The king's reformation : Henry VIII and the remaking of the English church / G.W. Bernard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bernard, G. W.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Henry VIII, King of England, 1491-1547.

Henry.

Reformation--England.

Reformation.

England.

Physical Description:

x, 736 pages, 12 pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, 2005.

Summary:

Henry VIII's reformation remains among the most crucial yet misunderstood events in English history. In this substantial new account G. W. Bernard presents the king as neither confused nor a pawn in the hands of manipulative factions. Henry, a monarch who ruled as well as reigned, is revealed instead as the determining mover of religious policy throughout this momentous period. In Henry's campaign to secure a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, which led him to break with Rome, his strategy, as Bernard shows, was more consistent and more radical than historians have allowed. Henry refused to introduce Lutheranism, but rather harnessed the rhetoric of the continental reformation in support of his royal supremacy. Convinced that the church needed urgent reform, in particular the purging of superstition and idolatry, Henry's dissolution of the monasteries and the dismantling of the shrines were much more than a venal attempt to raise money. The king sought a middle way between Rome and Zurich, between Catholicism and its associated superstitions on one hand and the subversive radicalism of the reformers on the other. With a ruthlessness that verged on tyranny, Henry VIII determined the pace of change in the most important twenty years of England's religious development.

Contents:

1 The Divorce 1

The Origins of the Divorce 1

Anne Boleyn 4

Henry's Campaign for the Divorce 9

Henry's Case for the Divorce 14

The Challenge to Papal Authority 26

Threats against the Church 43

1532 50

The Reformation Statutes 68

2 Opposition 73

Catherine of Aragon 73

Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent 87

Bishop John Fisher 101

Thomas More 125

Observant Franciscans 151

Charterhouses 160

Syon 167

Bishop Fisher's Episcopal Colleagues 172

Nobility, Parliament and People 199

Reginald Pole 213

3 Authority and Reform 225

The Defence of the Royal Supremacy-Reforming Rhetoric 225

Henry VIII's Religion 228

Monasteries: Visitation and Supremacy 243

Reform 247

The Ten Articles of 1536 276

4 Rebellion and Conspiracy 293

Religion and the Lincolnshire Rebellion 293

Religion and the Pilgrimage of Grace 319

Reginald Pole's Legation 404

The Poles and the Marquess of Exeter 407

5 The Final Suppression of the Monasteries 433

Attainders and Surrenders 433

Refoundations? 442

The Generalisation of the Policy of Voluntary Surrenders 445

The Attack on Shrines and Friars 452

Government Policy 1538-39 455

Compliance, Reluctance and Resistance 462

Glastonbury, Colchester and Reading 467

6 The Making of Religious Policy 475

The Bishops' Book: The Search for Unity 475

The Proclamation of 16 November 1538 490

John Lambert 492

The Injunctions of 1538 and the Proclamation of 26 February 1539 494

The Act of Six Articles 497

Cranmer's Religion 506

Cromwell's Religion 512

Cromwell and the Bible 521

Calais 527

Cromwell and Diplomacy: German Alliances 533

Cromwell and Anne of Cleves 542

The Fall of Thomas Cromwell 556

The Fall of Cromwell and the Defence of the Middle Way 569

Religious Policy from 1540 579.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [703]-712) and index.

ISBN:

0300109083

OCLC:

60740881