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The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church
A major reassessment of England’s break with Rome
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.
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.
752 pages, Paperback
First published November 10, 2005
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About the author
G.W. Bernard
13 books11 followersProfessor George Bernard is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 17, 2023
The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church is a work replete with extensive research, both primary and secondary, all of it meticulously examined and collated, and conscientiously analysed. It seems highly improbable that anyone else is ever going to locate new evidence which is telling, although some interpretations will, of course, always be open to contesting.
However, I am convinced that G.W.Bernard’s account of the English reformation will now stand as seminal for a long time.
I would summarise his main contentions as follows:
1. Henry was not simply using religion cynically as a means to gain his divorce. He had strong religious beliefs and saw himself as following these consistently as he sought divorce from Catherine, marriage to Anne and separation from the Pope. This is so even although his position evolved over time. (It remains unclear, though, even with Bernard’s analysis, how Henry’s attraction to Anne, his concern over the lack of a male heir, and his theology interacted with each other: which was the chicken, which the egg, and which the omelette?)
2. It was Henry rather than Anne who sought their sexual abstinence until they were married.
3. Cromwell and Wolsey were both completely loyal to Henry, right to the end, neither one pursuing contrary goals, and Henry’s betrayal of them was the result of his egregious determination to get what he wanted and to use any means for that, including the annihilation of two men who provided him with unwavering loyalty and friendship.
Supporting these central theses, Bernard contends:
1. The widely accepted view that it was Anne Boleyn who insisted on the couple’s abstinence is improbable. He favours the view that it was Henry himself, on the grounds that he wanted Anne’s pregnancy, when it occurred, to be legitimate; he suggests this would have guaranteed the succession of the son he was certain would result, and it would persuade observers that he did not seek marriage with her because she was already pregnant. Bernard suggests that they may previously have had sex, but that he subsequently decided he would marry her and he would not do so until they had dispensation.
2. Pope Clement gave Henry provisional dispensation to marry Anne despite his having previously had intercourse with her sister Mary, but only if his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was ruled invalid. Meanwhile, having been virtually imprisoned by the Holy Roman Emperor (Catherine’s nephew) Clement prevaricated, instructing his legate to delay making a decision.
3. The biblical situation was murky at best. There were two partly contradictory and enigmatic passages: Leviticus: a man must not marry his brother’s wife; if he did, he would be childless. This was subsequently re-written as male-childless. This, however, did not clearly apply to a brother who was dead. But Deuteronomy: if a brother died, the widow could only marry his brother. Henry had, of course, previously asked the pope for dispensation to marry Catherine on the basis of Leviticus. There was an obvious issue, which Henry never acknowledged, with applying for a revocation of the pope’s earlier dispensation allowing Henry to marry Catherine.
4. When travelling, Henry often paid into religious shrines, but seems never to have gone on pilgrimage. Henry VII constructed many religious buildings, his son very few. Henry’s “sympathy towards Erasmian criticisms of the church gives the lie to characterisations of Henrician religion post-break with Rome as catholicism without the pope.” Despite rejecting Catholicism, Luther and Zwingli, he should not be considered uninterested in theology. “There is overwhelming evidence for the king’s close involvement in religious matters.”
5. Thomas Wolsey “might well have put a break on Henry’s divorce had he firmly rejected it in 1527, and threatened to resign and to excommunicate the king if he did not comply. But such actions would have been almost inconceivable to a man who had not only risen in the king’s service but was personally very close to him. Despite being told less than the truth by Henry in the early stages, Wolsey quickly came to press the king’s case for a divorce with determination and skill. That made effective dissent, much less opposition, from within the church far more difficult and dangerous”. “The irony was that by 1529 Henry came to blame him”.
6. Henry submitted the matter to French and Italian universities, where theologians tended to side with Catherine and lawyers with Henry.
7. Henry agreed Catherine had said she was still a virgin when they married, meaning her marriage to Arthur was unconsummated and thus invalid, but he now claimed this was said in jest. She told Henry he knew she was a virgin when they were married, and said she would accept his oath on the matter. He did not respond.
8. Henry then claimed he would live outside the laws of the church, for the sake of his own conscience.
9. In October 1533 Elizabeth was born (having been conceived in January); and in January 1533, Henry and Anne were secretly married.
10. Bernard argues there is little evidence of Catherine trying to organise opposition to Henry. “anyone wishing to present Catherine as an advocate of an imperial invasion of England is compelled to dramatise what are at best vaguely ambiguous urgings.” Catherine wanted God and, through God, the Pope, to reinstate her; she “remained unshakeable in her conviction that she was Henry’s true lawful wife. She died praying that God would pardon the king for the wrong he had done her.”
11. In 1536, when Charles and Henry had some rapprochement, and Cromwell made his threats, Mary saw that her position was hopeless, and capitulated, stating that she now accepted her mother’s marriage was incestuous and unlawful.
12. Of all the English bishops, only the academically brilliant and unambitious Fisher of Rochester refused to accept the divorce. But, “He never seems to have taken a political initiative that might have drawn in large numbers of supporters”. He was fined £1000 and, tricked by Richard Rich, was eventually executed in 1535. Why did other bishops not join Fisher’s opposition? – “Here the general position of bishops in a monarchical church is highly relevant. Bishops had for centuries been the king’s men. Often they had earlier in their careers served their Royal Masters in administration and diplomacy: appointment to a bishopric was frequently a reward for secular service. Ties of loyalty and respect to the King who had advanced them would make a personal opposition very hard to consider.
13. Many bishops had previously been worried about the actions inside monasteries and nunneries and thus had some sympathy with the course which Henry made a focus of the Reformation and the Dissolution. If the purpose of dissolution had been revenue-raising, it was illogical to start with small houses;
14. Thomas More was also executed after thinking he had found safe ground, but being tricked by Richard Rich. (Very few, if any, later commentators seem to have been positive about Rich, although he became very successful and wealthy, ultimately founding Felsted School, perhaps redeeming some reputation.)
15. It was Henry’s political skills and his utterly ruthless methods that in good measure explain why neither the bishops nor parliament ever acted in organised opposition.
16. “Moreover, Henry was so self-righteously convinced of the validity of his arguments that he expected that everyone would be persuaded by them.”
17. Bernard disputes the common view that Cromwell was constantly seeking to achieve religious reform, leading Henry to suspect his loyalty. Henry brought him down because the destruction of Cromwell, on the grounds of his alleged religious radicalism, strengthened the King’s negotiating position in diplomatic bargaining with the Emperor and the King of France. Cromwell’s reputation as a religious reformer, however exaggerated, was nonetheless a reality. “All this makes Henry seem a monster, an egotistical tyrant, ruthlessly playing with the life of someone who had spent himself in his service. But that this is horrible does not, alas, make it untrue.” After Cromwell’s execution, Henry accused France of planting false evidence about Cromwell.
However, I am convinced that G.W.Bernard’s account of the English reformation will now stand as seminal for a long time.
I would summarise his main contentions as follows:
1. Henry was not simply using religion cynically as a means to gain his divorce. He had strong religious beliefs and saw himself as following these consistently as he sought divorce from Catherine, marriage to Anne and separation from the Pope. This is so even although his position evolved over time. (It remains unclear, though, even with Bernard’s analysis, how Henry’s attraction to Anne, his concern over the lack of a male heir, and his theology interacted with each other: which was the chicken, which the egg, and which the omelette?)
2. It was Henry rather than Anne who sought their sexual abstinence until they were married.
3. Cromwell and Wolsey were both completely loyal to Henry, right to the end, neither one pursuing contrary goals, and Henry’s betrayal of them was the result of his egregious determination to get what he wanted and to use any means for that, including the annihilation of two men who provided him with unwavering loyalty and friendship.
Supporting these central theses, Bernard contends:
1. The widely accepted view that it was Anne Boleyn who insisted on the couple’s abstinence is improbable. He favours the view that it was Henry himself, on the grounds that he wanted Anne’s pregnancy, when it occurred, to be legitimate; he suggests this would have guaranteed the succession of the son he was certain would result, and it would persuade observers that he did not seek marriage with her because she was already pregnant. Bernard suggests that they may previously have had sex, but that he subsequently decided he would marry her and he would not do so until they had dispensation.
2. Pope Clement gave Henry provisional dispensation to marry Anne despite his having previously had intercourse with her sister Mary, but only if his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was ruled invalid. Meanwhile, having been virtually imprisoned by the Holy Roman Emperor (Catherine’s nephew) Clement prevaricated, instructing his legate to delay making a decision.
3. The biblical situation was murky at best. There were two partly contradictory and enigmatic passages: Leviticus: a man must not marry his brother’s wife; if he did, he would be childless. This was subsequently re-written as male-childless. This, however, did not clearly apply to a brother who was dead. But Deuteronomy: if a brother died, the widow could only marry his brother. Henry had, of course, previously asked the pope for dispensation to marry Catherine on the basis of Leviticus. There was an obvious issue, which Henry never acknowledged, with applying for a revocation of the pope’s earlier dispensation allowing Henry to marry Catherine.
4. When travelling, Henry often paid into religious shrines, but seems never to have gone on pilgrimage. Henry VII constructed many religious buildings, his son very few. Henry’s “sympathy towards Erasmian criticisms of the church gives the lie to characterisations of Henrician religion post-break with Rome as catholicism without the pope.” Despite rejecting Catholicism, Luther and Zwingli, he should not be considered uninterested in theology. “There is overwhelming evidence for the king’s close involvement in religious matters.”
5. Thomas Wolsey “might well have put a break on Henry’s divorce had he firmly rejected it in 1527, and threatened to resign and to excommunicate the king if he did not comply. But such actions would have been almost inconceivable to a man who had not only risen in the king’s service but was personally very close to him. Despite being told less than the truth by Henry in the early stages, Wolsey quickly came to press the king’s case for a divorce with determination and skill. That made effective dissent, much less opposition, from within the church far more difficult and dangerous”. “The irony was that by 1529 Henry came to blame him”.
6. Henry submitted the matter to French and Italian universities, where theologians tended to side with Catherine and lawyers with Henry.
7. Henry agreed Catherine had said she was still a virgin when they married, meaning her marriage to Arthur was unconsummated and thus invalid, but he now claimed this was said in jest. She told Henry he knew she was a virgin when they were married, and said she would accept his oath on the matter. He did not respond.
8. Henry then claimed he would live outside the laws of the church, for the sake of his own conscience.
9. In October 1533 Elizabeth was born (having been conceived in January); and in January 1533, Henry and Anne were secretly married.
10. Bernard argues there is little evidence of Catherine trying to organise opposition to Henry. “anyone wishing to present Catherine as an advocate of an imperial invasion of England is compelled to dramatise what are at best vaguely ambiguous urgings.” Catherine wanted God and, through God, the Pope, to reinstate her; she “remained unshakeable in her conviction that she was Henry’s true lawful wife. She died praying that God would pardon the king for the wrong he had done her.”
11. In 1536, when Charles and Henry had some rapprochement, and Cromwell made his threats, Mary saw that her position was hopeless, and capitulated, stating that she now accepted her mother’s marriage was incestuous and unlawful.
12. Of all the English bishops, only the academically brilliant and unambitious Fisher of Rochester refused to accept the divorce. But, “He never seems to have taken a political initiative that might have drawn in large numbers of supporters”. He was fined £1000 and, tricked by Richard Rich, was eventually executed in 1535. Why did other bishops not join Fisher’s opposition? – “Here the general position of bishops in a monarchical church is highly relevant. Bishops had for centuries been the king’s men. Often they had earlier in their careers served their Royal Masters in administration and diplomacy: appointment to a bishopric was frequently a reward for secular service. Ties of loyalty and respect to the King who had advanced them would make a personal opposition very hard to consider.
13. Many bishops had previously been worried about the actions inside monasteries and nunneries and thus had some sympathy with the course which Henry made a focus of the Reformation and the Dissolution. If the purpose of dissolution had been revenue-raising, it was illogical to start with small houses;
14. Thomas More was also executed after thinking he had found safe ground, but being tricked by Richard Rich. (Very few, if any, later commentators seem to have been positive about Rich, although he became very successful and wealthy, ultimately founding Felsted School, perhaps redeeming some reputation.)
15. It was Henry’s political skills and his utterly ruthless methods that in good measure explain why neither the bishops nor parliament ever acted in organised opposition.
16. “Moreover, Henry was so self-righteously convinced of the validity of his arguments that he expected that everyone would be persuaded by them.”
17. Bernard disputes the common view that Cromwell was constantly seeking to achieve religious reform, leading Henry to suspect his loyalty. Henry brought him down because the destruction of Cromwell, on the grounds of his alleged religious radicalism, strengthened the King’s negotiating position in diplomatic bargaining with the Emperor and the King of France. Cromwell’s reputation as a religious reformer, however exaggerated, was nonetheless a reality. “All this makes Henry seem a monster, an egotistical tyrant, ruthlessly playing with the life of someone who had spent himself in his service. But that this is horrible does not, alas, make it untrue.” After Cromwell’s execution, Henry accused France of planting false evidence about Cromwell.
February 16, 2019
Lively and deliberately controversial in style. Therefore a fascinating account if a little too much slagging off of other historians for my taste.
May 4, 2019
An extremely in-depth review of Henry VIII's often ruthless reformation of the English church.
January 21, 2014
Full of detail, and appears impeccably researched, but much of the data is gossip and propaganda, and as such should be treated with caution. Bernard doesn't do this.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews