These words may suggest a more sinister idea than they are intended to convey, but their significance will soon be made clear. It must be remembered that when Henry cast off the supremacy of Rome—for reasons it is not necessary to enter upon here—with one or two exceptions, no repudiation of the general tenets of the Catholic Church was insisted upon. In fact, like his wonderful daughter, Queen Elizabeth, he was averse, with characteristic Tudor caution, to cataclysmic changes which might once more divide his kingdom into two great opposing camps, such as it had only recently escaped from.
On the contrary, having achieved the personal ends he had in view, he desired nothing better than that things should calm down and proceed on the same lines, as nearly as possible, as they had before, without the masses of the people recognising or understanding the true import of what had taken place. Had he been succeeded by Elizabeth, this policy might have been successful, and many a disastrous page of history would probably never have had to be written.
His dominating personality sufficed to avert any open rebellion to his will, but on his death the succession to the throne of a sickly boy, whose fanatical spirit had been fired by still
more fanatical advisers, was the signal for an outburst of Puritanical frenzy.
Dominated as the young King, Edward VI., was by hatred of his elder sister and deep distrust of her actions when she should be called to the throne (an event which he knew full well to be a matter of only a few years), he lost no time in doing whatever lay in him to further the cause of Protestantism, and render it impossible for her to obliterate and make nugatory the work he had so much at heart. Edicts were issued ordering the clergy to abstain from priestly functions which hitherto had not been inhibited, and everything possible was done to instil into the minds of the common people a distrust of them that centuries of devotion to their interests were unable to dispel.
A possible explanation of the success of these tactics may be found in the undoubted distress among the peasantry at this time.
With the suppression of the monasteries came the resultant loss of the succour they had for so long been accustomed to rely on at the hands of the monks, in case of illness or other trouble. To them they had looked to supply, when in need, the necessities of life, and so, on the sudden cessation of these benefits they, in their ignorance, visited their astonished anger not on those who were the cause of it, but on the victims who were no longer in a position to continue their benevolent offices.
During this reign the services of the Church were in a constant state of change and confusion,
and no cause suffered more than the cause of music.
Its use in the new liturgy was sparingly permitted, and the little that was tolerated soon lapsed into desuetude in the great majority of churches.