The Age of the Reformation

by Preserved Smith

The first general election was held with little government interference. Parliament may be assumed to have expressed the will of the nation when it repealed Henry's treason and heresy laws, the ancient act De Haeretico comburendo, the Act of the Six Articles, and the Statute of Proclamations.

To ascertain exactly what, at a given time, is the "public opinion" of a political group, is one of the most difficult tasks of the historian.[1] Even nowadays it is certain that the will of the majority is frequently not reflected either in the acts of the legislature or in the newspaper press. It cannot even be said that the wishes of the majority are always public opinion. In expressing the voice of the people there is generally some section more vocal, more powerful on account {311} of wealth or intelligence, and more deeply in earnest than any other; and this minority, though sometimes a relatively small one, imposes its will in the name of the people and identifies its voice with the voice of God.

[Sidenote: Protestant public opinion]

Therefore, when we read the testimony of contemporaries that the majority of England was still Catholic by the middle of the sixteenth century, a further analysis of popular opinion must be made to account for the apparently spontaneous rush of the Reformation. Some of these estimates are doubtless exaggerations, as that of Paget who wrote in 1549 that eleven Englishmen out of twelve were Catholics. But conceding, as we must, that a considerable majority was still anti-Protestant, it must be remembered that this majority included most of the indifferent and listless and almost all those who held their opinions for no better reason than they had inherited them and refused the trouble of thinking about them. Nearly the solid north and west, the country districts and the unrepresented and mute proletariat of the cities, counted as Catholic but hardly counted for anything else. The commercial class of the towns and the intellectual class, which, though relatively small, then as now made public opinion as measured by all ordinary tests, was predominantly and enthusiastically Protestant.

If we analyse the expressed wishes of England, we shall find a mixture of real religious faith and of worldly, and sometimes discreditable, motives. A new party always numbers among its constituency not only those who love its principles but those who hate its opponents. With the Protestants were a host of allies varying from those who detested Rome to those who repudiated all religion. Moreover every successful party has a number of hangers-on for the sake of political spoils, and some who follow its fortunes {312} with no purpose save to fish in troubled waters.

But whatever their constituency or relative numbers, the Protestants now carried all before them. In the free religious debate that followed the death of Henry, the press teemed with satires and pamphlets, mostly Protestant. From foreign parts flocked allies, while the native stock of literary ammunition was reinforced by German and Swiss books. In the reign of Edward there were three new translations of Luther's books, five of Melanchthon's, two of Zwingli's, two of Oecolampadius's, three of Bullinger's and four of Calvin's. Many English religious leaders were in correspondence with Bullinger, many with Calvin, and some with Melanchthon. Among the prominent European Protestants called to England during this reign were Bucer and Fagius of Germany, Peter Martyr and Bernardino Ochino of Italy, and the Pole John Laski.

The purification of the churches began promptly. [Sidenote: 1547] Images, roods and stained glass windows were destroyed, while the buildings were whitewashed on the inside, properly to express the austerity of the new cult. Evidence shows that these acts, countenanced by the government, were popular in the towns but not in the country districts.

[Sidenote: Book of Common Prayer, 1549]

Next came the preparation of an English liturgy. The first Book of Common Prayer was the work of Cranmer. Many things in it, including some of the most beautiful portions, were translations from the Roman Breviary; but the high and solemn music of its language must be credited to the genius of its translator. Just as the English Bible popularized the Reformation, so the English Prayer Book strengthened and broadened the hold of the Anglican church. Doctrinally, it was a compromise between Romanism, Lutheranism and Calvinism. Its use was enforced by the Act of Uniformity, [Sidenote: 1549] {313} the first and mildest of the statutes that bore that name. Though it might be celebrated in Greek, Latin or Hebrew as well as in English, priests using any other service were punished with loss of benefices and imprisonment.

At this time there must have been an unrecorded struggle in the Council of Regency between the two religious parties, followed by the victory of the innovators. [Sidenote: End of 1549] The pace of the Reformation was at once increased; between 1550 and 1553 England gave up most of what was left of distinctively medieval Catholicism. For one thing, the marriage of priests was now legalized. [Sidenote: Accelerated Reformation] That public opinion was hardly prepared for this as yet is shown by the act itself in which celibacy of the clergy is declared to be the better condition, and marriage only allowed to prevent vice. The people still regarded priests' wives much as concubines and the government spoke of clergymen as "sotted with their wives and children." There is one other bit of evidence, of a most singular character, showing that this and subsequent Acts of Uniformity were not thoroughly enforced. The test of orthodoxy came to be taking the communion occasionally according to the Anglican rite. This was at first expected of everyone and then demanded by law; but the law was evaded by permitting a conscientious objector to hire a substitute to take communion for him.