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A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland
Though written by a Protestant (between 1824 and 1827), this book has been repeatedly reprinted by Catholic publishers because of the tremendous light it sheds on English history from Henry VIII (1509) thru George III (1820), showing that England was better off before the Reformation than after. Unabashedly pro-Catholic and a real eye-opener! 432 pgs, PB
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1921
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About the author
William Cobbett
829 books34 followersWilliam Cobbett (1763-1835) was an English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist. He believed that reforming Parliament and abolishing the rotten boroughs would help to end the poverty of farm labourers, and he attacked the borough-mongers, sinecurists and "tax-eaters" relentlessly. He was also against the Corn Laws, a tax on imported grain. Early in his career, he was a loyalist supporter of King and Country: but later he joined and successfully publicised the radical movement, which led to the Reform Bill of 1832, and to his winning the parliamentary seat of Oldham. Although he was not a Catholic, he became a fiery advocate of Catholic Emancipation in Britain. Through the seeming contradictions in Cobbett's life, two things stayed constant: an opposition to authority and a suspicion of novelty. He wrote many polemics, on subjects from political reform to religion, but is best known for his book from 1830, Rural Rides, which is still in print today.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 27, 2008
I could get lost in the language, it was so perfect. This history is a scathing rebuke of the Reformation and its consequences. Not the story you hear in school, for sure.
August 27, 2017
English humor, good history, Protestants look evil; what's not to like?
November 12, 2024
It's hard to overstate just how crazy the initial Reformation was in England. Both Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were monsters, somewhat out of necessity, as neither could claim both Catholicity and a legitimate heir. They are in no way sympathetic figures though, unsurprisingly the 'rational' rejection of the Church was immediately followed by the indulgence of every vice imaginable.
The development of the modern state is largely a story of the London aristocracy and money-power combining, usually out of a deliberate attempt by the British monarchy to tie everyone together in pursuit of their own immediate self-interest. In almost all ways this was immediately followed by the British state and peoples being less well off than they would have otherwise (God has a sense of humour and delights in undermining even the best laid plans when laid without reference to him.)
The British loss of America, the instalment of foreigners on the British throne in 1688, and the loss of their continental possessions were all directly caused by farcically cynical Protestant ploys. In each case the British leadership promised one thing and did another, cynically pursuing naked power politics that directly laid the seeds for its own undermining. The Americans, for instance, almost directly copied and pasted the arguments the Anglican elite had made earlier for the deposition of their Catholic monarch. Hegel called this the 'cunning of reason', but we may recognise it as Divine Providence.
It's also easy to see that the modern western elite are the direct descendants of these people, a group who were initially hand selected by the British monarchy as their self-interest was diametrically opposed to justice towards the Church (the Anglican Bishops, for instance, were often cowed into line after their prerogatives were undermined when reminded that their land was justly the property of the Catholic Church).
Once Dutch money-power overthrew the monarchy, the state came to resemble a hydra, and it grew to encompass almost every group imaginable except Catholics. It remains implacably opposed to the Church and resolute in its desire to build the Leviathan (a modern day Tower of Babel).
The development of the modern state is largely a story of the London aristocracy and money-power combining, usually out of a deliberate attempt by the British monarchy to tie everyone together in pursuit of their own immediate self-interest. In almost all ways this was immediately followed by the British state and peoples being less well off than they would have otherwise (God has a sense of humour and delights in undermining even the best laid plans when laid without reference to him.)
The British loss of America, the instalment of foreigners on the British throne in 1688, and the loss of their continental possessions were all directly caused by farcically cynical Protestant ploys. In each case the British leadership promised one thing and did another, cynically pursuing naked power politics that directly laid the seeds for its own undermining. The Americans, for instance, almost directly copied and pasted the arguments the Anglican elite had made earlier for the deposition of their Catholic monarch. Hegel called this the 'cunning of reason', but we may recognise it as Divine Providence.
It's also easy to see that the modern western elite are the direct descendants of these people, a group who were initially hand selected by the British monarchy as their self-interest was diametrically opposed to justice towards the Church (the Anglican Bishops, for instance, were often cowed into line after their prerogatives were undermined when reminded that their land was justly the property of the Catholic Church).
Once Dutch money-power overthrew the monarchy, the state came to resemble a hydra, and it grew to encompass almost every group imaginable except Catholics. It remains implacably opposed to the Church and resolute in its desire to build the Leviathan (a modern day Tower of Babel).
December 11, 2024
Unbeknownst to me I bought the abridged version of this book but I really appreciated the honesty and injustice that Cobbett felt for his Catholic counterparts while reading this book. While the destruction that Henry VIII and Elizabeth I laid on the Church was abominable, it was also interesting to read the political (and economic) effects that this had in the centuries after when successive monarchs needed to take the reins and attempt to clean up the mess. I’m looking forward to following this up with The Stripping of the Altars for a more up to date, detailed account of the Reformation.
April 18, 2024
This history was written in the early 1800s by an English Protestant, so a reader might suspect a bias toward the Protestant view of the events that began during King Henry VIII's reign from 1509 to 1547. Nothing could be further from the truth. William Cobbett's central thesis is that the Protestant Reformation was a disaster for the English people both socially and economically. As King Henry broke away from the Roman Catholic Church over his desire for male offspring (and another wife), many forces came into play. Some of the nobility (including some church hierarchy) saw this as a chance to jump on Luther's bandwagon and establish a religion more to their tastes. Also, the churches and monasteries in England had amassed a lot of wealth. When the church became state-sponsored, all the buildings and lands were seized by the government. Most of the monasteries became estates for nobles who were in the king's favor. Any citizen who did not adopt the new state religion was fined, jailed, or, in many cases, executed. After going through seven wives and getting only one male offspring (with two older step-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth), the situation became a tumult when Henry died. Successive monarchs switched the state-approved faith back and forth. Political intrigues within the country and with other countries caused problems. Cobbett chronicles the history up to his present day under the reign of George III.
Cobbett takes the Catholic perspective due to his thorough research. He documents that the pre-Reformation riches of the Catholic institutions were reinvested in the local people and economy. The lands were leased at very reasonable rates to peasant farmers, rates that catastrophically increased with secular land owners. The monasteries often acted as hotels and hospitals (as part of their religious function to love and care for others, especially the poor), providing a safe place for travelers to stay or a treatment for illnesses. Having the church as a separate authority from the king and secular government provided a check on abuse, one of the more famous results being the Magna Carta. Cobbett shows how people were driven into poverty without the safety net of the Church's charitable mission and the government became more draconian (especially in its treatment of Catholics and other non-Anglicans). His research is shocking and convincing.
Unfortunately, his rhetorical style leaves something to be desired. If he were alive today, he'd have a show on AM talk radio. He is very acerbic and dismissive, often rambling off on tangents that are entertaining but much less relevant. Occasional anti-semitic remarks and more frequent xenophobic remarks (he has nothing good to say about German mercenaries or William and Mary's Dutch intrusion on the throne) make the text less palatable to modern eyes, though allowances need to be made for the time when he wrote. He castigates Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth, and both Cromwells. I often chuckled and winced at the same time. Some people like that style of writing, which is fine, but I don't.
Mildly recommended.
Sample text of him sermonizing while providing the historical context:
Mary Stuart, born in 1542 (nine years after the birth of Elizabeth), was daughter of James V., king of Scotland, and of Mary of Lorraine, sister of that brave and patriotic nobleman the Duke of Guise, who, as we have seen, was so basely murdered by the vile traitor Coligny. [p. 251]
Cobbett takes the Catholic perspective due to his thorough research. He documents that the pre-Reformation riches of the Catholic institutions were reinvested in the local people and economy. The lands were leased at very reasonable rates to peasant farmers, rates that catastrophically increased with secular land owners. The monasteries often acted as hotels and hospitals (as part of their religious function to love and care for others, especially the poor), providing a safe place for travelers to stay or a treatment for illnesses. Having the church as a separate authority from the king and secular government provided a check on abuse, one of the more famous results being the Magna Carta. Cobbett shows how people were driven into poverty without the safety net of the Church's charitable mission and the government became more draconian (especially in its treatment of Catholics and other non-Anglicans). His research is shocking and convincing.
Unfortunately, his rhetorical style leaves something to be desired. If he were alive today, he'd have a show on AM talk radio. He is very acerbic and dismissive, often rambling off on tangents that are entertaining but much less relevant. Occasional anti-semitic remarks and more frequent xenophobic remarks (he has nothing good to say about German mercenaries or William and Mary's Dutch intrusion on the throne) make the text less palatable to modern eyes, though allowances need to be made for the time when he wrote. He castigates Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth, and both Cromwells. I often chuckled and winced at the same time. Some people like that style of writing, which is fine, but I don't.
Mildly recommended.
Sample text of him sermonizing while providing the historical context:
Mary Stuart, born in 1542 (nine years after the birth of Elizabeth), was daughter of James V., king of Scotland, and of Mary of Lorraine, sister of that brave and patriotic nobleman the Duke of Guise, who, as we have seen, was so basely murdered by the vile traitor Coligny. [p. 251]
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April 14, 2023A God and honest account
Frightening to see that even in our own times our society has learned nothing and the state of the poor seems constant and our leaders hypocrisy is still fueled by their unquenchable greed!
Frightening to see that even in our own times our society has learned nothing and the state of the poor seems constant and our leaders hypocrisy is still fueled by their unquenchable greed!
September 25, 2021
If any Protestant friends are thinking about becoming Catholic and are hesitant about doing so, suggest this historical read. Very compelling and well-written.
July 4, 2019
“I have in this undertaking had no motive, I can have no motive, but a sincere and distinterested love of truth and justice. It is not for the rich and the powerful of my countrymen that I have spoken; but the poor, the persecuted, the proscribed. “
Cobbett was a farm boy who educated himself to become a very prolific writer always pointing out the injustice to the poor. His better known Rural Rides is above all concerned with this and Cobbett’s passionate analysis of the causes. This book is the same and tells us far more about Cobbett’s own time than the period of the Reformation.
He was writing at a time when Catholicism for nearly three hundred years had been demonised and the greatness of England had been defined in opposition to it. This interpretation of history is still around. Cobbett blows it to pieces. He is completely uninterested in the spirituality, theology or aesthetics of Catholicism. He sees ithe condemnation of Catholicism as a smoke screen to justify the ruling class exploiting the poor, especially in Ireland.
But for Cobbett things are in black or white. If Catholicism is not demonic it must be all that is good. It is refreshing to find someone completely unmoved by romantic or religious considerations exposing protestant hypocrisy. But in his pugnacious polemic he completely underestimates what must have been the considerable misery of a medieval peasant. As an exposer of unfair power, he glosses over Charles I’s rule without parliament. Cobbett’s chief contempt is reserved for Elizabeth I, in which I suspect a large proportion of sexism. She was certainly hard nosed and many Catholics suffered under her, but all the evidence is she exerted considerable charisma. She does not deserve Cobbett’s repeated condemnations such as:
“Elizabeth was as great a tyrant as ever lived, she was the most cruel of women, her disgusting amours were notorious.”
I lost count of how many people or events were the worst known to history. Cobbett doesn’t know when to leave alone.
Cobbett was a farm boy who educated himself to become a very prolific writer always pointing out the injustice to the poor. His better known Rural Rides is above all concerned with this and Cobbett’s passionate analysis of the causes. This book is the same and tells us far more about Cobbett’s own time than the period of the Reformation.
He was writing at a time when Catholicism for nearly three hundred years had been demonised and the greatness of England had been defined in opposition to it. This interpretation of history is still around. Cobbett blows it to pieces. He is completely uninterested in the spirituality, theology or aesthetics of Catholicism. He sees ithe condemnation of Catholicism as a smoke screen to justify the ruling class exploiting the poor, especially in Ireland.
But for Cobbett things are in black or white. If Catholicism is not demonic it must be all that is good. It is refreshing to find someone completely unmoved by romantic or religious considerations exposing protestant hypocrisy. But in his pugnacious polemic he completely underestimates what must have been the considerable misery of a medieval peasant. As an exposer of unfair power, he glosses over Charles I’s rule without parliament. Cobbett’s chief contempt is reserved for Elizabeth I, in which I suspect a large proportion of sexism. She was certainly hard nosed and many Catholics suffered under her, but all the evidence is she exerted considerable charisma. She does not deserve Cobbett’s repeated condemnations such as:
“Elizabeth was as great a tyrant as ever lived, she was the most cruel of women, her disgusting amours were notorious.”
I lost count of how many people or events were the worst known to history. Cobbett doesn’t know when to leave alone.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews