Enforcing the Royal
Supremacy
Religion & Religious Change in England, c.1470-1558

Last time: process by which the Royal Supremacy
came to be.
◦ Henry’s need for an heir/ divorce stimulated a revolution in
government and the nature of kingship
◦ King actually an ‘Emperor’ head of the State AND the Church in his
realm

Key points:
◦ Unintended policy outcome – dynastic politics, European
wars, humanism intersect to create a novel policy.
 Developed ‘on the run’.
◦ Not in itself ‘Protestant’ – but the context in which
‘Protestantism’ would emerge in England throughout C16th.
 No mere pragmatism/calculation/cynical
 Belief that marriage to Katherine of Aragon unnatural and against law of
God severe in King’s mind
 As was the notion of the Royal Supremacy – his duties to the realm as
the giver of the ‘Word’.
◦ A beginning or an end?
 i.e. did the Royal Supremacy end the ‘King’s Great Matter’; or trigger the
Reformation?
Recap: the Royal Supremacy

Today – so what?
◦ Political history about more than the passage of
laws/ infrastructure of state.
◦ How was this change imposed on the people?
◦ What was the balance between persuasion and
coercion?
◦ SIGNIFICANT THAT ‘THE PEOPLE’ INVOLVED IN
POLITICS FOR THE FIRST TIME (TO THIS EXTENT)
 1530S A PERIOD OF INTENSE DEBATE – EMERGENCE
OF A ‘PUBLIC SPHERE’ IN POLITICS.
◦ End – was Henry VIII a ‘tyrant’?
◦ Next week – religious implications of the break with
Rome.
Today’s Lecture:


Removal of the Pope striking/confusing for
contemporaries.
Propaganda campaign denied that the Papacy
had ever existed legitimately – never primate
of God/heir of St. Peter but a usurper of
Church
◦ Perhaps biggest villain in history – 1500 year crime.

Question long baffled historians – why such
a rupture not accompanied by more
significant resistance?
◦ Does this mean that people a) agreed; b) had never
supported the Pope; or c) acquiesced/were indifferent?
◦ Problem of visibility of resistance/hostility
◦ Is open resistance the only way of showing discontent?
◦ How can ‘indifference’ sit with the idea that LMC very
popular?
The Problem:

Problem – seeing ‘The Reformation’ as
an EVENT; and ‘politics’ as
laws/infrastructure:

◦ Legacy of Elton – framework of government heart
of politics.
 Control power/ place of people/ agency of
politics and how politics happened.
◦ State defined by the bureaucratic machinery of
government.
◦ Politics not happen TO the populace – involved
them.
◦ More recent scholars – institutions not exist in laws.
 The men who made up institutions and
actioned those laws pivotal
 Therefore doubt/dissembling a part of politics.

◦ Certainly to a greater extent than the periods
proceeding the ‘King’s Great Matter’.
◦ Recent generation of historians look beyond
passage of laws at how those laws taken to the
populace.
 How involved in?
 POLITICS = a process rather than an event.
 Dynamic.
◦ Study:
 Language of politics/ literary sources.
 Importance of classical rhetoric (need to
persuade public/ engage with/ the importance
of the monarch’s listening to the counsel of his
subjects).
 Notion of the STATE – no longer something
which existed as an entity at the centre of
politics, but rather something involving the
borderlands.
1530s/1540s everything up in the air:
◦ ‘Catholic’/ ‘Protestant’ not exist – not really defined
on the continent, let alone England.
◦ Notion of clearly defined factions and confessions
with carefully worked out creeds anachronistic.
◦ Debate/discussion – people move from and
between positions and poles.
◦ Perhaps not ‘indifferent’, more the case that
everything confused and being developed on the
run.
Politics, therefore, involved ‘the
people’ to a greater extent than
historians realised:

The Tudor State:
Local officers involved in/ part of the state –
power a negotiation between centre and
locality (change impact of law/ enforcement
part of the nature of the regime).

Key works in undercutting Elton ‘Tudor
Revolution in Government’
◦ D. Starkey – importance of the court/factional
politics on the king and politics in the 1530s.
◦ J. Guy/ G. Nicholson/ V. Murphy on
intellectual aspects of King’s divorce and Royal
Supremacy.
◦ G. Bernard – not Cromwell but the King who
was the agent (disagrees with Starkey on the
King being led by factions).
Elton: a ‘Tudor Revolution in
Government’?

‘Imperial’ kingship – power over Church &
State within realm; parallels with Old
Testament kings.
RELIED UPON DEBUNKING:

‘Papal Supremacy’ over the Universal
Church – history showed a usurpation of
king’s authority; unscriptural; ‘Pope’ not
‘Pope’ at all, but one Bishop amongst many.

In revealing this usurpation, Henry restoring
truth & doing Christendom a service.
Justifying the Royal Supremacy

Concern that unpopularity
effect king’s hold on the
people and therefore his
capacity to rule:
◦ Acutely aware of what people
thought of the RS and of the
need to persuade them/ clamp
down on resistance in equal
measure.

Royal Supremacy:
◦ Not want to be seen as novel
◦ Divine Law, revealed in the
Word of God.
◦ Papacy – not the Royal
Supremacy – novel human
invention/ aberration.
◦ Crucial point here – because
this was divine law, it was the
DUTY of subjects to obey the
monarch in religious matters.
◦ Obedience was the high
doctrine of the English
Reformation.

Often noted that England
a bit of a ‘magpie’
Reformation – dependent
upon thought of everyone
else
◦ No major theologians of note
C16th.
◦ But RS very novel – doctrine of
making king temporal and
spiritual head of Church further
than Roman Law which gave
Emperor similar powers.
◦ No Protestant theologian came
close to – doctrine of the Two
Kingdoms.
 Calvin thought RS
blasphemous.
 Luther/Melanchthon – Henry
VIII simply another Pope.
Justifying the Royal Supremacy:
The Coverdale Bible
(Hans Holbein
frontispiece).
1535

Subtle and important innovations necessary to justify
RS to populace:
◦ Accused of praemunire (treason against monarch because
recognised foreign power in the Pope).
◦ Key work 1530 – Christopher St. German
 Ecclesiastical affairs under jurisdiction of king’s courts.
 Concept of subordination of canon law to common law – essential
element of the Royal Supremacy.
◦ Logic of position in prembles of laws making RS.
 Printed multiple times 1530 and 1531 – government here involved in
the act of persuasion.
 1533 new editions with addition – A Treatise Concerning the Division
between the Spiritual and the Temporal.
◦ Attack clerical privilege.
Bringing the Church to heal:

Three types of propaganda:

Important: first time politics addressed to the public in this
way – supposed to be a private matter, but the magnitude of
events required the populace to be on side.
Detailed – expected much of the audience, and clearly
believed that they would be engaged with the issues of the
day:

◦ 1) Defend and explain divorce/RS step by step.
◦ 2) Defend the RS after the laws passed.
◦ 3) Answer resistance.
◦ Not acquiescent.
◦ 1531 – 154 page pamphlet detailing the list of foreign universities’
findings on the issue of the king’s divorce.
◦ Met with a response from Katherine of Aragon’s chaplain – learned and
very thorough.
Propaganda 1): Print

Glasse of the Truthe (1532)
◦ Clear, lively and pithy in approach
to the issues.
◦ Dialogue form – essentially
question and answer.
◦ Helped to break the big issues into
digestible chunks.
◦ And meant that contrary views
could be incorporated –
rhetorically, a complete argument.
◦ Not on RS
◦ Rather – Pope could not dispense
with divine law; Henry’s case
should be heard in England.
◦ Not yet particularly hostile to Pope
– reminds us that the RS/break
very late in the day.
Print:

Edward Foxe, De Vera
Obediencia
◦ Fullest defence of RS.
◦ Intended for a European as much
as a domestic audience.
◦ Product of teams of researchers –
European archives and historical
research examining precedents for
RS.
◦ Papacy a human office alone – no
scriptural authority
◦ Intensive discussion of scripture
and the Church Fathers – moral,
theological underpinnings of the RS
and the debasement of the Papacy
as the head of the Church.
◦ Denial that Peter was the
preeminent apostle.
◦ Significant debt to Protestant views
of history/ rhetoric against the
Papacy.

Against the Muttering of Papists in
Corners (1534):
◦ Recognised the need to defend
against critics – sense here that the
printed campaign was responding to
the politics ‘on the ground’.
◦ Series of articles against the power of
the Papacy
◦ Papacy had done the king an injury in
handling his case.
◦ Papacy a usurper of True authority of
king’s within their realms – merely
Bishop of Rome.
◦ Speedy, clear and meant to be used
as a ‘handbook’ for supporters of RS
as much as a persuasive tool for
those against.

Stephen Gardiner, On True Obedience
◦ A conservative defence – perhaps most
significant of all.
◦ Surprisingly anti-Papal – obedience to the
king with hostility to the Pope
synonymous.
◦ Autobiographical – perhaps made even
more persuasive/ ‘seen the light’ moment.
◦ RS based upon divine law
◦ Henry obedient to Leviticus on issue of
divorce (not marry brother’s widow).
◦ Obedience pivotal factor of divine law.
 Kings must obey word – subjects must
obey king.

A foreign audience in mind too. Perhaps
intended for the French king.
◦ 12 copies distributed in France by
Gardiner.

1553 – leading charge against the
Protestants during Mary’s reign.
◦ Things far from settled in 1530s, and
Marian Protestants threw this tract in
Gardiner’s face with glee.
Print:

Starkey, An Exhortation of the
People (1536):
◦ Notion of Papal Supremacy not
one of right and wrong – rather of
politics.
◦ Not ‘real’ in the sense of divine
law; rather, an element of
superstition which blocked the
‘middle way’ of truth and
moderation.
◦ 2nd half – evidence of other
‘Christians’ who not accept papal
supremacy and yet still part of the
Church of Christ:
 Suggestion that Henry’s Church
the same
Print:

Other works perhaps for more
exclusive audiences –
learned/clerical.
◦ William Marshall’s translation of
Valla’s Donation of Constantine
(proving that the power of the
Papacy in temporal matters which
allegedly rested upon Constantine’s
donation in the c4th was a myth).
◦ This was a learned and scholarly
tract against the Papacy – to have
it in English provided respectable
and learned backing to Henry’s
position (even though Valla was
not approaching the issue from the
position of secular authority).
Problem of interpretation:
was this all ‘top down’?
◦ Was the ‘propaganda’ in the
sense of being co-ordinated
by the regime (and Cromwell
in particular)?
◦ Elton certainly thought so –
certainly significant evidence
of Cromwell seeking out
pamphleteers.
◦ But also evidence of men
writing on their own vocation
– are these tracts often
evidence less of attempts to
persuade than of men who
were already persuaded?
 St German, for instance, not in
Cromwell’s correspondence.
‘Top Down’?
Was any of this
‘successful’?
◦ Problem of ‘reading’ and evidence.
◦ Some snippets suggest important
◦ Reports of men converted by
Glasse….at Oxford
◦ Reports of resistance elsewhere
◦ Know about this because
Cromwell asked for reports.
◦ Persistence – ask for feedback/
views on issues/ then engage
with.
◦ Remember – 1st time people
engaged in this way
 Flattered/ excited/ revelation?

Without question the most significant
tool of propaganda:

◦ Pulpit in every parish.
◦ Order priests to read injunctions/laws.
 Ordered to inveigh against Pope/ explain
notion of the Bishop of Rome/ idea of the
Royal Supremacy (latter hardest to do and
least frequently actioned).
◦ Cromwell employed itinerant preachers to tour
and persuade.

◦ Rowland Lee, Bishop of Coventry & Lichfield,
promised to obey zealously.
◦ Tours of West Midlands ordered
◦ Cuthbert Tunstall informed Cranmer that he had
put this policy into place before the Royal
Injunction issued.
◦ Archbishop Lee of York – few priests capable of
doing this.
 Wrote them a preparatory statement.
 (Gardiner did the same)
 Sir Francis Bigod took evangelical Thomas
Garnet on a tour of the North Riding of
Yorkshire to preach in favour of the RS.
Wave of preaching on a single topic
unparalleled in British history:
◦ Whatever contingencies – must recognise that
basic fact.
◦ Also note that useful tool for those who resisted.
◦ Sense of a public debate.
◦ Not all clerics allowed to preach – had to have
dispensation (license) from the Bishop.
◦ An effective means of controlling public forums.
◦ Cranmer – Archbishop of Canterbury – very
careful in making sure Bishops issuing licenses
from 1533.
3/6/1535 – Bishops to ensure priests
preach every Sunday/ Feast Day against
Bishop of Rome:

Key – multiple licenses to preach issues
1535-37:
◦ Word being heard like never before (remember
LMC Priest rarely preach).
◦ R Croke – 60 sermons in 1537
Propaganda 2): Preaching:

Most significant venue – Paul’s Cross in London.
◦ Controlling who/what preached there significant – key
forum for public disputation in C16th.
◦ John Stokesley, Bishop of London, began rigorous control
of licensing 11/6/1535.
 Had been censoring preachers since December 1533.
◦ Crown thought Stokesly too conservative – ordered John
Hilsey, Bishop of Rochester to take over.
 Key preachers; John Rudd, Edward Leighton, Hugh Latimer
 By May 1534, Cranmer taken over the task of appointing
preachers to Paul’s Cross himself.
◦ Even the sermons preached at Katherine of Aragon’s
funeral subject of control.
London: Paul’s Cross

Many sermons later printed:
◦ Simon Matthew 1535 Paul’s Cross sermon –
which condemned Fisher and More as traitors.
◦ Bishop Stokesley
◦ 1538 – Bishop Longland on the officer of
Bishops vs the Papacy as a greedy tyrant/
money grabber.
◦ 1539 – Bishop Tunstall (opposed to Reform –
propaganda coup).
 Christ on obedience to monarchs.

Attacked opponents like Cardinal Pole
Interactions: Print & Preaching

Can overstate the impact of the
pulpit:
◦ Magnified the holes in the arguments
and the disagreements.
◦ Even a cursory glance at the surviving
material reveals that not a unified
message from all pulpits.
◦ Avenues for individuals to go beyond
remit (in favour of Reformation); or
underplay it (in tacit resistance).
◦ Hugh Latimer – key
evangelical/Protestant figure – utilised
by the regime for his skills as a
preacher.

Alongside preaching/print, must
also acknowledge the persuasive
force of LAW.
◦ Statute established as a force for
change in this period.
◦ Not power of Parliament
◦ Rather the will of the monarch writ into
law through statute.
◦ The ‘Common Law’ as a moral
exemplar/ unifying force/ control of
order.
 But his sermons so vehement against
Pope often caused offence, led to
running battles with more conservative
clerics.
 This was not promoting obedience.
◦ Clear some actively preached
against!
Limitations of Preaching:
Visual culture: The Great Bible (1539)
Great Bible
Supremacy Medal
Henry VIII as King David
(from the king’s psalter).
Hans Holbein, Henry VIII as
Solomon the Wise (c.1534)


Clerics/ officeholders little room for manoeuvre:
◦
◦
◦
◦
31/7/1536 – all to swear an oath in favour of RS.
Made RS basis on involvement in Church/State
And made it an issue of conscience.
Very visible way of finding out who was loyal – novel use of oath
taking as a political measure.
Most of this universally unpopular:
◦ Elton: ‘sufficient, if often sporadic, opposition’.
◦ Few wanted divorce or RS.
 Plenty of evidence of men who believed Henry to be a traitor to God
and the Church because of the RS.
◦ Seen as an aberration.
◦ Last lecture – context of Reformation/ heresy/ Princely
Reformation in Germany.
Resistance:

Attitudes towards the Papacy:
◦ Clergy committed to papal primacy on the eve of
the Reformation.
◦ John Fisher/ Edward Powell – lengthy justification
of papal primacy in 1520s; embodied medieval
consensus on papal headship of the Church.
◦ Lowest level – sermon handbooks contained clear
picture of papal primacy.
◦ 1530s – considerable reluctance to erase the Pope’s
name from service books shows an emotional
attachment.
◦ Laity – constant stream of pilgrims to Rome.
◦ Prayed for Pope every Sunday in every Church in
the realm on the eve of the Reformation.
◦ Saintly Popes depicted in the art of the Church.




Notion that populace ambivalent to the RS
therefore untenable.
Elton, Policy and Police – stream of information
feeding back to Cromwell about mutterings,
whispering and defiance.
Not RESISTANCE, but certainly widespread
DISAFFECTION.
Explains why went to such unprecedented
lengths to take the RS to the people.
Resistance:

Cromwell shown to be remarkably
discriminating in his use of the material:
◦ Many summoned to an interview with Cromwell
(clerics his particular concern) – aim to convince
and terrify in equal measure.
◦ Only the systematically obstructive subjected to
really harsh treatment.
Nevertheless, dramatic increase in
treason charges.
1534-47 – 122 people attained; only 2
in previous 25 years on Henry’s reign.
329 executions 1534-1540 – must have
impacted on populace/ created a
climate of fear.
Tunstall frightened out of his resistance
to the RS by a raid on his palace at
Bishop Auckland in early 1534.
Few actively resisted.
◦ Robert Hobbes, Abbot of Woburn
(executed for treason in 1538)
◦ Accepted RS; removed Pope’s names
from service books; but not include
RS in sermons.
◦ Surrendered all of his monastery’s
papal bulls; but had copies made
first.
◦ Many instances of clergyman hedging
their bets on the new order not
lasting – novelty surely could not
endure in the face of universal truth.
◦ A waiting game?
◦ Also a genuine moral dilemma – King or
God?
◦ Prior Richard Marshall – loyal to the
king but could not preach RS because
not believe it.
◦ Evidence of others refusing to preach
against Pope.
◦ Using the confessional to dissuade
people privately.
◦ Other parishes – evidence of pulpit
battles, or priests being shouted down
by those on both sides, of people
engaging them in discussions.
◦ Timing everything – by 1538 (5 years in)
failure to comply seen to be an obvious
offence to the Crown.
◦ NB: we only know about any of this ‘on
the ground’ resistance because
someone prepared to report it.
Obedience = Acquiescence?

IF ‘OBEDIENCE’ WAS A MATTER OF
CONSCIENCE, SO WAS RESISTANCE.

CONSCIENCE MAY HAVE DICTATED THAT
THE DIVORCE & BREAK FROM ROME
WERE IMMORAL.

BUT IT ALSO SPOKE AGAINST
CONSPIRACY & REBELLION.

TRANSLATING RESISTANCE TO ACTION
THEREFORE DIFFICULT.
Understanding conscience:
◦ Crucially: opposition not unified/
organised.
◦ Little in the way of foreign interference
– no focal point to unify around.
 What conspiracies there were by
exiles abroad foiled – 1538, 1542,
1544.
 Plenty of rumours of plots of clergy
with foreign powers, but little
materialised.
◦ Brigden – London: cells of support for
Papacy kept alive, but not unified.
◦ BUT: distinction between appearance
and reality:
 Henry feared an international move
against England.
Food For
Thought:
‘The truly astonishing
feature of the
Henrician revolution
is that a manifestly
unpopular and
unwanted policy was
imposed so
successfully and with
so little public
disturbance’.
Richard Rex



Most famous resistor.
Lord Chancellor – had been deliberately kept
out of divorce proceedings.
But had served Henry well as the scourge of
herectics/defender of the Church and
traditional devotions/ nemesis of Tyndale.
◦ Had worked closely with Stokesely – the Bishop
of London – to clamp down on heresy during late
1520s and early 1530s.






All the while secretly working for the cause of
Katherine of Aragon because he believed
Henry’s marriage to be legitimate.
1532 – tried in vain to defend the Church’s
independence from the RS during the
Reformation Parliament.
Confronted Henry 16/5/32 and resigned as
Lord Chancellor.
Still a vehement opponent of nascent
‘Protestants’.
But visceral in his opposition to the marriage to
Anne Boleyn – pointedly refused to attend her
coronation.
CONVINCED THAT BREAKING THE UNIVERSAL
COMMUNION OF THE CHURCH WOULD
ENCOURAGE DOCTRINAL DEVIATION/SCHISM.
Thomas More:
• ‘Your lordshippes have in the matter of the matrimony
hitherto kepte your selves pure virgines, yeat take good
head, my lordes, that you keepe your virginity still. For
some there be that by procuringe your lordshippes first at
the coronacion to be present, and next to preach for the
setting forth of it, and finally to write bookes to all the
world in defens thereof, are desirous to deffloure you; and
when they have defloured you, then will they not faile
soone after to devoure you. Nowe my lordes … it lieth not
in my power but that they may devoure me; but god being
my good lord, I will provide that they shall never deffloure
me’
(To the Bishops who attempted to convince him to
attend Anne Boleyn’s coronation).
Thomas More:

More's campaign to deflect the
oncoming reforms drew him into a
dangerous confrontation with
Christopher St German during 1533
◦ Apology
◦ The Debellation of Salem and Bizance
◦ German- canon law subservient to civil
law.
◦ More - defended the church's independent
legal system and its procedures,
particularly with regard to heresy laws
◦ More decried the apparent tolerance with
which the English greeted the recent
changes
◦ Derided St German's tactic of exploiting
animosity between the clergy and laity for
the purpose of reducing the church and its
ministers to a state of subservience.
◦ Careful to avoid defending the papal
primacy, since that could be construed as
treasonable.
Thomas More:
February 1534 More included in a bill of
attainder for conspiring with Elizabeth
Barton, Nun of Kent
 Barton had uttered dire prophecies
against the king's new marriage:

◦ Claimed that he would cease to be ‘king’ in
God’s eyes.
◦ King's animosity - believed More was the
chief ‘deviser’ of Barton's utterances.
◦ More requested a formal hearing before
the Lords, but in the end the king insisted
that he be deposed before a commission
of four councillors.
◦ The commissioners had been able to
persuade the king to drop More's name
from the bill on the very probable grounds
that his inclusion threatened the bill's
passage.
DOES THIS SHOW THE
VINDICTIVE SIDE OF HENRY VIII?

Silence impossible when oaths were
administered.
◦ More was asked to swear to the Act of
Succession on 12 April 1534, which he
refused to do because of the oath's
preamble rejecting papal jurisdiction.
◦ Imprisoned in the Tower on 17 April.
◦ The king accused him of ‘obstinacy’ - a
malicious refusal to obey.
 More's lengthy campaign against St
German?
 More had worked assiduously to
undermine official policy, and the king
knew it.
Thomas More:

Continued to embarrass the regime:
◦ The Sadness of Christ - Latin meditation on
Christ's agony in Gethsemane
◦ Dialogue of Comfort - extols the spiritual
benefits of tribulation.
◦ Both works centre on the remembrance of
Christ's passion as an aid during
persecution.

A show trial used to buttress new RS:
◦ 1 July 1535
◦ Tried for denying the Royal Supremacy –
even though imprisoned before Parliament
had passed the Bill awarding Henry the
title of ‘Supreme Head’.
◦ Evidence/ events manipulated to ensure
More a scalp for the new regime.
◦ Richard Rich, the solicitor-general, who
claimed More had rejected the king's title
in his presence on 12 June 1535.
◦ On Rich's testimony More was found
guilty.






Undoubtedly a thoroughly unpleasant
man, increasingly vindictive and
controlling as the 1530s progressed.
Helpful term?
Noun or adjective?
Anachronistic – C20th connotations?
Totalitarianism?
Henry VIII vs Elizabeth I – agreement vs
obedience.
Henry VIII: a ‘Tyrant’?