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| Edward VI |
Let me just recap for people that might just be picking up
the thread—and it will be important for them to go back and trace this series
from the beginning—that the Church of England does not have its origins in
Henry VIII. The Church of England can be
traced back to the late first and second-century Roman settlements in
Britannia. While the Romans brought
Christianity to Britain, Britain was not a “daughter Church” of Rome but always
an independent Church. There was no universal
jurisdiction of the Roman See in the first, second, or—for that matter—first
five centuries of Christendom. Churches
were “in communion” with one another which means that as long as they were in
doctrinal harmony they shared access to the Eucharist and other sacraments and
recognized the apostolicity of each other’s ministry, but they were all
self-governing. The Anglo-Saxon
invasions of the fifth and sixth centuries drove British Christians to the
western regions of the island where, under the influence of the Irish
missionaries and monks, they picked up certain features of the Celtic Church
that were markedly different from Roman customs. The Anglo-Saxons were Christianized by
missionaries coming in the North from Ireland and in the South from Rome. The Bishops who followed the Celtic
traditions refused to recognize the authority of the Roman-sent Primate,
Augustine who came to Canterbury (the capital of the Kentish Kingdom) from Pope
Gregory in 597. The breach was healed at the 664 Synod of Whitby and the
English Church was reunited. The union
brought strong ties to the Church of Rome but the English Church retained its
autonomy with unique canon law and its several distinct rites. Those unique rites would remain until the
Reformation. The Roman Rite was not used in Britain until the late sixteenth
century, long after Henry’s break.
It is with the Norman Conquest of 1066 that Roman authority
begins gradually to be introduced into the English Church and it was not
without resistance. Bishops are chosen
by their Cathedral Chapters (usually with some Royal nomination) and gradually
the custom evolved of sending the election to Rome for confirmation. An important exception to this process is the
668 appointment of Theodore of Tarsus as Archbishop of Canterbury by Pope
Vitalian, but this was done in conjunction with King Ecgberht of Kent and King
Oswy of Northumbria who had sent their candidate, Wighardt to Rome for
consecration. When Wighardt died en route, Pope Vitalian—with the advice
of several counselors—chose the Greek monk and scholar, Theodore, in Wighardt’s
place and sent him back to Canterbury. His successors in that see were elected in the
traditional way—by the monks of the Cathedral priory at the urging of the King
for his particular candidate.) An other
variation in this process took place when Stephen Langton was elected by a
delegation of Canterbury monks in Rome after Pope Innocent III refused to
accept either the monks’ original choice of one of their own or the King’s
choice of the Bishop of Norwich. In the fourteenth century Parliament passed a
series of laws prohibiting appeals from England to the papacy and limiting
papal authority in Britain. It was these
laws that Henry used between 1531 and 1536 to snap the ties with Rome.
Henry’s break with Rome was a schism such as the schism of
1054 that has divided the Catholic and the Orthodox. Henry was an avid persecutor of Protestantism
both before and after his break with the papacy. Catholic doctrines such as
Transubstantiation, efficacy of prayers to the saints, use of images were all
maintained. Monasteries were closed and
monks and nuns sent home but that was an economic measure to appropriate the
monastic wealth for the impoverished royal treasury. Henry insisted on clerical celibacy
(though, never chaste himself, not on clerical chastity) refusing to allow
clergy (and ex-monks and ex-nuns) to marry.
Masses for the dead were maintained, as was the doctrine of purgatory. The liturgy remained unchanged in England’s
ancient rites. Most people thought that
the schism would be temporary and that all would be well again in the future
with the Roman Communion eventually restored.
They were naïve.
There had been some minor destruction of shrines in 1539 and
1540. These had, for the most part, been
either sites connected with Saint Thomas Becket or such images as the Rood of
Boxley which were either fraudulent or obviously superstitious. The Becket cult was ended because Becket was
the very embodiment of Church resistance to royal authority and Henry was not
about to let that continue. Some of
the shrines of saints were dismantled for the great wealth that had accumulated
there as votives over the centuries. In
these cases, such as Saint Frideswide at Oxford or Saint Cuthbert at Durham,
the relics were duly reburied and the gold and silver votives carted off to
fund Henry’s projects. The cult of the
saints continued however without the shrines.
Beneath the surface of Henrician Catholicism was a whirlpool
of Protestant innovations just waiting for their season. Thomas Cranmer, Henry’s Archbishop of
Canterbury, continued to celebrate Mass and the Sacraments in the ancient rites
but he spent his evenings in his extensive library reading both the continental
reformers—Zwingli, Calvin, Luther, Bucer—and the Greek Fathers. His own theology was somewhat eclectic but
tended toward the ever more radical.
Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s chief Minister after the fall of Sir Thomas
More, advanced crypto-Protestants to whatever offices of State and Church he
could. The Bishops, on the other hand
(and except for Cranmer) tended to be ultra-orthodox and resisters of the
Protestant cause. Bonner of London was a
particular hunter of heretics and under Henry those who were openly Protestant
were subject to the most brutal punishments and executions.
The problem was that Henry would not live forever. His heir was his son, Edward, who was born in
1537 and thus a child. Henry had no
brothers to serve as regents—just as well given the recent history of Richard
III and the Princes in the Tower. Henry
was the marrying sort of man, but the only one of his many wives who would have
known how to be a regent was his first, Katherine of Aragon, and she had died
in 1536. And Henry had been estranged
from her in any case and would never have given her the regency. Henry therefore needed to appoint a Council
of Regency. The heir’s closest relative
was his uncle Edward Seymour, first earl of Hertford. Seymour actually had custody of Edward’s person,
which gave him an advantage in the power market. Henry appointed a council of 16 men. They included Seymour, his brother Thomas
Seymour---Lord High Admiral, Archbishop Cranmer, John Dudley—the Earl of
Warwick, Sir William Paget, Thomas Wriothesley—Earl of Southhampton, Sir
Anthony Denny, Sir Anthony Browne, Sir Edward Montagu, Sir Edward North, Sir
Thomas Bromley, Sir William Herbert, Baron John Russell, Cuthbert
Tunstall—Bishop of Durham, Sir Edward Wotton, and Thomas Wotton, Dean of
Canterbury. (I have seen two lists of
this Council that differ, one excluding Thomas Seymour but including Sir
William Paulet. While only one or the other
could have been on the Council, both were men of considerable power in the
first years of the reign of Edward VI.) Notably excluded from the Council were Stephen
Gardiner—Bishop of Winchester and leader of the religious conservatives and
Thomas Howard—Duke of Norfolk. Norfolk
was in prison and awaiting execution for treason and while he had supported
Henry’s break from Rome was a religious conservative. Gardiner had been maneuvered out of the
King’s favor by those who knew he would block religious reform once the
Protestant party could come out into the open after Henry’s death.
Henry tried to balance his council to draw on the talent of
the Protestant faction but with the orthodox party strong enough to hold them
in check but in the end he was unsuccessful.
Henry’s increasing health problems left him largely incapacitated in the
final years of his reign and his plans for continuity with his policies went
all awry. The omission of Gardiner from
the Council of Regency was a huge problem for those who wanted England to stand
firm in its ancient faith. Cranmer,
Seymour, Dudley, and Russell were convinced Protestants and anxious to push for
radical religious revision once Henry was dead.
Browne was a religious conservative who would have opposed them on the
council, but he died in 1548 and so was removed from the group trying to check
the Protestants. Paulet blew with the
wind religiously, changing his opinions to suit whoever was in Power, but under
Edward that was the Protestant side.
Paget and North seem to be uncommitted religiously, though North tilted
a bit to the Catholic side. Denny and
Nicholas Wotton were in the Gardiner party and Edward Wotton presumably shared
the religious conservatism of his brother.
Herbert leaned to the
Protestant cause. Tunstall was a rabid
conservative who was not only opposed to any religious change but anxious to
restore the Roman communion.
Nevertheless, Edward Seymour and Thomas Cranmer had the greatest
influence over the young king and in the end there was no checking the Protestant
party. Henry was barely rotting in his
grave before a new religious wind blew through England.
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