Essay
A* Early Tudors Henry VIII Exemplar Essay 1
'Protestantism was so popular by 1547 that England was more a Protestant than a Catholic nation.' Assess the validity of this view.
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Henry VIII practice essay 1'Protestantism was so popular by 1547 that England was more a Protestant than a
Catholic nation.' Assess the validity of this view.
Many historians have sought to dismiss this view, stressing that religion among
the common people was borne out of 'habit rather than conviction'. Much of England's
direction in religion, as with Edward VI's six-year reign (1547-1553), still depended on
the personal conviction of the monarch. Henry VIII essentially saw a move towards
Protestantism as a last resort in solving his well-known Great Matter, and after that was
achieved, he used Protestantism as justification for the Act of Supremacy and the
Supplication Against the Ordinaries. The fact that much of the Catholic doctrine still
remained with practices such as transubstantiation and superstitious images still
existing by 1547 is a testament to just how little Henry cared about changing doctrine
due to anti-clericalism; he instead manipulated the shift towards Protestantism to
further his own political ambitions, which involved a hubristic desire to become the first
European monarch to rule without the 'Bishop of Rome'. Further evidence for a lack of
concern about Protestant doctrine can be found in the way that it was swiftly reversed
with the growing influence of the Howard faction at court in the late-1530s, which led to
the passing of the Act of Six Articles and the re-introduction of Catholic practices such as
private masses and confession. Referred to by Protestants as 'the bloody whip with six
strings', the Act is perhaps the greatest sign that Catholicism was still the predominant
doctrine by 1547, given that it was the last significant piece of religious legislation
passed in Henry VIII's 38-year reign, mounting a powerful argument against the view
that Protestantism was so popular by 1547 that England was more a Protestant than a
Catholic nation.
There is also some evidence of discontent among the common people who
opposed the minor Protestant changes. For example, a rebellion of over 40,000 people
became known as the Pilgrimage of Grace - this caused Henry great difficulties, as for a
significant period of time he was unable to raise the forces to suppress the rising.
Although it was essentially a rebellion of the laity rather than the gentry and was
eventually contained, it suggests that many in England still favoured Catholic practices,
given that the root cause of the uprising was opposition to the dissolution of the Catholic
monasteries and the Act of the Ten Articles. For the Kingdom to be considered
Protestant, the whole population had to adopt the new faith, so the rebellions seriously
undermine this view. Opposition extended to some of the continent's most reputable
scholars including Sir Thomas More and John Fisher; both refused to accept the break
with Rome and subsequently couldn't swear the Oath of Allegiance, which seems to
confirm that the shift away from Catholicism in the early-1530s was not widely
accepted, even by Henry's closest advisors. The very fact that a Lord Chancellor rejected
the elimination of papal influence in England set a strong precedent which led many of
the common people to regard More as a martyr, as this profound impact on Catholicism
can be seen in More's (and Bishop's) canonisation by the Pope in 1935. Perhaps, the
resistance to the Reformation convinced Henry to reverse the drift towards to
Protestantism in the late-1530s and early-1540s by marrying Catherine Howard, from
the prominent Catholic family. Her father, the Duke of Norkolk, led the conservative
faction at court which managed to gain equal influence in the Privy Council as the
progressives due to Henry's last will. Written just before his death in January 1547, this
ensured that the Catholics would exercise considerable power in government and
religion going into the reign of the minor Edward VI, and so England was hardly more
Protestant than Catholic if they were to have equal power bases after the succession.
Hence, Catholic practices well and truly remained in the English Church by 1547.
Nevertheless, the fact that the two rival factions had similar amounts of power
by 1547 would prove decisive in allowing England to become immediately Protestant-
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