Posted on 05/25/2014 10:52:33 AM PDT by Not gonna take it anymore
. . . . For centuries, the English have been taught that the late medieval Church was superstitious, corrupt, exploitative, and alien. Above all, we were told that King Henry VIII and the people of England despised its popish flummery and primitive rites. England was fed up to the back teeth with the ignorant mumbo-jumbo magicians of the foreign Church, and up and down the country Tudor people preferred plain-speaking, rational men like Wycliffe, Luther, and Calvin. Henry VIII achieved what all sane English and Welsh people had long desired – an excuse to break away from an anachronistic subjugation to the ridiculous medieval strictures of the Church.
, . . But the last 30 years have seen a revolution in Reformation research. Leading scholars have started looking behind the pronouncements of the religious revolution’s leaders – Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley – and beyond the parliamentary pronouncements and the great sermons. Instead, they have begun focusing on the records left by ordinary English people. This “bottom up” approach to history has undoubtedly been the most exciting development in historical research in the last 50 years. It has taken us away from what the rulers want us to know, and steered us closer towards what actually happened.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
“...when that fanatic idiot Catesby bungled a coup attempt against James I.”
You may well be right, but that is way too inside English History for me!
I just read those Hillary Mantel books, I enjoyed them very much, but the story they tell is very shocking.
Esp. at the beginning of the first one, I didn’t really know how widespread, and yes, grassroots, the Reformation was, and how resisted it was by those in power.
Of course you know that Henry had been honored as a defender of the faith by the pope, and then look what happened!
So yeah, something was brewing and it wasn’t just the problems of 3 people, to borrow a bit from Casablanca.
Henry VIIIs lust for Anne Boleyn doesn’t explain why the reformation took place in Scotland as well, with even more fanatical zeal. The fact of the matter is that if there wasn’t already a hard core of Lollardist sympathy Henry’s reformation couldn’t have taken hold. Apart from anything else, Henry always considered himself an orthodox catholic his whole life and had no sympathy for theological reform. He just didn’t want the bishop of Rome telling him what to do. Frankly, I’m glad we had the reformation. Roman Catholicism at this time was an economic, social and politically retardant factor that would have prevented the development of modern capitalism and industrialisation. Catholic England was a complete backwater till a protestant ethic transformed the place and emphasised individual liberty over social deference.
Of course; thing is, it started out as a normal interest to beget a male hair, but spiraled into a full blown Reformation at the behest of Anne B. and Thomas Cromwell, who was himself a covert Lutheran. If Henry had wanted to marry a French princess or a Spanish princess then there might not have been problems.
He also wanted an annulment, not a divorce. Essentially Henry wanted the Pope to agree that a women he had married, begat a child (Princess Mary Tudor), and crowned Queen of England declared no more than a woman who had been nothing more than Dowager Princess of Wales and a mistress for near twenty years.
Charles V of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor was nephew to Katherine, predictably saw that as offensive to his aunt’s honor and the reputation of the Imperial Family. When Rome was sacked by the Spanish and Imperial army, the Pope was essentially the prisoner of the Emperor and the Pope as a result could hardly be trusted to give an unbiased decision.
So Henry decided to break England away from Rome and have Archbishop Cranmer grant the annulment (ironically Cranmer was approved by the Pope himself) and declare his marriage null and void. With Anne as his legitimate wife (later reversed at Henry’s convenience).
If Henry had wanted a divorce, it might have happened, but he turned it into a more complicated issue with his determination to essentially repudiate his daughter and brand his wife of so many years as an unwitting mistress/concubine.
“It was actually the fertility failure with Katherine of Aragon”
Yes, but like I said before, Henry made it worse by trying to make it out that his marriage had never existed.
I wonder what things would have been like if in fact Calvinists had been less fanatical. It was after the Restoration that Puritanism became a persecuted doctrine and thankfully we now live in a time when we don’t live in a society that forbids having a good time.
Yet one leftover I have noticed is that we have high standards of a work ethic.
“I know things were more difficult in those days, but the purpose of pregnancy is to produce children who make it out of the cradle, so I would still say that she AND HENRY had fertility problems.”
Nine pregnancies - including stillborn births and live births - means she had no fertility problems. If she were infertile, there would have been no pregnancies.
“In fact, as we now know but they did not, the failure to produce male offspring lies entirely with the father. Henry had a lot of wives and not too many children.”
Actually he had a number of children - at least four of whom made it to the age of 15. Two of those lived to be full adults. Henry acknowledged only one of his natural children: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegitimate_children_of_Henry_VIII
“I know he had a bastard son, don’t know how old he lived to be,”
if you mean Henry Fitzroy, 17.
“but of his legit children only Elizabeth lived a full live.”
Mary lived to be 42. In her day that was a rather full life.
“But of course, as I said above, things were a lot more difficult then.”
They sure were.
“While one can sympathize with Henry’s desire for a son it’s impossible to condone the lengths he went to to get one.”
Agreed: theft, murder, divorce, adultery, schism. Disgusting.
“Divorcing Katherine was bad enough, but the rest of it, just awful.”
Agreed.
“They were really so violent in those days, and it’s amazing how many of the elites who had great power ended up being executed themselves.”
Because they made that possible by sheepishly going along with the tyrant in the first place.
“I can’t imagine living at such a time, every day must have seemed fraught with peril.”
I’m sure it was - and we’ll probably see something akin to it politically in our own day. God help us!
“...a hard core of Lollardist sympathy”
That’s the name! I’ve been trying to remember. I’d never really knew about that until I read the Mantel books. (In truth I might have heard of them years ago but who knows.)
Even though I am a Catholic I can’t disagree with what you say about the Reformation. It does seem that the countries that went Protestant were far more economically successful than the ones that stayed Catholic.
Eh, you can tell from my comments that I’m not expert on these subjects, although they are interesting to me. So, you know, I apologize for any stupidity I may evince here.
I guess Germany would be the place to look at. I remember my brother telling me years ago that Germany was not only divided east and west (as it was at that time) but also north and south, with the north Protestant and the south Catholic.
“Yet one leftover I have noticed is that we have high standards of a work ethic.”
So no one in Christendom had a high standard of work ethic before the Puritans or other Protestants? Really? I think you would have many a guildsman up in arms about that claim. Walk through any medieval cathedral and you’ll see the results of “high standards of a work ethic.”
I meant for the US; we were founded mainly by fire brand Puritans.
“It does seem that the countries that went Protestant were far more economically successful than the ones that stayed Catholic.”
Except for 16th century Spain which was the largest, richest and most powerful country in the world.
“I’ll agree that the Reformation was an imperfect start.”
Its end is no better either: atheism, communism, hedonism, skepticism, utilitarianism, totalitarianism.
.............
Yeah I’ve seen catholics on other forums make this charge. While a satisfying charge to make—it doesn’t properly connect cause and effect. The cause for the ugly stuff above is a by product of the scientific revolution—which began in with the introduction of greek ideas by way of the Renaissance. The principal Greek idea here is that “Man is the Measure of all things.” This — taken to its logical conclusion — would include God. Naturally if you can measure God, then he is not God. If he is not God—then all the laws and structures related to him are built on fantasies. Therefor you get all the ugly stuff above. etc.
St Paul’s most spectacular failure was in his serman on Mars Hill in Athens to Greek Epicureans and Stoics. Why? because he tried to fit his words into the the architecture of Greek Philosophical thinking. Which began with the premise. “Man is the measure of all things.”
By contrast—Jewish/Christian theology begins with the premise that God is the measure of all things.
The shorthand here is that that philsophy is man centered bottoms up reasoning whereas theology is God Centered top down reasoning. Confuse the two and there’s hell to pay.
“Except for 16th century Spain which was the largest, richest and most powerful country in the world.”
Until that Armada thing.
Had to say it.
How sweet. King Henry would be so very pleased.
Spain got wealthy (for a while) off the back of having a huge Empire filled with bountious raw resources, especially silver. However, simply digging wealth out of the ground doesn’t advance a nation socially or provide a lasting basis for wealth creation or industry, the real drivers behind a truly great power. In the end, Spain got lazy and left in the dust as its industrialising neighbours, especially England, unhampered by prohibitions against usury and encouraged to believe that wealth created through hard work was a sign of God’s blessing, developed superior technology and a more advanced political and social mindset, which encouraged the lower orders to feel that they had a stake in the nation they belonged to, not just the perennially abusive and exploitative landed aristocracy as was the case in Spain.
“Henry Fitzroy, 17.”
Yes, that’s the fellow. Only 17, how did he die? Natural causes?
I mean you really could die of just about anything in those days. That was one sad bit in the first book, Cromwell’s beloved wife is felled by “the sweat”. One day you are fine, next morning you are sick and by the end of that day you are dead. Or so it was in the book, and I did google it since I’d never heard of it, but nobody seems to know too much about what it actually was or why we don’t get that anymore. I mean even with the plague people lingered and even some recovered. I suppose some with the sweat recovered too, but still, awful that young, healthy people are struck down like that. The Spanish Flu did that too, but I can’t think of anything more recent than that.
I wondered if you would say something about our own time becoming fraught with peril, I was thinking that too.
I’m in my mid-50s, I don’t really think I’ll live to see it. But I think this country, and world, are definitely cruising for a bruising.
Their marriage was probably “cursed” with an STD that Katherine picked up from the philandering Henry.
Lust and Greed caused the English to start the Church of England.
Now we see an attack on Protestants by a Godless secular press outlet.
Let's just sit back and see if the FRoman Catholic contingent can connect the dots here or if they will be inconsistent in their analysis. <crickets>
History Ping
You seem from here, and other threads I have seen you on, to have a real visceral hate for Protestants. I assume you live in the US, a country whose ideals are strictly routed in the Protestant world. It must tear at your soul to walk the very earth that became the greatest nation on Earth, founded by our Protestant Founding Fathers, who were born from the bosom of the Protestant Anglosphere. I assume you prefer to live under a Absolutist Catholic monarch in the order of a Bourbon or Habsburg than the Constitutional Republic created by Madison,Washington, Jefferson, etc, Protestansts all. You strike me as someone who is anti-American to his core, in the same way the corrupt absolutist monarchs of early 19th Century Europe despised the United States. If you despise the Protestant world so much, I suggest you move south of the Rio Grande and find solace with those more like minded.
I wonder what things would have been like if in fact Calvinists had been less fanatical. It was after the Restoration that Puritanism became a persecuted doctrine and thankfully we now live in a time when we don’t live in a society that forbids having a good time.
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The losers of the 17th century wars in Europe were the calvinists. They all migrated to America. At the time of the Revolution the Calvinists were the majority in the US population. (they quickly declined) Author of the US constitution and the federalists papers was James Madison—who was a thorough going Calvinist. The great contribution of the american constitution to the world is that it places checks and balances and limits on government—because as all Calvinists know — all men and women are naturally evil—including the bosses. And without constraints on their power—they will naturally run amok.
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