Question 1

Was the Henrician Reformation more than 'Catholicism without the Pope'?

Paragraph One

• 'Catholicism without the Pope' was the start not the finish of the Henrician Reformation
• Royal supremacy was a means to make reforms in the English Church which Rome and the clergy had failed to secure in response to increasing protestant, humanist and anti-clericalist attacks on the unreformed Church
• Henry took supremacy seriously
• He had shaken off the authority of the Pope and must now rejuvenate the Church
• He knew that it would be a measure of his worth as a king to reform the Church

Paragraph Two

• There followed an attack on 'superstitions' such as shrines, pilgrimages and holy relics
• There was an assault on monasticism
• English bibles were to be used in every church
• There were Erasmian-style criticisms of the unreformed Church
• Official statements of doctrine  showed varying degrees of Lutheran influence
• There were new Injunctions to the clergy in 1536 and 1538
• Henry retained his reforming Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer
• His reforming chief minister Thomas Cromwell until 1540
• The increased influence of the conservative Norfolk and Gardiner from 1540 did not lead to the door being closed to reform

Paragraph Three

• Popular catholic practices such as pilgrimages and visits to holy relics and shrines were discouraged in the 10 Articles and the Injunctions to the clergy
• The dissolution of the monasteries removed one of the great pillars of the Church
• The closing of shrines and the confiscation of their wealth, especially that of Becket at Canterbury, was a significant reform, even though partly motivated by finance
• The English Church was now financially worse off
• The monasteries were dissolved and their land and contents confiscated
• The secular Church was more heavily taxed than it had been by the papacy
• Henry's Erastian, anti-clericalist policies removed more than just the papcy from the Church

Paragraph Four

• The imposition of the English bible was probably Henry's greatest service to the promotion of English Protestantism
• All English churches were required to use the vernacular bible (1538)
• The Great Bible was made available in 1539
• Personal bible study enables laity as well as clergy to question non-biblical aspects of the Catholic religion and find some of the 'truths' for themselves
• Henry came to doubt the wisdom of this as the last thing he needed was religious strife in England
• Partly for this reason the doctrinal statements issued from 1536 sought nothing more radical than a middle way between Catholicism and the new Protestantism.

Paragraph Five

• Protestants in Europe were disappointed that Henry didn't go further towards Protestantism
• The 10 Articles was as far as he went (1536)
• This was when he was negotiating an alliance with the German Protestant princes of the Schmalkaldic League
• This doctrine only accepted 3 of the 7 Catholic sacraments (penance, baptism & Eucharist)
• The 10 Articles follow, in places, Lutheran statements of faith like the Confession of Augsburg (1530)
• The Lutheran position on salvation (justification by faith alone) was not accepted
• The Articles stated that good works were as important as faith
• The Articles caused controversy among the English bishops
• Henry allowed them to draw up a consensus statements
• The Bishops' Book (1537) restored the 4 other sacraments, but listed them as less important because they lacked a biblical foundation
• The Book did not insist on the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation nor on good works to secure salvation
• The Bishops' Book was signed by both groups of clergy: Cranmer's reform group and Gardiner's conservative group
• Henry made comments in the margins
• His theology was an amalgam of old and new - old in its belief in transubstantiation and clerical celibacy and new in its concession to reformers on sacraments and superstitions

Paragraph Six

• The Act of Six Articles (1539) was a move towards Catholicism
• It could have been a response to complaints about the new innovations
• He may have believed that reformers had induced him to make too many changes
• The Pilgrimage of Grace (1536-7) had been a conservative reaction to change
• Scarisbrick sees the 6 Articles as a 'panic measure' because of the international situation
• 1538 the Pope had excommunicated Henry and called for his deposition
• The Emperor and France made peace so he had reason to fear invasion
• So, he was keen to portray himself as a good Catholic
• The 6 Articles imposed the death penalty for denying transubstantiation
• Communion was to be in 'one kind' as opposed to the Protestant 'both kinds'
• Auricular confession and paying for private masses had been condemned by Luther – the Articles confirmed though
• Clerical marriage was banned
• Latimer and Shaxton, the 2 most Lutheran bishops, resigned over the Articles

Paragraph Seven

• The Articles were not rigorously enforced
• Also, Henry didn't necessarily see them as a final statement
• 1540 the clergy were given questionnaires on the sacraments but these were not acted on
• Cromwell's fall and Henry's divorce from Anne of Cleves in 1540 gave power to the conservative Norfolk and Gardiner's
• Thus in Henry's reign there were no further official moves towards Lutheranism
• The reformers didn't believe at any stage that Henry had turned away from reformation
• There were still traces of Lutheranism in the King's Book (1543) -especially regarding sacraments
• His last wife Catherine Parr favoured reform and his provision for the minority of his son did not block further reform

Paragraph Eight

• Henry's religious beliefs were ambivalent
• He opposed heresy and wanted uniformity
• Until Mary's reign Protestantism was regarded as foreign and un-English
• However he did take on the role of reformer, if not a Protestant one
• He removed more than the Papacy from the Church: monasteries, Latin bibles, shrines, Catholic 'superstitions'
• It unleashed a flood of Erasmian, reformist literature
• It portrayed the supreme head as a reformer of Roman abuses and errors
• Injunctions issued in 1536 and 1538 commanded the clergy to pay more attention to the spiritual enlightenment of the laity