Henrician Reformation Turning Point

To what extent do you consider the Henrician Reformation (1529-40) as a religious turning point in the power and autonomy of the Church in the period 1485-1603?
In 1539 Richard Whiting, the last abbot of Glastonbury was dragged to the top of Glastonbury Tor by Thomas Cromwell’s commissioners and beheaded. He had refused to surrender the abbey when the commissioners had arrived to dissolve it. The shocking brutality of his murder might be seen to highlight the newly inferior position of the English Church after the Henrician Reformation of 1529-36, and to suggest this really was a turning point in the power and autonomy of the church in the period 1485-1603. Several factors complicate this picture however and in fact there may have been
more continuity in the relationship between the English crown and the church than immediately meets the eye. While the Henrician Reformation undoubtedly caused a profound change in the nature of English religious experience, close political ties between religious leaders and the monarchy had been a feature of the English church for many centuries and continued to be so throughout the period 1485-1603. For those individuals and institutions who survived the years 1529-40, the nature of their relationship with the King would in many ways have been very familiar. The significance of the years 1529-40 in English religious history lie less in changes to the political autonomy of the church and more in the violence with which so many elements of the old religion were uprooted. It can be argued that the religious changes of 1529-40 were a dramatic turning point rather than being part of a more continuous process of change and whether the extent to which the power and autonomy of the English church was affected by these changes.
The Dissolution of the Monasteries was arguably the most revolutionary measure and perhaps the only one controversial enough to result in a rebellion, the Pilgrimage of Grace in October 1536. Geoffrey Elton referred to this period as one of unparalleled revolutionary activity on the part Henry VIII’s government. Yet it is not certain whether the opposition to this activity was a direct response to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, since at this point only the smaller houses had been officially dissolved by parliament. It is also surely significant that the rebellion broke out immediately after the suppression of local saints’ days in August 1536 and rumours of parish church closures which began to spread in September. It is possible that nobody in 1536 really recognised the unprecedented scale of the dissolution or how far removed it was from previous reforms. It was on a local level that the depth of the changes of the Henrician Reformation was really felt by contemporaries and it was in local terms that the majority must have experienced this religious turning point.
However Historian M.D. Palmer believed that although headway was made under Henry VIII, it was rooted under Edward VI’s reign, where the average person would have witnessed the change of religion from catholic to protestant. In 1549 the Act of Uniformity was implemented turning communion from Latin to English, removing icons and allowing priests to marry. These were enormous changes to the lives of people living under the reign of Edward, so although the years under Henry VIII initiated change in doctrine, it was worked out over a longer period of time. Although the act was created in 1549 the final Act of Uniformity wasn’t passed until 1558 under Elizabeth I, potentially showing that it was not a turning point but in fact a part of a longer process.
While it would be ridiculous to view the Henrician reformation of 1529-40 as the end of the process of religious reformation in England, it is nevertheless important to recognise the extreme novelty of the effects of Henry 's reforms on the religious experience of the English people. The nature of the Church in England had never been explicitly questioned before. The Henrician Reformation was part of a longer series of changes but it was also a violent disruption of civilians’ lives and therefore must be viewed as the decisive turning point in English religious experience. What is more difficult to ascertain, however, is the extent to which it affected the long term nature of the political relationship between the King and religious leaders.
It initially seems clear to see that the Henrician Reformation not only conferred upon the king’s status of ‘Supreme Head of the Church of England’, but destroyed the power of the pope and took over the revenues acquired through church taxes.
It is important however to remember that the pope had never had much direct political power in England. He had no army and no proper tax base therefore he could not invade except through an alliance with secular allies. Indeed he blocked Henry 's dispensation to divorce Catherine of Aragon, but a king who was less worried about his soul and his wife’s nephew, the emperor, invading would probably just have ignored his commands. The king had also always had lots of power over the church. Political partnerships between kings, their bishops and abbots had always been a feature of the church, and this war true throughout the period 1485-1529. Henry VII enjoyed a very close relationship with the church through Cardinal John Morton, who was not only Archbishop of Canterbury but enjoyed secular power too as Lord Chancellor. Bishop Richard Foxe was also important to Henry Tudor and these senior figures of the clergy helped Henry develop his tax policies, while at the same time, Benefit of Clergy and other privileges of the church were untouched by the king. This close relationship between church and crown continued for the first twenty years of Henry CIII’s reign, as demonstrated by his long reliance and trust for Cardinal
Wolsey.
The break with Rome and the establishment of the Royal Supremacy clearly constituted a decisive change in formal jurisdictional terms, but the close supervision of religious affairs by the king was not necessarily anything new. English kings had, for instance, been practically responsible for the appointment of bishops. A certain degree of continuity can therefore be reasonably established between the pre-Reformation period and the Royal Supremacy in terms of the practical authority exercised by the king over domestic religion, though this should not be used to deny the crucial and long term significance of the change in terms of its role in and more destructive transformations such as the Dissolution of the Monasteries that occurred during the 1530s. The most catastrophic of the political and religious measures of the decade could not have occurred without the King being able to attain the position of supreme head of the church. This could not be achieved without acceptance that the king’s position was appointed by God, that parliament confirmed and legislated for his power over the church and that the submission of the clergy had to follow. All of this was achieved but not without struggle and opposition, most notably from the likes of Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher who were both executed for their opposition. Previous kings had exercised much power over the church within their domain but Henry’s new claims signalled a decisive break with the kind of informal control of the church exercised by his father Henry VII.
It could also be argued that, following the actions of the Reformation Parliament, the Catholic Church lost the greatest amount of power. Parliament had to be consulted over major changes to religious practices and could theoretically decide who was to receive the title of supreme head of the church, making its potential power enormous. The extent of the new practical powers King Henry VIII gained is harder to distinguish. Parliament, with its vast power over extraordinary revenues, may have been increasingly inclined to challenge the monarch’s authority in the future, but there is some ambiguity over the extent to which it really tried to control religious affairs even in the second half of the Sixteenth century. It is difficult to tell for instance whether its support for the Act of Repeal of 1553, which sought to re-establish the Catholic Church, was a result of genuine conviction or an alarmed reaction to the arrest of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and Bishops John Hooper and Nicholas Ridley. In Elizabeth’s reign it was argued even by Catholic Bishops installed in the House of Lords by Mary I that parliament’s composition of laymen meant it was unqualified to decide on religious matters.
It could be argued that the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I saw more religious convulsions than during Henry VIII’s reign. The huge increase in heresy burnings conducted by Mary I and Cardinal Reginald Pole overshadows the brutality towards recusant monks under Mary’s father and his attacks on church property. Nevertheless, Mary went far to restore the link with Rome and hence the Church’s autonomy from the crown, even restoring some chantries still under the crown’s possession. Moreover it could be argued that far more effective change was brought about under Elizabeth I in the period 1558-70. This period witnessed the implementation of the Church Settlement, including the Act of 39 Articles and the consolidation of much of the Anglican Church that is known today. It also ended in the crown’s effective crushing of Catholic resistant in the Revolt of the Northern Earls in 1569 and the excommunication of Elizabeth by the Pope in 1570. This era seemed to show a much more determined destruction of the church’s autonomy in England. The period beyond this, to the end of Elizabeth’s reign saw reasonable stability and little religious upheaval, especially compared to the wars of religion raging in France and the Catholic Spanish war against the Dutch Protestants.
In conclusion, ascertaining which period witnessed the greatest religious changes of the sixteenth century is far from a clear process. Nevertheless, it is clear to see that the Henrician Reformation was a major turning point in religious life in England as is evident from the sheer number of people that it affected and that it set precedents for future reforms to come. This is reflected in the Pilgrimage of Grace, the biggest popular uprising that had ever occurred in England up to this point, and the specifically religious concerns of the ‘pilgrims’. It is estimated by Joan Simon that before the dissolution, no house in England was further than half a day’s walk to a monastery. In light of this fact the consequences of the complete destruction of the monastic life by Henry VIII’s commissioners must have been felt by everyone and not only the monks and nuns displaced. However, the extremely destructive effects on the monasteries was not mirrored amongst the clergy who largely submitted. Thus the power and autonomy of the church as an institution was not radically diminished by the Henrician Reformation, especially as it would be largely reversed by his daughter, Mary, in the 1550s.
1,812 words BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books for Part B:
The Reformation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958
AS Edexcel History: Henry VIII - Authority, Nation and Religion, 1509-40, Peter Clements, Hodder Education, 1 Jan 2012
Education and Society in Tudor England, Joan Simon, Cambridge University Press, 27 Sep 1979
Henry VIII, Michael Denison Palmer, Addison-Wesley Longman Limited, 1983
Websites for Part B:
The last abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, http://www.maryjones.us/jce/whiting.html