British Reformation

Question 1

What does Alexandra Walsham talk of in her paper?

Answer 1

contests the generational transmission of Catholic doctrine in the light of the Protestant Reformation - both sides infantilising another - age not by number but metaphor for mental maturity, fluid, flexible with blurred boundaries. Old vs Young

Question 2

What Historian speaks highly of Henry VIII’s agency in the British Reformation?

Answer 2

G. W. Bernard

Question 3

What is Bernard’s main argument?

Answer 3

He rejects the interpretation that King Henry’s policy fluctuated between reform and reaction depending on who was most able to manipulate the king, and that the religious policy was very much the king’s policy.

States that the king reflected definitive and consistent choices, contesting popular agreement within historiography.

Question 4

Evidence of Henry directing the role:

Answer 4

• involved in efforts to define true religion
• participation in debates evident in letters
• annotations in his copy of the Bishops’ book
• wrote with authority close involvement is undoubted according to Bernard.

Question 5

What view does Barnard reject?

Answer 5

He rejects that reform was the work of Cromwell or Cranmer, and that the king was simply ‘the prisoner of his own advisors’.

he rejects the interpretation of the variable changes and mutations of religion in his days which has influenced many other historians.

Question 6

What were the chief features of Henry’s religious beliefs?

Answer 6

1. Hostile to papacy - ordered Bishops to convince people Rome usurped power from the King
2. Suspected of Papacy threatened and punished
3. No preaching about purgatory
4. Ten Articles Published entitled to abolish diversity in opinion
5. wanted uniformed doctrine of the Christian religion

Question 7

what were some unwanted consequences from Henry’s actions

Answer 7

his denunciation of the pope lead reform-minded preachers to attempt to seize the change to elaborate theological novelties

John Foxe wrote ‘after the abolishing of the pope, certain tumults began to rise about religion’

Question 8

What was Henry’s own theological position

Answer 8

1. opposed religious radicalism (such as denying transubstantiation)
2. Rejected Lutheran theology of justification by faith alone

Question 9

Examples that prove HENRY VIII was not a conservative.

Answer 9

• believed church needed reforming
• diplomats sent to Germany to declare king sought to rid corrupt errors, customs and abuse the church and the pope
• encouraged preaching against the pope
• Bernard argues Henry’s delayed implementation was not indecision, after his failure to get annulment he acted unilaterally.

Question 10

What two things did Henry reject above all else?

Answer 10

1. Rejected what were presented as abuses of the church - monasteries, images, and shrines.
2. Lutheran doctrines of justification by faith alone & Sacramentarian views of mass