Religious Identities In Henry VIII's England (St. Andrew's Studies in Reformation History) (St. Andrew's Studies in Reformation History)

307 Pages·2006·1.12 MB·English

by  Peter Marshall

RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES IN
HENRY VIII’S ENGLAND
For my father
Religious Identities in
Henry VIII’s England
PETER MARSHALL
University of Warwick
© Peter Marshall, 2006
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of
the publisher.
Peter Marshall has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Marshall, Peter, 1964–
Religious Identities in Henry VIII’s England. – (St Andrews Studies in
Reformation History) 1. Reformation – England. 2. Protestantism – England –
History – 16th century. 3. Catholics – England – History – 16th century.
4.Identity (Psychology) – Religious aspects – Christianity. 5. England – Church
History – 16th century. 6. Great Britain – History – Henry VIII, 1509–1547.
I. Title
274.2(cid:1)06
US Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Marshall, Peter, 1964–
Religious Identities in Henry VIII’s England / Peter Marshall.
p. cm. – (St Andrews Studies in Reformation History)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Great Britain – Church history – 16th century. 2. Henry VIII, King of
England, 1491–1547. 3. Identification (Religion). 4. Great Britain – Politics and
government – 1509–1547. I. Title. II. Series.
BR756.M454 2005
274.2(cid:1)06–dc22 2005005543
ISBN 0 7546 5390 0
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Typeset by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements vi
Abbreviations and Notes ix
1 Introduction: Identifying Religion in Henry VIII’s England 1
Part One Evangelical Directions: Travelling From and To
2 Evangelical Conversion 19
3 Fear, Purgatory and Polemic 43
4 The Shooting of Robert Packington 61
5 The Debate Over ‘Unwritten Verities’ 81
Part Two Henrician Reforms: Seen From Inside and Out
6 The Other Black Legend 103
7 Forgery and Miracles 125
8 Mumpsimus and Sumpsimus 157
Part Three Catholic Positions: With and Without the Pope
9 Is the Pope a Catholic? 169
10 The Burning of John Forest 199
11 Catholic Exiles 227
Appendix: List of Henrician Catholic Exiles 263
Select Bibliography 277
Index 285
Preface and Acknowledgements
This volume is intended as a contribution towards making sense of the
processes of religious identity-formation under way in England during
the second half of the reign of Henry VIII (c. 1525–47). It does not claim
to be a comprehensive history of the Henrician Reformation as a histori-
cal event, or to provide an account of the full range of religious positions
adopted by Henry’s subjects (I have fairly little material on Lollardy, for
example, or on the radical reinterpretations of Christianity which
contemporaries were beginning to label ‘anabaptism’). But taken
together, I hope that the essays here have much to say about the emergent
shape, as well as the ambiguities and paradoxes, of the early Reformation
in England, and about its positioning relative to wider European move-
ments and perceptions. The three-fold arrangement of the volume (with
sections on evangelicalism, ‘official’ Henrician reform, and varieties of
Catholicism) reflects a set of interests developed over the past decade, as
well as a conviction that the religious identities of the period can only
properly be understood in relation to the forces that attempted to oppose
or negate them.
In using ‘identity’ as a shorthand for encapsulating historical experi-
ence, I seek to imply neither that religious identity must always be the
arithmetical sum of a set of consciously held and coherent ideas, nor that
a finely calibrated theological spectrum is necessarily the most useful way
of understanding religious positions and divisions in this period. The
convenient tripartite structure should be regarded as a set of lenses
through which to examine similar themes and problems, rather than an
attempt to impose schematic or classificatory rigidity. The extent to
which all of these groupings produced evolving, overlapping and
contested identities is a recurrent theme of what follows. These past iden-
tities resemble our own in being an amalgam of the psychological, the
cultural and the political. They were a product of the ways people chose,
and were forced, to identify themselves relative to a number of competing
external influences: inherited cultural resources, family and other forms
of association, ecclesiastical and secular authority. In order to be a useful
way of illuminating the past, ‘identities’ need to be understood, not as
stable, inherent or intrinsic, but as social personae fundamentally consti-
tuted by and through forms of engagement and self-representation, very
often polemical and political ones.
The chapters which follow make use of a combination of general
thematic approaches and closely contextualised case studies and micro-
histories (one chapter in each section uses the predicament of a relatively
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
obscure individual as a means of illuminating wider forces at work in his
society). Although my first book (The Catholic Priesthood and the
English Reformation, 1994) involved an attempt to explore the texture of
parochial life in early sixteenth-century England, readers will find little in
this volume on ‘religious culture’ in a generally synchronic sense. In large
measure, this work has been done. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a
salutary ‘revisionist’ reinterpretation of the opening stages of the
Reformation in England, one which fatally undermined the starting point
of earlier ‘whiggish’ and progressivist narratives. We now possess a much
clearer understanding of the strength and vitality of the traditional reli-
gious culture which Henry’s Reformation began to dismantle. But a
consequence of revisionist success over the past two decades has been a
relative neglect of the theme of agency in the formulation and reception
of agendas for religious change, an imbalance this volume hopes to go
some way to addressing.
Three of the chapters here (1, 4, 11) were written specially for this
volume. The others have appeared in print before, substantially in the
present form, though in addition to cross-referencing, standardising pres-
entation and correcting errors, I have taken the opportunity to update the
footnotes, add some new references, and rewrite a few passages that
seemed to me on reflection to be obscure or inelegant. Earlier versions
appeared in the following locations. Chapter 2: as ‘Evangelical
Conversion in the Reign of Henry VIII’, in Peter Marshall and Alec Ryrie
(eds), The Beginnings of English Protestantism (Cambridge University
Press, 2002), pp. 14–37; Chapter 3: as ‘Fear, Purgatory and Polemic in
Reformation England’, in William Naphy and Penny Roberts (eds), Fear
in Early Modern Society (Manchester University Press, 1997), pp.
150–66; Chapter 5: as ‘The Debate over “Unwritten Verities” in Early
Reformation England’, in Bruce Gordon (ed.), Protestant Identity and
History in Sixteenth-Century Europe: Volume I The Medieval
Inheritance (Scolar Press, 1996), pp. 60–77; Chapter 6: as ‘The Other
Black Legend: The Henrician Reformation and the Spanish People’, in
English Historical Review (Oxford University Press), 116(2001), 31–49;
Chapter 7: as ‘Forgery and Miracles in the Reign of Henry VIII’, in Past
and Present (Oxford University Press), 178 (2003), 39–73; Chapter 8: as
‘Mumpsimus and Sumpsimus: The Intellectual Origins of a Henrician
Bon Mot’, in Journal of Ecclesiastical History (Cambridge University
Press), 52 (2001), 512–20; Chapter 9: as ‘Is the Pope Catholic? Henry
VIII and the Semantics of Schism’, in Ethan Shagan (ed.), Catholics and
the ‘Protestant Nation’: Religious Politics and Identity in Early Modern
England(Manchester University Press, 2005), pp. 22–48; Chapter 10: as
‘Papist as Heretic: The Burning of John Forest, 1538’, in Historical
Journal (Cambridge University Press), 41 (1998), 354–74. I am grateful
viii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
to all of the above editors, presses and journals for permission to repub-
lish these essays.
On the first appearance of several of these chapters, heartfelt thanks
for advice, assistance and encouragement were offered to Ian Archer,
Susan Brigden, Bernard Capp, Eamon Duffy, Rebecca Earle, Tom
Freeman, Brad Gregory, Steve Hindle, Trevor Johnson, Diarmaid
MacCulloch, Andrew Pettegree, Richard Rex, Ethan Shagan, Alec Ryrie,
Robert Swanson, Alexandra Walsham and Bill Wizeman SJ. I am eager to
re-acknowledge these debts here, not least because virtually all of these
friends and well-willers have rendered further invaluable service since
(most particularly, I am indebted to Alec and Tom for reading drafts of
the new chapters and making numerous helpful suggestions). A number
of other colleagues have provided valued support in the compilation of
this volume: Virginia Bainbridge, Eric Carlson, Bruce Gordon, Ann
Hutchison, John McCafferty and Colmán O’Clabaigh OSB. To all of
them I offer sincerest gratitude. Loving thanks are due also to Ali, Bella,
Mimi and Kit, for keeping faith.
PM
Epiphany 2005
Abbreviations and Notes
BL British Library
CS Camden Society
CSP Calendar of State Papers
EETS Early English Text Society
JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History
LP Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of
Henry VIII, ed. J.S. Brewer, J. Gairdner, and R.H. Brodie
(21 vols in 33 parts, London, 1862–1910)
ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
PS Parker Society
SP State Papers Published under the Authority of His
Majesty’s Commission, King Henry VIII(11 vols, London,
1830–52)
TRHS Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
TNA: PRO The National Archive (Public Record Office)
In quotations from primary sources, the original spelling has been
retained, though the letters u and v have been made to conform to
modern usage, and the archaic ‘thorn’ letter has been transcribed as ‘th’.
Punctuation and capitalisation have been modernised, and abbreviations
and contractions have been silently expanded. All dates are in Old Style,
but the year has been taken to begin on 1 January.