Phillipos Sebouh
-How protestant was England by 1540?
England was protestant to a moderate extent by 1540. This is suggested by the level of
opposition towards the reformation faced by Henry and his faction and also the
geographical spread of Protestantism. Though both these factors support that England was
moderately protestant, because of the number of the number of people resenting the
reformation and the influence from exposure of European ideas respectively, they both
have limitations. The former is limited by the fact that this resentment was not consistent
and that some people were more well supported that others, whilst the latter is able to
justify this to extent by showing why not everyone in England was protestant by 1540.
The level of opposition towards the reformation suggests that England was protestant to a
moderate extent because of the number of people who felt that it was necessary to show
their resentment by uprising. One of the largest signs of opposition towards the rise of
Protestantism was the pilgrimage of grace of 1536. From October 2nd to October 8th, there
was a rebellion in the north where 40,000 men were involved. A rebellion of such
magnitude showed that England had become significantly more protestant by 1540
because, had Catholics not felt that England was significantly Protestant, such a rebellion
would not have taken place and it wouldn’t have been possible to motivate so many men
had England only been protestant to a lesser extent. Having said this, other than the
pilgrimage of grace, there was no other significant mass uprising against the reformation
before 1540. Although there were people such as Thomas More and Bishop Fischer who
fought against Protestantism gained little support. This suggests that as a matter of fact the
extent at to which England could be seen as protestant in 1540 is very limited because there
wasn’t a great amount of people (other than in Lincolnshire in 1536) who felt that the
reformation had been significant enough cause them to up rise. Overall, opposition suggests
that England was moderately protestant by 1540 because it is possible that the lack of mass
uprisings are more likely to represent the fear of Henry and his faction rather than the lack
of protestant progression in England.
The geographical spread of Protestantism suggests that the level of Protestantism
experienced differed depending on where you lived or worked. During the reformation,
Antwerp, Belgium was very much the ‘centre of Protestantism’ because of the number of
protestants that lived in the city. At the same time, Antwerp had particularly good trade
relations with towns and cities in the southeast of England. This, over time, resulted in the
spread of Protestantism ideas and beliefs from Belgium to south eastern England as a
product of the good working relations between the people of both countries. On the other
hand, people who lived in the northern and south western England didn’t have such links to
European ideas and therefore a majority of the population in those areas were catholic. This
links as to why the pilgrimage of grace may have happened. This shows that the level of
Protestantism differed depending on where people lived because people where exposed to
different ideas depending on where they lived to the lack of access to national and
international communication devices that we have today. Additionally, this was true for
people’s class. It was true that there was many more Catholics were either very poor or
were nobles. This was because the poor people weren’t able to read English text – this was
Phillipos Sebouh
a big part of protestant practise. As for the nobility, they were pro-Catholicism because they
were comfortable with their situation and the reformation brought about uncertainty.
Overall, this suggests that the level of Protestantism was different in different areas of
England and suggests a justification as to why there was examples of both mass uprisings
and limited resentment to the reformation.
My overall judgement is that Protestantism was present at differing extents throughout
England but the country as a whole was moderately protestant. I can’t say that it wasn’t
completely protestant by 1540 because there was still a high population of Catholics in
England. This is supported by the fact that 40,000 people were willing to fight against the
reformation in 1536 as part of the pilgrimage of grace. However, it also cannot be said that
England was completely catholic by 1540 because of the growing influence of Europe on
south eastern English cities such as London.