philip II of Spain – to reconnect England to the Catholic continent. Many Protestants fled into exile in Geneva, which only deepened their Calvinist sympathies; but others remained, worshipping in secret: evidence enough that the new faith – like Catholicism itself – was not merely a political prop but had true converts who would risk their lives to worship according to their conscience.

30  Politics Mary’s reign – and English Catholicism in general, which had been far from eliminated by either Henry or Edward (174) – was informed by the wider Catholic Reformation that was taking hold across Europe. As we have seen, awareness of the Church’s need for improvement had not been confined only to so-called Protestants in the early sixteenth century; by the mid-1550s, the Catholic Church was responding comprehensively with a wide-ranging suite of theological, doctrinal, and liturgical changes driven by the Council of Trent, which sat between 1545 and 1563 and was presided over by three successive Popes (3). Mary’s chief minister, Cardinal Reginald Pole, himself argued in his opening address at the Council in 1546 that the Church had lost its way and had been governed by clerics whose focus had not been on shepherding their flock appropriately. Trent became, then, a beacon for a renewed Catholicism centred on enhancing and expanding ecclesiastical discipline. Not only condemning Protestantism as heresy, the Council focused on a range of reforms that covered everything from scripture to sacrament, and across its twenty-five sessions established a robust new basis for what amounted to a reflowering of the Catholic faith. From reaffirming the centrality of the Eucharist to banning the sale of indulgences, the Council of Trent offered Catholics across Europe a renewed sense of theological direction which became perhaps most clearly embodied in the evangelising zeal of the Society of Jesus – or Jesuits – who became the Catholic Reformation’s spearhead. Mary’s regime followed Trentine thought closely and emphasised the importance of good administration, widespread education, and, undeniably, an impatience with heresy (44). In Marian England, a new Episcopal bench was appointed which featured bishops in full support of the new regime. New diocesan schools were established to train a highly educated clergy. Ecclesiastical revenues were centralised to enable better and more targeted spending. These administrative changes were all aimed at improving the Church so that it could retake the central and broadly popular position it had very recently taken in English life. Even the execution of heretics – and tackling heresy was undoubtedly an important part of Catholic Reformation thought – was seen as an opportunity to evangelise for the old faith: priests would deliver sermons at these events extolling the virtues of Catholicism. This was about much more than merely ensuring that a Catholic Queen would remain secure in her political power: for Pole and his fellow Catholics, they were at work on the far more critical task of attempting to save England for God. It seemed perfectly likely that they would succeed, and in the vigour of its attempt one historian has argued that the Marian regime “invented the ‘counter-reformation’ ” (44). We have learned enough already to know, however, that religious reform on either side was a contingent as well as an intellectual business, intimately bound up in the ebb and flow of events; just as zealous Protestants had been cut short in their efforts under Edward, Mary’s counter-reformation, too, was brought to an abrupt end by a monarch’s untimely death. Mary’s passing in November  1558 was a disaster

Politics 31 for the Catholic faction: given more time they may easily have solidified England’s return to the old faith; without Mary, however, the pendulum swung again. The new queen, Mary’s sister Elizabeth, had been educated in part by the reformist faction based in Cambridge, and she was surrounded by men such as William Cecil (later Lord Burghley), who proceeded from the same tradition. Cecil himself, for example, had been closely involved with the Seymours and indeed Łaski during the reforming regency of Edward VI. Nevertheless, for Elizabeth – as for her father before her – royal authority, achieving it and retaining it, mattered. Ultimately, her own religious settlement would prove more cautious than Edward’s, though still avowedly Protestant in nature. Elizabeth was very invested in creating and maintaining a balanced status quo and staked her personal authority on it. In 1559, Elizabeth assented to two Acts of Parliament which sought to create orthodoxy and consensus in this newly re-Protestantised Church. Much has been written about the Elizabethan settlement, and in particular debate still rages about whether it inaugurated the via media, a fabled English compromise between the two extremes of Catholicism and Calvinism (161). Protestantism was not guaranteed: in Europe as a whole, Catholicism was not standing still, and as we have seen the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563 adopted a range of reforms which sought to address Protestant complaints and re-energise the faith (104). It was absolutely crucial to Elizabeth’s security, then, that a stable, properly Reformed Church was established. But this meant less zeal and more compromise. The two crucial Acts of Parliament of 1559 which related to the Church were the Act of Supremacy, which established Elizabeth as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and the Act of Uniformity, which re-imposed the 1552 Book of Common Prayer [document 10]. Note here a careful balancing: Elizabeth was named Governor, not Head as Henry VIII had been. This was a trick of nomenclature that hoped to give English Catholics some consolation; likewise, though it was the 1552 Book of Common Prayer, and not its more conservative forebear of 1549, that was reintroduced, key passages – such as a section that now made the nature of Christ’s presence in the bread and the wine of Holy Communion too ambiguous for the liking of hardcore reformers – were gently altered to leave similar room for manoeuvre. Here, then, are politics and religion proceeding together as subtle strategy: doctrine and liturgy reoriented to meet the competing demands of the “secular” authorities. Nevertheless, this “middle way” historiography has been slowly unravelled over recent years, first by historians who believed that Catholic survivals were more pronounced than we had previously thought (70), and then in the equal and opposite direction by others who see the Church as much more practically Protestant on the ground than some mythical “Anglican” middle way might allow (93, 159). Certainly, the two Acts of 1559 were also accompanied by several injunctions against common

32  Politics Catholic practices, such as those that the “hotter form of Protestant” saw as “idolatry” – the presence of images of stained glass in Churches, for example. It is insufficient to characterise the Elizabethan Reformation as purely careful – and it was certainly never as conservative as the Henrician Protestantism of the late 1530s. It is also true, however, that “hotter form of Protestant” proved unhappy with the settlement. Often radicalised by time in Geneva, or by the influence of returning exiles, these Protestants of more Calvinist persuasion have become known to posterity as the “puritans”. For them, worldly politics really was not a concern: only the fate of the eternal soul mattered, and for them further reform was essential to ensuring deliverance of every eligible soul in England. In the puritans we see the fullest possible expression, too, of the idea of the Reformation as a process, not an event. Take the issue of episcopacy – that is, the rule of a Church by a hierarchy of bishops. The Elizabethan Church retained the historic series of dioceses, cathedrals, and bishops that it had inherited from its medieval predecessor. But Calvin’s Church in Geneva was not governed by bishops: rather, it was much less hierarchical, although it elected a few elders to provide spiritual guidance, and was largely informed by the deliberations of its presbyteries, regional bodies of elders who discussed theology and represented their parishioners (6). It might be reasonable to imagine, then, that when, in 1559, Elizabeth retained the bishops, the puritans  – or the “godly” as they referred to themselves – were unhappy (28). Not so: in fact, the hotter sort of Protestant seemed perfectly happy throughout the 1560s to work with bishops, including the moderate Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker  – to achieve reform. Many of those Protestants who had spent the Marian years in exile – embryonic puritans, although the word wasn’t yet in use – were part of the Royal visitations that were made to parishes in the early 1560s to ensure that the injunctions of 1559 were followed through. At Exeter, for example, puritans forced the parishioners to burn their favourite images in the cathedral square. Sometimes, this zealousness was taken to task: when puritans in Suffolk hacked away at one roodscreen, they damaged a family tomb – and were taken to court for it by the relatives. But the presence of these believers in the apparatus of the Elizabethan Church runs against the characterisation of it as a fundamentally conservative project. This sense of pragmatic consensus seems to have existed elsewhere in Elizabeth’s domains at this time. From 1559, for example, most of the bishops appointed by the Crown to Welsh seats were natives of the country; they offered patronage to the Welsh bards who carried culture to the people, and Welsh translations – first of the Prayer Book and then of the Bible – began to appear from the 1560s (83). This turned around the situation that had prevailed in the 1530s, when the first Protestant Bishop of St Davids, William Barlow, had been so wildly unpopular that even his successor wound up imprisoned and sent to London in 1548 – to be burned by Queen Mary.

Politics 33 Indeed, the ultimate success of the Reformation in Wales – led by men such as the former Marian exile Richard Davies, who in 1560 returned to his native north Wales (moving in the next year to the bishopric of St Davids in the south), and was seen by the Westminster authorities as a reliable agent in and adviser on Welsh matters – has been seen as emblematic of the smooth mechanics of the canny Elizabethan settlement: by 1603, a survey found only 3,500 practicing Catholics amid a church-going population of 212,450 (170). This is only part of the picture, however. The continued desultory progress of the Reformation in Ireland – as we have established, beyond the bounds of this short volume, but nevertheless important and highly instructive – is evidence enough that the Elizabethan authorities were not infallible. If we compare Irish translations with Welsh, for example, a translation of the New Testament did not appear until 1602 (as compared to 1567 in Wales), and the first full translation of the whole Bible was published only in 1690 (versus 1588). Cracks were also present much closer to the seat of power Westminster: in England, the godly began to abandon the bishops. Indeed, we have our first evidence of a break-away Protestant congregation in London as early as 1567 – the year after Parker issued an order that all priests must wear the surplice, in an affront to puritan demands that ministers should wear only black. Likewise, that very term, “puritan”, was actually appearing in documents by this time, suggesting a hardening of positions. In 1566, Parker published his “Advertisements”, which required all ministers to subscribe to doctrinal and liturgical orthodoxy – including the wearing of vestments, the practice which had so enraged Hooper in the 1550s. By the 1570s, then, puritans were appearing as a distinct party within the Church and seriously discussing alternative kinds of Church governance, advocating a system much like Calvin’s in Geneva: no bishops and plenty of theological discussion in the presbyteries (29). The Elizabethan Church was, for all its successes, far from “settled”. Elizabeth’s authority, however, was too important to her  – and to the apparatus of the increasingly sophisticated English state  – to allow open and constant dialogue about spiritual matters. When Presbyterian puritans started to petition Parliament to change the structure of the Church, many, even moderate puritans, thought they had gone too far. (In 1572, one such petition, the Admonition to Parliament, memorably if provocatively was called the Book of Common Prayer a “dunghill”.) The Admonition also demanded the abolition of other elements of unreformed worship, including the churching of women, kneeling when receiving communion, and saints’ days [document 22]. In short, the temperance and compromise of the 1560s gave way because of puritan frustration to something a bit more contentious: the Reformation hadn’t ended in 1559, either. The process wore on. Elizabeth tried to cool tempers by appointing an Archbishop of Canterbury sympathetic to puritanism, Edmund Grindal. Like most hotter forms

34  Politics of Protestant, Grindal was attached to preaching, and yet again it began to be hoped, by both moderates and puritans – whom we’ll remember all wanted a peaceful and stable Protestant Church to fight Catholicism – that reform was still possible through the bishops. But preaching, too, was controversial (85). The Book of Common Prayer laid down many sermons and prayers which were officially sanctioned to be given by clergy. But puritans preferred prayers to be devised by the priest himself, to be more passionate and truly felt – for them, self-examination and a personal relationship with God were important elements of religious practice. The Calvinist theology of double predestination – that all human beings were assigned either to heaven or to hell before they were even born – led to a puritan obsession with seeking signs of election in oneself. It wasn’t enough to speak the words; you had to feel them, too. The problem with this form of preaching was that it didn’t have a basis in the Book of Common Prayer. Without these agreed forms of words, it was hard for the authorities to know what was being said from the pulpits, which remained prominent and therefore potentially dangerous public spaces. Just as puritans had begun in the 1570s to be more hardened, so “conservatives” in the Church had been agitating, too – and in 1577 some of the conservatives at court persuaded Elizabeth to order Grindal, as she had once ordered Parker, to ban something. This time, the target were prophesyings, or gatherings of local clergy – many of whom didn’t have a degree or other educational background  – around a visiting speaker who could improve their preaching. Prophesyings were seen as potential breeding grounds for unorthodox theologies and possibly even seditious politics. But Grindal did not share Elizabeth’s lack of commitment to preaching, so he refused to proscribe them – and the Queen promptly suspended him. Elizabeth would replace Grindal with a more orthodox figure, John Whitgift, in 1583 – but the questions posed by the puritans seriously challenged the stability of the Elizabethan state’s so-called “settlement” (134). There remains a debate about the severity of disagreement at this time, with many historians arguing that the caution of the Elizabethan regime – its relative lack of punitive persecutions, and its careful balance of doctrinal factions – led to the very real and significant achievement of general religious peace (141); others are more sceptical and see a contingent arrangement which was rather more hostile to minorities than this vision allows and which brushed more under the carpet than it definitively cleared away (146, 160). Both perspectives have much to commend them; what can surely be argued definitively is that it was politically impossible to call final time on the intellectual, cultural, spiritual, and social consequences of reformation. While authority mattered to Elizabeth, the one power she lacked was to put Protestantism’s genie finally back in its bottle. Religion in this important sense remained independent of state.

Politics 35

Royal Power and Religion Under Mary, Queen of Scots In Scotland, too, royal authority was stretched and at stake, and it was being pressed by the same sort of Calvinistic Protestantism that was pushing for further reform in England. Perhaps that’s why Elizabeth I’s chief adviser, Cecil, had written to English spies in Scotland in 1559, telling them to be careful what they said in their despatches: nothing connected with radical Protestantism and Geneva, he wrote, would be well received by the Queen. “Of all others”, Cecil explained, “Knoxees name . . . is most odiose here”. John Knox is the figure of the Scottish reformations, in large part precisely because of the manner in which he approached undermining and circumventing royal authority. Indeed, he’s best known to us through his fiery writings – the most notable of which is First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, matched in its furious refutation of royal power only in its virulent misogyny [document 14]. (Knox took aim at female Catholic monarchs in the text; he was later forced to back-track when a female Protestant ascended the throne in England.) Nevertheless, along with a handful of others – including George Buchanan (50), whom we briefly met earlier in this chapter devising among the strongest set of resistance theories developed anywhere in Europe at this time – Knox defined the way in which the Scottish Reformation proceeded from 1559. Knox was a Reformed Protestant in totality, a man in whom English puritans may have recognised something of themselves. Knox had long held these convictions – during the conflicts of the 1540s, he had been one of the number of Protestants that had taken and held the Scottish university town of St Andrews for a year. When the French army finally dislodged the minirepublic, they had sent the ringleaders into exile, including Knox. Ironically, they may have been better off letting him stay in Scotland: in exile Knox found his way to Geneva, where he became the minister for the English exiles who would come to have such influence in godly circles during the Elizabethan era and beyond. Knox knew the Calvinist theology and ecclesiology – that is, the theory of the organisation of churches – back to front, and he took that knowledge back to Scotland when he returned in 1559 (6). Knox had not directly attacked Mary of Guise in the Monstrous Regiment. He had viciously laid into Mary Tudor: the English Catholic Queen, Knox had argued, was unfit to rule both due to her faith and her gender. But he had hoped  – as had the Lords of the Congregation  – that he could work with the French regent. We can see in this some of the incrementalism we saw in the English puritans of the 1560s: they in turn had hoped they could work with the bishops. Reformed Protestants were primarily interested in achieving reformation; the politics of how they reached that end were open to compromise. Knox’s biggest compromise, perhaps, was the welcoming back of Mary Queen of Scots in 1560. Her French husband had died, leaving her no choice

36  Politics but to return to a kingdom which, following the Treaty of Edinburgh and the meeting of the “Reformation Parliament”, no longer shared her Catholic faith. Knox and the other Reformers had little choice in this regard: when Mary of Guise had refused to negotiate with them, they had argued they were acting in defence of Scottish liberty and sovereignty, and one of their arguments was that Scotland had its own Queen, who was not French. This helped them win broader support than a sectarian Reformed appeal might have done, but it left them with no means of refusing to allow Mary to resume her throne. This is not to say that Knox was happy about the Queen’s return. Far from it: he began to produce reams of words about the dangers of “tyrannical” monarchs, and the exacting standards to which they must be held by “lesser magistrates” if the well-being and souls of their people were to be protected. “The punishment of idolatry doth not appertain to kings only”, he wrote in his Appelation of 1558, “but also to the whole people, yea, to every member of the same according to this possibility. ( . . . The nobility are) as bridles to repress the rage and insolence of your kings whensoever they pretend manifestly to transgress God’s blessed ordinance”. Regardless, Knox and the Scottish Reformers were now in a bind similar to, if even more pronounced than, the English puritans: what do you do when the monarch under whom you live does not share your faith? How is it possible to ensure that God’s will is done? The answer, of course, was resistance theory. The “Reformation Parliament” that was called to Edinburgh in the August of 1560 was overwhelmingly Protestant in its membership and had little interest in moderating its anti-Catholicism, regardless of the religion of its Queen, who was at any rate still at this stage in France. It immediately commissioned a Confession of Faith from Knox and the other prominent Protestant ministers and duly passed it unopposed, despite its radically Calvinist content. The new Church’s liturgy, too, was taken almost wholesale from the Anglo-Scottish Church of Geneva. The Protestant ministers even generated an ambitious document that transferred the property of the old Church to the new, the Book of Discipline. This would have abolished bishops and priests and remade the Scottish Kirk along the more horizontal lines of the makeshift puritan conferences in England. A  new, more moderate Parliament called late in 1560 rejected the proposal – at least in part because the lairds that made up its membership had sufficient claim on the existing Church’s finances that they were loathe to lose their access. This resulted in a curiously hybridised Scottish Kirk that left Knox and his co-religionists bitterly disappointed: though the Presbyterian system of Calvinism were permitted, the old Church remained, too – bishops and all. The Scottish Kirk now had two distinct organisational structures and which was in operation in a particular area depended upon which confessional identity held sway in a given parish. The new Kirk sessions – local meetings of the minister and elders of a given parish – were scattered and often rather impoverished affairs, although increasingly numerous in hotspots

Politics 37 such as Dundee. Mary’s return in 1561, however, only emphasised the twotrack nature of the settlement: she refused to ratify the Parliament’s religious Acts but also agreed not to seek to change or influence the state’s religious policy. In return, she was permitted to continue to attend Mass and practice Catholicism. In 1562, she was even allowed to adopt her “third of benefices” system, by which the crown received a third of the value of the Church’s benefices, on the proviso that the income was used to burnish the Reformed Kirk. In this way, Mary did not in the years following her return only stabilise her rule but she enriched it, too. When Mary unwisely married the Catholic nobleman Darnley, however, she set in motion a series of dynastic squabbles among the Scottish nobility that ultimately saw her deposed in 1567 in favour of her infant son, James VI, who would be educated as a Protestant in part by none other than Buchanan; a civil war between the forces of mother and child followed until 1573, and it ended in defeat for the parent. In 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots, would be executed by Elizabeth I, whose own kingdom gravely feared the claim to its throne of this Catholic grand-daughter of Henry VII. She left behind a Scottish settlement which, despite the passion of Knox, resembled in many respects the unfinished nature of the English Church. In the Kirk sessions, Scottish Protestantism looked and behaved like the Presbyterian system favoured by the English puritan “conferences” that began to spring up in the 1570s: they policed and punished the moral behaviours of its members; were governed by an assembly of clerical and lay elders; and focused earlier all on defining and achieving godly order on the earth. But they were not a uniform system across Scotland. Indeed, the mixed settlement  – with the king at its head  – was authorised by the socalled “Black Acts” of 1584, and it would take many decades for anything resembling a national network to form, even in enthusiastic towns such as Perth. The mixed system remained stubbornly persistent, although as James VI’s reign wore on Kirk elders became increasingly respected figures in their community, and many Scottish Protestants became increasingly proud of their almost unique achievement in erecting for a whole kingdom a platform of truly godly worship.

The Reformation Completed? Settlement and Stability The period reviewed by this volume ends with the accession to the English throne of a Scottish king. When Elizabeth died childless in 1603, all were agreed that her cousin, the now adult James VI of Scotland, was the best candidate to succeed her. In the union of the crowns – though not yet of the kingdoms, despite James’s private hopes – England and Scotland’s Reformations would be brought even more closely into tandem. Their unfinished characters would prove a great challenge for James, and even more so for his son Charles, during whose reign the British Isles would erupt in a series of civil wars that one historian has framed as the islands’ wars of religion

38  Politics (175). In particular, the frustrated demands of the puritans would prove critical. It continued to seem to many of them that the “settlement” of 1559 hadn’t been a starting point for further reform – but that instead it had been a high-water mark and was being rowed backwards. In the 1580s, the English puritans gave up trying to achieve a Reformed Church through either bishops or advocacy to Parliament and others and split off. They started holding their own “conferences”, such as the one at Dedham in Suffolk, which ran between 1582 and 1589. At Dedham, the godly gathered for mutual safety and support, discussing alternative Church governance and more Calvinistic doctrine, and listening to their own preachers and prayers, and from where they came into frequent conflict with the authorities on issues as varied as baptism and clerical clothing (60). This process was only accelerated when Grindal was succeeded as Archbishop of Canterbury by John Whitgift. Whitgift was no friend of the puritans – he had debated one prominent puritan scholar, Thomas Cartwright, in the 1570s and sent him into exile abroad. In 1583, as almost his first act from Lambeth Palace, he insisted that all clergy sign up to three articles of faith – this in addition to the Thirty-nine Articles, which had been drawn up as part of the original process of the Elizabethan settlement [document 21]. One of these latest three articles asked clergy to affirm that there were no faults in the Book of Common Prayer – predictably, many refused to agree. At the same time, the conferences puritans were holding for themselves were producing publications which the Crown found seditious – in particular, the satirical and anti-episcopalian Marprelate Tracts gave Whitgift the excuse to investigate and crack down on the conferences [document 24]. Many moderate puritans were aghast by all this. Puritanism was on a spectrum of Protestant belief in England, and not all of the godly were happy when the conferences produced alternative Church documents such as the Book of Discipline or when they were thrown into the same treasonous pot as the writers of the Marprelate Tracts (9). Perhaps this reaction from within the “movement” itself accounts for a quietening down of puritan invective by the 1590s; perhaps, too, the execution of a Catholic heir to the English throne, Mary Queen of Scots, helped puritans feel more secure: the clear successor to the throne was now a good Protestant, and therefore Reformers once more had some breathing room. There was, then, much good will towards James VI – in England, James I – in 1603. The tug of war that occurred in the Church of England from 1560 and until around about 1590 had permanently bruised the puritans, and the work of Richard Bancroft, Bishop of London from 1597, in prosecuting puritans did not add to their sense either that the Reformation was finished or that the authorities had much interest in seeing it done (30). In a dashing of puritan hopes, Bancroft would be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by James in 1604, as calculated a snub to the godly faction as might have been possible at the time. But this sort of anti-puritanism

Politics 39 actually served to push the godly together. They had never been a single movement or anything so uniform as a gang  – but anti-puritanism made them feel like they had more in common with each other than they did with their conformist brethren (164). In Scotland, too, many questions remained unanswered in 1603 (150). Though James VI’s regime had in 1572 finally ratified the religious Acts which Mary had refused to approve, the queasy co-existence of episcopacy with Presbyterianism remained, and indeed the monarch took on the power of appointing bishops with Church approval. That arrangement only further antagonised the Calvinists, of course, and in 1578 the Presbyterian party adopted a Second Book of Discipline, more radical even than had been the first penned by Knox and others, which had itself been rejected by Parliament in 1560. James’s own commitments were not in doubt: he came to believe that episcopacy and monarchy went hand in hand, one mutually supporting the other and strongly opposed the abolition of bishops. On the one hand, this political philosophy has been widely read as an attempt to negotiate reconciliation within Christendom (130); on the other, it spoke to the irresolvable religious tensions he inherited and which only grew throughout his reigns (51). Indeed, these would prove to be a major cause of the British Civil Wars, which began in 1639–1640 with a Scottish conflagration known as – perhaps inevitably – the Bishops’ Wars. In other words, it is hard to argue that the questions of the reformations had been settled by 1603, more than sixty years after the “Henrician” Reformation. The religious changes set in motion in the 1530s were the start of a process, not a singular event – and it is reasonable to argue that the reforming energy of Protestantism led it endlessly to reinvent itself, a process which more than one historian has argued is still ongoing (105, 149). Just as it proved unable to contain it, politics alone cannot explain the extraordinary vitality of the reformations as a phenomenon – in many ways it cannot even encompass the full narrative of how and when and why it happened. To achieve that more total vision, we need to pay much closer attention to the ideas that powered it, and that requires us to consider piety.

2 Theologies

Martin Luther, Augustine of Hippo, and the Problem of Sin We have already seen how intensely integrated with the wider European Reformation both England and Scotland’s Protestant experiences were. This, of course, is to be expected – the reformations began in Germany, in the university town of Wittenberg, in 1517, when the monk Martin Luther famously nailed up his Ninety-Five Theses and challenged the basis of traditional Catholic practices [document 2]. They did not spring, unique and fully formed, from the Henrician court. Nevertheless, the extent to which the Scottish and especially the English reformations proceeded from a European context hasn’t always been sufficiently acknowledged – in particular, the focus on the “King’s Great Matter” has tended to obscure the intellectual and theological contexts in which the British Isles operated and which so thoroughly influenced the outcomes of events in both kingdoms. Few – if any – single individuals can be said to have had such a profound cultural impact as Martin Luther (98). He was born on November 10, 1483, the son of a successful mine-owner in Saxony, and his early life was one of conventional successes. Due to his father’s wealth, he had a good schooling, where he benefited from the sort of medieval reforms to education advocated for by humanism. He was then able to attend the University of Erfurt. Luther trained there to be a lawyer, yet  – much to the disapproval of his father – he decided instead to become a monk and joined an Augustinian monastery. The Augustinian order hewed close in its practice to the writings and beliefs of St Augustine of Hippo (354–430), an early medieval theologian whose defining spiritual interest was in salvation – in part because he had perceived himself to have lived, prior to committing himself to a more Christian life, so dissolute a youth. As expressed throughout his work, and most famously in his Confessions, Augustinian theology can prove to the contemporary reader quite difficult, even harsh, to contemplate. In particular, Augustine’s vision of original sin – that humankind, tainted by the Fall from the Garden of Eden that followed Adam and Eve’s loss of innocence, is inherently depraved – and his connected notion that the fate of each individual is decided irrecoverably before birth combine into a stark cosmology. DOI: 10.4324/9781003182283-3

Theologies 41 These twin ideas, however, were what powered the spiritual journey of Martin Luther, and therefore the Protestant Reformation. Luther, a successful schoolboy and student, now went on to become a successful monk. He rose rapidly through his order in the early sixteenth century and was even selected to represent conservative Augustinian beliefs at a dispute in Rome in 1510. He was a very effective preacher and thinker and became a lecturer at the University of Wittenberg, eventually achieving the post of Professor in Theology. Yet, despite all these successes, Luther was not a very happy man. The God he preached about, the God he worshipped, seemed very unforgiving to him. Living in a strict Augustinian religious order and spending much time reading scripture and religious texts, Luther began to dwell on ideas about human salvation: which souls would be saved, how, and for what reasons? These questions worried him deeply. Surely, a compassionate God would forgive his people? What role did original sin really play in salvation? In the course of his studies, Luther made his own theological breakthrough, when coming across a passage in the Bible which seemed to support his own beliefs. In Romans 1:17, Luther read the words, “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written. The just shall live by faith alone”. The last words of this passage – the just shall live by faith alone – inspired Luther. It told him that those who had faith in God could be saved, regardless of their sin or worldly deeds – God could have mercy. This became known as the theological belief of justification – that is, salvation, forgiveness in the eyes of God – by faith alone. Theologians have since categorised this principle – in Latin, sola fide – as one of the five solae of Protestant faith. Alongside sola scriptura (“by Scripture alone”), sola gratia (“by grace alone”), solus Christus (by Christ alone), and soli Deo gloria (“glory to God alone”), theologians and historians have seen the concept of justification by faith alone as the value that not only defined Protestantism but distinguished it inexorably from the Catholicism with which Luther would eventually break decisively. The five solae were not expressed systematically in this way by Luther. Instead, each emerges over time in his writing and those of others such as his follower and codifier-in-chief, Philip Melancthon. For at least the first decades of its existence, Lutheran theol­ ogy was contingent and built up over time – and as we have seen and will continue to see, this adaptability gave a certain self-perpetuating quality to Protestant reform. Luther’s religious ideas did not come into the world fully formed but were constructed from the point of that initial protest, as a result of his own thought but also the reactions and contributions of those around him and those who came after. Ultimately, what links all five solae, and underpins sola fide and sola scriptura in particular, is the idea of each individual’s direct relationship with God, through His Word as expressed in the Bible (99). For Catholics, deeds mattered and faith was mediated through the clergy; Luther’s ideas were in this context incendiary and dangerous. We have already seen how critical – and controversial – the concept of justification by faith alone

42  Theologies proved to be in the British Isles: in the England of the late 1530s and 1540s, much of the to-ing and fro-ing between the various “conservative” and “reformist” factions centred on this doctrine. Perhaps most obviously, for instance, it became the key point of contention in the 1543 King’s Book, which  – despite Cranmer’s attempts to avert the change  – rephrased one of 1536’s Ten Articles to read that faith in fact justified “neither only nor alone”. Similarly, the Church of England would eventually arrive at the idea of prima scriptura – not quite by scripture alone but perhaps mostly by scripture. This sort of shift is a good example of how the “Reformation” was refracted through, and altered by, local contexts as the process of reform and religious change wore on through the sixteenth century. We’ll see more of this phenomenon in this and the subsequent chapter. What is plain, however, is that one of the key theological front-lines during the B ­ ritish ­reformations  – and particularly in England  – was explicitly the founding principles of Lutheran doctrine. These ideas mattered.

On the History of Ideas How do ideas gain purchase and to what effect? How have humans in the past gone about gaining knowledge (and can knowledge can ever be gained anyway?). These questions are fundamental to the study of history and especially historical phenomena such as the reformations. They dictate how we read our sources and how we write our accounts of them – but they also make history itself. That is, ideas have social, cultural, political, and historical contexts and consequences (169). Using this methodology, we can track how an idea with its origins in fifth-century Egypt came to have profound influence on the Protestant reformations of sixteenth-century England, and in so doing enrich and deepen our understanding of that historical process. Just as we have seen that political events cannot occur without a context, so too are ideas not usefully understood as abstract products of the mind. Instead, they are intensely involved in the contexts of their periods. There are, needless to say, multiple contexts at work at any one time. Ideas operate simultaneously in all kinds of frameworks: political, social, economic, and more. They develop for all sorts of reasons and across all sorts of boundaries  – from age to gender to social status. Crucially, intellectual history shouldn’t privilege “high culture” or ideas from certain parts of society (63). In turn, intellectual history also acknowledges the impacts of the ideas it studies on politics and society. We can see how this approach is useful if we turn to the ways in which the ideas of that fifth-century theologian, Augustine of Hippo, came to have such an intense effect on the sixteenth century. Augustine’s understandings of the consequences of original sin and of the necessity of redeeming grace were not developed in a vacuum  – but as part of a struggle between his own ideas and those of his fellow early medieval historian Pelagius. This context of intellectual contest predated the reformations by centuries but

Theologies 43 nevertheless helped shape it  – this is a reminder that intellectual history can help us track very long-term trends or themes. Essentially, the debate between Augustine and Pelagius was a debate about free will: Pelagius believed humanity possessed some; Augustine did not. For Pelagius, humans had been given by God the capacity to do good, and this must count for something. For Augustine, all salvation proceeded from God’s grace, and in this context human will or action was irrelevant. So central has his thought become to the narrative of the reformations, it is easy to over-estimate the importance of Augustine. Even one of his most distinguished biographers has been happy to admit that Augustine’s theology is in fact “only the opinion of a distinguished Catholic theologian” (10). Yet the core controversy between Pelagius’s view of the world and Augustine’s  – both of which, it is important to note, placed a huge soteriological burden on the shoulders of humanity, not so much of a different order as of a different kind – led through the centuries to endless debates for generations of Christians. This was especially the case for the reform­ers of the Reformation period, however. Roman Catholic theologies of salvation taught that your actions, good works, could “buy” you a place in heaven – thus, according to medieval Catholic eschatology, human nature was most decidedly not utterly corrupted by the fall. This belief was evidenced, for example, during the baptism ceremony: when the infant was presented to the priest in the Catholic ceremony, the priest uttered certain words over the child, exorcised the Devil from the infant, and thus cleansed the child of original sin. Human action could have meaningful consequences. An economy developed around this belief in the efficacy of worldly action on the fate of the immortal soul. Money began to circulate in pursuit of spiritual ends: fees paid to chantry priests, for instance, to offer prayers to saints in order to gain surer salvation for the benefactor; donations made to priests to deliver more masses in honour of the wealthy dead. In every Catholic territory in 1517, there was a booming economy of this sort, where money flowed from the laity into the Church, all in order to fund and memorialise the good works that the faithful believed would have a material impact on their salvation. In some cases, payments of this sort could find charitable work for the public good. They could also, however, be abused, and this is what the reformers chose to focus on. “Indulgences”, as they were known, were entirely voluntary donations, distinct from tithes or the other systems of Church taxation looked upon so jealously by the Henrician reformers. Indulgences were in this way pious gestures. For example, the fifteenth century had seen the establishment of confraternities – groups of people, usually men, who were attached to individual trades and localities – which would have asked each of their members to pay a fee, or subscription, that would be used to purchase indulgences for their deceased comrades. These bodies also often elected their own saints, holy figures who symbolised in some way their own trade or occupation – St Adrian for the Butchers, St Clement for the Stonecutters, and so on – and

44  Theologies these saints would be prayed to (again, often by priests working on the basis of donations) in order to gain further success. Again, all of this real-world activity was driven by a centuries-old idea. The reformers, who found the practices repugnant for a number of reasons and in a number of ways, were developing different ideas that not only did not support indulgences but were aimed at their destruction. This complex and mature system of worldly action did not conform to Luther’s burgeoning sense, inspired by Augustine, that humankind was born sinful, that the nature of humankind was dictated by the Fall, and that there was therefore nothing humanity could do to ameliorate its own depravity. In this world-view, indulgences were a corruption, a grubby racket; and baptism, one of the central sacraments of the medieval age, could not cleanse sin. This proposition developed into the peculiarly Protestant statement of predestination, a theological position which states that the destination of the soul is decided before the birth of an individual – some theologians even suggested it was decided before the creation. Luther wrote of single predestination that God had determined who to elect; later, Calvin would write of double [document 15] – that He had also decided who to damn. Both theologies boiled down to a simple, if depressing, conclusion: there was absolutely nothing an individual could do either a) to learn whether they were to be saved or b) to do anything to change their pre-ordained status. And you certainly didn’t need a priest as an intermediary – which proved useful for authorisation in states like England which sought the means to undermine and usurp the authority of the Papacy and its Church. For Luther, however, theology  – not politics  – was the focus, and his thought was fundamentally about the individual relationship with God, not a polity’s with the Pope. His core beliefs therefore had a huge impact not only on Christian belief but also on personal identity and the way people wor­­shipped, as well as beliefs about, and perceptions of, humankind. The belief that humanity was utterly saturated with sin, completely corrupted and irredeemably soiled, led followers down various paths. In Britain, those that followed Calvinist beliefs in double predestination most closely – the Presbyterians in Scotland and the puritans in England – developed ways of living and worship which were at once introspective and self-deprecating and through which they begged God for mercy, dwelt on their sin, and developed a vision of God by which Pelagius would have been dismayed – all powerful, all knowing, and utterly omnipotent. They became obsessed, too, with providence – the idea that God revealed his plan through clues which the attentive might be able successfully to interpret (163). Protestantism in this way became an intensely self-aware faith, and its most passionate believers an unusually anxious community. We have already seen how disruptive these communities could be to attempts by the authorities in both kingdoms to create unity; their vision of humanity as entirely subservient to God, and to His plan for all Creation and every individual, was an incredibly potent

Theologies 45 element in their fixation on achieving as perfect a Church as possible – since to do so, and even to be among the group striving to achieve it, might be a sign that one was among the elect. Luther’s thought is also the source of the Henrician challenge to papal authority. Despite his initial and persistent focus on the individual, Luther became increasingly aggressive in his language, and increasingly angry with the Catholic Church, eventually labelling the Pope himself as the “antichrist”. Not at all surprisingly, then, Luther and his theses attracted the attention of the papal authorities, who were very used to dealing with heretics of this kind, from the Czech Hussites and English Lollards of the fifteenth century (78, 87). A century prior to Luther, both of these movements, if they did not quite presage Protestantism’s ideas and methods, had certainly set a pattern for challenging the Church authorities; but they had been suppressed before their theologies had secured significant or widespread impact. Perhaps believing that the same could be achieved again, Pope Leo X took his time to respond to Luther. He sent out theologians and envoys to shadow the Augustinian and expose his fraud. This only made Luther even more agitated, finally pushing him to make outright and aggressive attacks on papal authority, most obviously in 1520s On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. Luther’s contest with the Papacy, which ended in his excommunication, took place in the same context as England’s own break with Rome – but Luther had got there first and offered an important intellectual authority and foundation for the Henrician/Cromwellian project.

The English Reformation: A Lutheran National Church? Since the work of A.G. Dickens, it has been a scholarly commonplace that the “English Reformation” is inseparable from its reception of “Continental” ideas in general and Lutheran ones in particular (38). There is a great deal to unpack here, and historians have most recently nuanced the bald dichotomies of “political/popular” and “from above/from below”. The reformations proceeded via constant and contingent negotiation between a range of contextual forces. Even before Protestantism expressed itself, however, it is easy to see in the humanist movement for Church reform clear evidence of England’s integral links to “the continent”: it had found one of its most engaging expressions in the correspondence between the Erasmus and Sir Thomas More, Henry’s Lord Chancellor following the fall of Wolsey. But theirs was only one of the very many intimate and intense intellectual connections that powered events in England. In recent decades, historians have therefore placed the English experience not to one side of but at the very heart of the wider European reformations (23, 105). This broader vision of England’s Protestantism has helped free it from the chains of that idea of the via media – the unique English “middle way” between Catholicism and Calvinism – but also helped contextualise its theological debates.

46  Theologies Traditionally, the “Henrician” Reformation has been seen as cautiously Lutheran in its character. Luther – though often depicted as the father of the Reformation – was also something of a theological conservative, for all the radical consequences of his protests against the Catholic Church. His views on the Eucharist, on royal authority, and on ecclesiology were all incremental at best and rather fusty at worst. This, too, was the character of the English reformation of the 1530s, which Chapter One demonstrated was often quite restrained and careful. Indeed, an English focus on Luther, and repeated translations of his works, continued well into Elizabeth’s reign, with twelve new translations between 1570 and 1581 alone. Historians have noticed the political expediency of particularly the Henrician adoption of Lutheran ideas (139), but, as we saw in Chapter One, merely seeing that first English reformation as political fiat is insufficient: something about the ideas themselves, too, were compelling enough for the whole idea of reform to stick across a whole kingdom. Still, for his part and almost despite himself, Henry – who had written a furious denunciation of Luther in 1521 – found his theology landing squarely in the vicinity of Wittenberg. From the dissolution of the monasteries to the abolition of purgatory and the adoption of a liturgy in English – and from the fierce defence of baptism to an insistence on the importance of subjects recognising the earthly authority of their sovereigns – the “Henrician” Reformation looked very much like one that could have been directed by Luther himself. In particular, Lutheranism’s consolatory nature proved critical to its appeal. In addition to the ways in which its essential conservatism appealed to magisterial reformers  – that is, princes applying Protestantism “from above” – Lutheran theology also exhibited an unusually humane character. The actual doctrine of Lutheranism was not perhaps its primary attraction for Henry VIII, but its pastoral theologies perhaps ensured that his Reformation achieved purchase. As we’ve seen, Luther’s ideas proceeded from his wrestling with sin – and from the relief he experienced upon following Augustine’s theology through to Lutheranism’s found tenet of justification by faith alone. One of the most venerable of Reformation historians, Geoffrey Elton, cast Luther in the role as “the great pastor” for the manner in which he placed feeling and comfort so squarely at the heart of his theology (47). Anxiety would return in spades with the second generation of reformers – as we’ll see – but Lutheranism’s pragmatism, its focus on the everyday that can be seen most obviously in his Table Talk (first published in 1566), gave it great purchase among the English. It has been traditional to see a waning of English Lutheranism – a withering almost on the vine – once the stouter Reformation under Edward VI noisily adopted innovations perceived as inheritances from Calvinist  – or Reformed – doctrines (72). There is much to commend this view, especially since under the Elizabethan settlement it was Geneva, not Wittenberg, that seemed the centre of many of the theological controversies of the age. But recent work has shown that even English writers closely associated with

Theologies 47 Luther’s more radical successors – such as John Foxe, whose litany of the outrages committed against Protestants by Mary Tudor, The Acts and Monuments of 1563, did so much to forge Protestant and puritan identity – also worked closely with Lutheran texts, for example most famously in Foxe’s case a translation of the German reformer’s commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (158). Increasingly, Lutheranism has been seen as an important seam of the English reformations moving forwards from the 1530s onwards. Interestingly, however, this acknowledgement of Lutheranism’s influence has also worked to underline the radicalism – not just the “Henrician” conservatism  – of the early phases of the English Reformation. Certainly, evangelicals distrusted by the Henrician estate  – most obviously William Tyndale  – were deeply influenced by and familiar with Lutheran thought. Equally, they subtly altered elements of his thought in their own work, and in this way English evangelicalism proved from the off to be rather more innovative than has necessarily always been acknowledged (66). In writing a version of Luther’s commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Romans, for example, Tyndale in 1526 eased past Lutheranism’s views of the relationship between God’s law and forgiveness. In so doing, he arrived at a vision of sin and salvation that seemed to herald “Calvinist” theology more than it accurately reflected Luther’s work (157). In other words, not all English r­ eformers – and not all corners of the English reformations – were as cautious or conservative as traditional understandings of “reform from above” allow. This process of radicalisation was not unfamiliar to Luther. Early in the Reformation, his works had attracted the attention of educated, urban intellectuals – humanists who were interested in analysing religious ideas. Luther’s later works were less subtle and increasingly bitter against both the spiritual and secular authorities. The new invention of the printing press ensured these ideas travelled widely, and they began to inspire even rural peasants, who felt in their feudal serfdom that they were receiving something of a raw deal from their German rulers and the Catholic Church. The peasants used Luther’s works as a sort of call to arms in a conflict known to posterity as the Peasants’ War – in which they raised an army to fight the authorities. These battles were bloody and ended in the deaths of over 6,000 peasants. Luther, who never intended his works to be used in such a way, desperately tried to distance himself from such lowly connections, writing his Against the Murdering Hordes of Peasants in 1525. This came rather too late: Luther found himself discredited from those above for his supposed peasant connection and from below for his harsh and unsympathetic treatment of those who had taken his words so much to heart. As Luther’s influence waned, so new generations of reformers took, as Tyndale had, the theologies of the early Reformation and began to go further with them. In Chapter One, we saw how the regime of Edward VI instituted several radical reforms to the “Henrician” Reformation’s founding documents, introducing increasingly more Reformed practices to the English Church (106). This wasn’t a process which carried all of the English

48  Theologies with it, of course – there were many moderates who were suspicious of the directions in which their more radical brethren wished to take the Church and kingdom. Nevertheless, at least one historian has noted that the 1549 protests in Exeter and East Anglia over the Prayer Book of that year contained at least as much support for reform as they did horror towards it (106). Critically, the raft of early reforms that emerged from the Edwardian regime, overseen by Edward Seymour in his capacity as regent, included a new book of homilies, the abolition of old heresy laws that could be used to pursue evangelicals, and the final dissolution of the chantries – those survivals of the monasteries where priests prayed for the souls trapped in a purgatory the new Church no longer believed existed (62). England’s reformation, was no longer, if it had ever been, a purely Luterhan one. The renewed and radical energy of this second phase of reform can be perceived in the level of Edwardian England’s religious activity (139). Even Archbishop Cranmer, a careful and cautious player under the prior regime, came to believe that Luther was wrong about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the 1552 Prayer Book – that more radical of Edward’s two liturgies – made the symbolic nature of Holy Communion much clearer. As we saw in Chapter One, these theological shifts were guided by new arrivals from the continent, most obviously Vermigli and Bucer, whose presence in England also occasioned an explosion in the volume and quality of evangelical texts being printed for a popular audience. In addition to the Prayer Book, Bucer’s influence can be seen in the discouraging of choral and organ music in English churches of this period and Vermigli’s Forty-Two Articles (72). It is important that we are careful with our terms here: these innovations are properly termed “Reformed” Protestant rather than the still-common appellation of “Calvinist”. That latter term refers specifically to the Geneva of Jean Calvin, where we will head shortly, but which under Edward was not yet dominant: in both the suppression of music and the promotion of symbolism in the Eucharist, for example, the clearer influence is Zürich, where Zwingli and Bullinger adopted these positions more clearly than the Genevans. Critically, too, “Calvinist” – like “puritan” – was a term originally coined as an insult; Reformed theology is more helpfully diverse than the “Calvinist” sobriquet necessarily allows (122). The Edwardian regime, then, certainly broke with the vague Lutheran consensus of the “Henrician” Reformation and headed in a more radical direction. Edward’s early death, and the success of the Catholic Mary Tudor, placed these cross-currents only partially on hold: in exile, English Protestants found ways to continue their dispute over the precise character of the Reformation, and Geneva eventually came to dominate the understanding of English and Scottish radicals alike. Not all the Marian exiles went there first, however. At Frankfurt, for example, English exiles built an expatriate church that proved a crucial centre of dispute. The city authorities there required the exiles to adopt a Prayer Book more radical even than Edward’s

Theologies 49 1552 edition. Uncertain as to their obligations here, the community sent for other exiles – for Edmund Grindal from Strasbourg and John Knox from Geneva – to debate the correct nature of liturgy and proper form of worship. The “Troubles at Frankfurt”, as they have become known to posterity, would have a significant impact on the course of British Protestantism (45). The Frankfurt group was led by William Whittingham, who would go on to be the lead translator of the Geneva Bible, by far the most influential of the sixteenth-century English translations. In Frankfurt, however, it was services rather than scripture which were in question and specifically the correctness of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer, especially in terms of its treatment of the Eucharist. While Knox advised the Frankfurt congregation that further reform to it was necessary, Grindal and the other Strasbourg delegates cautioned conformity to the authorised liturgy. The result of the deliberations was schism rather than compromise: the more reformist of the Frankfurt congregation, including Whittingham himself, broke with their community and left for Knox’s Geneva. There, they produced in co-operation with others the Forme of Prayers which would go on to be adopted by the Reformed Scottish Kirk and English puritans alike [document 18]: indeed, the first recorded puritan conference we met briefly in Chapter One, at Plumbers Hall in London, used this explicit repudiation of the authorised English liturgy at their services (82). In this way, exile forged the character of English Protestantism in all kinds of ways. The godly developed a sense of themselves as a community besieged and this became a fundamental of their identity. They began to identify with the Israelites of the Bible. Through particularly this latter association, the puritan and Presbyterian sense of themselves of a chosen people slowly emerged (164) [document 3, document 14]. In other words, key moments in the English Reformation occurred not just far from the halls of Westminster but from any English town. Indeed, while the Protestants contended at Frankfurt, Mary I  was in England seeking to roll back their reformation. Mary’s approach was, though, often a more careful attempt to balance a revanchist policy with retaining the support of the English episcopal bench, political elite, and people than has sometimes been acknowledged. For example, Cranmer, at the last moment refusing to recant his Protestantism, was burned at the stake for heresy in 1556; but the more theologically ambiguous Archbishop of York, Robert Holgate, was merely imprisoned. Bible lecterns were removed from parishes, but the ban on the vernacular was not restored. New catechisms and homilies were produced in an effort to inspire genuine and informed enthusiasm for the return to Rome. This more nuanced picture, however, has usually been under-emphasised in favour of a focus on Mary’s marriage to the powerful Catholic monarch of Spain and her alleged overenthusiasm for burning heretics, and it is certainly true that during Mary’s reign nearly 300 Protestants died in under four years (44). It is too easy, however, to see the reign of Mary I – and the regime of her chief minister, Reginald Pole – as a sort of interregnum between passages

50  Theologies of the English Reformation. Rather, we should understand it as part of the same process. Traditionally, Mary’s religious policy has been seen as backward-looking, seeking to restore medieval Catholicism rather than looking to the Catholic Reformation and the Council of Trent for inspiration (38, 102). Local studies, however, have helped illuminate how effective Mary’s “counter-reformation” could be at the parish level (20), and Eamon Duffy’s book-length study of the reign and its religious policy has done much to ask important questions of conventional understandings (44). The Marian regime made real efforts to equip parish churches with all the necessary elements of renewed Catholic worship, and Pole, its leading intellectual and administrative light, had been intimately involved with the proceedings at Trent. England under Mary I underwent yet another reformation  – simply one headed in the opposite direction. If attempts to forgive or at least contextualise the programme of burnings prosecuted against Protestants by Mary perhaps go too far, so too have the wholly negative assessments of her many detractors. Critically, Mary’s reign is one of many examples of the persistence, and lively spirituality, of Catholic feeling in England (91): there was no widespread unrest against the revocation of every piece of Reformation legislation, no Protestant version of the Pilgrimage of Grace (which might also suggest that the majority never really signed up to the extremes of godly “resistance theory”). Likewise, Christopher Haigh has shown that Catholic faith remained persistent in England deep into the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods (68, 70). This legacy could be expressed in subtle but significant ways: as late as 1568, for example, the parishioners at Morebath in Devon were still describing the communion table as an altar (43). In other words, the reformations proceeded in fits and starts and was not evenly distributed. It may or may not have begun as a conservative and “Luterhan” reformation, but it certainly did not continue in that vein for long, and events in Geneva were about to give new energy to its next phase.

Translation and “Calvinism” The Peasants’ War, or Henry VIII’s break with Rome, or many of the other more radical events inspired by Martin Luther’s initially reformist theology, represented significant breaches with the past and with orthodoxy. But in many ways, however harder became the dividing lines between Protestant and Catholic, Luther – and Lutheranism – remained relatively conservative in a theological sense throughout his life, often to the frustration of the second generation of reformers (whose theology came to be known as Reformed – remember, the capital R is all-important here!). We can see this most clearly in the controversies that surrounded the Holy Communion, or the Eucharist as it is technically known, which we’ve already noticed being such a bone of contention at Frankfurt. We have already seen, too, that in the England of

Theologies 51 Edward VI, there was much controversy surrounding the presence of Christ in the bread and wine of this critical ritual. Catholics believed in 1517 in transubstantiation – the doctrine that, as the bread and wine entered the mouth of the parishioner, they literally became the flesh and blood of Christ. Luther disagreed with this but only a little: he opted not to follow his own logic of sticking to the Bible so closely as to do away with the presence of God in the Eucharist entirely. Instead, he developed the doctrine of consubstantiation, by which the spirit  – if not the actual physicality – of God is thought to be invested in the Communion wafers. In the thirteen years in England that spanned first 1539’s Six Articles  – the high-water mark, as we’ll recall from Chapter One, of the conservative rearguard action under Stephen Gardiner – then Edward VI’s 1549 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, and finally Elizabeth I’s 1559 Prayer Book, England moved from an endorsement of transubstantiation to a more muddied emphasis on Lutheran consubstantion only ultimately to arrive at a possible interpretation of the rite that was more thoroughly Reformed. In so doing, England passed through each stage of Protestantism’s theological progress on this issue. The tortured story of the Protestant approach to the Eucharist is, then, a good example of its progress from the first generation of reformers to its second. The most influential of the “second generation” reformers was Jean Calvin, a Frenchman by origin but whose reforming work was undertaken in the Swiss city of Geneva. It is with theologians like Calvin – joined by Ulrich Zwingli of Zürich and others – that we see the establishment of the capital-R “Reformed” theology, since this second generation went further than Luther ever had: just as some of their number decided the bread and wine were simply symbolic, still others  – most notably Zwingli himself  – rejected the concept of the sacrament entirely. “Reformed” Protestantism was in this way the process of “stripping away” yet further layers of doctrine and ritual in order to arrive at a faith and a church which Protestants believed was as close as possible to that found in the Bible. Many English puritans as well as Scottish reformers were self-identifying “Calvinists”, and all shared with Reformed Protestantism a total emphasis on the Word of God, most commonly and completely found in the Bible. To read the Word, one needed reliable translations of it. We’ve already seen how, during the reign of Mary I, Calvin’s Geneva became a literal as well as a spiritual home to many exiled British Protestants. It was far from the only such destination, but it proved one of the most influential. In particular, it became a place where committed evangelicals would go to hone their preaching and learn about properly Reformed ecclesiology. The Forme of Prayers that proceeded out of the “Troubles at Frankfurt”, for example, offered liturgical clarity for the faithful; likewise, Calvin’s Presbyterian system of church governance provided an alternative to the English episcopacy who had proven to be such a break on Protestant progress. Geneva thus

52  Theologies became a centre from which a new form of truly Reformed religion emanated. The expert linguists amongst these exiles, meanwhile – who were led by the erstwhile leader of the English congregation at Frankfurt, William Whittingham (1524–1579) – took to translating the Bible into English. The English were fortunate in the priority placed on their native language. There remains to this day no complete translation of the Bible into Lowland Scots; recall that during the Reformation Scots-speakers could and would commonly also read English. Scottish Gaelic speakers, meanwhile, were forced to make do with Irish Gaelic versions of the Bible, which as we noted in Chapter One did not begin to appear until the seventeenth century – though the Book of Common Order, at least, was translated into Scots Gaelic in 1567. In Wales, meanwhile, the very first printed Welshlanguage book – Yn y Lhyvyr Hwnn, which included translations of the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments – had been prepared for pub­ lication in 1546 by the reformer, and key servant of Henry VIII, Sir John Price, and had urged the further translation of works into the language. In reality, progress proved rather slower: despite an Act of Parliament in 1563 mandating the translation of the Bible into Welsh, the Bible in its entirety was not first translated into the vernacular – by William Morgan, later bishop of both Llandaff and St Asaph – until 1588. The English Prayer Book and New Testament had appeared separately in 1567, the product of a collaboration between Richard Davies, bishop of St  Davids, and the noted scholar William Salesbury (who was responsible for the majority of the translation itself). It had included a preface which appealed directly to notions of Welsh identity (14), but Salesbury’s translations often offered a rather idiosyncratic and rarefied form of Welsh that would not have been recognisable to the vast majority of parishioners, and it consequently had relatively limited effect; Morgan’s magisterial translation, however, achieved far greater penetration, if rather later than had been hoped for. In the absence of a uniform programme of consistent translation into the full range of British vernaculars, then, it seems that ad hoc translation was rife. Local priests would translate key passages themselves into Gaelic or Welsh or Cornish or Manx, following the Reformation’s emphasis on the Word without the sometimes dubious benefit of an officially sanctioned text (170). Indeed, this practice might offer one explanation for the absence of such translations, which might otherwise represent something of a puzzle. Much emphasis, after all, had been placed by British reformers, from the latter years of Henry VIII’s reign onwards, on the vernacular: Luther’s contention that the faithful must each have an individual relationship with God necessitated that they be able to read scripture, and the Latin Vulgate would not do. Cranmer in particular focused quite intensely on translation, perhaps more than he did on doctrine. But translation was also an intensely political act  – as the Englishman William Tyndale had found to his cost when his own translations and commentaries proved too radical for the authorities of his home-in-exile, Antwerp, and he was burned as a

Theologies 53 heretic. This tension at first stymied the availability and range of translations ­available in the British kingdoms. The translations that Henry VIII did see fit to authorise, meanwhile – most obviously 1539’s so-called “Great Bible” [document 7] – were simply not very good: large parts were either not translated from the original Hebrew or Greek, and thus imported previous translators’ errors in a game of scriptural Chinese whispers, or incomplete in some other way (34). Little surprise, then, that local populations seem to have done their own translating – and then perhaps had little need for “official” versions when they did arrive. The Geneva Bible offered English speakers, on the contrary, the best and most accurate translation of the original Hebrew and Greek available in the vernacular and thus the closest to the original all-important Word of God. It might in turn offer a second explanation for the failure or absence of official translations: the Geneva Bible was never used officially by the English Church, since the view of it as a sort of vehicle for seditious politics gained too great a sway on the Church authorities; but it nevertheless became a lodestar for the faithful, dampening any enthusiasm for alternative versions. The Geneva Bible’s approach nevertheless remained too inward-looking, too focused on prayer and God’s judgement, for the English bishops, and certainly in its copious explanatory marginalia it was not  – as we have seen  – entirely hostile to that most politically dangerous of Reformation innovations, opposition among the godly to irreligious monarchs. (Not surprisingly, Knox and another influential Scottish reformer, Myles Coverdale, were instrumental in its preparation.) It would remain in England a document that attracted an awful amount of official suspicion. The Geneva Bible won popularity for practical reasons, too. It used roman, not gothic, type to ensure it was easier to read; it was the first English translation to incorporate verse numbers to enable more efficient citation; and the marginalia that crowded every page were designed to aid the faithful in achieving an appropriately Reformed reading of the text. In other words, it was a fine translation, expertly tooled to spread a Reformed reading of Protestantism wherever it was read. In 1579, it also became – dedicated to James VI, no less – the first Bible ever to be printed in Scotland. A copy was sent to every parish church, and it helped create in the Scottish Kirk a truly Calvinist body. It remained a source of controversy even in Scotland, however, due less to the undoubted quality of its translation and more because of the contentious commentary included in its copious marginal notes (4). These fears were not entirely unfounded, and the authorities in both England and Scotland became obsessed with these marginalia as a hiding place for sedition. For example, in the marginal notes of 2 Chronicles, Reformed Protestants could gain an enhanced vision of the story of Ada, King of Judah. In the scriptures, Ada is presented as a zealous king tasked with enforcing the Law of Moses. He does so to the letter, up to and including removing his own mother from office, as she was guilty of worshipping a pagan fertility goddess. For the Genevans, though, even this wasn’t enough – the Genevan

54  Theologies notes are clear on the point that Ada should have gone further and had her executed. This radicalism is repeated throughout the Geneva Bible and was of huge concern to contemporary authorities. In note after note, the editors of the Geneva Bible emphasise that kings and magistrates alike were ultimately ruling in the name of God – and that therefore their authority ran only so far as they exhibited godliness. At 2 Peter 2.11, for instance, the notes pointed out that “the Angels condemne the vices and iniquities of wicked magistrates, yet they blame not the authoritie and power which is given them by God” – in other words, the justness of a ruler’s actions can be separated from the divine authority with which they pretend to be enacted. In Isaiah 3.14, meanwhile, the Genevans found evidence that a prince’s obligation was to forge a properly appointed Church, and in Psalms 94.20, the marginalia emphasised that rulers had no authority to any appropriately godly Churches. Still, the translation’s radicalism can also be overstated  – in addition never once to suggesting rulers were not ordained by God, the notes also made clear that tyrants, too, could be put in place by Divine providence, and did not advocate violent revolution in response. Critically, however – and as we have seen in the letter of Cecil to English operatives in Knox’s Scotland – the impression of a seditious influence encoded in the Genevan text became widespread (21). Nevertheless, the Geneva Bible became a bedrock of Reformed Protestant faith. Its strength was in the apparatus it provided to achieve an appropriately Reformed reading scripture: its notes and maps, verse numbers and translation choices offered readers a ready-made framework for understanding the scriptures. Despite – or perhaps because of! – the official suspicion of it, the Geneva Bible was hugely influential and became the favourite edition of English puritanism, thanks to its perceived textual authenticity: even in England, the Geneva Bible outsold the official translation (34). In part, of course, this was because of the quality and transparency of its rendering into English of the Hebrew and Greek. The vernacular was critical to Protestantism’s vision of each believer forging an individual relationship with God – to read the Word for oneself was a critical, as well as a radical, act. But the Geneva Bible was also about establishing – and perhaps enforcing – a common way of understanding the scriptures, in a fashion which helped build a common identity among Reformed Protestants. This common identity was distrusted by the authorities, and both Elizabeth I  and James VI came to distrust all “Calvinistic” theologies, associating them with resistance theory (141). In Scotland, however, the Genevan example came to define the structures of the Church itself.

Ecclesiology in Scotland: Presbyterianism and Episcopacy The Protestant Churches of the early period of the Reformation – including Henry VIII’s Church of England – had been in many ways, and in a term

Theologies 55 Calvin himself might have used, pseudo-Catholic. At the fringes, there were theologians and religious thinkers who were truly devoted to Luther’s ideas of transforming religion through personal piety and a personal relationship with God, but everyday English churchgoers in the 1540s were in many ways carrying on as before. This was not to be the case in Knox’s Scotland. It was not only church buildings or orders of service which were to be changed; merely using the vernacular was insufficient. A true Reformed Church was structurally and intellectually a quite different place to what had gone before. When, in 1541, the Colloquy of Ratisbon had failed to reunite Catholics and Protestants, even the Protestants themselves had been somewhat surprised: they now found themselves as a sect, a religious heresy, standing outside mainstream religion with no real ideological leader to push their beliefs forward and no strong Protestant doctrine. This is the gap that the Reformers filled; their goal was to systematise Protestantism, and in places like Calvin’s Geneva and Zwingli’s Zürich they piloted their programme (6). Knox and his Scottish co-religionists then exported this ecclesiology to the British Isles. This meant Bibles as we’ve seen (34, 149). But it also meant rites and prayers, sacraments and elders. Calvin had written his Institutes of the Christian Religion – which, if you like, laid out the rules for the new Protestant Church – during his time in yet another Swiss city, Basel. But it was in Geneva that he put it into action, and the structures he tested there came to be used across Scotland’s patchwork Kirk, albeit side by side with the Episcopal system that remained in place until the mid-seventeenth century. We saw in Chapter One how the First Book of Discipline was rejected by the Scottish Parliament; in 1578, the Scottish Reformers tried again, with its Second Book of Discipline, and this draft – in the opinion of one expert – mirrored the Institutes almost exactly (6), from its categorising of ministers to its vision of the relationship between church and state. For Calvin, there were two central features that were vital to the setting up of what he called a “true church”. They were, simply, that the Word of God should be preached and that the sacraments should be rightly administered. When Calvin spoke of the “Gospel purely preached”, he referred to the method that would be used to such effect by Knox: the Word of God, from scripture, propounded to the flock (often at length) by a well-educated minister. All this, of course, had to take place in the vernacular. But for Calvin, the University education of ministers was vitally important, too. As we have seen, the quality of Catholic ministers in both England and Scotland – and, increasingly by the 1520s, their very number – had been, in the estimation of many, too low. Education became a critical means of ensuring this did not re-occur in the Protestant Church. In England, for example, Emmanuel College in Cambridge was established to educate ministers and ensure goodquality – and appropriately authorised – preaching. In Scotland, meanwhile, a similar emphasis was placed on the importance of an educated ministry: although, as per Reformed principles, ministers were to be elected by their

56  Theologies congregations, elders and other ministers reserved the right to vet candidates for their suitability. These colleges could be important politically as well as spiritually: they created groups who identified strongly with the cause and could be relied on by the ecclesiastical authorities. When Jesus College was founded at Oxford in 1571, for example, it became a particular home for Welsh clergy and gentry, which historians have argued helped secure support for Protestantism among the Welsh cultural and social elite (105). The quality of ministers, however, was especially critical because of a characteristically Reformed focus on so-called “discipline”. This had two elements: a sort of moral policing of the behaviours of the faithful but also a unity of ecclesiological purpose  – essentially a commitment to proper Church structures. Calvin was passionate about rigorous organisation of worship, in large part because he believed it was ordained by God in the scriptures. So, in Calvinist Geneva, Calvin set up church governments, which were seen to be divinely ordained: there were ministers, elders, deacons, and the people. This structure was also adopted in Scotland. Each role had their part to play in enforcing correct religious order. Calvinism also boasted consistories – religious councils, which met regularly to discuss matters of religion and social order and punished those who did not follow a sufficiently religious life. In Scotland, the Generally Assembly of the Church, which first met in 1560, offered nationwide representation of the Reformed parishes; from 1563, regional synods of ministers and elders also sat to discuss the life of the Church. This structure came to be the primary bone of contention in Scottish politics throughout the 1570s and 1580s, with first James’s regents and then the monarch himself, coming to prefer the possibilities of patronage and central control that a system of bishops held open to them when compared to the relatively devolved and localised system of presbyteries. This battle for control perhaps reached its zenith in 1574 when James’s regent Morton attempted to make the king himself head of the Church (mirroring, of course, the position of Queen Elizabeth south of the border); this move was rejected forcefully by ministers of the General Assembly, and one enterprising member of the privy council wrote to Calvin’s successor at Geneva, Theodore Beza, to receive counsel on the wisdom of an episcopal system. Beza replied in no uncertain terms that bishops were to be avoided. The ecclesiological debate would only become more bitter. In the early 1580s, as James reached majority, Presbyterianism suffered a setback when nobles aligned with the movement kidnapped the monarch and held him prisoner in an incident known as the Ruthven raid. In 1584, James’s new regent, the Earl of Arran, passed in retaliation the Black Acts  – which rejected Presbyterianism outright  – and many Reformers went into exile. Though all of this had a political dimension, the Reformed worldly action also had deeply spiritual consequences and implications. Calvin had spoken of what he called the visible and the invisible church. The visible church was the community of believers  – the people you saw

Theologies 57 around you. They were visible  – the believers on the earth. The invisible church was the saints and those who had been saved by God, a group also known as the elect. Election was a feature of predestination  – that theological belief devised by the medieval theologian Augustine and pursued by the Protestants – which held over all believers the knowledge that God had already appointed who to save and, according to Reformed theology, also who to damn. There was no obvious means of understanding who was who, thus they were “invisible”. In the visible church community – that is, the people who came to their local church to worship every Sunday – some people would certainly be elect, chosen by God, but others, inevitably, would be reprobate  – destined to be punished for their natural and inherent evil. Looking for signs and clues of who was and was not elect became a preoccupation in Reformed circles, and in good Church government lay one potential source of signs of election and special status (94). The crown’s obstruction of godly worship was therefore not only standing in the way of proper worship, resolute opposition to it was almost certainly a sign of God’s grace. James would, on his majority, pilot a compromise between Presbyterianism and episcopacy, constructing a complex sharing of power whereby bishops continued to exist, and to oversee the presbyteries, but where simultaneously the ultimate authority of the Reformed bodies was acknowledged. This was an uneasy truce, and Presbyterians such as Andrew Melville were heavily opposed; but under a canny sovereign such ambiguities could just about hold. In 1590, James would argue – in one of the many examples of his talent for saying exactly what a given audience might want to hear  – that the Scottish Kirk was “the sincerest kirk in the world”. Much national pride was derived from this perception of Scotland having so successfully followed the godly model of Geneva (37). The reach of Calvin’s form of Church governance in Scotland was cer­tainly long, then, and was especially found in the second meaning of Reformed “Discipline”, that of moral character. Any kind of activity could be subject to godly censure. In Geneva, for instance, even particular names for children had been rendered inappropriate to the Reformed faithful – too popish or too linked to the Catholic past. As one historian of Geneva has put it, the Reformed authorities consequently “forbade reference to entire categories of names” (128). In one famous case of 1546, a barber asked at baptism to name his child Claude, an appellation associated with a local Catholic saint. The presiding minister abruptly christened the child Abraham instead; the parent was not amused. In Scotland, too, presbyteries were often active in their policing of proper manners: when a royal nominee for archbishop of Glasgow was found to be wanting in character and orthodoxy, for example, he was simply excommunicated. In 1596, meanwhile, the General Assembly upbraided the king himself for swearing in front of the queen. Furthermore, yet another emanation from Geneva – 1558’s Metrical Psalm Book – became central to Scottish worship (46). Adopted officially by the Kirk, and issued in a Scottish edition in 1564, its style of metrical singing of the

58  Theologies psalms came to define Scottish services and penetrated even into the domestic sphere we will explore more thoroughly in the following chapter (36). Likewise, the Kirk’s Book of Common Order, first endorsed for official use in 1562, had at its core Geneva’s own liturgy, itself emanating from the Reformed response to the English Book of Common Prayer that had so troubled the English community at Frankfurt in the mid-1550s [document 18]. Nothing in this text, its compilers contended, lacked scriptural warrant, and its focus on preaching and prophesying – with only Communion and baptism retained of all the sacraments – helped define and delineate proper Reformed “Discipline” (154). Scottish liturgy continued to develop throughout the 1560s and 1570s – in perhaps surprising contrast to English forms of service, which after 1559 remained unchanged; through this gradual accrual of changes, there emerged an increasingly Reformed form of worship (92). In particular, it was striking to English visitors that Scots sat during their services – even during Communion, during which their cousins south of the border would kneel, in a gesture suspiciously popish to puritan eyes. Still, Scots were capable of innovation, too: Calvin’s opposition to formal burial was well established in Geneva, but in Scotland later editions of the Book of Common Order introduced an option for funerals, since parishioners found it difficult to accept so summary a dismissal of the earthly remains of loved ones. We’ll look more at this negotiation between authorities and those “in the pews” in Chapter Three – it formed a critical element of how the Reformation ultimately expressed itself as part of ordinary people’s lives (142). It wouldn’t do, however, to paint too totalised a picture of the Scottish ­Reformation: even by 1600, much was left undone, and this would continue to cause difficulties throughout the seventeenth century. From 1560 onwards, the Reformed Protestants of Scotland built their church slowly and in piecemeal fashion – as we’ve seen, it wasn’t until the 1570s that they even secured a properly Reformed structure for their nascent Church. Meanwhile, not just bishops but Catholicism, too, remained popular  – f­ormal inspections of parishes known as visitations identified “popish” observance well into the 1580s. Even properly Reformed parishes could lack a priest: in 1567, no more than a quarter of all Scottish parishes had a properly accredited priest; even thirty years later, more than a third still lacked one. The rate of change in Scotland was impressive – as early as 1563, most parishes had, officially at least, been converted to Protestantism – but the challenges inherent in imposing on a dispersed and decentralised nation a religious model that had been originally designed in a city-state proved significant. What the Scottish Reformers succeeded in doing, however, was creating a cultural climate: the over-riding mood of the country was “Calvinist”, and Reformed beliefs were an indisputable element of the political, social, and religious contexts in which all Scots moved. Compared with the contingent state in which Scottish Protestantism had found itself during the late 1550s, this achievement – partial though it may have been – should not be underestimated.

Theologies 59

“A Church But Halfly Reformed”: Elizabethan England In the spring of 1566, an erstwhile godly minister named Robert Cole stood before an assembly of the London clergy in full vestments. Presiding over the extraordinary meeting, the Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker informed his audience that they should all take Cole as an exemplar – that in the Elizabethan Church there would be no room for eschewing the proper clerical gowns. All ministers would wear a cap, a gown, a surplice, and a tippet; if they did not, they would be suspended. Parker followed through on this promise in thirty-seven non-conformist cases at that very meeting; the suspended ministers were given some months to change their minds. What might seem a vaguely surreal scene was in fact a dramatization of a persistent and destabilising controversy within the English Church. In Chapter One, we read of the Edwardian bishop John Hooper refusing to wear proper vestments for his ordination, since the gowns offended his godly sensibilities. This controversy had not gone away in the intervening years, and in 1565 Parker had issued his Advertisements, which laid down clear rules on clerical dress. The audience in 1566 is evidence enough that the Advertisements had not been met with universal obedience, and predictably Parker’s 1566 ultimatum led to open protest on the part of those ministers who had refused to dress like Cole. Parker was no disciplinarian, and usually attempted to enforce the queen’s insistence on conformity to the 1559 settlement only to its minimum standards (25), but his attempt here had severe repercussions. In particular, the former Marian exile Robert Crowley penned a work, A Briefe Discourse Against the Outwarde Apparel of the Popishe Church, which attacked in no uncertain terms the English Church’s refusal to reform sufficiently its vision of clerical dress. It was the first entry in a series of paper combats on the issue (29). It is no coincidence that our first examples of puritan conferences emerge in the late 1560s: the vestments controversy, as it became known, proved especially bruising for the English Church. By 1570, Thomas Cartwright, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, was lecturing extensively and fiercely on the need for Scottish-style presbyteries to be established in every parish; the Admonition to Parliament of 1572 took up this standard but was met with strong resistance by the new Bishop of London John Whitgift. An excellent volume in the series of which this book is also part deals in detail with the difficulties the Church of England faced during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods (55); it is not for this narrative to retread that ground. But what the vestments controversy demonstrates with unusual clarity is that the “Reformation” was not perceived in its period as an event but a process: the godly of England believed that their Church had a long way to go to live up to the principles of true reform. Already by 1566, it was clear that Scotland was adopting the Genevan model beloved, too, of the English puritans. The vestments controversy was the clearest sign that the English Church was unlikely voluntarily to adopt the same

60  Theologies strictures yet. The godly were not, then, pleased with the Elizabethan settlement, and they would continue to push for further change. This process of pressure and negotiation should be critical to our understanding of what the ­Reformation was. The reign of Elizabeth I did not feel as stable to its subjects as it has retrospectively seemed to posterity (141). Elizabeth’s lack of a direct heir, and as the reign went on an increasingly slim chance of one being produced, placed the Tudor state back into the position in which Henry VIII had found himself during the 1520s and which had caused such ructions for England at the time. With a Catholic monarch – Mary Stuart – still enjoying perhaps the best claim to the English throne, Protestants under Elizabeth lived in constant fear of a return to popish religion. A  virulent, imaginative, and increasingly vituperative anti-Catholicism began to brew which quite overestimated the community’s potential for sedition and conspiracy [document 20]. The largest Catholic uprising of Elizabeth’s reign, the Northern Rebellion of 1569, was poorly organised and easily suppressed, and yet rumours of Catholic plots swirled constantly and usually centred on Mary. The evils of “papistry” were detailed and added everywhere in cheap and popular print. From the Ridolfi letter of 1571 to the Babington Plot of 1586, plans to assassinate Elizabeth in favour of the Catholic successor  – often little more than wishful thinking – began to animate English Protestants keenly. It didn’t help that the great Catholic powers of the continent, most especially Spain, regularly rattled their sabres throughout Elizabeth’s reign. The English queen’s caution and conservatism – and the relative weakness of her treasury – meant that hot war was very rare for Elizabethan England. But cold war came to be a state of being. All this mattered because it rendered matters of religion acutely relevant to matters of state. For the Protestants, reforming the Church while they could was a matter of urgency and creating a truly godly state was a calling and a vocation; for the crown, meanwhile, establishing untrammelled authority was just as critical to the stability of the regime. These twin impulses did not always coincide: for Elizabeth, who was not a committed “Calvinist” (16, 41), priestly vestments were part and parcel of a Church that emphasised royal supremacy, and therefore her command that they should be worn should not be ignored, regardless of the godly’s squeamishness. This tension between magistrate and reformers will by now be familiar to readers, and Elizabethan England had no better – or more stable – solution for it than its predecessors and contemporaries. Like James VI’s Scotland, however, a series of contingent compromises and a good deal of creative ambiguity helped paper over the cracks. As we have seen, this was the context in which the Elizabethan puritan movement grew as a pressure group within the Church and also as a self-identifying community sometimes outside of its official structures (1); nor were they the only dissenting voices in England: though Catholicism was a weak force in the kingdom during this period, the small pockets

Theologies 61 of the so-called “recusants” – Catholics who refused to attend Protestant services  – and the more significant numbers of “church papists” – who outwardly conformed but were rather more privately “popish” than was strictly legal – were from the 1570s buoyed by the regular trickle of Jesuits from the ­English School in Rome. One of the Jesuits’ number, Edmund Campion, made most eloquently the Mission’s case that theirs was a spiritual not a political p ­ roject – that is, their aim was to minister to co-religionists and maintain the Catholic faith in England, not overthrow the Protestant regime – but the thorny issue of how innovations in religion of any direction – Catholic or “Calvinist” – necessarily and directly impinged upon what many felt to be a fragile royal authority both struggled to varying degrees in squaring this circle. Elizabeth’s caution stayed her hand for some time, however, in introducing treason legislation that might help enforce her sovereignty. By 1585, however, she had relented and that year’s Act of Association made formal a Bond that had been circulating in Protestant circles since the year before and which had been sworn by thousands. The Bond, and the Act that authorised it, established the penalty of execution for any usurper or would be assassin. It would be this law that did for Anthony Babington a year later, when he was convicting of plotting alongside Mary, Queen of Scots, to murder the Queen. Mary herself would be executed in 1587, and the godly would breathe a sigh of relief. If the question of royal authority was so hot a topic during this period, the godly pressure for reform did not go away. It does seem, however, to have been channelled rather differently: from the heated debates of the 1560s through the separatism of the conferences of the 1570s, and by the last decade of Elizabeth’s reign the English puritans seem to go quiet. Partly this was due to a turn in godly piety towards the interior – an expression, perhaps, of failure in the political realm. Maybe the movement was exhausted after thirty years of trying  – and failing  – to achieve wider reform. Perhaps it felt itself to be at less immediate threat with Mary Stuart gone and her Protestant heir, James VI, now in line for the English throne. Yet their silence remains significant: in the early 1560s, many of the godly had taken up a place in the English Church because they believed – as that influential theologian of the Edwardian era, Peter Martyr Vermigli, had argued – that proper reform could best be achieved from within its structures. The example of Scotland demonstrated that the creation of a Reformed national Church was possible; England’s Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563 had expressed solid Reformed principles; the bulk of Elizabethan liturgy, too, clearly took its lead – as had the 1552 Prayer Book – from “Calvinism”. Further progress could be made. Indeed, the Scottish Kirk demonstrated this, too: as Philip Benedict has argued, it became more Reformed over time (6). Even as late as 1566, Reformed authorities from the erstwhile Edwardian regime’s other leading theologian Bucer – and, from Zürich, Bullinger – all offered their support to Parker’s position on vestments.

62  Theologies In the event, however, further reform did not occur. For example, several Parliamentary attempts to reform further the liturgy – in 1571, 1572, 1584, and 1587 alike – came to nothing. As we saw in Chapter One, by the later 1570s Parker’s successor at Lambeth Palace, Edmund Grindal, was siding with an increasingly vocal puritanism in making an issue of yet another point of disagreement between the inspired godly and the nervous crown: lay preaching and prosephyings. The change at Lambeth Palace from Grindal to the anti-puritan Whitgift marked a stark shift, however, as the bitter dispute over the Marprelate Tracts showed [document 24]. Perhaps the quieter period of the 1590s was the silence of defeat. The reformations proceeded over such a long period of time that we can perceive ebbs and flows in its progress across the several generations that took part in it (85, 165). Noisy demands for reform almost always prompted creative theologies on the part of the conformists, too: in 1593, for example, one of the most learned of this stripe of theologians, Richard Hooker, produced the first volume of his Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, a cogent and coherent defence of episcopacy against its critics. Certainly the importance of puritanism can be over-emphasised. Puritans, too, existed on a spectrum – from fiery Presbyterian to gentle gospeller – and there was a large body of moderate Protestant opinion in the country (93). Whatever the theological debates in urban centres, in many parishes the gospel continued to be delivered in the vernacular to congregations more or less happy with the stripped-down rituals of the Elizabethan Church. Indeed, the great increase in the number and quality of preaching ministers during this time is not just a signal achievement of the godly party but also evidence of a healthy and even popular Church (32). Doctrine was shifting subtly, too: as Bullinger’s support for Parker during the vestments controversy suggests, English Protestantism, while sitting on a “Calvinist” base, also increasingly took its cues from other, and more moderate, sources (155). The puritan subculture had a constant impact on the religious debate of Elizabethan England, but moderation also ruled – though, as Ethan Shagan has shown, the language of the so-called via media was often used to hide rather less than gentle statecraft (145). This was not yet anything that might be called Anglicanism (perhaps this did not emerge until after the Restoration); but nor was it quite the Reformed religion of Scottish or Edwardian hopes. The reformations, as far as contemporaries were concerned, continued. In other words, by the 1590s English religious culture was both heterodox and authorised, centralised and yet dynamic – especially in the parishes. It is to the pews that we will turn in Chapter Three, as perhaps the most important impacts of the British reformations took place at the grassroots level: in the minds and self-perceptions of the people who lived through them.

3 Cultures

The Reformation and Popular Piety From 1580 onwards, a story circulated in both Germany and England entitled (with some variations) A prophecie vttered by the daughter of an honest countrey man. The pamphlet described the story of a young girl who had, it was said, returned from the dead to pronounce a prophecy to her contemporaries in which she warned against the sins of pride and vanity. The tale told of how a “poore countrey maide”, aged about fourteen years, died suddenly. One day later, she miraculously returned from the dead, for five days, and during this time warned those who came, aghast, to see her of the perils they faced if they might face after their earthly life and spent time with her family. According to the girl’s story, after her death, she was overtaken near the bridge of the Brooke by a comely old man, with a long grey Beard, who saluted me . . . said he to me, come my loving Daughter, I must need talk with thee, and tell thee that which as yet is hidden from thee. In other words, the girl had come back temporarily from the dead to describe to her audience what heaven was like and also to warn them of impending danger should they persist in their sin. What is most significant about the account of the child’s vision is not so much whether it is true or not, but what such a story can reveal to us of the culture that proved to be so interested in it. This might seem a strange thing to suggest, as on the face of it the story of a young girl who comes back from the dead to describe God as an old man with a beard seems as far from the often severe theologies of the Protestant Reformation as we are likely to get. In truth, though, the reformations were, especially “on the ground”, a stranger and a more patchwork phenomenon even than the competing interpretations of scripture that drove its leading theologians. In the case of our Lazarus-like young girl, for example, age-old biblical and magical beliefs had long held that those at each extreme of the age spectrum were more likely to be close to God: thus the authority both of child and aged DOI: 10.4324/9781003182283-4

64  Cultures man in the story. But these patterns didn’t simply disappear at the Reformation. As Alexandra Walsham has argued, traditional modes of belief were in fact allowed to continue, kitted out in a distinctly Protestant dress (163). The Augustinian belief in original sin that had so inspired Luther, and which carried through to Reformed theologies of double predestination, held that children were born through sin and were therefore themselves sinful, ungodly creatures; but alternative popular visions of the young saw children as innocent and untainted or at least, innocent once they had undergone baptism. As we have already seen, however, baptism  – along with all the other rites and sacraments of the Catholic Church – was itself intensely debated during the British reformations (57). This was on one level an irresolvable conflict and stands in for many more that similarly seemed to pit “popular” culture against “official” theology during the reformations, but on another it was a clash which was indeed soothed and softened at the parish level. Many religious writers and thinkers during the Reformation period became increasingly focused on pastoral issues in part as a direct response to the need to create from Reformed Protestantism a faith which could minister to the masses. It was not only “godly” puritans who cared about faith; the faithful of other – less “hot” – persuasions cared, too, and how the reformations translated into practical divinity altered and shifted over time. It is this process of negotiation that this chapter will seek briefly to document. The exchange between official doctrine and practiced faith has emerged in recent historiography as a key pillar of the British reformations experience. In both England and Scotland, authorities sought to create truly national Protestant Churches, ones which could not just offer succour to the most committed among the faithful but provide – if you will – a “full-service” faith to every subject in the land. The means by which this was done, and the creative interactions between popular belief and Protestant theology, represent a critical part of the Reformation story that has until relatively recently been rather neglected by historians. Today, however, it forms the basis of some of the most exciting work in the field (118). We have already seen how politics cannot explain the Reformation entirely and how important belief was in driving apparently political events. Our understanding of what the “Reformation” was – of what faith is – has been and will increasingly be similarly enriched by an examination of how the ideas of the period seeped into and were transformed by the individual lives of those who lived through it. The story of the reformations in Britain – as elsewhere – is at least as much about ordinary people and their faith as it is about Henry VIII and his court. Laura Sangha, Jonathan Willis, and others have, for example, referred to the “social history of theology”, by which the “practical divinity” of the mass of believers at this time can be unearthed and placed in equal balance against the politics and doctrine of the period (143, 172).

Cultures 65 The source material for understanding this “popular” end of the Reformation spectrum is deep and wide-ranging. Most obviously there is the explosion in popular and cheap print materials during this period: newsbooks and broadsides, pamphlets and tracts, all produced for a popular audience and often sold in very great numbers across the country (167). This inordinately rich source introduces us to a variety of literatures that evidence a religious culture teeming with cross-currents and lively debate. Printed sermons, too, can offer a sense of what the laity were hearing every Sunday (80); catechisms offer a sense of what they were learning (64); and devotional books provide a window into both their reading habits and private, domestic practices (22). Visual culture  – paintings, woodcuts, maps and textiles – are critical sources and have been put to ever more effective use by contemporary historians (49) [document 27]. Material culture, too – furniture, toys, textiles, even kitchenware – can tell us much about popular religion (73). Even records of the music played – or not – in parishes across Britain during this period can offer huge insight into the character of contemporary worship and therefore of belief (171). All of this has resulted in recent years in an intense focus on popular religion  – on how belief was shaped by its experiences “in the pews”, beyond official liturgy or doctrine. This is the latest front in expanding our understanding of the British reformations (112). Peter Marshall has memorably expressed the new historiographical “turn” as challenging “the view that Protestantism and popular culture were like oil and water which could not mix” (115). On the contrary, historians now understand the dialogue with popular experience as a critical element of the “Reformation process”. Whole volumes, then, have already been written about the individual experience of being an early modern Protestant in Britain, of the lifecycle that framed that experience, and the social conditions in which it took place (142). We have already seen how crucial were the various official liturgies in England and Scotland, that these were often the first documents to be translated into local languages, and that they occasioned such debate each time a new edition was being prepared and published. These demonstrate not just this importance but the constant and crucial to-and-fro between doctrinal purity and pastoral efficacy. From prayer to fasting and preaching to bell-ringing the parishes of the British Isles were also places noisy with private – as well as official – innovation and belief (123). This lived experience of early moderns was as complex as our own and requires a good deal of unpacking: the reformations, as much as they represented a paradigm shift in early modern politics and society, were also themselves subject to a range of paradigms which shaped them in turn (81, 89). Any brief introduction to this multi-layered area of Reforma­ tion studies will only ever be just that – a sort of aerial view of a deeper and richer field, as each of this book’s chapters has been. It is critical, though, for students arriving to the British reformations for the first time to understand

66  Cultures that all study of this period should now look closely at parish- and pewlevel matters: there is much of interest, excitement, and acute relevance to be found there. The distance from politics and theology to pastoral concerns, then, is in reality a small leap: the three were intertwined and together shaped the reformations.

Recusancy and Resistance: Catholics This is a narrative of the reformations in Britain that situates the Protestantising process as one oriented primarily around ideas: political ones, of course, but also cultural and, primarily, religious and spiritual. Equally, however, Catholicism did not simply go away and – especially in England – it became noisier again as time went on: Peter Marshall has rightly argued that “in any persuasive portrayal of the English Reformation, Elizabethan and Stuart Catholics deserve to emerge from the wings to the main stage” (115). In other words, if the British reformations were Protestantising in result, they were not entirely Protestant in character. As we have seen, events of all kinds were routinely dictated by theology, not the other way around; politics was more reshaped by religion that it found itself able to shape it. In this chapter, we turn our attention to the people who were affected by, and in turn affected, this social, cultural, and intellectual process. It is important to note that the reformations did not occur solely because of a sudden shift in what we might today call public opinion. They began in universities and throne rooms, town halls and pulpits, in what amounted to the “public sphere” in an early modern context, but the reformations were not classic bottom-up processes: coercion was an important part of the story of the reformations. But it isn’t the only part. In Ireland, for example – which by and large this volume has been forced for reasons of space to avoid – this process of imposition was particularly stark, and significantly the Irish experience offers the only example of a major monarchy making a concerted attempt to create in their kingdom a single, unifying Protestant Church – and nevertheless failing to do so (11). What this tells us is that the limits of coercion, then, can be discerned in the record – as can the persistence of Catholicism. In England and Scotland, Catholicism was very far from unpopular when the reformations arrived. We have seen how large sections of the ruling class and population in Scotland remained committed to the old faith and yet how Protestantism took root regardless, partly due to the unusual political contexts of the Stuart monarchy. Readers will recall, too, how in Wales the “Henrician” Reformation was more underwhelming in its successes than it proved in its second, Elizabethan phase – partly as the result of a more careful negotiation, via better educated ministers and higher quality translations into Welsh, with local cultures. Wales has traditionally been seen by Reformation historians as a conservative polity where the writ of central government ran less long – and one historian has therefore called a “stronghold

Cultures 67 of Catholic recusancy” (141) – though we’ll see that recusancy (the refusal to attend church services) isn’t the only measure of Catholic belief at this time. Nevertheless, Welsh Catholicism ultimately seems not to have posed a significant opposition to the Protestantising mission in general: there were no armed uprisings in Wales throughout this period, and by 1603 the number of known Catholics could be numbered only in the low thousands (170). There were vocal Catholic exiles, certainly: in 1579, for example, the Angelsey exile Owen Lewis wrote unsuccessfully to Rome arguing that there was need for a Catholic printing campaign in his native country, while around 1587 Robert Gwyn – a former resident of the influential Catholic “English College” at Douai in France, and now a Catholic missionary in his native land – published Y Drych Cristianogawl (The Christian Mirror) in an effort to excite Welsh-speaking faithful into rebellion against Protestant reform (15). Nothing came of either of these efforts, however, and in England, too, Catholic uprisings were perhaps surprisingly limited: to the earlier, and rather more serious, Pilgrimage of Grace of 1536, and the later, but rapidly quelled, Rebellion of the Northern Earls in 1569. Nevertheless, during the reign of Mary Tudor in England – and of Mary Stuart in Scotland – Catholicism could be found not just hiding in the country but at the very centre of court. In the case of Mary Tudor’s reign, we have seen that many English believers flocked back to the old Church and a community identity for Catholics was rebuilt; especially from the late 1560s onwards, meanwhile, first the English and Scottish Colleges at Douai and then the Society of Jesus would send many missionary clerics back to the British Isles to serve the Catholic flock. At the same time, however, there was considerable persecution. In Scotland, a sometimes ad hoc, sometimes organised programme of iconoclasm  – attacks on the fabric of Catholic churches – seriously degraded Catholics’ capacity to worship at all (126); in England, which remained relatively free of the sort of Reformed enthusiasm that demanded the destruction of images, Catholics instead were persecuted for failure to attend Protestant services. That said, the extent of Catholicism was much wider either than those Catholics who worshipped in full view of iconoclasts or those who became the so-called recusants – the Catholics who refused to attend Church services. Rather, many outwardly conformed – in England, for example, they became in some ways the mirror image of the “hotter sort of Protestant”, who at the other end of the spectrum of belief also remained in the Church of England and influenced its character. Mere persecution, then, does not mean that we shouldn’t pay close attention to those individuals who remained Catholics, at sometimes significant personal risk to themselves, throughout the various phases of the British reformations. Indeed, from 1580s onwards so vibrant was Catholic belief in England  – bolstered as it was by arrivals from the continent  – that a whole new Catholic culture can be seen to be emerging, connected to but also distinct from the pre-Reformation “old faith” (115). From some of the wealthiest nobles in the land  – with their private chapels and secret

68  Cultures Masses – to the humbler and outwardly confirming “church papists” (162), Catholics did more than simply not disappear during the reformations in the British Isles; their ideas remained current and an important part of the intellectual ferment of the period. To be clear, Catholics in both England and Scotland were, in the wake of the reformations, a “proscribed minority” (160). The emphasis we have seen to be placed on the forms of public worship – those Books of Common Prayer and Common Order – were in effect aggressive attacks on Catholic worship, which of course was seen by reformers as corrupted and a threat to worshippers’ immortal souls. It was only possible to worship legally by using authorised rubrics, and this put those staying true to the Catholic faith at risk of censure. This risk was sometimes greater and sometimes weaker, depending upon the authorities’ enthusiasm for enforcement at any given point. In England, “recusancy” laws were introduced to police attendance at Protestant Church: Catholics were not permitted simply to stay away, and conviction as a recusant could result in fine and imprisonment; that said, in the main the Elizabethan regime took things no further and did not seek actively to convert the so-called “papists” (133). In Scotland, meanwhile, Catholic clerics were regularly rounded up and publicly shamed: eggpelting was a common penalty, although hangings were not unheard of and became more common. It is often in the records of these punishments that we most clearly see sizeable numbers of people continuing to profess the Catholic faith. There may have been an absence of armed uprising, then, but there was no shortage of individual Catholic believers. In this sense, the Protestant reformations failed: they did not convert everyone, there remained sizeable pockets of resistance. Indeed, until 1567, Scottish Catholics lived under a Catholic monarch, and until well after 1559 Catholics in England had every hope that the innovations of the reformers could be rolled back; only after the deposition of Mary Stuart in Edinburgh and the imposition of the Elizabethan settlement following the death of the great English Catholic hopes of Queen Mary and Cardinal Pole – indeed, arguably only with the execution of Mary Stuart – did this potential for reversion die. In Scotland, Catholics were never seen as the enemies within that they came to be seen as in England; but nevertheless under Elizabeth, the Marian bishops who refused to align themselves to the new arrangement were not burned but were rather put under house arrest – another commonly deployed example of shrewd late-Tudor moderation (115). As Ethan Shagan has demonstrated, however, moderation could be its own kind of compulsion, and the Elizabethan state proved adept at ensuring political allegiance if not spiritual conformity – limiting Catholic room for manoeuvre in ways more subtle than the stake (146). The Catholic Reforma­ tion on the continent saw a renewed emphasis from Rome on evangelism, and much paranoid emphasis was increasingly placed by Protestants on the “foreign influence” of continentally educated Jesuit priests secretly touring the

Cultures 69 country and converting believers to “papistry”. Even in the 1560s, E ­ nglish churches were full of reminders of the old faith, from altars to crosses, and the success of Knox in Scotland saw Catholic clergy rehome themselves in the north of England. In other words, Catholic culture was a part of British culture and sat alongside the authorised communities of Protestants: they worshipped alongside each other and lived in the same towns and villages. This interpretation runs counter to a traditional view of Catholicism as the religion of the old nobility, successfully ghettoised in private chapels on opulent country estates: the Kennedys in Ayrshire, for example, or the Percys in Northumberland. If English Catholic exiles wrote regularly to their compatriots at home, exhorting them to be proud of their ancient faith and if Mary, Queen of Scots, offered a viable alternative to Elizabeth, it is also true that – even as a distinct Catholic identity emerged in the court records of the 1570s and 1580s – the cliché of the isolated and marginalised Catholic can no longer be said to be fair (133). As we have seen, not only was the Society of Jesus founded in 1534 in part with the express aim of providing the so-called “Jesuit” missionary clergy for the faithful who found themselves outside of the fold; the “English College” at Douai was established in 1568 and offered an international centre for the continuing education of an English Catholic clergy (Scottish and Irish colleges were also founded). Furthermore, the Catholic Reformation launched by the three sessions of the Council of Trent (1545–1563) ensured that other such seminaries, and more widely a revived and re-energised Catholic Church, could offer succour and inspiration to Catholics across the British Isles. In England, recusancy grew rapidly from the 1570s onwards, suggesting a withdrawal from the wider Church by some, and the hotter form of Jesuit was to see England as a heathen land ripe for missionary work. In Scotland, meanwhile, Catholic leaders such as James Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, counselled resistance and refusal while two solitary Dominicans continued to teach at St  Andrews. None of this looks like faith withering away or turning inward, as the healthy prison populations of vocal Catholic priests perhaps demonstrate. Indeed, as we’ve seen, a virulent anti-Catholicism took hold in both England and Scotland later in the sixteenth century; this spoke not to the absence of Catholics but in fact their rather plain presence. Indeed, that deep concern about Catholic loyalty to the state may paradoxically have offered them some spiritual space: as Peter Marshall has argued, public loyalty to the Elizabethan regime was often sufficient to enable continued private observation of the Mass (115). In this sense, politics played its part in the survival of English Catholicism as Elizabeth’s reign wore on, and between hotter periods of English anti-papal feeling during the late 1560s and mid-1580s, British Catholics had learned to walk a fine line of private belief and public conformity, of quiet adherence to an ancient lineage of faith – an embrace of a new “clerical activism” (115), an acceptance of a contrasting sense that their kingdoms had for now been lost – and a renewed, fervent, productive commitment to the religion’s ongoing vitality (166).

70  Cultures

The Reformation of Ritual Of course, it was the sacraments that represented perhaps the cleanest division between Catholic and Protestant. These rituals formed the backbone of an ordinary believer’s life. Not for nothing has one distinguished historian called the sacraments “the skeleton of the social body” (12). What historians have called the life-cycle was fundamentally shaped by the life events that had once been marked by the seven Catholic sacraments. In Protestant lands, the faithful were left only with the big three: birth, marriage, and death (31) [document 27]. Baptism, the wedding ceremony, and funerals remained in place – as we have seen, not always unreformed and not always without controversy, but nevertheless in place. That controversy is the first place for us to start, since in the combats between various stripes of reformer we see the stresses and strains that shaped the everyday life of parishioners – but which also enabled them in turn to shape if not doctrine (that is, official belief) then certainly liturgy (in other words, official practice). The Reformation was in this fashion a genuine two-way process, as especially studies of the German Reformation have shown (88). Take, for example, the question of baptism. Baptism had long been one of the seven sacraments in Catholicism, but, as we’ve seen, during the reformations its status was quite hotly debated among Protestants. Luther and his followers kept it on as an important ceremony, but other thinkers such as Calvin were much less certain about its efficacy, questioning whether it could wash away sin or guarantee an infant acceptance into God’s kingdom. In England, then, the established Church retained a form of baptism in the Book of Common Prayer, but many puritan divines raised questions about the precise shape of the ceremony as well as whether it should be present at all. Crucially, there was special controversy over how to frame reforms to parishioners: parents tended to find baptism comforting, because it suggested their new baby had some protection against Satan and temptation; properly Reformed Protestantism, however, cast a great deal of doubt on that consolatory belief. As we’ve seen, this was the fate of the funeral rites in Scotland – initially under-emphasised by liturgy, their return was necessitated by popular demand. Changes in prescribed doctrine, through the removal of the direct association between baptism and salvation and the assertion of the mysterious decree of predestination, had created much ambiguity surrounding child salvation. Despite this, Reformed religion provided a constructive and positive framework for raising the young – set out in a wide range of family advice manuals written by Protestant clerics during this period and beyond. Within this framework, ideal models of behaviour were narrated for both parents and children. If you like, these formed a set of distinctly “Protestant narratives” of childhood. Such idealised narratives provide us with a glimpse of what kind of behaviour was expected of both parents and children and also what kind of world these families inhabited. Of course, there were

Cultures 71 inevitably some significant (and interesting) gaps between what was prescribed and what was practiced. One of the most intriguing aspects of the life of the child in this period, and in particular the spiritual journey envisaged for them by adults, was how much it changed during this time. A child born in 1548 (or before) had become, through their baptismal blessing, a passive participant in the elaborate ritual of Roman Catholicism, with its exorcisms and incense. Through this ritual, the Devil was perceived to be drawn from their body and cast away, skulking into the distance. The Catholic rite was believed to leave the child blessed, demon-free, and  – most importantly  – saved. The path to salvation for the baptised Catholic child, especially if he or she died in infancy or before the years of their discretion, was therefore much more straightforward, arguably, than those born just a few years later, who were welcomed into the Christian flock by the very different, and heavily debated, Protestant baptismal liturgies. In 1549, Edward VI’s first Book of Common Prayer threatened to remove exorcism. Ultimately, it remained, although significantly truncated, but in the second, more Reformed, Book of Common Prayer in 1552 it had been removed altogether [document 10]. That is a clear sign of the extent to which those hotter Reformers, who would under Elizabeth come to be known as “puritans”, thought that baptism was altogether over-emphasised. Such puritan persuasions do not necessarily signify outlandish opinions. The “Calvinist” views belonging to popular authors of family advice texts such as Robert Cleaver, William Gouge, or William Perkins [document 26], while perhaps more intense, were not necessarily far from the beliefs of the English nation which so eagerly read their work. Perkins in particular was a moderate puritan who was also one of the most widely read practical theologians of his day. Perhaps their beliefs and views, whether thundered from the pulpit or written in published form, were representative of what was perceived to be going wrong within the English family, as the eyes of the spiritual perfectionist would have seen it. Yet, much like the lifestyle gurus of present-day society, just because they were perhaps somewhat purist in their views does not mean that their advice was not followed, at least in part. Indeed, Reformed doctrine could in practice be flexible and was able to adapt itself to pastoral situations and the rhythms of the human life-cycle. The 1549 Prayer Book marked a huge and significant parting from the words of the Catholic rite, which in England were most clearly captured in the document known as the “Sarum Manual”: a list of Catholic rites from Salisbury which was widely used across England. In the Reformed vision, the role of the minister in combating the Devil and assuring the child’s salvation was significantly reduced and the ceremony leaned in a very different direction than its Catholic predecessor, asking God to look after the children who entered the font, only tentatively hoping that he will receive them for his own. However, and perhaps because of the worries of parents, despite these changes the 1549 ceremony (and its future incarnations) retained a

72  Cultures strong pastoral focus and still continued to include the possibility that children might be saved by the rite – or at least allowed the congregation (if they were willing to) to believe that the infants could ultimately be saved by this rite. Nothing in the liturgy precludes this possibility, even where the theology which informed it did. This is evident in the place in the liturgy’s “rubric” where the priest was instructed to hand the baby their white robe – the “crisome” – while saying the words, “Take this white vesture for a token of the innocence which by God’s grace and this holy sacramente of baptisme, is geuen unto thee (. . .)” and as a sign that “thou mayest be pertaken of the lyfe euerlastyng”. The 1549 ceremony even retained exorcism: although much shortened and rendered less “spectacular”, the words about expelling demons were still to be uttered with some confidence. “I commaunde thee, vncleane spirite”, the minister was instructed to say, “in the name of the father, of the sonne, and of the holy goste, hat thou come oute, and departe from these infantes”. Perhaps this isn’t just Reformed theology seeking to make itself palatable in the pews. Revisionist historians who have sought to emphasise the health and attraction of Catholicism  – such as Eamon Duffy and Christopher Haigh – have argued that the 1549 Prayer Book saw a compromise between the views of zealous Protestant divines and more conservative voices present within the sixteenth-century religious landscape in England. The 1552 Prayer Book, however, was significantly more Reformed. We’ve seen how the vision of the Church went back and forth until well into the 1580s, and the debate around baptism is a great example of how. In 1552, gone was the exorcism, gone was the christening gown, and the entire ceremony was to take place inside the Church, at the font. This latter change in particular de-emphasised the transitionary nature of a rite – which, as we’ve considered, previously included explicit references to thresholds and exorcisms, and parts of which therefore took place outside the church building. The language used in 1552 was much more robust, and the emphasis much more clearly on the need to stay close to God and to follow his path in order to secure salvation – in other words, the ritual was somewhat clearer about its own potential lack of efficacy. For certain, the Devil was not to be defeated at the font, and salvation was not to be won through baptism but through adherence to a Christian life, and the outcome, in terms of salvation, was seen to be dependent upon the actions of the individual Christian. Most significantly, they rested ultimately on God’s predestined and unfathomable purpose. As the 1552 ceremony concludes, “and with one accorde make our prayours vnto almighty God, that they (the child) may lead the reste of their lyfe, accordyng to this begynnyng”. Nevertheless, as before, the 1552 ceremony and subsequent incarnations of the same – including Elizabeth’s 1559 edition – still maintained the open possibility that a child receiving the rite had the hope of salvation, a good chance of being saved, and it still retained the link between baptism and potential salvation, as clearly emphasised by the stubborn continuance

Cultures 73 of the “emergency baptism” service in each edition of the Book of Common Prayer. What, then, was the impact of these changes on parishioners? What did worshippers and congregations in England feel or think about the implied hope (but underlying uncertainty) that if infants received baptism, they may be saved? Congregations – the religious mainstream who rallied in church on a Sunday and perhaps did not question the word of their minister too closely  – may have been comforted by the continued pastorally focused assurances. However, the more religiously radical or more critically minded members of the Church and congregation may have felt differently – both about the assurances of salvation and about who should and should not have been permitted to receive the sacrament in the first place. Indeed, away from whatever may or may not have been implied by the liturgies themselves, with or without infant limbo and exorcism, the question over original sin, baptism, and child salvation was not one that could be easily resolved. There were many such questions in Reformation Britain, and we can see them be worked out in the liturgies and other literatures just as we can track the tensions of baptism.

Death and Dying in Reformation Britain If baptism marked the start of life, the funeral rites marked their end. Calvin did not believe in an over-emphasis on funerals, however, and in Reformed Protestantism death became as much a personal struggle as it was a public grief. The moment of death was a point of reckoning – with one’s own sin and one’s consequent fate in the afterlife. Well beyond the godly who took their cues from Geneva, the broader Protestant community, too, was deeply committed to living well and worshipping God in the correct ways. That was not only because this had value in itself, of course, but it was because to do so had a complex and fraught relationship with the fate of your soul after death. That relationship was not as straightforward as we might at first think. Simply put, it might be easy to assume that to live well was to earn your place in heaven. This was not the case, and we learned some of why this might be in Chapter Two: Luther had, after all, abandoned the idea that deeds could achieve salvation. For Luther, believers were instead justified by faith. The Reformed theology of double predestination – that God had pre-ordained which souls were destined for heaven and which for hell – complicated salvation even further. It would be a mistake, too, to think that the understanding of God’s monopoly on who would be saved and who damned was restricted to puritan circles – although certainly the theories of the invisible church that we explored in Chapter Two animated that tendency intensely. But interest in the fate of the immortal soul was endemic across the British Isles during the period of the reformations, not least because the founding Protestant tenet of justification by faith alone put into question what anyone could do to help their soul along its journey.

74  Cultures Justification by faith was not a simplistic theology and nor was its adoption uniform or lacking nuance. Nevertheless, general opinion held that it was God who decreed when a person would die, and it was God indeed who had made death a condition of the human experience: in the Bible, after all, death was not necessary to life, but was rather introduced when Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden. From the first, then, death was inextricably linked to sin and judgement. The cross-fertilisation of all this with the concepts of predestination and the afterlife could generate in many ways a fatalistic approach – you will die, and you must accept that. But this wasn’t often a message promulgated by Protestant preachers. As we saw when investigating baptism, there was room in Protestant theology for consolation, and preachers were in the business of persuasion – we think here of John Knox and his compelling oratory. This was just as true when it came to dealing with death. An emphasis developed on death as a wondrous event, something not to be feared but rather embraced as an opportunity to make peace with God. In this mode of thinking, death became the site of the last battle with the Devil – a time of over-throwing temptation and providing the thoroughness of your commitment to God, and, should you be one of the elect, your final transference to heaven. The framing of death as a moment to be prepared for, however, was neither especially puritan nor particularly new. Across the medieval Christendom that especially puritans were always at pains to say they rejected, Catholics had studied the Ars moriendi. These were linked fifteenth-century texts – a “long” and a “short” version – which had, in the wake of the unprecedented mortality of the Black Death, helped believers shape their death along uniform and conventional lines. The Ars moriendi – literally “the Art of Dying” – set out a series of protocols for dying well. It began – as Protestant works would – by persuading the reader that dying was a good thing. It also included the prayers that should be said, tips on imitating Christ in death, and the temptations one should expect to meet on the deathbed – including, of course, instruction on how to avoid them. The question we need to address is much less why puritans were so interested in dying as how they proposed to do it. Death was everywhere in medieval and early modern Europe, and it was therefore necessary for Reformed Protestantism to come up with its own approach to dying. Abandoning a preoccupation with death wasn’t an option – it was too omnipresent to ignore. So Protestants opted to place something of a premium on reminding believers of death: rather than trying to lessen the focus on it, they emphasised it further – life after death was what really mattered. As we know, Reformed Protestantism had done away with the Catholic notion that action in this world could have any impact upon your soul’s fate in the next. In that context, life mattered even less than every before  – and the afterlife, that is the rest of all eternity, took on an even greater relative importance.

Cultures 75 The key, however, was in signs of election: the preoccupations of the Ars moriendi were refigured into a sort of test of sincerity, a kind of theatre at which the dying person  – but perhaps even more importantly their family and neighbours  – could view evidence of election in the drama of the final temptations of the soul [document 25]. Some of the most common elements of a “good death” were surprisingly practical: they included making a will, maintaining outward peace, reconciling any outstanding quarrels, and receiving spiritual counsel. For puritans, however, the really crucial element of the deathbed drama was in the final battle with the Devil, the fiend who would arrive to tempt the soul in its last moments. Even the most saintly of the godly were susceptible to temptation – that was the nature of the human creature, bound by original sin to be endlessly corruptible. The elect, of course, were different –in that we see why puritans were so interested in the final testaments of the deathbed. Of course, this certainly involved all banishment of sacrament and even ministering from the deathbed, which in itself was as we’ve seen fraught with spiritual and political negotiation with the Church authorities. But in the deathbed we also see the total commitment to fulfilling God’s will that would ultimately drive puritans towards the sorts of political action seen in Scotland under Knox. We shouldn’t strain to make these kinds of claim for “relevancy” – the beliefs of puritans are interesting enough without feeling the need to link them to politics – but the “cultural transcripts” of the Protestant movement are important in the ways they reveal the motivations of their actors. The deathbed is a case in point: as Alec Ryrie has suggested, “temptation was a script to be followed. . . (the) companions (of the dead) fully expected it to happen” (142). That is, temptation itself wasn’t a bad thing but giving into it was, and to that end a series of scenarios were set out in puritan thought, types of temptation that the godly must overcome if they were to show signs of election. The deathbed was not a private place, and there were roles for family, friends, and neighbours. It was a communal experience, one over which Protestants bonded but about which they also shared their fears and hopes, their expectations and definitions of “true” spirituality. That may seem strange to us, since we live in an age of private – even hidden  – death, but the early modern period was different, and therefore contemporaries coped in a very particular way. Did they feel despair at death, then? Almost certainly. But despair was placed in a context – it was a step towards a good death not an obstacle to it. What was sought on the deathbed, the antidote to despair, was assurance of election and that was found in fulfilling the role provided to the godly and thwarting the one assigned to the Devil. Doubt was natural, but defeating it was essential, too. Just as with the family advice manuals, then, death advice manuals were prepared and published. Their authors were often godly  – William Perkins pops up again in this genre  – but the audience was very often much wider. Again, we see that puritans weren’t a separate group but

76  Cultures simply further along a widely shared spectrum than some of their fellow believers. Certainly, they were often interested in persuading people of their righteousness, but they often did so in not always hectoring ways. Another writer of “death manuals”, for example, was Thomas Becon, a slightly more extreme figure than Perkins but also far from an anti-establishment one [document 17]. Becon had long been a committed Protestant – he was arrested in 1540 for over-zealous preaching, at the time of Henry VIII’s rather conservative stewardship of his reformation. Under Edward VI, meanwhile, he was a close adviser of the de facto regent Edward Seymour. He wasn’t one of the Genevan exiles – under the Catholic Mary I he instead went to Frankfurt, the exile church that attentive readers will remember had a rather more orthodox approach than Calvin’s cohort. This makes him an interesting figure in “godly” circles, because ordinarily we would understand puritans, as we know, as followers of Calvin. In fact, as time went on, Becon abandoned Lutheranism not for Calvin but for Huldrych Zwingli, the Swiss reformer who was in some ways even more Reformed than Calvin himself –as we learned in Chapter Two, he was one of those who believed that the Eucharist was purely symbolic, with not even the presence of a vague Christological spirit at the ceremony. What is important about all this is that in Becon we can therefore see the interaction of all the religious cross-currents present in sixteenth-century Britain: not only the search for theological purity and doctrinal orthodoxy but also the emphasis on ministering to the faithful and offering consolation. “Puritanism” was not a fixed set of beliefs and did not therefore exist isolated from the mainstream of English – or Scottish – religious belief. Rather, it was part of a dynamic situation in which traditional belief, Reformed theology, and popular piety mixed and merged to create the particular historical moment we refer to as “the” Reformation. That a man like Becon wrote “death manuals” to help ordinary people who lived in Protestant ways understand their death tells us that the politics and theologies of the reformations were neither all there is to know about those events nor distant from people’s everyday lives.

The Protestant Family These theological-cultural debates and exchanges, then, were far from esoteric. Rather, they reached into the very hearts and homes of early modern people. Indeed, there is a traditional view among historians that Protestant reformers took a much more positive view of the fundamental unit of personal life – the family and the conjugal partnerships that made them possible  – than had the medieval Catholic Church. This perspective suggests that Protestants gave more credence and authority to the family: Luther, for example, wrote about his own, and he and other reformers emphasised the importance of family life to social order and spiritual life alike. Most

Cultures 77 obviously, they did away with the belief that ministers should remain celibate, believing that this was an unnatural state that would lead to carnal desire and sin (recall that one of Mary I’s first acts in her Catholic Reformation of England was to revoke clerical marriage). What this all resulted in was a renewed centrality of the family in religious life (56). This element of domestic piety was communicated to the laity largely through a genre of literature: the family advice manual. Examples of this popular form of literature were enthusiastically purchased and read throughout the British Isles during the period of the reformations, and it would be fair to say that familial literature was not being produced in an ideological vacuum. Rather, it reflected the anxieties felt within the broader culture in response to the ways in which people were forming families and raising children within new, Protestantized contexts (58). There was also, in addition to the manuals’ idealism, a range of other narratives about childhood churned out by the popular press – narratives which by contrast provided less than “ideal” child roles. Furthermore, there was a host of behaviour models available, both for adults to fulfil and for children potentially to “imitate” (or at least, imitate as far as depictions in contemporary literature allowed them to (59)). These kinds of story reveal to us the ways in which families were able to react to and assimilate forms of spiritual education. The source material left to historians seeking to piece together “popular” piety cannot be read uncritically. But family advice literature can reveal to us the idealised roles in which it was acceptable to cast children. The ways in which children were expected to show loyalty to their parents and to the spiritual community at large were numerous. Keith Thomas has argued that children, although considered to be wild and untamed in many respects, including when it came to their spiritual status, could gain attention and notoriety by behaving in an “adult fashion” (153). To be a good child, a pious child, one had to behave like a small adult: a Christian figure who prayed, who read, and who understood the Word of God. Family advice literature depicted children in two most distinct roles: those of child as a sinner needing to be baptised and, even more significantly within Protestant texts, the child as scholar. Indeed, through scholarly activity and reading of the Bible, both parents and their children, it was widely believed, could be reformed and saved (22). Family advice tracts and manuals tended to be lengthy and doctrinally based works which sought to provide a complete guide to the rearing of children, from birth right through to marriage. They were based on official and learned theologies, but digested these for popular audiences in such a way that, it was hoped, readers would be able to live appropriately godly lives. They instructed readers how to find the perfect spouse, how to go about marriage, how to run a household and keep domestic servants, and sometimes even how to die gracefully. All such advice was issued on the understanding that a true Christian life was rooted in the basic principles of the Protestant faith. Notably, such literature concentrated almost entirely, if

78  Cultures not completely, on the religious education and spiritual well-being of children, rather than concerning itself with physical, medical or social concerns. Family advice manuals were not a new form of literature in post-­ Reformation England; they had existed before, in smaller numbers, and their ideas had been Protestantized by Reforming clerics. Indeed, if we refer to Richard Whitford’s 1530 text, A werke for householders, we can glimpse a pre-Reformation model of clerical writers attempting to lay out ideal and prescriptive models of family behaviour. Whitford’s text was more heavily structured around prayer and patterns of worship than later examples, which are more pastoral and more keenly directed at children and specific family circumstances. The post-Reformation authors who are known to us – the likes of Perkins, Gouge and Cleaver – were notable, well published, and seemingly well-read figures. These men were significantly connected to godly movements within England. Robert Cleaver was a minister in Banbury, a particularly godly area and where his neighbouring parish was ministered by another puritan, John Dod, with whom he co-authored A godly forme of household government. Importantly for the historian seeking to gauge the currency of these kinds of ideas, Cleaver and Dod’s text was popular – it was published six times between 1598 and 1630. Cleaver was not alone in occupying this sort of position in the wider culture. William Perkins, too, was a well-connected and celebrated theologian, with Europe-wide fame, whose works were published extensively during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Critically, he also focused on interpreted Reformed theology for as more popular audience. After a drunken youth, Perkins went on to become a Church of England clergyman, author, and theologian. His brand of faith was similar to that of second generation Swiss Reformers, such as Theodore Beza and Zacharias Ursinus. His work Christian oeconomie, or, A short survey of the right manner of erecting and ordering a familie was not the most significant of his works, published just once in 1609, but it still reveals the attempt of England’s most notable Reformation-era theologian to lay out how early modern families were, ­ideally, to be ordered. It is debatable how typical of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century British society were the views presented in this sort of familial literature, but as Peter Marshall has reminded us it isn’t helpful to understand religious identity as fixed into “camps” at this time. Rather, all belief was on a spectrum and Protestants broadly recognised the fundamentals of their faith in each other, even where exact practice or rigour might differ. How exactly or successfully popular print fused Protestantism with a more “lay” understanding of Reformed faith is still a matter of debate  – Ian Green, for example, has criticised Tessa Watt for over-emphasising its translation of doctrine into popular practice (65, 167), and the work of historians such as Peter Lake has consistently emphasised the disputatious variety of Protestant belief and self-expression (94) – but it seems clear that much effort, and a great deal of readers’ money, was spent on at the very least

Cultures 79 communicating forms of official doctrine and theology to an audience that was eager to c­ onsume it. There are certainly recurrent themes in the family advice manuals. Sex and marriage, Protestants believed, were essential parts of human life – and the best thing the Church could do was to promote it, to instil families with the correct values, education, and virtues needed to ensure that Christendom functioned more effectively, and so that young people grew up with the correct values and the correct religious faith. This was surely the means through which the Protestant faith would remain healthy (64). Thus, Protestants developed ideas about child education, stressing the importance of the moral formation of the child and a new interest in the early development of the personality. Just as important to the family’s key role of child-rearing was a good marriage. The average age of couples entering wedlock was actually quite late due to economic reasons (the learning of a trade and the saving of money for example); but young people, it was expected, should not enter sexual relationships before marriage – as the consequences (illegitimate children most especially) could be dire (59). Critically, then, families needed to be ordered. During this period, “family” denoted above all the body of persons living in one house or under one head, including the children, kinsfolk, and servants. This was the basic family unit (151). Perhaps against our expectations, people in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did not live in extended family units, but as nuclear families (man, wife and children) with the addition of, if a family could afford to hire them, servants and apprentices learning a trade [document 27]. Within the household, the closest of relationships was that between man and wife, as Sir Thomas Smith recognised in about 1565: “The naturalist and first coniunction of two towards the making of a further societie of continuance is of the husband & of the wife. . . . And without this societie of man, and woman, the kinde of man could not long endure”. It was this core relationship, blessed and given credence and meaning through the marriage ceremony, that underpinned the family unit – the core social structure. Divorce and separation were frowned upon, though remarriage after the death of a partner was unsurprisingly common, if that is the norm. In turn, the husband and wife unit had certain responsibilities towards both children and servants, who were in turn bound to obey them. These were sanctioned by Protestant practice – Martin Luther had written extensively about his own happy marriage. Indeed, man and wife had certain universally understood roles, underpinned by proper Protestant values. Men’s strongest personal obligations, legal, customary, and moral, were to spouse and children. They generally recognised, for example, their moral obligation to leave the bulk of their property to wives and offspring. Procreation, the first purpose of marriage, embraced parents’ duty to bring up their children and to provide, so far as they were able, for the child’s subsequent “advancement” through education, service, apprenticeship, and marriage. Marriage also provided a legitimate channel for satisfying sexual desire. It

80  Cultures was a lifelong, indissoluble partnership of husband and wife for mutual support in sickness and health. It was accepted that marital relations could go sour and that parental love was stronger. Family was held together not only by affection, however, but also by obedience to superior authority and divine commandment. Obedience to both parents and husbands was enjoined by Scripture. As we explored in Chapter One from a political perspective, the family was seen as a monarchy – a little state. The authority of human fathers, indeed of all temporal rulers, rested on that of God the Father, and this in turn rested, of course, on scriptural precedent. This returns us to the family advice manuals, which routinely set out the Biblical sanction for a variety of godly practices, and which seem more or less to have been accepted by the majority of believers across the British Isles, regardless of their precise confessional identity (79).

Belief in Action: Prayer and Providence In society as a whole, as in the family in miniature, the ultimate and unique authority of God was the central tenet of Protestantism. Belief is important and not at all ephemeral: what people think both tells us something about their world and, in a sort of circle of conviction, affects that world in turn. As we saw, the beliefs of Scottish “Calvinists” fed into a very political theology; likewise, and as we discussed earlier, Reformed visions about, for example, baptism led to real and disruptive cross-cultural debates about the Church and youth. It is a truism that Protestantism is a religion of the Word. Luther’s emphasis on scripture, Calvin’s on the vernacular, and the critical role preaching played in both England and Scotland all emphasise that language was an essential tool of Britain’s reformers. The power of the spoken word of prayer was perhaps its most personal manifestation. Predictably, its importance was discussed most noisily by godly writers. Here as in all other areas of the British reformations, however, all Protestant belief not only shared a spectrum but different emphases could be placed by individual believers on particular acts of piety anywhere along it. Consequently, some avowed “Calvinists” found prayer less interesting than others while other more “moderate” believers in fact placed it at the centre of their practice. It might be more helpful, then, to think of prayer as having two main manifestations or expressions: liturgical and personal. Both were crucial. Interest in private, personal, and often improvised prayer was probably more popular in among godly than mainstream Church Protestants, but in neither England nor Scotland did this mean that believers  – and ministers  – of all stripes didn’t believe liturgy was important and necessary (111). The emphasis we have seen placed on various Books of Common Prayer by the godly and the authorities alike emphasises enough that all persuasions of Protestant believed that at least some prayer should be communal [document 10].

Cultures 81 Where did prayer at home fit in with this, and how did the domestic spirituality of Protestant families operate? Piety – the quality of being religious or reverent – is contained in the acts of devotion, or of worship, undertaken by the pious. Prayer was a big part of that and is one of the ways in which we can see the Reformation enter the private lives of “ordinary” individuals. Some years ago, Patrick Collinson noted that “prayer lay at the heart of puritan religiosity, and yet we know so little about it” (30). Historians have indeed and as a whole had difficulty pinning down prayer as a topic, but since Collinson wrote much work has been undertaken on this slippery but critical element of Protestant religiosity. This has helped thread in concepts of fast, enthusiasm, and even ecclesiology into the over-arching idea and practice of private devotion. In other words, with prayer as elsewhere, close attention to everyday piety has illuminated the reformations in whole new ways. We have surviving prayers to inspect. They were often written down by Protestants in their journals and even wills, and in, for example, godly conversion narratives we can derive much detail about how and where prayer happened. In the public liturgies that were adopted, eschewed or disputed, we can also build a picture of prayer. Charles Hambrick-Stowe, for example, has argued pace Collinson that “a blend of meditative piety and public godliness . . . was firmly fixed in the practical theology that characterised the puritan movement” (28). But what does that mean, and why restrict the resurgence in private prayer to godly families only? Firstly, prayer was clearly important to all Protestants – but more so to the godly, as their enthusiasms tended to find more importance in every aspect of faith. Secondly, prayer for Protestants during the reformations wasn’t so much about speaking to God as being in constant dialogue with Him and with one’s own spiritual journey. Thomas Becon, whom we have already met, followed Augustine in defining prayer as “a lifting up of a pure mind to God”; William Tyndale, one of the earliest English evangelicals, described it as a “mourning, a longing” – a sort of attempt to fill a hole that only God could fill. Alec Ryrie has shown that all Protestants felt prayer to be central to their faith, as part of their search to “change yourself, by asking God to work that change” (142). The Protestant faith in this way became active in people’s daily lives beyond church. This meant there was not necessarily set form or method or timetable for prayer, rather it should be undertaken whenever inspiration took a believer. There were authorised prayers, of course, and family advice manuals often advised on the appropriate prayers to be undertaken as a domestic group; but private prayer was critical, too, and these were often idiosyncratic and personal  – often more so the “hotter” your faith. In all cases, however, the purpose of prayer was to let God into a believer’s life and to help reveal His purpose to that prayerful penitent. This

82  Cultures over-riding belief in God’s action and efficacy in the world is known as providentialism. The theology of predestination had serious implications far beyond the afterlife: it was part of a wider conception of God’s influence on the world. At first blush, these two aspects of providence might seem mutually contradictory – simultaneously that God had already pre-ordained everything and yet had to meddle constantly with human affairs. Alexandra Walsham has done much to unpick these complications and apparent contradictions, building a clear analysis of an important aspect of the popular religion of the English Reformation (163). In her assessment, in the symbols and signs of providence – the way a bird flew on a sunny day, or the defeat of a Catholic power on the continent – was encoded the pre-ordained blueprint for all humanity. In other words, in prayer and providence alike, Reformation Protestants searched for clues. In one way this was psychologically quite taxing: emotionally, one might feel powerless and supine; but in another, it was intensely empowering – all believers were the subject of the intense gaze of God ­himself. As it became figured in popular practice, God’s active involvement in the world didn’t rob believers of free will but rather placed the choices they made on the most cosmic of all possible scales. In other words, once again theologies and liturgies were not about dancing on the heads of pins. The idea of God’s foreknowledge of, and activity within, human history could be both comforting to believers and motivating for them: for Calvin, providentialism explained why the Reformation hadn’t swept all before it in the years since Luther had first broken with Rome, why there was still a Pope, and why so many kingdoms still suffered under Catholic monarchs. Because all this was predestined, it was less troubling . . . and it also kept believers together in the face of overwhelming odds (6). Providentialism suffused all aspects of life in Britain during the reformations. Popular pamphlets were printed, despite the official Church’s rather cool view of providentialism, which explained that deformed infants were signs from God – demonstrating a clear trend towards providentialism that drew in a much wider confessional base than merely the most committed of puritans (167). Indeed, larger events came to be seen to be part of this scheme: what did the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 or the discovery of the Babbington plot a few years earlier tell an English Protestant about the righteousness of their country and God’s disfavour towards Catholicism? What pride could a Scottish Protestant take in the victory of Reformed Protestantism in their own kingdom, in contrast to the half-Reformed Church south of the border? These were providential questions with real political consequences (144). Indeed, many Protestants saw in Israel a sort of analogy of their own relationship to God [document 3, document 14]. In the Old Testament, Israel had been the chosen nation of God, a population uniquely blessed by the Almighty and which enjoyed a special relationship with Him. Protestants, and particularly puritans, began to see in the Israelites a proto-elect, a

Cultures 83 group of people who – perhaps much like the godly themselves – had been chosen for salvation by God and were thus an instrumental part of his plan for history. Jerusalem acted both as an analogy of what a chosen people might be and also how a chosen city might fall. The moralism of godly sermons often found their expression in this idea of a warning: that in the signs of providence could be spotted God’s displeasure over the failings of his chosen people, and in correct interpretation might be found deliverance. Providence and prayer, then, were more important than just reading the tea leaves for signs of God’s judgement. It helped forge national and Protestant identities alike. There were many contemporary means of ascribing a plan to human events – the figure of Fortune had been a common one in medieval literature, while even Classical civilisations had had their vision of the gods’ agency in human affairs. What was peculiar about godly providentialism was the way in which it fused with the Protestant idea of election to place a certain sort of responsibility on the faithful first to understand and then to fulfil God’s plans for Creation. One consequence of this was constant interrogation of one’s self and soul for the clues of providence: the godly in particular filled their diaries with disputations upon what being stung by a bee might mean or how taking a fall might be a sign of God’s displeasure. What this all means is that, by around 1600, providence had informed an increasing millenarianism among the marginalised puritans of England. We’ve already seen how in Scotland resistance theory was generated as a result of Reformed Protestant zeal; in England, puritans began to believe that God’s plan might be found in episodes of John’s Revelation which could be seen to detail real geopolitical and spiritual events and that it might be possible to perceive at least the endpoint of God’s plan for humankind. In this way, providentialism is an excellent example of how the theologies of the Reformation were consistently and continually assimilated and adapted by believers at the ground level to often great, and even transformative, consequence.

Unauthorised Belief: Witchcraft and the Supernatural The interaction between Protestantism and “popular” belief was not always so neatly mapped from official doctrine to laypeople and back again. Protestant divines also had to grapple with widespread beliefs which did not seem to fit at all into the reformers’ cosmology. Most obviously, belief in witchcraft and the supernatural was widespread during the early modern period, and though Protestantism found ways to meet this challenge to its spirituality, witchcraft in particular made a source of specific and unique anxiety for believers of all stripes. There is no need to wonder at this strange co-existence or indeed the often outré beliefs themselves: the historian’s job is to rebuild what was, incorporating all its complexity and contradiction, rather than to – in Peter Marshall’s words – “explain away” the unusual or even bizarre (116). Beliefs

84  Cultures in witches and devils and demons and fairies had of course existed for centuries before the establishment of the Protestant Churches in England and Scotland. But, as we have seen, the Protestant elevation of interiority to a new level of importance placed great stress on believers, who searched their souls for evidence of sin or temptation. The Devil, for instance, became a renewed and significant source of anxiety: the subversion of moral integrity of which the fiend was capable was now seen to be the Devil’s greatest threat to both individual Christians and to the godly nation as a whole (98). There was no longer the mediation of the priest or of a saint to sit between a believer and God. The only weapons, it was believed, that could be effectively employed against Satan – and he and his minions were wherever the supernatural might appear  – were true faith, prayer, and a sound understanding of the meaning of temptation. This meant that the onus to be religious, and to scrutinise one’s behaviour and conscience, was on individuals themselves. Protestants had from early on tended to claim that the Roman Catholic Church itself was akin to the Devil – it was the Devil’s religion, come to trick those on the earth [document 19, document 20]. So, right from the beginning, the English Protestant Church subscribed to the belief that the Devil could appear to be religious and could appear in the form of a Church, of bishops, even a Pope. These ideas resulted in the key Protestant belief that the Devil could transform himself into an angel of light – his skill in deceit meant he could appear to be something entirely other (84). This posed a real and grave threat to every individual believer. The types of literature we’ve already seen in this chapter  – tracts, sermons, family advice manuals, and so on – were in part designed to combat the Devil’s capacity to tempt: education was the best way to help people navigate this newly precarious spiritual world. People in early modern Britain were therefore constantly searching for signs of the Devil’s presence. Not only anti-papist propaganda became obsessed with Satan and the antichrist (95), but also Protestants were convinced that Satan offered an intimate threat to every Christian, especially when his agency was hidden from the perception of the physical senses. Here the overlap with belief in the supernatural became most acute: spirits, fairies, elves, ghosts, and so on, all the figures of popular folk belief could be seen instead as manifestations of that trickster, the Devil. Perhaps the most obvious symptom of this kind of moral panic was the treatment of witchcraft – in Thomas’s memorable definition, “the attribution of misfortune to occult human agency” (152). The period of the reformations coincided with an era of witch persecution throughout Europe and the ­Americas. It has long been noted that England and Scotland were, compared with other European states, relatively untouched by “the witch craze”, and certainly the violence of some kingdoms’ experience was not so widespread on the British Isles. Nevertheless, it was not absent. In his study of witchcraft in Reformation Scotland, for example, P.G. Maxwell Stuart argues that Protestants of this era lived “amid a multiplicity of interpenetrating worlds” (119).

Cultures 85 In other words, in the British Isles, too, witchcraft, the supernatural, and demonism were fundamental elements of the religious experience. Early modern people believed, obviously, in the physical earth  – over which, with God’s permission, they had command. But in addition there was the celestial world – the spiritual world – in which God existed along with the other spiritual beings of His creation. These included, at one end of the spectrum, the angels, and at the other end, the Devil and his minions. It followed that, if prayer could be answered and providence was real, the Devil too could wreak physical effect on the earthly realm. For Protestant divines, this was fundamentally what witchcraft and magic was seen to be: the calling-upon of dark spiritual forces to wreak grave havoc among humans. The witch, as a malevolent but worldly channel for the Devil, sat at the fault line of popular belief and Protestant orthodoxy. As Deborah Wills has written, “villagers who accepted magic and reformers who opposed it found a common enemy in the witch” (173). Historians, however, have interpreted witchcraft in a whole host of different ways. One of the key questions they have asked is, why then? Why did the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries see a surge in witchcraft persecutions? Various theories have captured people’s imaginations. One of the most influential theories – that witchcraft accusations were part of the fabric of social justice – was best expressed in the British context by Alan Macfarlane (109). Accusations of witchcraft, he argued, arose out of feelings of guilt and anxiety related to the distribution of wealth and charity. In other words, witchcraft was related to the day-to-day domestic concerns of most peoples’ lives: food, money, and agriculture. This theory is now widely seen as insufficient: though it might map onto England’s less violent experience, it does not explain the ferocity of the witchcraft craze elsewhere. It underestimates, too, the mental, emotional, and spiritual worlds of the people historians study. As Helen Parish has argued (in doing so summarising the so-called “post-revisionist” method of approaching religious, cultural, and social history), “Attitudes to magic, witchcraft and religion are best understood against the ontological backdrop of a world in which demons, witches, ghosts and other manifestations of the supernatural were real” (129). As this book has argued throughout, we must take beliefs seriously if we are to understand the people who expressed them. A good example of the range of potential events that were seen to have supernatural – and therefore, demonic – dimensions are the possession cases that litter early modern British culture (98). Often seen to involve and be instigated by witches, these cases saw unwitting individuals become the vessel for a demon and therefore act in a range of bizarre and sometimes terrifying ways [document 23]. The case of Thomas Darling, a thirteen-year-old boy from the English town of Stafford who was exorcised in 1596, began when he purportedly met a witch in the woods. According to a pamphlet published at the time, Thomas lost his uncle in a wood and came across an old woman wearing a broad-brimmed hat. Before long, he was possessed by

86  Cultures the Devil and convulsed in fits. Cases such as this did a roaring trade among the booksellers of Reformation Britain: they were popular and sold well. Some of this, no doubt, was down to prurient interest; but as James Sharpe has shown there was intense and sincere interest in witchcraft and demonism at every level of British society at this time (147). There was also a good amount of scepticism surrounding the supernatural, however. Its relationship to Protestantism was in this sense, then, complex: believers were asked to guard against both the Devil’s real impacts in the world and also the false, and ungodly, pretence of it (57). Exorcism of demons, for example, had the uncomfortable air of papistry about it. Cases such as Darling’s became a focus for Protestant divines, who saw in them both evidence of the Devil’s action in the world and potentially of unreformed practices that also needed attention. The Reformed writer Reginald Scott, for example, famously dismissed cases of witchcraft and possession in his The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584). But increasing scepticism of demonism was not restricted to the godly: the rather more orthodox Bishop of London Richard Bancroft also engaged in a series of efforts to suppress exorcism, supported by his diocesan chaplain Samuel Harsnett [document 28]. The belief in the possibility of diabolical possession was a natural consequence of the belief in the existence of the Devil and in his ever-present hostility to mankind. The origins of the notion that incarnate spirits could physically enter into living human bodies, and animate or control them, had scriptural precedent. The symptoms, too, were widely understood: the loss of physical control over the body, the loss of mental reasoning, fear of religious words and religious paraphernalia as well as general shouting, screaming, and writhing. The cultural narratives – that is, the routine patterns of events – that were reported to happen around the trials were also always very similar: a young person falls ill and exhibits a set of symptoms that were thought to lie outside the normal range of illnesses experienced by young people; doctors are called in and suggest medicines or remedies that prove useless; and the parents continue to blame physical illness for their child’s behaviour. People start flocking to the child’s bedside – the local clergy and members of the local community, for instance – and then, later, people from further afield. These people suggest that maybe witchcraft is a possibility; the child then says they see or know or have visions of a female witch-figure who is attacking them. The child continues to have fits, and their daily life and that of their family continues to be disrupted. Consequently, yet more people flock to the bedside of the child to see this demonic wonder, and the local community arranged prayer meetings around their sickbeds. The local gentry get involved, lending their name and support to prove the validity of the case. Often the accused witch is brought to the child, who has extreme fits in her presence; sometimes the parents desperately seek the help of local cunning men and healers. And then, finally, often

Cultures 87 a witch-finder or an exorcist is found, who helps the child engage in the battle with the demon, using prayers, the Bible, and godly words. For Protestants, there were several problems with this narrative. Although undoubtedly their theologies and popular pieties encouraged belief in the worldly agency of the Devil, for Protestants stories such as the one described earlier also shared suspicious amounts with the Catholic veneration of saints. For instance, the cases of the “starving maidens” of Reformation Europe  – young women who ate no food but somehow survived and often devoted themselves to prayer and study and whose stories were widely ­popular in England and Scotland  – had faintly “papist” leanings, reminding one of saints or nuns despite the often Protestant identities of the protagonists (5). In other words, not only the Devil and his manifestations but also the precise manifestations of the same in which people believed were to be policed. In this sense, the popular culture of Reformation Britain was too multivalent for any narrow or simplistic understanding of Protestantism to be especially useful: the interaction between popular belief and Reformed religion was complicated and not always comfortable. As Marcus Hames and Victorian Bladen have put it, “the supernatural (had the capacity) to disrupt authority and settled order” (75). This was an inherently unstable relationship, and one which should remind us that the reformations were themselves a set of unstable and contingent processes, not settled events which established an easily delineated set of understandings or world views.

Popular Protestantism or Failed Reformation? This chapter’s brief surveys of just some of the manifold ways in which the reformations interacted with the lives and beliefs of ordinary people can offer only exemplars of an almost improbably broad and multi-faceted process. Nevertheless, this whistle-stop tour certainly establishes the complexity of the dialogue between politics, theology, and culture that this volume argues is central to the study of the reformations in the British Isles and elsewhere. A chapter that takes the popular reception of Protestantism as its subject, however, cannot – and should not! – dodge the question of how far the messages of the reformers were truly adopted by “the people”. The historiographical overview in this volume’s Introduction is sufficient to demonstrate that this has been one of the central questions of the relevant historiography for decades now, and it is likely to remain that way. Once the age-old cliché of the decaying medieval church, and the grateful Protestantised public, was definitively put to bed by the likes of Christopher Haigh, Eamon Duffy, and others, a more fruitful debate has been had. In the work of Alexandra Walsham and Tessa Watt, meanwhile, the view that Catholicism was in fact robust at the Reformation, and lingered on in orthodox observation for many decades, has been challenged by a renewed focus on

88  Cultures the ways in which the new faith retooled itself for popular consumption and proved extremely effective in popular print at propagandising for itself. There remains certainly the question of what kind of Protestantism held sway. In Scotland, the Reformed nature of the Kirk is much less in question – though as we’ve seen Philip Benedict has helpfully nuanced its development (6). In England, the “Calvinist” nature of the Elizabethan Church has for some time been accepted, but is also increasingly questioned. This volume has attempted to demonstrate that the English Church under Elizabeth exhibited a more heterodox tradition which remained within the broader Reformed tradition. This state of affairs within the English Church held perhaps until what Peter Marshall has called “Charles I’s Reformation” – which from 1625 onwards had an impact in Scotland as well as England (115). There has also been some recent debate – and will continue to be  – between “lumpers” and “splitters”, most obviously contained in Lake and Stephens’ attack on what they see as Alec Ryrie’s over-eagerness to see continuity amid British Protestantism of the period where they perceive anxious dispute (96). Ironically, there is perhaps not so much of a divide here as academic paper combats would like there to be: as this volume has sought to show, Protestant faith, popular culture, and public politics during the British reformations existed on a continuum, which could sometimes seem placid and sometimes become disturbed. None of this resolves the central question, however: did Protestantism and popular belief meet, or were they at best strange bedfellows, or even permanently at odds? To answer this crucial question for historians of the period, we must return to the pews. In 1600, for example, nearly ninety per cent of worshippers in two London parishes participated in Church services as mandated by official liturgy; that is evidence of conformity if not enthusiasm (13). This chapter has tried to show that it is possible to see beyond parish records and into the popular culture of the period – and begin to attempt an understanding of how far Protestantism reached beyond the pulpit. Again, perhaps a contingent approach is wise: there were Protestant successes, most notably in vernacular translation and the vibrancy and variety of the popular Protestant press, and there were cultural fault lines that proved hard to bridge, such as anxieties about the spiritual status of children and the precise nature and efficacy of magic and the occult, where truly godly progress seems to have been patchier. For a religion that emphasised so clearly the individual, perhaps such a messy – and endlessly proliferating – mix of responses and results should not be so surprising.

Documents

Document 1: John Colet, A sermon of conforming and reforming made to the convocation at S. Pauls Church in London, 1511 John Colet’s invited sermon before the Convocation of Canterbury in 1511 is an excellent example of the pressure building from within the English Church for reform even before the emergence of Lutheranism. Colet echoes and confirms the widespread anti-clericalism of the period, and urges the senior clergy present at Convocation to heed his words and begin to reform the church to better meet the needs of the people. YE are this day come together (fathers and right-wise brethren) to enter into Councel: in which, what ye will do, and what matters ye will handle, we do not yet understand. But we wish, that once remembring your name and profession, ye would minde the reformation of Ecclesiastical affairs. For assure your selves there never was more need of it, the state of the Church did never more desire your endeavours. . . . To exhort you, Reverend Fathers, to endeavour Reformation, because nothing hath so disfigured the face of the Church, as hath the fashion of secular and worldly living in Clerks and Priests. . . . If Priests and Bishops (who should be as lights) run in the dark way of the world, how dark then shall the secular people be? Wherefore St Paul said chiefly to Priests and Bishops, Be ye not conformed to this world, but be ye reformed. In which words the Apostle doth two things: First he forbids, that we be not conformed to this world, and made carnal: and then he commands, that we be reformed in the spirit of God, and become spiritual. . . . And first to speak of pride of life. How much greediness and appetite of honour and dignity is seen nowadays in Clergymen? How run they (yea almost out of breath) from one benefice to another, from the less to the greater, from the lower to the higher? Who seeth not this, and who seeing sorroweth not? And most of those which are in these dignities, carry their heads so high, and are so stately, that they seem not to be put in the humble Bishop-rick of Christ, but rather in the high Lordship and power of the world. . . .

DOI: 10.4324/9781003182283-5

90  Documents The second secular evil is carnal concupiscence. And hath not this vice grown and increased in the Church so far, that in this most busie age, the far greater number of Priests mind nothing but what doth delight and please their senses? They give themselves to feasts & banquetting, spend their time in vain babling, are addicted to hunting and hawking, and in a word drowned in the delights of this world; diligent only in progging for those lusts they set by. . . . Covetousness is the third secular evil, which St. John calls the lust of the eyes, and St. Paul, idolatry. This abominable pestilence hath so entred into the minds of almost all Priests, hath so blinded the eyes of their understanding, that we see nothing but that which seems to bring unto us some gain. What other thing seek we nowadays in the Church, except fat benefices, and high promotions? . . . The fourth secular evil that spotteth the face of the Church, is continual secular occupation; wherein Priests and Bishops nowadays do busy themselves, becoming the servants rather of men than God, the warriors rather of this world, then of Jesus Christ. (. . .) The warfare of Gods souldier, is not carnal, but spiritual. Our warring is to pray devoutly, to read and study Scriptures diligently, to preach the word of God sincerely, to administer the Holy Sacraments rightly, and offer sacrifice for the people. Lupton, J.H., Life of Colet, London, 1887, pp. 293–9 Document 2: Martin Luther, The Ninety-Five Theses, 1517 Strictly speaking, of course, Martin Luther was not a figure of the British reformations, and the inclusion of any of his works in this volume might seem out of step with its focus. As this book has argued, however, the reformations on the British Isles proceeding out of, and were expressions of, a Europe-wide movement that took place across a series of intensely interrelated fronts. Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses are the foundational document of this phenomenon, and are worth reviewing. Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed at Wittenberg, under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and of Sacred Theology, and Lecturer in Ordinary on the same at that place. Wherefore he requests that those who are unable to be present and debate orally with us, may do so by letter. In the Name our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.   3. Yet it means not inward repentance only; nay, there is no inward repentance which does not outwardly work divers mortifications of the flesh.   4. The penalty (of sin), therefore, continues so long as hatred of self continues; for this is the true inward repentance, and continues until our entrance into the kingdom of heaven.   7. God remits guilt to no one whom He does not, at the same time, humble in all things and bring into subjection to His vicar, the priest.

Documents 91 10. Ignorant and wicked are the doings of those priests who, in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penances for purgatory. 11. This changing of the canonical penalty to the penalty of purgatory is quite evidently one of the tares that were sown while the bishops slept. 13. The dying are freed by death from all penalties; they are already dead to canonical rules, and have a right to be released from them. 17. With souls in purgatory it seems necessary that horror should grow less and love increase. 18. It seems unproved, either by reason or Scripture, that they are outside the state of merit, that is to say, of increasing love. 20. Therefore by “full remission of all penalties” the pope means not actually “of all,” but only of those imposed by himself. Spaeth, A. and Jacobs, H.E. (eds.), Works of Martin Luther, Philadelphia, 1915, pp. 29–38 Document 3: William Tyndale, from The Obedience of a Christian Man, 1528 William Tyndale was perhaps the most important of the early English evangelicals – those initial advocates of Protestantism whose work pre-dated the Henrician shift towards the break with Rome. From his commentaries to his translations, Tyndale’s theology offers a creative reception of Lutheranism which nevertheless retains the Lutheran insistence on the temporal supremacy of magistrates – as distinct both from earlier Catholic traditions of papal supremacy and later Reformed “resistance theory”. This argument of political sovereignty was echoed through the 1530s by the “Henrician” reformers – ironically so, given that Tyndale never received official blessing of any sort. Let it not make thee despair, neither yet discourage thee, O reader, that it is forbidden thee in pain of life and goods, or that it is made breaking of the king’s peace, or treason unto his highness, to read the word of thy soul’s health. But much rather be bold in the Lord, and comfort thy soul: forasmuch as thou art sure, and hast an evident token through such persecution, that it is the true word of God; which word is ever hated of the world, neither was ever without persecution, (as thou seest in all the stories of the Bible, both of the new Testament and also of the old,) neither can be, no more than the sun can be without his light. . . . How wonderfully were the children of Israel locked in Egypt! In what tribulation, cumbrance, and adversity were they in! The land also that was promised them was far off, and full of great cities, walled with high walls up to the sky, and inhabited with great giants; yet God’s truth brought them out of Egypt, and planted them in the land of the giants. This was also written for our learning: for there is no power against God’s, neither any wisdom against God’s wisdom: he is stronger and wiser than all his enemies.   .  .  . When the children of Israel were ready to despair, for the greatness and the multitude of the giants, Moses comforted them ever, saying,

92  Documents Remember what your Lord God hath done for you in Egypt, his wonderful plagues, his miracles, his wonders, his mighty hand, his stretched out arm, and what he hath done for you hitherto. He shall destroy them; he shall take their hearts from them, and make them fear and flee before you. He shall storm them, and stir up a tempest among them, and scatter them, and bring them to nought. . . . This is written for our learning: for verily he is a true God; and is our God as well as theirs; and his promises are with us, as well as with them; and he present with us, as well as he was with them. . . . Christ is with us until the world’s end. Let his little flock be bold therefore. Daniell, D. (ed.), The Obedience of a Christian Man, London, 2000, pp. 3–6 Document 4: Patrick Hamilton, Patrick’s Places, 1528 Lutheran thought came to Scotland early, and took root among small but growing section of the nobility. James V’s relatively tolerant policy meant that much of this was permitted to continue  – though, as the 1530s proceeded, executions for heresy increased. Patrick Hamilton was burned at the stake at St Andrews in 1528, the same year he published Patrick’s Places, which introduced into Scottish Luther’s definition of the separation of law and gospel, but also – and critically – emphasised the importance of justification by faith. His work proved extremely influential as Scottish Protestantism developed across the next two decades and was included in later editions of Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (1563). A man is iustyfyed by fayth. Abraham beleued God and it was imputed vnto him for rightuousnes. We suppose therfore that a man is iustified by fayth with out the deedes of the law. He that worketh not but beleueth on hym that iustifieth the wicked, his fayth is counted to hym for rightuousenes. The iust man liueth by his fayth. We wotte that a man is not iustified by the deedes of the law, but by the fayth of Iesu Christ: and we beleue in Iesu Christ, that we may be iustified by the fayth of Christ, & not by the dedes of the law. . . . Of workes. . . . No maner of workes make vs rightwise. We beleue that a man shall be iustified without workes. No man is iustified by the deedes of the law, but by the fayth of Iesus Christ, and we beleue in Iesu Christ that we may be iustified by the faith of Christ, and not by the deedes of the lawe: For if righteousnes come by the lawe, then dyed Christ in vayne. That no man is iustified by that law, is manifest, for a rightwise man liueth by his fayth, but the law is not of fayth. Moreouer, sith Christ the maker of heauen and earth, & all that is therin, behoued to dye for vs, we are compelled to graunt that we were so farre drowned and sunken in sinne, that neither our dedes nor all the treasures

Documents 93 that euer God made or might make, coulde haue holpen vs out of them: therfore, no deedes no workes may make vs rightwise. . . . The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online (1576 edition) (The Digital Humanities Institute, Sheffield, 2011). Available from: http//www.dhi.ac.uk/foxe [Accessed: 04.03.21] Document 5: The Submission of the Clergy, 1532 Perhaps the definitive moment of the “Henrician” Reformation, 1532’s Submission of the Clergy saw almost the entire episcopal bench, and the priests that sat below them in the structure of the Church accepted the King’s power to make church law. Passed by the Convocation of Canterbury in 1532 and passed into law by Parliament a year later, it essentially marked the giving up by the Church of England of its self-governing right and a de factor installation of the King as its head. This process would be formalised and sealed by the Act of Supremacy of 1534. We your most humble subjects, daily orators and bedesmen of your clergy of England, having our special trust and confidence in your most excellent wisdom, your princely goodness and fervent zeal to the promotion of God’s honour and Christian religion, and also in your learning, far exceeding, in our judgement, the learning of all other kings and princes that we have read of, and doubting nothing but that the same shall still continue and daily increase in your majesty: First, do offer and promise, in verbo sacerdotii, here unto your highness, submitting ourselves most humbly to the same, that we will never from henceforth enact, put in ure, promulge, or execute, any new canons or constitutions provincial, or any other new ordinance, provincial or synodal, in our Convocation or synod in time coming, which Convocation is, always has been, and must be, assembled only by your highness’ commandment of writ, unless your highness by your royal assent shall license us to assemble our Convocation, to make, promulge, and execute such constitutions and ordinances as shall be made in the same and thereto give your royal assent and authority. Secondly, that whereas divers of the constitutions, ordinances, and canons, provincial or synodal, which have been heretofore enacted, be thought to be not only much prejudicial royal, but also overmuch onerous to your highness’ subjects, your clergy aforesaid is contented, if it may stand so with your highness’ pleasure, that it be committed to the examination and judgment of your grace, and of thirty-two persons, whereof sixteen to be of the upper and nether house of the temporalty, and other sixteen of the clergy, all to be chosen and appointed by your most noble grace. So that, finally, whichsoever of the said constitutions, ordinances, or canons provincial or synodal, shall be thought and determined by your grace and by the most part of the said thirty-two persons not to stand with God’s laws and the laws of your realm, the same to be abrogated and taken away by your grace and the clergy; and such of them as shall be seen by your grace, and by the most part of the said thirty-two persons, to stand with God’s laws and the

94  Documents laws of your realm, to stand in full strength and power, your grace’s most royal assent and authority once impetate and fully given to the same. Gee, H. and Hardy, W.J. (eds.), Documents Illustrative of English Church History, London, 1914, pp. 176–8 Document 6: The Act of Supremacy, 1534 The Act of Supremacy is the crowning document of the Henrician Reformation and perhaps the most signal achievement of Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s most percipient Lord Chancellor. It made Henry the undisputed Supreme Head of the Church of England – granting him unquestioned authority over matters of religion within the kingdom. Repealed by Mary, it was of course reinstated by Elizabeth I – although with the modified title for the monarch of Supreme Governor, in a move widely seen as a conciliatory one towards Roman Catholics. Albeit the King’s Majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be the Supreme Head of the Church of England, and so is recognised by the clergy of this realm in their Convocations; yet nevertheless for corroboration and confirmation thereof, and for increase of virtue in Christ’s religion within this realm of Eng- land, and to repress and extirp all errors, heresies, and other enormities and abuses heretofore used in the same, Be it enacted by authority of this present Parliament that the King our Sove- reign Lord, his heirs and successors kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only Supreme Head in earth of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia, and shall have and enjoy annexed and united to the imperial Crown of this realm as well the title and style thereof, as all honours, dignities, preeminences, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities, to the said dignity of Supreme Head of the same Church belonging and appertaining: And that our said Sovereign Lord, his heirs and successors kings of this realm, shall have full power and authority from time to time to visit, repress, redress, reform, order, correct, restrain, and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities, whatsoever they be, which by any manner spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought or may lawfullybe reformed, repressed, ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained, or amended, most to the pleasure of Almighty God, the increase of virtue in Christ’s religion, and for the conservation of the peace, unity, and tranquillity of this realm: any usage, custom, foreign laws, foreign authority, pre- scription, or any other thing or things to the contrary hereof not- withstanding Tanner, J.R. (ed.), Tudor Constitutional Documents, Cambridge, 1922, pp. 46–8 Document 7: Frontispiece to the 1539 “Great Bible” The Great Bible was the Tudor regime’s first attempt at an authorised English translation of the Bible. Prepared by the reformer Myles Coverdale

Documents 95

Figure 4.1  The Great Bible, London, 1539 © Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo.

96  Documents (1488–1569) under the supervision of Thomas Cromwell, the translation leaned heavily on the work of William Tyndale, while excising his more radical material and completing, albeit with translations from Latin or German (rather than Hebrew or Greek), what Tyndale had left unfinished. In this frontispiece to the translation, the King is placed literally front and centre, visually reminding all who opened it that Henry was now the fulcrum and epicentre of the English Church. The Word of God here passes from the King downwards. This Bible was designed to be included in every parish church, and the frontispiece would therefore be seen by many: the clarity of its message, then, is notable – especially in an era when the majority of parishioners were not able to read. The Great Bible, London, 1539 Document 8: Edward Seymour writes to the Scottish People, 1548 In An epistle or exhortacion, to vnitie (and) peace, the Regent of England, Duke of Somerset, sought to curry favour with Protestants and evangelicals in Scotland as part of the English incursion into Scotland of that year. French troops reinforced the Scottish forces during this period, and James V’s policy of accommodation with evangelicals  – which had given some room for growth to nascent Scottish Protestantism – was perceived by some as under threat. Seymour’s offer of unity was surely primarily rhetorical – and was accompanied by an admission that, if it were not accepted, no quarter would be given by English soldiers – but for all that it feels no less significant as an expression of the integrated nature of the English and Scottish reformations. Who that hath read histories of time past, and doth mark and note the great battles, fought between England and Scotland, the incursions, raids, and spoils, which hath been done on both the parties: The realm of Scotlande five times won by one king of England: The Scottish kings, some taken prisoners, some slain in battle, some for very sorrow and discomfort upon loss, dying and departing the world: and shall perceive again, that of all nations in the world, that nation only beside England, speak the same language: and as you and we bee annexed and joined in one Islande, so no people so like in manner, form, language, and all conditions as we are: Shal not he think it a thing very unmeet, unnatural, and unChristian that there should be between us so mortal war, who in respect of all other nations, be,  & should be, like as two brethren of one Island of great Britain? And though he were a stranger to both, what would he think more meet, than if it were possible one kingdom be made in rule, which is one in language, and not to be divided in rulers, which is all one in Country. And for so much as two successions cannot concur and falk into one, by no manner of other means, then by marriage, whereby one blood, one lineage and parentage, is made of two, and an indivisble right given of both to one, without the destruction and abolishing of either: If god should grant that whatsoever you would

Documents 97 wish, should be doen what could you wish, other than that, whiche now, not by fortune hath chanced, but by his infinite mercy and most inscrutable providence, as careful for you, he hath given unto you. (. . .) When the most wise and victorious Prince, late our King and Master, king Henry the eight in other of his marriages not most fortunate, had by his most lawful and most virtuous wife Queen Jane, his other two wives before that marriage departed this world, and never surmise nor question made of that marriage, from that time to this day, nor so much as all her life ime, name or motion, to, or of any other wife, one Prince of so high expectation, of so great gifts of God, the right and undoubted heir of the Realm of England, and his majesty’s only of male issue, left behind him to succeed the imperial Crown. If nothing else had been done, what can any wise or any Christian man, that think the world to be governed by Gods providence, and not by fortune, think otherwise, but that it was Gods pleasure it should bee so, that these two realms should join in marriage, and by a godly Sacrament, make a Godly, perpetual, and most friendly unity and concord whereby such benefits, as of unity and concord come, may through his infinite grace, come unto these realms. Murray, J.A.H. (ed), The Complaynt of Scotland, London, 1872, pp. 237–246 Document 9: Sir David Lyndsay, from Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, 1552 David Lyndsay was a court poet during the reign of James V and continued to be popular until his death in 1555. The first record performance of A Satire of Three Estates is in 1552, but some scholars date its composition to twenty years earlier. The play pokes serious fun at Scotland’s ruling elites: the Lords temporal and Spiritual and the rising merchant class. The lion’s share of opprobrium, however, was reserved for the clergy; Lyndsay’s anticlericalism was consistent, and expressed a wider view in Scottish society. That James V retained in senior positions individuals with such views speaks both to his broadly tolerant approach to matters of church government and to the room evangelicalism enjoyed in mid-sixteenth-century Scotland. JOHN COMMONWEAL: Sir, I complain upon the idle men. For-why? – Sir, it is God’s own bidding All Christian men to work for their living. Saint Paul, the Church’s great bulwark, Says to the wretches that will not work, Qui non laborat non manducet – ‘Who labours not, he shall not eat’. . . . This text was ‘gainst all friars and their peers,

98  Documents Augustines, Carmelites and Cordeliers And all others that have in cowls been clad, Who labour not and yet good food have had – Who labour neither spiritually, Nor for their living work corporeally, Lying in dens like idle dogs – I them compare to weIl fed hogs! I think they do themselves abuse, Seeing that they the world refuse; Having professed such poverty, They then flee from necessity! Mace, Nigel (ed.), The Three Estates, Farnham, 1998, p. 120 Document 10: The English Book of Common Prayer, 1549 and 1552 The liturgy of the Church of England was a lightning-rod for religious debates in England. Two Books of Common Prayer were issued by the Edwardine regime, in 1549 and 1552, with the second being the more avowedly reformed. It would be the rubrics of this second version, with some minor if important changes, to which Elizabeth’s 1559 Act of Uniformity would require conformity. Here we can observe how changes made to the 1552 version’s baptism ritual  – which had in turn radically overhauled the previously widespread Catholic version of the rite contained in the medieval Sarum Missal – significantly enhanced its Protestant character. 1549 ALMYGHTIE and everlastyng God, whiche of thy justice dydest destroy by fluddes of water the whole worlde for synne, excepte viii persones, whome of thy mercy (the same tyme) thou didest save in the Arke: And when thou didest drowne in the read sea wycked kyng Pharao with al his armie, yet (at the same time) thou didest leade thy people the chyldren of Israel safely through the myddes therof: wherby thou didest fygure the washyng of thy holy Baptisme: and by the Baptisme of thy wel beloved sonne Jesus Christe, thou dydest sanctifie the fludde Jordan, and al other waters to this misticall washing away of synne: We beseche thee (for thy infinite mercies) that thou wilt mercifully looke upon these children, and sanctifie them with thy holy gost, that by this holesome laver of regeneracion, whatsoever synne is in them, may be washed cleane away, that they, being delivered from thy wrathe, may be received into tharke (the ark) of Christes churche, and so saved from peryshyng: and beeyng fervente in spirite, stedfaste in fayth, joyfull through hope, rooted in charitie, maye ever serve thee: And finally attayne to everlastyng lyfe, with all thy holy

Documents 99 and chosen people. This graunte us we beseche the, for Jesus Christes sake our Lorde. Amen. . . . I COMMAUNDE thee, uncleane spirite, in the name of the father, of the sonne, and of the holy ghost, that thou come out, and departe from these infantes, whom our Lord Jesus Christe hath vouchsaved, to call to his holy Baptisme, to be made membres of his body, and of his holy congregacion. Therfore thou cursed spirite, remembre thy sentence, remembre thy judgemente, remembre the daye to be at hande, wherin thou shalt burne in fyre everlasting, prepared for thee and thy Angels. And presume not hereafter to exercise any tyrannye towarde these infantes, whom Christe hathe bought with his precious bloud, and by this his holy Baptisme calleth to be of his flocke. .  .  . TAKE this white vesture for a token of the innocencie, whiche by Gods grace in this holy sacramente of Baptisme, is given unto thee: and for a signe wherby thou art admonished, so long as thou lyvest, to geve thyselfe to innocencie of living, that, after this transitorye lyfe, thou mayest be partaker of the lyfe everlasting. Amen. 1552 ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, which of thy great merce diddest save Noe and his familie in the Arke from perishing by water: and also dyddest safely leade the chyldren of Israel, thy people throughe the redde Sea: figuring thereby thy holy Baptisme and by the Baptisme of thy welbeloved sonne Jesus Christe, dyddest sanctifye the floud Jordane, and al other waters, to the mistical washing away of sinne: We beseche thee for thy infinite mercies, that thou wylt mercyfully loke upon these chyldren, sanctifie them and washe them with thy holy ghoste, that they, beyng delivered from thy wrath, may be receyved into the Arke of Christes Church, and beyng stedfast in fayth, joyeful through hope, and rooted in charitie, may so passe the waves of this troublesome world, that finally they maye come to the lande of everlasting lyfe, there to reygne wyth thee, worlde without ende, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. . . . ALMIGHTIE and immortall God, the ayde of all that nede, the helper of all that flee to thee for succour, the lyfe of them that beleve, and the resurreccion of the dead: We call upon thee for these infantes, that they coming to thy holye Baptisme, may receyve remission of theyre sinnes by spirituall regeneracion. . . . WE receyve this child into the congregacion of Christes flocke, and doe signe him with the signe of the crosse, in token that hereafter he shal not be ashamed to confesse the fayth of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner agaynst synne, the world, and the devyll, and to continue Christ’s faythfull souldiour and servaunt unto his lyves end. Amen. Gibson, E.C.S. (ed.), The First and Second Prayer Books of Edward VI, London, 1910, pp. 236–42 and pp. 394–99

100  Documents Document 11: The Forty-Two Articles, 1553 A comparison of the Edwardine Forty-Two Articles (1553) with the Elizabethan Thirty-Nine (1571) offers a window into the changing nature of the Protestant reformations in England. The Thirty-Nine Articles retained much of the Forty-Two and removed in total only five – primarily articles policing the more radical boundaries of Reformed religion (blasphemy against the Holy Ghost in XVI, anti-nomianism in XIX, anabaptism in XL and millenarianism in XLI). More interestingly, a few clauses in Articles III and XXIX were removed in the later document, to soften the Reformed nature of the Edwardine Church. Below are the omitted 1553 articles. Underlinings indicate omission; replacements are included in square brackets. III Of the Going Down of Christ into Hell. As Christ died and was buried for us, so also it is to be believed that he went down in to hell. The body laid in the sepulcher until the resurrection, but his Ghost departing from him was with the Ghosts that were in prison, or in Hell, and did preach to the same, as the place of St. Peter does testify. XVI Blasphemy Against the Holy Ghost. Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is when a man of malice and stubbornness of mind does rail upon the truth of God’s word manifestly perceived, and being enemy thereunto persecutes the same. Because such are guilty of God’s curse, they entangle themselves with a most grievous and heinous crime, whereupon this kind of sin is called and affirmed of the Lord as unpardonable. XIX All Men Are Bound to Keep the Moral Commandments of the Law. The Law, which was given from God by Moses, although it binds not Christian men concerning the ceremonies and rites of the same, neither is it required that the civil precepts and orders of it should of necessity be received in any commonwealth, no man, be he never so perfect a Christian, is exempt and loose from the obedience of those commandments which are called moral. Wherefore they are not to be harkened unto who affirm that Holy Scripture is given only to the weak and do boast themselves continually of the spirit, of whom (they say) they have learned such things as they teach, although the same is most evidently repugnant to the Holy Scripture. XXIX. Of the Lord’s Supper. The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather it is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ’s death, insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break, is a communion

Documents 101 (1563: partaking) of the body of Christ. Likewise, the cup of blessing is a Communion of the blood of Christ. Transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ’s body and blood cannot be proved by holy writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, (1563: overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament,) and has given occasion to many superstitions. Forasmuch as the truth of man’s nature requires that the body of one and the self-same man cannot be at one time in diverse places, but must needs be in some one certain place, the body of Christ cannot be present at one time in many and diverse places. Because (as Holy Scripture does teach) Christ was taken up into heaven, and there shall continue unto the end of the world, a faithful man ought not, either to believe or openly to confess the real and bodily presence (as they term it) of Christ’s flesh and blood in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not commanded by Christ’s ordinance to be kept (1563: by Christ’s ordinance reserved), carried about, lifted up, or worshipped. XXXIX. The Resurrection of the Dead is Not Yet Brought to Pass. The Resurrection of the dead is not as yet brought to pass, as though it only belonged to the soul, which by the grace of Christ is raised from the death of sin, but it is to be looked for at the late date, for then (as Scripture does most manifestly testify) to all that are dead, their own bodies, flesh, and bone shall be restored that the whole man may (according to his works) have other reward, or punishment, as he has lived virtuously, or wickedly. XL. The Souls of Them That Depart This Life Do Neither Die with the Bodies, Nor Sleep Idly. They which say that the souls of such as depart hence do sleep, being without all sense, feeling, or perceiving, until the Day of Judgment, or affirm that the souls die with the bodies, and at the last day shall be raised up with the same, do utterly dissent from the right belief declared to us in Holy Scripture. XLI. Heretics Called Millenarii. They that go about to renew the fable of heretics called Millenarii are repugnant to Holy Scripture, and cast themselves headlong into Jewish dotage. XLII. All Men Shall Not Be Saved at the Length. They also are worthy of condemnation who endeavor at this time to restore the dangerous opinion that all men, be they never so ungodly, shall at length be saved when they have suffered pains for their sins a certain time appointed by God’s justice. Gibson, Edgar C. S. (ed.), The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England (two volumes), London, 1897

102  Documents Document 12: Christopher Goodman, How Superior Powers Ought To Be Obeyed By Their Subjects: And Wherein They May Lawfully By God’s Word Be Disobeyed And Resisted, 1558 Christopher Goodman (1520–1603) was born in England but became a critical figure in the Scottish Reformation – a good example of the inter-related nature of the two reformations. An associate of John Knox, whom he first met in Geneva as an exile from the Marian regime (having moved there as part of the breakaway group unhappy with the compromises of the Troubles at Frankfurt), Goodman was in many ways even more radical than his famous compatriot, arguing that a bad ruler became, in their failure to uphold their public responsibilities, a mere private individual subject to private law. He returned to England in the mid-1560s but was repeatedly deprived of the livings he acquired over the next decade. From the 1570s onwards, he lived quietly in Chester  – part, perhaps, of the general detachment of the godly from active engagement with the Church during the later sixteenth century. To resist evil and to maintain goodness, to honor God truly and to expel idolatry, every man will confess to be a good and godly act, and cannot but highly commend the workers thereof, as men acceptable to God, and worthy members of a commonwealth: but when men consider the dangers and displeasure, which commonly happen to such, then is there great courtesy made who first shall take the enterprise in hand: and long disputations made whether it is their duty or not: and to what sort of men it does belong, as though any were exempted out of that number which do profess the Name of God. If the superior power is an idolater or a cruel tyrant suppressing true religion and murdering the saints of God (as Jezebel of England does with all her rabble of papist bishops, and shavelings) who are so ignorant of God, or destitute of all humanity or natural judgment, that will not acknowledge such a one to be unworthy the society of the godly and honest: much less to have the authority and rule over great nations and whole kingdoms? . . . But as touching the common and simple people, they think themselves utterly discharged, whether their prince is godly or ungodly, wise or foolish, a preserver of the commonwealth or else a destroyer, all is one to them, they must be obedient, because they are ignorant, and must be led themselves, no meet to lead others. And because their doings are counted tumults and rebellion (except they are agreeable to the commandments, decrees, and proceedings of their superior powers and magistrates, and shall in doing the contrary be as rebels punished) therefore of all others (they say) we have least to do, yea nothing at all with the doings of our rulers. If they rule well, we shall fare the better: if they are ungodly they have the more to answer for their ungodliness. What have we to do with their matters? Thus do all sorts of men from the highest to the lowest slip their heads out of the collar: and as careless persons not passing which end goes forward, gives the bridle wholly to their rulers till destruction remedies overflow all. To the intent therefore that this simplicity, ignorance, and subjection of the inferior people, do not altogether blind them, and cause them (as hitherto it

Documents 103 has been proved almost in all places and countries) to suffer themselves like brute beasts rather than reasonable creatures, to be led and drawn where so ever their princes commandments have called: either to arm themselves against Christ their Savior in overthrowing the truth of His gospel to bring in Antichrist and papistry: or else to fight against their own brethren the servants of God, to rob them, expel them out of their own houses, possessions and country, to torment them and cruelly put them to death: as though the commandment of the prince could make that lawful, which God forbids as detestable: as though they being made instruments to their princes in executing ungodly tyranny, should not be partakers likewise with them of God’s vengeance in the day of His dreadful visitation, when neither commandment of king of prince defend them, but they working wickedness with their rulers shall drink of the same cup with them also. Goodman, C, How Superior Powers Ought To Be Obeyed, Geneva, 1558, pp. 142–47 Document 13: First Band of the Protestant Congregation in Scotland, 1557 The formation of mutual defence agreements  – or “bands” – among Scottish nobility had a long history by the 1550s, but the Lords of the Congregation’s great innovation was to yoke religion with territorial concerns. In so doing, they implicitly agreed to defend each other against a monarchy that was avowedly Catholic, and consequently their oath of allegiance was also a sort of rebellion. Also aligned by their opposition to the marriage of Queen Mary to the French dauphin, the Lords of the Congregation represent a key moment in the Scottish reformations, when theology meets a political base. We persaving how Sathan in his membris the Antechrystis of oure tyme, crewellie dois raige seiking to downebring and to destroye the Ewangell of Christ and his Congregatioune: awght, according to oure bounden dewtye, to stryve in oure Masteres Cawss, even vnto deth: Being certane of the victorye in him: The quhilk our dewtie being weill consyderit: We do promises before the Maiestie of God and his Congregatioune that we (be his grace) sall with all diligence continewallie applie oure haill power, substance, and oure very lyves, to mantene, sett forwarde, and establische the maist blessed Worde of God, and his Congregatioune. And sall lawboure at oure possibilitie, to haif faithfull Ministeres purelie and trewlie to minister Christes Evangell and Sacramentes to his Peopill: We sall mentene thame, nwryss thame, and defende thame, the haill Congregatioune of Christ, and everye member therof, at our haill poweris and waring of our lyves againis Sathan and all wicked power that dois intend tyrannye or troubill againis the forsaid Congregatioune: Onto the quhilk holie Worde and Congregatioune we do joyne ws: and also dois forsaik and renunce the Congregatioune of Sathan, with all the superstitioune,

104  Documents abhominatioune, and idolatrie therof. And mareattour sall declare oure selwes manifestlie innemyes tharto. Be this oure faithfull promiss before God, testefyit to his Congregatioune, be oure Subscritptiounes at thir presentes. Laing, David (ed.), The Works of John Knox VI, Edinburgh, 1846, pp. 674–6 Document 14: John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, 1558 Written to condemn the Catholic queens ruling both England and Scotland, Knox’s fiery tract rapidly collided with circumstance when, the year following its composition, a Protestant queen ascended the throne in England. Knox thus rowed back on many of his claims in this tract, but its influence lay less in its misogyny – which is shocking and asks deep questions of Knox’s political theology  – and more in its general argument that the authority of bad rulers (regardless, pace Knox’s passing need to condemn in particular Mary Tudor, of their gender) can and should be resisted where it is insufficiently attuned to the health of their subjects’ souls. Critically, like other sixteenth-century resistance theory, Knox’s opposition to magistrates always proceeded from religious – not political – concerns. Wonder it is, that amongst so many pregnant wits as the isle of Great Britain has produced, so many godly and zealous preachers as England did sometime nourish, and amongst so many learned, and men of grave judgment, as this day by Jezebel are exiled, none is found so stout of courage, so faithful to God, nor loving to their native country, that they dare admonish the inhabitants of that isle, how abominable before God is the empire or rule of a wicked woman (yea, of a traitress and bastard); and what may a people or nation, left destitute of a lawful head, do by the authority of God’s word in electing and appointing common rulers and magistrates. That isle (alas!) for the contempt and horrible abuse of God’s mercies offered, and for the shameful revolting to Satan from Christ Jesus, and from his gospel once professed, does justly merit to be left in the hands of their own counsel, and so to come to confusion and bondage of strangers. But yet I fear that this universal negligence of such as sometimes were esteemed watchmen shall rather aggravate our former ingratitude, than excuse this our universal and ungodly silence in so weighty a matter. We see our country set forth for a prey to foreign nations; we hear (of) the blood of our brethren, the members of Christ Jesus, most cruelly to be shed; and the monstrous empire (government) of a cruel woman (the secret counsel of God excepted) we know to be the only occasion of all those miseries; and yet with silence we pass the time, as though the matter did nothing appertain to us. But the contrary examples of the ancient prophets move me to doubt of this our fact. For Israel did universally decline from God by embracing idolatry under Jeroboam in which

Documents 105 they did continue even unto the destruction of their commonwealth (1 Kings 12:25–33). And Judah, with Jerusalem, did follow the vile superstition and open iniquity of Samaria (Ezek. 16). But yet the prophets of God ceased not to admonish the one and the other; yea, even after God had poured forth his plagues upon them. For Jeremiah did write to the captives in Babylon, and did correct their errors, plainly instructing them who did remain in the midst of that idolatrous nation (Jer. 29). Ezekiel, from the midst of his brethren (prisoners in Chaldea) did write his vision to those that were in Jerusalem; and, sharply rebuking their vices, assured them that they should not escape the vengeance of God, by reason of their abominations committed (Ezek. 7–9). The same prophets, for comfort of the afflicted and chosen saints of God, who did lie hid amongst the reprobate of that age (as commonly does the corn amongst the chaff), did prophesy and before speak the changes of kingdoms, the punishment of tyrants, and the vengeance which God would execute upon the oppressors of his people (Isa. 13; Jer. 46; Ezek. 36). The same did Daniel, and the rest of the prophets, every one in their season. By whose examples, and by the plain precept which is given to Ezekiel (3”18–21), commanding him that he shall say to the wicked, “Thou shalt die the death”, we in this our miserable age are bound to admonish the world, and the tyrants thereof, of their sudden destruction, to assure them and to cry unto them, whether they list or not, “that the blood of the saints, which by them is shed, continually crieth and craveth the vengeance in the presence of the Lord of Hosts” (Rev. 6:9–10). And further, it is our duty to open the truth revealed unto us, unto the ignorant and blind world; unless that, to our own condemnation, we list to wrap up and hide the talent committed to our charge. Laing, David (ed.), The Works of John Knox IV, Edinburgh, 1846, pp. 349–422 Document 15: John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1559, Chapter 21 Calvin is second only to Luther as the defining theologian of the reformations, and his impact is arguably the more wide-reaching. Just as Luther cannot be left out of the story of the British reformations, so the works of Calvin – while ostensibly the product of “continential” reform – were integral and vital to later stages of the Reformation on the British Isles. In particular, his remarkably complete ecclesiology established a suitably Reformed model of Church governance, and in the various editions of his Institutes Calvin set out this structure in exacting detail. It was a model to be adopted by Scotland – and not, to the chagrin of the godly, by England. The covenant of life not being equally preached to all, and among those to whom it is preached not always finding the same reception, this diversity

106  Documents discovers the wonderful depth of the Divine judgment. Nor is it to be doubted that this variety also follows, subject to the decision of God’s eternal election. If it be evidently the result of the Divine will, that salvation is freely offered to some, and others are prevented from attaining it, – this immediately gives rise to important and difficult questions, which are incapable of any other explication, than by the establishment of pious minds in what ought to be received concerning election and predestination – a question, in the opinion of many, full of perplexity; for they consider nothing more unreasonable, than that, of the common mass of mankind, some should be predestinated to salvation, and others to destruction. But how unreasonably they perplex themselves will afterwards appear from the sequel of our discourse. Besides, the very obscurity which excites such dread, not only displays the utility of this doctrine, but shows it to be productive of the most delightful benefit. We shall never be clearly convinced as we ought to be, that our salvation flows from the fountain of God’s free mercy, till we are acquainted with his eternal election, which illustrates the grace of God by this comparison, that he adopts not all promiscuously to the hope of salvation, but gives to some what he refuses to others. Ignorance of this principle evidently detracts from the Divine glory, and diminishes real humility. But according to Paul, what is so necessary to be known, never can be known, unless God, without any regard to works, chooses those whom he has decreed. “At this present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace; otherwise, work is no more work”. If we need to be recalled to the origin of election, to prove that we obtain salvation from no other source than the mere goodness of God, they who desire to extinguish this principle, do all they can to obscure what ought to be magnificently and loudly celebrated, and to pluck up humility by the roots. In ascribing the salvation of the remnant of the people to the election of grace, Paul clearly testifies, that it is then only known that God saves whom he will of his mere good pleasure, and does not dispense a reward to which there can be no claim. They who shut the gates to prevent any one from presuming to approach and taste this doctrine, do no less injury to man than to God; for nothing else will be sufficient to produce in us suitable humility, or to impress us with a due sense of our great obligations to God. Nor is there any other basis for solid confidence, even according to the authority of Christ, who, to deliver us from all fear, and render us invincible amidst so many dangers, snares, and deadly conflicts, promises to preserve in safety all whom the Father has committed to his care. Whence we infer, that they who know not themselves to be God’s peculiar people will be tortured with continual anxiety; and therefore, that the interest of all believers, as well as their own, is very badly consulted by those who, blind to the three advantages we have remarked, would wholly remove the foundation of our salvation. And hence the Church rises to our view, which otherwise, as Bernard justly

Documents 107 observes, could neither be discovered nor recognized among creatures, being in two respects wonderfully concealed in the bosom of a blessed predestination, and in the mass of a miserable damnation. Allen, J., (ed.), Institutes of the Christian Religion, Philadephia, 1813, pp. 140–142 Document 16: The Act of Uniformity, 1559 The Act of Uniformity professes and enacts the undisputed nature of the Elizabethan settlement – which itself became the source of the “Anglican” vision of the via media, the third way between unreformed Catholic episcopacy and the perceived excesses of radical Protestantism. There has long been a scholarly debate about who was compromising with whom: a Protestant regime with conservative, Catholic peers or population; a conservative regime with a vocal, godly faction; or some mixture of all of this and more? Certainly there is significance in the Act of Uniformity being separated from the Act of Supremacy, which guaranteed the monarch’s position at the pinnacle of the ecclesiastical edifice; the Act of Uniformity focused on doctrinal and liturgical conformity, and largely re-adopted the 1552 Prayer Book with limited but important changes to the rubrics on ornaments and the Communion. Where at the death of our late sovereign lord King Edward VI there remained one uniform order of common service and prayer, and of the administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies in the Church of England, which was set forth in one book, intituled: The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of Sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies in the Church of England; authorized by Act of Parliament holden in the fifth and sixth years of our said late sovereign lord King Edward VI, intituled: An Act for the uniformity of common prayer, and administration of the sacraments; the which was repealed and taken away by Act of Parliament in the (Page 459) first year of the reign of our late sovereign lady Queen Mary, to the great decay of the due honour of God, and discomfort to the professors of the truth of Christ’s religion: Be it therefore enacted by the authority of this present Parliament, that the said statute of repeal, and everything therein contained, only concerning the said book, and the service, administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies contained or appointed in or by the said book, shall be void and of none effect, from and after the feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist next coming; and that the said book, with the order of service, and of the administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies, with the alterations and additions therein added and appointed by this statute, shall stand and be, from and after the said feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist, in full force and effect, according to the tenor and effect of this statute; anything in the aforesaid statute of repeal to the contrary notwithstanding.

108  Documents . . . And that if any manner of parson, vicar, or other whatsoever minister, that ought or should sing or say common prayer mentioned in the said book, or minister the sacraments, from and after the feast of the nativity of St. John Baptist next coming, refuse to use the said common prayers, or to minister the sacraments in such cathedral or parish church, or other places as he should use to minister the same, in such order and form as they be mentioned and set forth in the said book, or shall wilfully or obstinately standing in the same, use any other rite, ceremony, order, form, or manner of celebrating of the Lord’s Supper, openly or privily, or Matins, Evensong, administration of the sacraments, or other open prayers, than is mentioned and set forth in the said book (open prayer in and throughout this Act, is meant that prayer which is for other to come unto, or hear, either in common churches or private chapels or oratories, commonly called the service of the Church), or shall preach, declare, or speak anything in the derogation or depraving of the said book, or anything therein contained, or of any part thereof, and shall be thereof lawfully convicted, according to the laws of this realm, by verdict of twelve men, or by his own confession, or by the notorious evidence of the fact, shall lose and forfeit to the queen’s highness, her heirs and successors, for his first offence, the profit of all his spiritual benefices or promotions coming or arising in one whole year next after his conviction; and also that the person so convicted shall for the same offence suffer imprisonment by the space of six months, without bail or mainprize. (. . .) And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that all laws, statutes, and ordinances, wherein or whereby any other service, administration of sacraments or common prayer, is limited, established, or set forth to be used within this realm, or any other the queen’s dominions or countries, shall from henceforth be utterly void and of none effect. Statutes of the Realm, iv. part I, pp. 355–8 Document 17: Thomas Becon, The sycke mans salue, 1560 Thomas Becon (1511–1567) was during his lifetime among the most influential of English theologians who wrote for a popular audience. A student of the leading Henrician evangelical Hugh Latimer, he was chaplain to the King’s regent, Edward Seymour, during the first part of the reign of Edward VI. He was Strasbourg and Frankfurt during the reign of Mary, but returned to England as canon of Canterbury Cathedral in 1559. By this time his theology had become wholly Reformed in nature. His pastoral work – of which the “death manual” The Sick Man’s Salve is a good example – translated this sometimes harsh Zwinglianism and was extremely important to the process of translating Reformed theology for the populace. And when the tyme cometh, that God visiteth vs with sickenes or otherwyse plageth vs for our euill behauour, then doo we not prepare our selues vnto the crosse, as we ought submitting our selues to the good pleasure of

Documents 109 God, and beyng contented paciently and thanckfully to receaue what so euer is layde vpon vs at the appoyntment of God, but we rather murmur and grudge against God, and with vnwillyng hartes suffer that louing visitation of God, almoste wishinge that there were no God to plage and punishe vs, but that we myght here liue continually and go forth to sinne frely & without punishe|ment. And when death approcheth, & no remedy can be found against ye violence therof, then doo the vngodly & wicked liuers beholding the miserable face of their conscience, which presenteth vnto them nothing but sin, ye  wrath of God hel fyre,  & euerlasting damnation, begin to despaire & strayght yeld them selues to the pleasure of Sathan to bee for e|uer and euer torme~ted in that lake that burneth with fire  & brimston, themselues their soules and consciences consenting and assentinge thereunto. . . . In this world therefore, wherein our life is nothing but a knighthod or warfar, must we lawfully, valeantly & mightely fight & striue against our ennemies ye deuill, the world & the flesh, and by feruent and diligent prayer vnto God so triumphe ouer then thorow the help of our graund captain Christ, yet we may haue a glorious spoill of our ennemies, & garnishe our selues with al kind of victorious & roial robes I meane, all good workes & godly vertues. Wher such a life is led, there must a good end be, and euerlasting life may with a fre conscience and assured hope be loked for. And to bring this to passe. Who laboureth not to the vttermoste of his power, namely if he be of God, & loketh for a better and more blessed lyfe after this? How we shuld fight against our aduersaries and leade a good life in this world I haue declared aboundantly heretofore in many of my bokes. In this treatise, whiche I haue nowe in hand, entitled (The Sickemans Salue) my mynd is to shew vnto the faithfull chri|stians, how they ought to make prouision for their latter end, that they may depart in the faythe of Christ, and be of the nu~ber of those of whome it is written. Blessed are the dead, whiche die in the Lord. Again. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his sainctes. For what shuld it profit a man to wyn all the worlde, if at the last he loseth his soule? Thomas Becon, A Sick Man’s Salve, London, 1560, STC (2nd ed.) / 1762.3, p. Aiiii.r-Avi.v Document 18: The Book of Common Order, 1562 Based on the liturgy of the English congregation at Geneva, the Book of Common Order of 1562 represented a triumph for John Knox’s commitment to a truly Reformed Kirk. Though doctrine and liturgy would continue to move towards a truly Reformed shape through to the 1570s, the Book of Common Order represented an early bridgehead for the “Calvinist” party. In this section related to the appointment of ministers, the Reformed emphasis on scripture, godliness and Presbyterian governance can be clearly observed.

110  Documents OF THE MINISTERS AND THEIR ELECTION. What Things Are Chiefly Required in the Pastors And ministers. First, let the Church diligently consider that the Minister which is to be chosen be not found culpable of any such faults which Saint Paul reprehends in a man of that vocation, but contrariwise endowed with such virtues, that he may be able to undertake his charge, and diligently execute the same. Secondly, that he distribute faithfully the Word of God, and minister the sacraments sincerely, ever careful not only to teach his flock publicly, but also privately to admonish them; remembering always, that if anything perish through his default, the Lord will require it at his hands. Of Their Office And Duty. Because the charge of the Word of God is of greater importance than that any man is able to dispense therewith; and Saint Paul exhorteth to esteem them as ministers of Christ, and disposers of God’s mysteries; not lords or rulers, as S. Peter saith, over the flock. Therefore, the pastor’s or minister’s chief office standeth in preaching the Word of God, and ministering the sacraments. So that in consultations, judgments, elections, and other political affairs, his counsel, rather than authority, taketh place. And if so be the Congregation, upon just cause, agreeth to excommunicate, then it belongeth to the minister, according to their general determination, to pronounce the sentence, to the end that all things may be done orderly, and without confusion. The Manner of Electing the Pastors And Ministers. The Ministers and Elders at such time as there wanteth a Minister, assemble the whole Congregation, exhorting them to advise and consider who may best serve in that room and office. And if there by choice, the Church appoint two or three, upon some certain day, to be examined by the Ministers and Elders. First, as touching their doctrine, whether he that should be minister have good and sound knowledge in the Holy Scriptures, and fit and apt gifts to communicate the same to the edification of the people. For the trial whereof, they propose him a theme or text to be treated privately, whereby his ability may the more manifestly appear unto them. Secondly, they enquire of his life and conversation, if he have in times past lived without slander, and governed himself in such sort, as the Word of God hath not heard evil, or been slandered through his occasion. Which being severely done, they signify unto the Congregation, whose gifts they find most excellent and profitable for that ministry. Appointing by a general consent, eight days at the least, that every man may diligently inquire of his life and manners. At the which time also, the minister exhorteth them to humble themselves to God by fasting and prayer, that both their election may be agreeable to his will, and also profitable to the Church. And if in the mean season anything be brought against him whereby he may be found unworthy by lawful probations, then is he dismissed and some other presented. If nothing be

Documents 111 alleged upon some certain day, one of the ministers, at the morning sermon, presenteth him again to the Church, framing his sermon, or some part thereof, to the setting forth of his duty. Then at after noon, the sermon ended, the minister exhorts them to the election, with the invocation of God’s name, directing his prayer as God shall move his heart. in like manner, after the election, the Minister giveth thanks to God, with request of such things as shall be necessary for his office. After that he is appointed Minister, the people sing a psalm and depart. G.W. Sprott and Thomas Leishman (eds.), The Book of Common Order, Edinburgh, 1868, pp. 11–13 Document 19: Woodcut from The Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church, 1563 In this woodcut from the book popularly known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, two English bishops, Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer, are being burned for heresy  – that is, for being Protestant  – by Queen Mary’s regime, on October  16th, 1555. Two of the three so-called “Oxford Martyrs” – the

Figure 4.2 Woodcut from The Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church, 1563 © The History Emporium/ Alamy Stock Photo.

112  Documents third was Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, who would follow them to the pyre in March of 1556  – Latimer and Ridley were among the most reliably Protestant of the English episcopate, with Latimer known primarily for his tireless preaching and Ridley especially for the depth of his scholarship. The specific offence for which they were tried at Oxford was denying the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (or Communion). The often lurid illustrations in Foxe’s litany of Protestant martyrs was designed to evoke strong reactions in those who saw them, and this is among the most explicit of the book’s many illustrations of executions and torture. This was not accidental: the purpose of the book as a whole was to stiffen Protestant resolve and contribute to anti-Catholic feeling. Woodcuts such as these were among the most powerful means of spreading a message – and hardening confessional identities – in a pre-literate society. The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online (1576 edition) (The Digital Humanities Institute, Sheffield, 2011). Available from: http//www.dhi.ac.uk/foxe [Accessed: 04.03.21] Document 20: Anonymous, The examination of John Walsh before Maister Thomas Williams, commissary to the Reuerend father in God William Bishop of Excester, vpon certayne interrogatories touchyng wytchcrafte and sorcerye, in the presence of diuers ge(n)tlemen and others, 1566. Lurid newsbooks were a commonplace of Elizabethan England, and reported all manner of unusual and eye-catching events: monstrous births, ominous portents, shocking murders. Witchcraft was a popular topic, and not all of the ways in which the supernatural was presented in such publications were entirely endorsed by the authorities. Equally as common in these popular tracts was anti-popery (and, to a lesser but increasing extent, anti-puritanism). This example of the form includes both vivid details of devilish magic being performed – and links witchcraft, almost inevitably, to popery and thus the antichrist. The ferment of the period, and the paranoia it occasioned, is on implicit but plentiful show here. Here hast thou (gentle Reader) the examination of Iohn Walsh of Netherbery in Dosetshiere, touching Sorcerie and Witchcraft, which he learned (as hereafter is shewed) of a certayne Priest named syr Robert of Dreiton. Wherein thou mayest see the fruites of Papistes and papistrye, and their yll exercises of their ydle lyues, which hath bene no small hurt to all common weales. For hereby not onely the simple people haue bene falsly seduced and superstitiously lead: but all estates haue beene sore greeued and troubled by these their practises of Sorcery and Witchcraft. It would be to tedious to shew but a few histories of their diuelish practises, and to to horrible factes in murthers and other mischiefes: which not onely the fat belly fed Moonkes, flattering Friers, and idle lusty Priestes

Documents 113 practised and vsed: but also the holy fathers them selues Popes, Cardinals, and Bishops were chiefly and wholye geuen to the studye and exercise of these most wicked and diuelish sciences, and by these meanes did worke to come to the Papall seate, hie dignities, and great wealth. Which was (as the histories declare) wyth the murthering and poysoning priuely one of anothrr. As first Pope Alexander the sixt, hauing societis with wicked Sprites and Diuels, gaue hymselfe body and soule vnto them, vpon condicion he might attaine to the Popes seate, and dignity: which they promised him and fulfilled, but he enioyed it not long, contrarie to his expectation. For he being priuely conueyed into a chamber in a certain place called Mount Cauillus, and ther questioning with his Demon how long hee shoulde raygne Pope, was aunswered that he should raigne. xi. and. viij. which this ho¦ly father vnderstood to be so many yeares: but he was deceiued. For after he had raigned Pope xi. yeares and. viii. monethes, this Diuel would no lenger be without hys praye, but strayght came to the Popes court deckt like a Courtier, and at the Popes chamber doore dyd knock very loudlye, saying that he must needes speake with his Fatherhood. The doore being opened, he came and spake with the Pope, al others being bid to auoyde. But they were so earnestlye talking together, that many did rightly confect that they were at contention. For the Pope stoutlye affirmed his time not to be expired. For (sayd he) I had promised me. xix. yeares (for. xi. and. viij. is. xix.) and of these. xix. yeares, I haue raygned but. xi. yeares and. viij. monethes. But this courtierlike Deuil replied and sayd, that he mistooke his wordes, for I sayd not (sayde he) xix. yeares, but I  ment. xi. yeares and. viij. monethes, and therefore nowe thou must needes dye. Whereat the Pope being abashed, fall to entreating, but all was in vayne. For assoone as this Deuil was gon, the soule of this Pope departed miserably from his body wyth horrible cryes, fearefull groninges, and deadly bewaylinges. In this sort dyed this horrible Sorcerer (as sayeth Hieronimus Marius in his worke intituled Eusebius Captiuus.) In which worke the history of this wicked Pope Alexander is ve¦ry lyuely set foorth, both as touching his wycked lyuing and horrible factes. Whose terrible ende may be an example to all Sorcerers, Cuniurers, and Witches. Like vnto hym was Pope Gregory the. vij. otherwyse called Hellybrand (Hildebrande I should say) who was also a great Sorcerer and Nigromancer, as Benno the Cardinal doth declare in his worke of this Gregories life. Saying that he also had a Familiar sprite, whereby he wrought manye mischiefes in the common weale of Rome, as well for the satisfieng of his fleshly and beastlye lust, as also for to encrease hys ryches and dignitie. Platina also writeth the lyke of Pope Iohn. 8. Pope Siluester, Pope Bennet. 8. with dyuers others, which were better practised in those diuelish sciences, then in godly diuinitie. Much like to these was Pope Paul the third, who as Sleidan declareth, exercised sorcerye and Witchcraft, and therby committed. ij. horrible murthers, and poysoned his Moother and Neuew, that he might enioye hys

114  Documents inheritaunce the sooner. He poysoned also his own Sisters husband, that he more freelyer might haue her at hys wycked commaundement. Anonymous, The examination of John Walsh before Maister Thomas Williams, (London, 1566), pp. 4–6 Document 21: From the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, 1572 The Thirty-Nine Articles were the culmination of four decades’ of English liturgical and doctrinal debate. From the Lutheran statement of 1536’s Ten Articles through the conservatism of 1539’s Six Articles (which emphasised transubstation in the Communion), through Edward VI’s explicitly Reformed Forty-Two of 1553, the English reformations had seen – including, of course, repeal of all Protestant doctrine under Mary  – a range of statements of faith. By 1572, the Elizabethan regime had accepted the need to formalise its own settlement  – in particular to emphaise the unacceptability both of Catholic practice and radical Protestant thought. Nevertheless, they retained a generally Reformed character – limited the sacraments to baptism and Communion, for example, and in particular defining and advocating for the theory of predestination, as below. XVII. Of Predestination and Election. PREDESTINATION to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the world were laid, He hath constantly decreed by His counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation as vessels made to honour. Wherefore they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to God’s purpose by His Spirit working in due season; they through grace obey the calling; they be justified freely; they be made sons of God by adoption; they be made like the image of His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ; they walk religiously in good works; and at length by God’s mercy they attain to everlasting felicity. As the godly consideration of Predestination and our Election in Christ is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons and such as feeling in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh and their earthly members and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God: so for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God’s Predestination is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the devil doth thrust them either into desperation or into wretchlessness of most unclean living no less perilous than desperation. Furthermore, we must receive God’s promises in such wise as they be generally set forth in Holy Scripture; and in our doings that will of God is

Documents 115 to be followed which we have expressly declared unto us in the word of God. Book of Common Prayer, London, 1999, p. 557 Document 22: Admonition to Parliament, 1572 By the 1570s, the godly in England had begun to despair of the co-operation with the Elizabethan episcopacy for which they had initially hoped. Looking north to Scotland, they could see a truly Reformed Church enacting liturgical changes that seemed much more distant in England. 1572’s Admonition to Parliament is a statement of these grievances – and a demand for a more robust movement of reform. This “Parliamentary” phase for the English radicals was a significant shift in strategy, but would ultimately prove as fruitless as the attempt to work with the bishops. WHereas immediatly after the laste Parliament, holden at Westminster, begon in Anno. 1570. and ended in Anno. 1571. the ministers of gods holy word and sacraments, were called before her maiesties hygh commissyoners, and enforced to subscribe vnto the Articles, if they would kepe theyr places and liuyngs, and some for refusyng to subscribe, were vnbrotherly and vncharitably intreated, and from theyr offyces and places remoued: May it please therefore thys honorable and high court of Parliament, in consyderation of the premisses, to take a view of such causes, as then dyd wythhold, and now doth the foresayd ministers from subscribing and consenting vnto those forsaid articles, by way of purgation to discharge thēmselues of all disobedience towards the church of God and theyr soueraigne, and by way of most humble intreatie, for the remouing away and vtter abolishing of all suche corruptions and abuses as withhelde them, throughe which thys long time brethren haue bene at vnnaturall warre and strise among themselues, to the hinderance of the gospel, to the ioy of the wycked, and to the grefe and dismay of all those that professe Christes religion,  & labor to attain Christian reformation. .  .  . They shuld fyrst proue by the word, that a reading seruice going before, and with the administration of the sacraments, is according to the word of God, that priuate Communion, priuate baptisme, baptisme ministred by women, holydayes ascribed to saincts, prescript seruices for them, kneeling at communiōn, wafer cakes for theyr breade when they minister it, surplesse and coape to do it in: churching of women, comming in vailes, which is not commaunded by lawe, but yet the abuse is great, by reson that superstition is grown therby in the hartes of many, and others are iudged to vse it not, abusing the Psalme to her, I haue lifted vp mine eyes vnto the hilles, &c. and suche other fool she things, are agreable to the wryttē word of the almighty. But theyr craft is plain. Wherin they deceiue them selues, standing so much vpon thys word repugnant, as thoughe nothyng were repugnant; or agaynste the word of God, but that whych is expresly forbiddē by plain commaundement,

116  Documents they knowe wel inoughe and wold confesse, if eyther they were not blinded, or else theyr harts hardned, that in the circumstāces eche con¦tent wherewith we iustly fynde faulte, & they too contentiously for the loue of theyr liuings maintain, sinelling of their old popish priesthode, is against ye worde of God. For besides that this prescript forme of seruice as they call it, is full of corruptions, it maintayneth an vnlawfull ministerye, vnable to execute that offyce. Frere, W.H. and Douglas, C.E., Puritan Manifestos, London, 1907, pp. 20–22 Document 23: Abraham Fleming, A straunge and terrible wunder, 1577 The assumed real presence of the Devil – and the decided threat of demonic possession – was an ever-present concern for individuals across the British Isles. The thriving trade in popular print both fuelled and capitalised upon this widespread expression of popular piety. The authorities had an ambiguous relationship with demonism: exorcism could easily be a vehicle for popery, but on the other hand the evil influence of the Devil on humankind could not be denied, and was a regular theme of godly sermons. In accounts such as this one, then, we see the interaction between official theology and popular anxiety, and gain a glimpse into the cultures of the reformations. SUnday, béeing the fourth of this August, in ye yéer of our Lord 1577. to the amasing and singular astonishment of the present beholders, and absent hearers, at a certein towne called Bongay, not past tenne miles distant from the Citie of Norwiche, there fell from heauen an excéeding great and terrible tempest; sodein and violent, betwéen nine of the clock in the morning and tenne of the day aforsaid. This tempest took beginning with a rain, which fel with a wonderful force and with no lesse violence then abundance, which made the storme so much the more extream and terrible. This tempest was not simply of rain, but also of lightning and thunder, the flashing of the one wherof was so rare, and vehement, and the roaring noise of the other so forceable and violent, that it made not onely people perplexed in minde and at their wits end, but ministred such straunge and vnaccustomed cause of feare to be concciued, that dumb creatures with ye horrour of that which fortuned, were exceedingly disquieted, and senselesse things void of all life and féeling, shook and trembled. There were assembled at the same season, to hear diuine seruice and common prayer, according to order, in the parish church of the said towne of Bongay, the people therabouts inhabiting, who were witnesses of the straungenes, the rarenesse and sodenesse of the storm, consisting of raine violently falling, fearful flashes of lightning, and terrible cracks of thunder, which came with such vnwonted force and power, that to the perceiuing of the people, at the time and in the place aboue named, assembled, the Church did as it were quake and staggar, which struck into the harts of those that

Documents 117 were present, such a sore and sodain feare, that they were in a manner robbed of their right wits. Immediatly héerupon, there appéered in a moste horrible similitude and likenesse to the congregation then  & there present, a dog as they might discerne it, of a black colour: at the sight wherof, togither with the fearful flashes of fire which then were séene, moued such admiration in the mindes of the assemblie, that they thought doomes day was already come. This black dog, or the diuel in such a likenesse (God hée knoweth al who worketh all) runing all along down the body of the Church with great swiftnesse, and incredible haste, among the people, in a visible fourm and shape, passed betwéen two persons, as they were knéeling vppon their knées, and occupied in prayer as it séemed, wrung the necks of them bothe at one instant clene backward, in somuch that euen at a moment where they kneeled, they strangely dyed. This is a wonderful example of God{is} wrath, no dout to terifie vs, that we might feare him for his iustice, or puling back our footsteps from the pathes of sinne, to loue him for his mercy. To our matter again. There was at ye same time another wonder wrought: for the same black dog, stil continuing and remaining in one and the self same shape, passing by an other man of the congregation in the Church, gaue him such a gripe on the back, that therwithall he was presently drawen togither and shrunk vp, as it were a péece of lether scorched in a hot fire: or as the mouth of a purse or bag, drawen togither with a string. The man, albeit hée was in so straunge a taking, dyed not, but as it is thought is yet aliue: whiche thing is meruelous in the eyes of men, and offereth muche matter of amasing the minde. Moreouer, and beside this, the Clark of the said Church béeing occupied in cleansing of the gutter of the Church, with a violent clap of thunder was smitten downe, and beside his fall had no further harme: vnto whom béeing all amased this straunge shape, wherof we haue before spoken, appeared, howbeit he escaped without daunger: which might paraduenture séem to sound against trueth, and to be a thing incredible: but, let vs leaue thus or thus to iudge, and cry out with the Prophet.  . . . This mischief thus wrought, he flew with wonderful force to no litle feare of the assembly, out of the Church in a hideous and hellish likenes. These things are reported to be true. Fleming, A, A Strange and Terrible Wonder, London, 1577, STC (2nd ed.) 11050, p. Av.v-Avii.r Document 24: John Lyly, Pappe with an hatchet, 1589 In this work, commissioned by Church authorities, the English writer John Lyly responds to the anti-episcopal satirical ‘Marprelate Tracts’, in an effort to challenge the authority of their author – and by extension his co-religionists.

118  Documents IT is high time to search in what corner of the Church the fire is kindled, being crept so far, as that with the verie smoke the consciences of diuers are smothered. It is found that certaine Martins, if no miscreants in religion (which wee may suspect) yet without doubt malecontents (which wee ought to feare) haue throwen fire, not into the Church porch, but into the Chauncell, and though not able by learning and iudgement to displace a Sexton, yet seeke to remooue Bishops. They haue scattered diuers libels, all so taunting and slanderous, as it is hard to iudge, whether their lyes exceed their bitternesse, or their bitternesse their fables. . . . These Martins were hatcht of addle egges, els could they not haue such idle heads. They measure conscience by their owne yard, and like the theeues, that had an yron bed, in which all that were too long they would cut euen, all that were too short they would stretch out, and none escapte vn|rackt or vnsawed, that were not iust of their beds length: so all that are not Martins, that is, of their peeuish mind, must be measured by them. If he come short of their religion, why he is but a colde Protestant, hee must bee pluckt out to the length of a puritane. If any be more deuout than they are, as to giue almes, fast, and pray, then they cut him off close by the workes, and say he is a Papist. If one be not cast in Mar|tins mould, his religion must needes mould. Lyly, J., A Pappe with an Hatchet, London, 1589, STC (2nd edition) 17463, p. Aiv.r-Av.v Document 25: Philip Stubbes, A christal glasse for christian women, 1591 The ars moriendi was a medieval form of manual for the dying, but the genre did not disappear with the reformations. Rather, and as in many other areas of cultural life, traditional practice was given  – in Alexandra Walsham’s memorable phrase – “Protestant dress”. In this Protestantised ars moriendi, the popular and widely read pamphleteer Philip Stubbes offers thoughts on what a “good death” might look like, informed by the experiences of his late wife, who had died at the age of nineteen. But presently upon this sudden recovery, it pleased God to visit her again with an extreme hot and burning quotidian ague  .  .  . she never showed any sign of discontentment or impatience, neither was there ever heard one word come forth of her mouth sounding either of desperation or infidelity, of mistrust or distrust, or do any doubting or wavering; but always remained faithful and resolute in her God. And so desirous was she to be with the Lord, that these golden sentences were never out of her mouth: “I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ”: and “oh, miserable wretch that I am, who shall deliver me from this body subject to sin? Come quickly Lord Jesus, come quickly . . .”.

Documents 119 When her husband would ask her why she smiled, and laughed so, she would say, “Oh, if you saw such glorious and heavenly sights as I see, you would rejoice and laugh with me, for I see a vision of the joys of heaven and of the glory that I shall go unto and I see infinite multitudes of angels attendant upon me, and watching over me, ready to carry my soul into the kingdom of heaven”. In regard whereof, she was willing to forsake herself, her husband, her child and all the world besides. Stubbes, P., A christal glasse for christian women, 1591, STC (2nd ed.) 23389, p. A4.v-A5.v Document 26: William Perkins, A salve for a sicke man, 1595 William Perkins (1558–1602) has a claim to being the most influential cleric of Elizabethan England (and, via the copious editions of his printed works, beyond). This is especially significant because he was also an avowed puritan. His popularity therefore rather undermines the claim that the godly were or became a persecuted or cut-off minority – and his tendency towards conformity to the Elizabethan settlement despite his theologies also emphasises how much an integrated part of the wider Church of England godly opinion could be. His work offers an object lesson in how often-harsh Reformed thought could be  – and was  – repackaged for the laity. In his A Salve for A Sick Man – note its shared title with Thomas Becon’s work, extracts of which are also included in this volume – Perkins offers not just thoughts on a good death, but in general on God’s plans for humankind and on living well through adversity of any kind (including illness, war and pregnancy). THe death of the righteous, that is, of euery beleeuing & repenta~t sinner, is a most excellent blessing of God, and brings with it many worthy benefits: which thing I prooue on this manner. I. God both in the beginning and in the continuance of his grace, doth greater things vnto his seruants, then they doe commonly aske or thinke, and because he hath promised ayd & strength vnto the~, therefore in wonderfull wisedome hee casteth vp them this heauie burden of death, that they might make experience what is the exceeding might and power of hisgrace in their weaknes. II. Iudge|ment beginnes at Gods house: and the righteous are laden with affli|ctions and temptations in this life, & therfore in this world they haue their deaths and hells, that in death they might not feele the torments of hell and death. III. When Lazarus was dead, Christ said: He is not dead but sleepeth: hence it followeth that the Christian man can say, My graue is my bed, my death is my sleepe: in death I die not, but onely sleepe. It is thought that of all terrible things death is most terrible: but it is false to them that be in Christ, to whome many things happen farre more heauie and bitter then

120  Documents death, IV. Death at the first brought forth sinne, but death in the righteous by meanes of Christs death, abolisheth sinne, because it is the accomplishment of mortification. And death is so farre from de|stroying such as are in Christ, that there can be no better refuge for them against death: for presently after the death of the body, followes the perfect freedome of the spirit, and the resurrection of the bodie. V. Lastly, death is a meanes of a Christian mans perfection, as Christ in his owne example sheweth, saying, Behold I will cast out diuels, and will heale still to day and to morrow, and the third I will be perfected. Now this perfection in the members of Christ, is nothing else but the blessing of God, the author of peace, sanctifying them throughout, that their whole spirits, and soules, and bodies, may be preserued without blame to the comming of our Lord Iesus Christ. Now hauing often thus considered with my selfe of the excellencie of death, I  thought good to draw the summe and chiefe heads thereof into this small treatise: the protection and consideration whereof, I commend to your Ladiship, desiring you to accept of it and read it at your leisure. If I bee blamed for Writing vnto you of death, whereas by the course of nature, you are not yet neere death, Salomon wil excuse me, who saith, that wee must remember our Creatour in the daies of our youth. Thus hoping of your H. good acceptance, I pray God to blesse this my litle labour to your comfort and saluation. Perkins, W., A Salve for a Sick Man, London, 1595, STC 19742, p. A2.r-A4.v Document 27: Sir Henry Unton, by unknown artist (circa 1596) In this unusual painting commissioned by his widow, Dame Dorothy, the English soldier and diplomat Sir Henry Unton (1557–1596) is variously remembered. Reading clockwise from top right to top left, Sir Henry’s life is laid out in a series of vignettes: his birth, his time at Oxford, military and diplomatic trips to Italy and France, his domestic life at home and his funeral. The ways in which sources from visual culture can provide historians key insights into Reformation life are here legion: not only are life-cycle events depicted and religious and spiritual ideas encoded (the prominence of churches in particular is notable); domestic details such as child-rearing, the importance of an ordered family life and even dining are depicted, and Unton is clearly shown reading and writing in his study – and discussing issues of theology with visiting scholars in his drawing room. Painting like this can be a rich trove of detail for any historian of early modern society and culture.

Documents 121

Figure 4.3 Unknown artist, Sir Henry Unton, c. 1596 © Art Collection 3/Alamy Stock Photo.

Document 28: Samuel Harsnett, A discouery of the fraudulent practises of Iohn Darrel, 1599 Samuel Harsnett (1561–1631) would become a significant figure in Jacobean and Caroline England, eventually serving as Archbishop of York from 1629. His theological conservatism was often as fiery as any radical’s passions – he was disciplined in 1584 for preaching against predestination, for example. In 1597, however, he was made chaplain to the anti-puritan bishop of London, Richard Bancroft, and from here he rose steadily through the ecclesiastical ranks. In this extract from his virulent attack on the exorcist John Darrel, we see an official  – and conservative  – Church response to exorcism and demonic possession, focused particular on the puritan minister John Darrell. In 1603, he would write a tract against popish exorcism, too. In Harsnett’s work, then, we see officialdom arrayed against popular belief, but also the reformations taking a new turn, which would define the seventeenth century, in which conservative opinion is arrayed far more explicitly against “puritan”. The feate of iugling and deluding the people by counterfeyt miracles, hath been as auncient, as it hath beene too-currant in all nations of the world, wherein the Egyptians were growne so expert, that their sect of inchanters durst challenge God his embassador in working of wonders, vntill they were shamefully foyled at making of Lyce.1 As these were mated by a silly vermine, so the rabble of Bell his priestes tooke as foule a fall, whose grosser wits could deuise no better way to purchase an opinion of deitie to their God of flies, then by fayning, that his omnipotencie lay in infinite eating,

122 Documents pretending that his Godhead was able to consume as much in a night, as two hundred men.2 These had a publike ayme, the countenancing of false religion, by a face of deitie, falsly drawne vpon stockes and stones, for a priuate end of a priuate person. . . . we shall find the tract of all miracle-mongers to bend to one of these two endes: eyther gracing of false religion by this graceles feate, or the raising of their own greatnes. . . bewitching by his counterfeyte miracles, the mindes of the ignorant, giuen to adore al, that they doe not appre|hend in the weakenes of their sense, as he doth now proclame by one of his Herauldes with open mouth.  Nemo vnquam haere|ticorum miraculum edidit: none but he and his schollers can cogge a miracle kindlie, and hee and his Priestes can dispatch a miracle as easily as a squirrell can cracke a nutte: a miracle in the bread, a miracle in the wine, a miracle in holy water, a miracle in holy oyle, a miracle in our Ladies milke, a miracle in the asses tayle, a miracle in Lampes, candles, beades, breeches, ragges, bones, stones,  omnia stultorum  & miraculorum plena, nothing done in his religion without a miracle and a Vice. And that which passeth all, the least bone of a canonized Saint, (traitor Sainct Campion forsooth), hath more force in it sometimes to cast out a Legion of Deuilles, then the name of Ie|sus, then prayer, fasting, inuocation of the Trinitie, Exorcising, coniuring, and Maries reliques, Crosse, holy water, and all. And would to God the Pope could vaunt of this tricke alone, that none but hee and his were seene in this mistery: and that there were not risen vppe among vs schollers, not out of his schoole, but of his occupation as touching this point, who, (vpon what ayme, I leaue to God & their conscience, such as it is), whether vpon . . . the enchanters pride, to crosse God his gouernors in the church, who professe not this prettie feate; or the Baalite’s conceit, to grace an idoll of their owne idle braynes; or of an impious simplicitie, holding it lawful to lye, cogge, and fayne, so as it bee to a good ende, and (as their fauourites tearme it) to the glorie of God, haue taken vpon them to bee deepely seene in this misterie of devilles. Harsnett, S., A discouery of the fraudulent practises of Iohn Darrel, London, 1599, STC (2nd ed.) 12883, p. A2.r-A3.v

Notes 1 Harsnett refers here to the story of the plagues of Egypt, in Exodus 7. 2 This is a reference to a story from the apocryphal chapter  14 of the Book of Daniel.

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Index

Act of Supremacy 21, 22, 28, 31, 94 Act of Uniformity 31, 107–8 Admonition to Parliament 33, 115–6 anti-clericalism xxiii, 8, 9, 21–2, 23–4, 89, 97–8 Augustine of Hippo 40–1, 42–3 Bancroft, Richard xxi, 38, 86, 121 baptism 43, 64, 70–3, 98–9 Beaton, David 26 Becon, Thomas xiii, 76, 81, 108–9 Beza, Theodore 56, 78 Bible, translations of 21, 24, 32–3, 50–54, 94–6 “Black Acts” 37 Boleyn, Anne xiii-xiv, 20–1 Book of Common Order (Scotland) 58, 109–11 Book of Common Prayer (England) 28, 29, 31, 33–4, 38, 48, 51, 70, 71, 80, 98–9 Book(s) of Discipline 36, 39, 55 Britain 1; definitions of 4–6; Bucer, Martin xiv, 29, 61 Buchanan, George xiv, 10, 19, 35 Calvin, John xiv-xv, 55–6, 105–6; and invisible church 56–7; for “Calvinism” see Reformed Protestantism Catherine of Aragon 20 Catholicism: medieval Church 6–10, 66–7; in Mary I’s England 30–1, 50, 67; in Elizabeth I’s England 60–1, 66; in Scotland 68, 69; persecution of 31–2, 68, 69; experiences as “proscribed minority” 66–9; survival of 67–8; social character of 69 Catholic Reformation 2–3, 30, 50, 68–9

Cecil William (Lord Burleigh) xv, 31 children 43, 57, 63–4, 70–3, 77 Colet, John xv, 22–3, 89 confessionalisation 14 Cornwall 5 Coverdale, Myles 53, 94–6 Cranmer, Thomas xv-xvi, 21, 28, 48, 112 Cromwell, Thomas xvi, 21, 94, 96 Darling, Thomas xvi, 85–6 Darrell, John xvi, 121–2 Davies, Richard xvi, 33, 52 death 73–6, 108–9, 118–9, 119–20 demonic possession 85–7 Devil, the 43, 71, 72, 75, 84–7, 112, 114, 116–7 dissolution of the monasteries 23 education: schools 24; universities 23; of ministers 55–6; of the laity 84 Edward VI xvii; reformation during reign of 27–9, 46–9, 100–1; England: medieval Church of 9–10; political situation in 16–7; popular resistance in 22; conflict with Scotland 25; nature of Protestant Church in 31–2, 45–50, 54–5, 59–62, 88 Elizabeth I xvii, 5, 15, 31; Protestant Church of 31–3, 60–2; view of “Calvinism” 35, 54 Erasmus, Desiderus xvii-xviii, 18, 45 Eucharist 28, 29, 30, 46, 48, 49, 50–2 exorcism 72, 86, 121–2 family 76–80, 81: Reformed approach to 71 Fisher, John 22 Forme of Prayers 51 Forty-Two Articles 29, 100–1

Index  131 Foxe, John xviii, 10, 29, 47, 111 France: role in Scotland of 25–7 Frankfurt, 76: and the “Troubles” at 48–9 funeral rites 73 Gardiner, Stephen xviii, 28, 29, 51 Geneva Bible 51–4 Germany: medieval Church of 8, 43 Goodman, Christopher xviii-xix, 19, 102–3 Grindal, Edmund xix, 33–4, 62 Hamilton, James (Earl of Arran) 25 Hamilton, Patrick xix, 24, 92 Harsnett, Samuel xxi-xxii, 86, 121–2 Henry VIII xix-xx; and “Henrician Reformation” 19–23, 28, 93, 94; and Lutheranism 45, 46 historiography 10–13, 31–2, 64, 65, 87–8 Holy Communion see Eucharist Hooker, Richard xxii, 62 Hooper, John xx, 29, 59 humanism 24 indulgences 43–4 Ireland 6, 33 James V xx-xxi, 24–5, 97 James VI & I xxi, 5, 37, 56, 57; view of “Calvinism” 54 justification, theology of 28, 41–2, 73–4, 92 King’s Book 28, 42 Knox, John xxi, 10, 19, 27, 35–7; in exile 49; and First Blast of the Trumpet 35, 104–5 Łaski, Jan xxii, 29 Latimer, Hugh xxii, 28, 111–2 life-cycle 12, 65, 70, 71, 120–1 Lollards 45 Lords of the Congregation 27, 103–4 Luther, Martin xxiii, 2, 90; theology of 40–2, 44; and the papacy 45; and influence in England 46; and radicalism 47 Lyndsay, David xxiii, 24, 97–8 Machiavelli, Niccolò 18 Marprelate Tracts 38, 62, 117–8 marriage 77, 79–80

Mary I xxiii-xxiv, 7, 15, 29, 35, 47, 48, 67; reformation of 49–50 Mary, Queen of Scots xxiv: marriage and period in France 25–7; reign in Scotland 35–7; marriage to Darnley 37; execution of 37, 61 Mary of Guise xxiv, 25–7, 35 Melville, Andrew xxv, 57 monarchy, theories of 17–19, 39; original sin 40–1, 44, 64, 75 Parliament, English: 21, 28, 31, 33 Parliament, Scottish: 27, 36–7 Parker, Matthew 33, 59 Peasants’ War xxiii, 47 Philip II 29 Pilgrimage of Grace 5 Pole, Reginald xxv, 30, 49–50 popular culture 87; and Protestantism 63–6, 83–4, 88 prayer 80–1, 84 Prayer Book rebellion 28–9, 48 preaching 34, 80 predestination 34, 44, 73, 105–7, 114–5 Presbyterianism 37, 54–8, 59, 109–11 providentialism 82–3 puritanism 32–4, 38, 75; and “conferences” 37, 38, 59; persecution of 38–9, 117–8; influence of exile on 49, 51; approach to the “Elizabethan Settlement” of 59–60, 61–2; and popular culture 64, 71; self-identity 38–9, 49, 82–3 Reformed Protestantism 47–8, 51; distrust of the authorities in 54; ecclesiology of 54–8; extent in England of 62; pastoral focus of 64, 70, 78–9, 119–20 resistance theory xiv, xviii, xxi, 17, 19, 36, 83, 91, 102–3, 104–5; in the Geneva Bible 53–4; “Rough Wooing” xxvi, 1, 26, 96–7 sacraments 70 see also baptism, Eucharist, funeral rites Scotland: medieval Church of 9–10; political situation in 24–5; early Protestantism in 23–7; conflict with England 25; nature of Protestant Kirk in 36–7, 39, 54–8, 88; translation of Bible in 52 sex 79

132 Index Seymour, Edward xxv-xxvi, 1, 4, 26, 28, 48, 96–7 Shakespeare, William 18, 19 Six Articles 22, 28, 51 Submission of the Clergy 21, 93 Ten Articles 28, 42, 114 Thirty-Nine Articles 38, 61, 114–5 Tyndale, William xxvi, 24, 47, 52, 81, 91, 96 Vermigli, Peter Martyr xxvi-xxvii, 29, 61 vestments controversy xx, 59, 61 visual culture 65, 120–1

Wales xvi; medieval Church of 9; relationship to “Britain” 4–6; during reign of Elizabeth 32–3; translation of Bible in 32–3, 52; Catholicism in 66–7 Whitgift, John xxvii, 34, 38, 59 Wishart, George 26 witchcraft 83–7, 112–4 Wolsey, Thomas xxvii, 20 women 118–9; as rulers 19 Zwingli, Huldrych xxvii-xxviii, 7, 29, 48, 51, 76