From: Religious Context 16th Century
Bible Translation Return to Home
By Roland H. Worth, Jr. © 2016
Chapter Two:
Lighting the Fire of
English Reformation: Underlying Causes,
Forces, and Influences
Computers and I have never been
overly friendly, but in this case I must confess either tiredness or lack of
careful observation caused the system to consume for “dinner” all of chapter
two. (Age can not fully be ruled out
either.) Having discovered the error
after having completed the final reading of chapter one, I had the alternative
to either abort this entire book or preserve the bulk of the contents and omit
this section.
I have chosen the latter option to
keep from having to scrap the entire project and because the “surviving”
materials should be useful in their own right even without this section. Having put considerable work into the project,
I confess the omission was done grudgingly, but it simply seemed impractical at
this late date (17 years after the original draft!) to attempt to rewrite an
entire new chapter based upon new research.
For one thing, too much time has passed by and it is no longer “fresh”
in my mind. It would also have provided
a major temptation to expand the various sections at length when, in their
current form, what we have is both concise and provides a good overview of the
matters that are covered.
The omitted section followed this
outline of contents:
Moral
Disintegration of Society at Large
Anti-Foreign
Resentments
Urbanization
Literacy
Indignation
at the Moral Decay of the Church
Indignation
at the Economic Power of the Church
Lollards: Precedent
and Continued Presence?
Renaissance/Humanist
Impetus to Rethinking the Past and the Present
Shared
Interests of Humanists and Reformers
Differences
of Emphasis between Humanists and Reformers
Erasmus: The Man in the Middle
Humanist/Renaissance
Input into English Education and Culture
Chapter Three:
Immediate
Politico-Religious Motives
for the English Schism
Much of what we discussed in the
prior chapter might be described as either idealistic or broad factors pressing
in the direction of dramatic innovation or, at the minimum, setting the stage
to make it feasible. On the other hand,
in the so-called real world, motives as often grow out of self-serving or
self-justifying rationales.
Except for the extremely callous, most individuals probably weave them
together in an unconscious tapestry of motivation and incentive. In other words, self-centered and abstract
reasons are blended together to produce and justify a given path of
conduct. Indeed, due to the presence of
both, the actual policy is more zealously held to than if either idealism or
self-interest alone lay at its core.
We would be less than realistic,
however, if we did not acknowledge that for many the idealistic motives were of
modest importance and, in the worst cases, mere window-dressing. A minority acted out of (almost) purely
idealistic reasons--religious or political or both; another minority acted
(almost) exclusively out of how the changes would benefit either themselves or
those whom they served.
There was probably a class difference involved among the “practical” minded. Aristocrats could imagine expropriating
(directly or indirectly) part of the wealth of the church; this was hardly
conceivable for the peasant. Yet part of
the formulation for both “low” and “high” born might easily be destructive
hostility and envy--the very reverse of constructive idealism!
In this chapter we move from
background reasons for the religious revolution of the sixteenth century into
the more immediate ones. At the hub must
lie Henry’s desire to break the marriage bond with his first wife.
No one knows how deeply Henry really
believed his protestations that he had a scriptural and canonical right to (at
least) his first annulment. Quite
likely, at some point he did cross the line into such a belief--whether
out of genuine conviction or self-serving delusion must be left to a far Higher
Power whose judgment exceeds that of mere mortals. The key here is that some way had to
be found to justify an annulment if he were to fulfill a king’s ultimate
obligation to the kingdom and his predecessors:
produce a heir.
With the church leadership in Rome
in delaying approval, and with the wealth of the church proverbial (especially
in the mind of a cash-strapped government), the church’s English possessions
represented a tremendous target-of-opportunity.
Although a break with Roman ecclesiastical oversight was inherently
dangerous, if he were able to successfully accomplish it, it would both enhance
his power and his wealth. Yet the gains
to be made would never have been sufficient to run the risk if his perceived
need to have a heir had not first existed.
Since both of these factors (heir and wealth) played major roles in his
motivation--the first certain and the second extremely probably--they deserve
more detailed attention.
(1)
Lack of an Acceptable
Solution
to the Politico-Religious Question
of Henry's "Divorce"
Was there a way (short of bearing a
son) that Catherine could have been reconciled with Henry? Not that he would have given up his
mistresses; having those were a foregone conclusion to the monarch. But could the marriage have survived
and the resulting break with Rome be avoided?
Probably not, but the course Catherine followed in resisting the divorce
was one that maximized Henry's irritation and minimized the possibility that he
would either seek or even desire a reconciliation. One modern student of the question has
evaluated her motives and its counter-productive results in these terms,[1]
Her six year's seniority, and the fact that
in their youth he had depended on her judgment, resulted in her thinking of
him--and treating him--as an easily led, well-disposed creature of impulse,
who, properly influenced, was bound, at long last, to come to a better frame of
mind. So he must on no account be
indulged or placated, but scolded, threatened and, above all, reminded of his
duty by her appearance at his side on every possible occasion. . . .
[Her] thirty years' residence in England
had taught her nothing of the varying currents of opinion outside her own
constricted circle, and [she] was incapable of perceiving that . . . both the
King and his people had changed, and were continuing to do so. Nor does she seem to have realized that her
insistence on her rights, combined with her virulent abuse of Anne Boleyn, as a
shameless woman Henry "dragged about" with him, were driving him into
hatred and contempt for herself, and for everything she represented.
Finally, . . . [h]er
letters show that his talk of conscience, sin and the dictates of Leviticus
sounded in her ears like the foolish babble of someone temporarily unbalanced;
and what may have most exasperated him was her making excuses for his
convictions, and laying the blame on others, as if he, who had been King of
England for twenty-one years, had neither knowledge, nor intelligence--nor even
authority.
A very, very fatal impression to
leave on as stubborn and determined a monarch as Henry! Those who defend her, prefer to speak in
terms of Catherine being the only one in
the whole affair (including the leaders of the church) who was unwilling to
compromise personal moral integrity.[2]
Even posed in these terms, one can not help but be skeptical of the way
in which she expressed her principles, however.
To be in the “right,” steadfast, unbending is fine. But if one is to convince others to change their
course an astute perception of their needs, weaknesses, and ideals is equally
essential in order to most ably make one’s case. Such astuteness Catherine clearly
lacked.
Henry's break with Rome was viewed
by Catholics of the day as the triumph of lust over religion. Yet when it came to lust, Henry had a ready
supply of ready and willing female playmates.
Henry was interested in far more than just lust--he was interested in having
a recognized “legitimate” (i.e., the fruit of marriage) male heir to whom he
could entrust the crown and spare the nation another disruptive civil war among
rival claimants.
Hence the lack of a readily
recognized method of passing rulership peacefully
along to the next generation when such a heir was lacking, produced a
preoccupation with obtaining a male child.
That in turn, made Henry feel compelled to act in whatever manner that
accomplished that end no matter how much it might compromise the religious
principles he had been raised in.
Indeed, viewed from his standpoint, did he have any other option? Did he not owe not only his own Tudor lineage
but the nation itself a male heir and the stability he could provide? To him the logic was not only appealing but
inescapable--though also self-satisfying and self-beneficial.
Furthermore, there was ample reason
to be optimistic that the desired annulment would be granted. There was a long standing willingness of the
papacy to grant just about any desired annulment if it met the dynastic needs
of powerful contemporary rulers.
Margaret, Henry's own sister, had
recently received such an approval. Her
plea was based, in part, on arguments clearly erroneous, and in part on
arguments not proven. Yet in March 1527
her annulment was granted. The man she
was currently living with was Charles Brandon.
Years before he also had pushed through a successful annulment
proceeding under the most dubious reasoning.
As Margaret received her own annulment, Brandon was again seeking an
annulment--this time to set aside all inconveniencing previous papal rulings so
he could now marry Margaret. Wolsey had maneuvered the original annulment through to
acceptance and was currently beginning work on the second one for Brandon. With such successes so close at hand, Henry
had every reason to expect a satisfactory outcome.[3]
Henry is believed or known to have
had sexual relationship with all six of his wives and at least two mistresses
(Mary Boleyn and Elizabeth Bount). Only four children were successfully
born.
Although one may blame Henry's genetic structure for a failure to
father more male children, there is also the question of the odd inability of
his wives to carry to term so few children at all. Henry's first wife had five miscarriages out
of six efforts. Anne Boleyn had two out
of three. Mary Boleyn only became
pregnant after her affair with Henry had ended and she had married someone
else. Likewise his final wife Katherine
Parr only became pregnant after the king's death, in her following marriage.
Women who could get pregnant who
didn't; women who did get pregnant and miscarried. Some of this could have reflected genetic
difficulties of one party or the other or even both. Perhaps because of anti-Henry sentiments the
matter is nearly always posed in terms of Henry's failures and so far as
the lack of fathering a male child goes, that is quite reasonable. The number of miscarriages, however, suggest
the possibility of significant genetic or medical problems on the part of the
women he married as well.
More immediate causes have also been
suggested as contributing factors to the failure to have a son. In regard to his marriage with Anne of
Cleaves, he claimed the inability of "will and power to consummate
the" relationship. Although the
skeptic is tempted to dismiss this as a self-serving (though embarrassing)
admission to escape the marriage, it is known that he consulted doctors about
his problem. Of course, how much of this
was physical inability and how much annoyance at a woman he had come to
intensely dislike is unknowable.
Henry despisers have periodically
looked with favor upon the possibility that he suffered from syphilis. The medical treatment that Francis I received
for that condition is so different from that given Henry, it seems most
improbable that this particular problem tormented him. The leg ulcer that repeatedly plagued him
from 1528 onwards was far more likely the result of injuries from his jousting
days than from any sexually transmitted disease.[4]
Statistically,
the odds were not as favorable to Henry as his personal preference for a male
child would have preferred. A study of
childbearing among the nobility of Henry's day reveals that first marriages
carried a 19% rate of having no children at all and a 29% rate of not having a
son. Second marriages were even
worse: 48% bore no children and 58% bore
no sons.[5] Of course a king was expected
to have sons and Henry naturally thought of the successes he heard of rather
than the failures that were so common.
We have approached this analysis
from the standpoint of the traditional issue of why Henry had a child-fathering
problem. In reality, the difficulty is
much exaggerated, as shown by the multiple pregnancies that occurred. Nor was he unable to father a male
child. His problem, rather, lay in his
partial inability to father a male child within the confines of a marriage combined
with the inability of his wives to carry them to term.
As an antidote to the mythology on
Henry’s “inability” to father male offspring, two examples may be cited. The first is of a child who was not carried
to term; the second of one who was.
Henry’s determination to engage in vigorous jousting almost cost him his
life. In late 1535 he had an extremely
serious fall during a joust at Greenwich.
For hours his life hung in the balance and no one could be sure whether
he would live or die. When Anne Boleyn
heard the first report of the accident--and not knowing her husband’s ultimate
fate--she went into a shock that produced a miscarriage. The child was reported to be male and, if
carried to term, would have produced the successor Henry so fervently desired.[6]
The second male child useful to
discuss is that of his illegitimate offspring,
Henry Fitzroy. At age six the son
was made duke of Richmond. Since this
title had been that of both Henry VII and VIII before they came to the throne,
it was a clear sign of Fitzroy's ultimate destiny if a legitimate son did not
appear. Other titles were given simultaneously
that had been possessed by earlier rulers in their younger years. Cumulatively, these honors resulted in the
young man enjoying first place in courtly protocol.[7] Catherine was so angered at Henry giving
Fitzroy precedence over their legitimate child, Princess Mary, that she
vigorously protested but to no avail.
Provided with a fine tutor, Fitzroy
gave indications of possessing a fine mind though he was easily distracted by
the riding and hunting less academically minded friends preferred and
encouraged him in. When Catherine was
divorced, it turned Mary--legally--into an illegitimate child herself and the
same was true in regard to Elizabeth after Henry divorced her mother as
well. Since all were now on a legal par,
some of his advisers lobbied for an official decision to bestow the succession
upon Fitzroy.
But Henry was strangely silent. Perhaps he still hoped for the birth of a
legitimate child that would escape the stigma of being born outside of
marriage. On the other hand, there may
also have been a major element of personal bad chemistry between father and
son. Although Henry had exhibited
periods of kindliness and affection toward the young Mary, these had been
conspicuously absent in regard to Fitzroy.
Furthermore, in spite of the high titles, he was kept away from the
court itself. It was as if the king were
determined to have him ready and prepared to become king, while seeking a more
palatable solution if possible. If so it
was all in vain. A few months after the
execution of Anne Boleyn, the seventeen year old Fitzroy became sick, worsened,
and died.[8]
(2)
Wealth of the Church as a Revenue Source
for Government
The public might be aggravated at
the flow of English gold abroad. Posed
in those terms, few would protest restrictions that kept this from
happening. There was another side of
this, from the standpoint of the king:
to him keeping this gold in the kingdom meant diverting it into the
coffers of his government and using the newfound wealth on personal and
official expenses and to cement ties with the powerful men of the kingdom.
Hence the people at large would be
benefited little or none, but only the already rich and powerful and some of
those on the way up the aristocratic totem pole. So long as the emphasis could be retained, in
the public eye, on the taking, support would be maximized. To the extent that public attention turned to
what was to be done with the seized wealth the door was open to scorn
and disillusionment with the political and economic leaders of the country.
Nunneries
were a minor element in the British religious landscape. In contrast to mainland Europe, Englanders
were far less likely to follow the Continental preference for placing in them
their "surplus" daughters and endowing the institutions with generous
gifts in return.[9] The nunnery at Syon
was a major exception to this rule.
Serious piety was emphasized and the residents were from aristocratic
families.[10] Yet since the nunneries were such a secondary
part of the religious environment, the impact of government actions is better
revealed by centering attention on the male monasteries.
The government had investigated the
allegedly prevalent corruption in 1535.
The second major investigation of that same year was of the financial
resources and revenues of the various monasteries. If purification of a decayed institution had
been the only goal, this would have been an odd action. In actual practice, the scandals spread far
and wide by the government's "exposure" of moral corruption, providing
an excuse for seizing the monastic assets discovered in the financial
probe.
In 1536 a statue provided for the
seizure of almost 400 such institutions.
A number had already "voluntarily" agreed to disband and the
small size of all of them[11]
made successful resistance nigh impossible anyway. The remainder were individually forced into
closing their operations. In 1539 a new
statute gave these individual closures the endorsement of explicit law.[12]
The monasteries themselves and the
wealth they had possessed became sources of revenue for the government. Seized by the government, they were sold off
over a period of time. The jewelry and
the silver plate were obvious moneymakers.
Less obvious to our age was the value of the leaded roofs. This was stripped for reuse or sold.
The buildings themselves (unless sold to buyers in time) were likely to
become local sources for building stone.
The precious manuscript collections were either destroyed by those
unconcerned with intellectual and historical issues or scattered with little
thought and foresight. After all, they
were of no monetary significance.[13] Regimes change. Buildings can be reconstructed. But in that pre-technological age, a
manuscript destroyed was a manuscript lost forever.
Although state self-enrichment
eventually won out, this represented a diversion of major economic resources
from other potentially constructive usages.
Nor was it carried out without significant opposition from reformers in
the court during the crucial discussions during the winter of 1535-1536. Anne Boleyn convinced several ministers who
spoke at the court to deliver lessons that would encourage the conversion of
the monasteries to continuing, positive usages.
Hugh Latimer, for example, appealed
to the parable of the vineyard in Luke 20 to show that the repossessed vineyard
was not destroyed but put to better use.
In a similar way, Latimer insisted, the monasteries should be turned
into "places of study and good letters."[14] The effort was unsuccessful but it revealed
that many refused to accept the propriety of the use of the monasteries as
merely a new economic resource to be utilized by the treasury.
The
suppression of the monasteries was one of several irritants that produced the
first major Catholic military response to the Anglican Catholicism Henry was
creating. In the last six months of 1536
northern England erupted in the Pilgrimage of Grace. It was motivated by popular sympathy with
traditional Catholicism, anger at the elimination of the monastic system,
discontent at the superior economic welfare of southern England, and fears
caused by such local conditions as the enclosure movement and high taxes.
Small businessmen resented London's dominance; the towns in general
were frustrated by the allocation of seats in Parliament which consigned them
to perpetual under-representation; and key economic and political leaders felt
a deep personal offense at Henry's most important advisors.[15]
The entire northern third of England
was in rebellion and any insurrection produced by the social-economic-religious
factors behind this one posed the potential for producing dangerous sympathy in
other regions as well. In order to
co-ordinate the suppression of the rebellion, a "privy council" of
major advisers was created by the King.
What was instituted as an ad hoc reaction to a threatening situation
became an on-going practice as an effective utilitarian measure to maximize the
ability of the King to rule his kingdom.[16]
The traditional Catholic clerics had
strong economic (as well as religious) reasons to tilt them toward support of
the rebellion. Requiring the paying to
Rome of the "First Fruits" (first years income from a benefice) was
prohibited in 1533. The following year
an equivalent state fee was imposed upon all future acquired benefices;
furthermore "Tenths" were to be required yearly in addition to
this. This annual 10% tax, when added to
the “first fruits,” resulted in a 20% effective tax on all benefices over a
period of a decade. Within the
political-economic context of the time, this was viewed as a horrendous
figure.
In 1536 clerical pressure convinced
the government (presumably reinforced by clerical support for the Pilgrimage of
Grace) to provide a token lightening of the load. Instead of having to pay the full
value of the benefice and the first Tenth in the same year, the Tenth
was to be dispensed with for that initial twelve month period. The situation was worsened by the fact that
the crown had not repudiated its right to receive a periodic
"voluntary" gift from the church as a collectivity as well. These were forthcoming in 1540, 1543, and
1545.
The effective result of the direct and indirect clerical taxes was that
the clergy carried a heavier burden of taxation than any other category of
citizens. So heavy was it that the
Archbishop of York did not consider it an exaggeration to claim that the
Pilgrimage of Grace erupted because of clerics’ outrage at the level of taxation.[17]
Though the Pilgrimage was successfully
repressed, many of the same causes embittered on-going regional feelings of
social and economic injustice—not to omit the parallel suspicion that a policy
of unwise religious innovation was being persisted in. Decades later these sentiments erupted yet
again in the Rebellion of 1569-1570.
Church wealth as a motivation for
governmental repression can also be illustrated by the assault on the valuable
properties associated with the worship of the saints. The reformers were vigorously opposed to belief
in the miracle working power of the “saints” whose remains were kept at various
shrines throughout the land. The
Injunctions issued by Thomas Cromwell in 1536 instructed all clergymen to
refuse to “extol any images, relics, or miracles, . . . nor allure the people
to the pilgrimage of any saint.”[18]
The Injunctions issued in 1538
ordered that “feigned images” were “abused with pilgrimages or offerings” and
most were to be removed as quickly as possible.
The few to remain were to “serve for no purpose but as to be books of
unlearned men.” The clerics were to explicitly tell the people that this was
their only legitimate purpose. Those
clergy who had “heretofore declared to parishioners anything to the extolling
or setting forth of pilgrimages, feigned relics, or images, or any such
superstition” were to “now openly . . . recant and reprove” the practice.[19]
At this point politics and the
reform agenda again interlocked. Few of
the saints of the church could be more repugnant to a thorough going royalist
such as Henry VIII than Thomas a Becket.
In April 1538, Henry began to vindicate his anti-traditionalist stance
while simultaneously venting his spleen upon this foe of an earlier English
king.
That month saw an order read aloud
before the tomb ordering Becket to appear within thirty days before the King’s
Council. Since, for obvious reasons, he
was unable to do so, the Council proceeded against him. Accusing him of needlessly disturbing the
realm, and therefore causing his own death, the Council stripped him of his
title of martyr. His bones were to be
removed and burned and the valuables given to his Canterbury shrine to be
confiscated for the state’s treasury.
A royal proclamation of November had
Henry proclaiming to the people that Becket’s death was “untruly called
martyrdom; . . . and further . . . his canonization was made only by the Bishop
of Rome because he had been a champion to maintain his usurped authority.” Now only were all of his pictures and images
to be removed but henceforth there would be no feast day in his honor.[20]
The plundering of the tomb had
produced three hundredweight of gold.
Twice that amount of silver was removed, as well as many valuable gems.[21] The king had enhanced his stature with the
more militant reformers by his willingness to wage war on the idols of
pseudo-saints. Of course it did not hurt
that he also built up the size of his treasury--an admirable (from his
standpoint) combination of faith demonstrated by works as well as a means of
meeting the costs of the regal household and government
At least one other similar action
was taken the same year against another major shrine, that of St. Swithun, located in the Winchester cathedral. Similar actions were taken against other such
sites in the following years.[22]
FOOTNOTES
[1]Hester W. Chapman, The Challenge of Anne Boleyn (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc., 1974), 95.
[3] For a discussion of the tangled annulment histories of Margaret Tudor and Charles Brandon, see Carolly Erickson, Great Harry: The Extravagant Life of Henry VIII (New York: Summit Books, 1980), 200-201.
[4] For an effective examination of the difficulties Henry had in fathering children, especially male ones, see Eric Ives, Anne Boleyn (Oxford [England]: Basil Blackwell, 1986; paperback edition, 1988), 236-239.
[5] The findings of Lawrence Stone in his Crisis of the Aristocracy, as summarized by Karen Lindsey, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII (New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995), 64.
[6] On losing the child see Neville Williams, The Cardinal and the Secretary: Thomas Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1975), 186.
[15] For a discussion of the causes see Bindoff, 107-108. Actually, historians commonly lump together several separate rebellions under the label “Pilgrimage of Grace” since they occurred more or less close together and had overlapping agendas. We have done the same here.
[16] On the importance of the Pilgrimage of Grace as creating the precedent for a de facto privy council (even before it was formally acknowledged as such) see Eric Ives, "Henry VIII: The Political Perspective," in The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics, Policy and Piety, edited by Diarmaid MacCulloch (London: Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1995), 27-28.
[17] On clerical taxation see Richard Hoyle, "War and Public Finance," in The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics, Policy and Piety, edited by Diarmaid MacCulloch (London: Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1995), 80-81.
[20] As quoted by Ibid., 70. On the plundering of the tomb also see Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 227-228.