Calvin's influence was not confined to Geneva or even to Switzerland. The men whom he trained and on whom he set the stamp of his stern, earnest, God-fearing character spread Calvinism over a great part of Europe. In Holland and Scotland it became the prevailing type of Protestantism, and in France and England it deeply affected the national life. During the seventeenth century the Puritans carried Calvinism across the sea to New England, where it formed the dominant faith in colonial times.
233. THE ENGLISH REFORMATION, 1533-1658 A.D.
HENRY VIII, KING, 1509-1547 A.D.
The Reformation in Germany and Switzerland started as a national and popular movement; in England it began as the act of a despotic sovereign, Henry VIII. This second Tudor [17] was handsome, athletic, finely educated, and very able, but he was also selfish, sensual, and cruel. His father had created a strong monarchy in England by humbling both Parliament and the nobles. When Henry VIII came to the throne, the only serious obstacle in the way of royal absolutism was the Roman Church.
[Illustration: HENRY VIII
After a portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger.]
HENRY'S EARLY LOYALTY TO THE PAPACY
Henry showed himself at first a devoted Catholic. He took an amateur's interest in theology and wrote with his own royal pen a book attacking Luther. The pope rewarded him with the title of "Defender of the Faith," a title which English sovereigns still bear. Henry at this time did not question the authority of the Papacy. He even made his chief adviser Cardinal Wolsey, the most conspicuous churchman in the kingdom.
PREPARATION FOR THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
At the beginning of Henry's reign the Church was still strong in England. Probably most of the people were sincerely attached to it. Still, the labors of Wycliffe and the Lollards had weakened the hold of the Church upon the masses, while Erasmus and the Oxford scholars who worked with him, by their criticism of ecclesiastical abuses, had done much to undermine its influence with the intellectual classes. In England, as on the Continent, the worldliness of the Church prepared the way for the Reformation.