“With Henry, England experienced a religious reformation of sorts. A selfish act, it was only on Henry’s part to take England away from Rome but for purely carnal reasons. There was no religious epiphany in the court of Henry VIII. The old ways of worship remained. The dichotomy that existed across the land had England sitting on the religious fence in many respects. Those who pined for religious reform were elated at the stance that Henry took but severely disappointed when attending religious service. All of the hallmarks of Catholicism remained. Religious confusion reigned across a land that was dearly unstable under God. Are we Protestant or are we Catholic?
“Instability came with dire consequences. In 1540 Henry executed Thomas Cromwell, one of his closest advisors but who was a strong proponent of Protestantism. Reformers such Barnes, William Jerome and Thomas Gerrard were burned at the stake. In a display of religious impartiality and equanimity on Henry’s part Thomas Abell, Richard Featherstone and Edward Powell—all Roman Catholics—were hanged, drawn and quartered while the Protestants burned. All in the name of Christ. Nice! The one commonality that remained in all of this bloodshed was the brutality in the name of God. But these were the acts of men, not God. Just as most laws are man made laws and not God’s Laws. Nevertheless, the theological carnage in the name of God and Jesus Christ continued unabated.
“This English theological schizophrenia continued for many years. Finally Henry died in 1547. Young Edward VI came to the throne but died in 1553. He was replaced by Mary I – Bloody Mary, or the Marion Terror as her tenure came to be known. A devout Catholic her aim was to bring England back into the folds of Rome. She began to purge all instances of Protestantism and executed some 283 men women and children at the stake for heresy. Protestants, who could, fled England to religious sanctuary cities and refuge centres, primarily Geneva. One of my kin joined this group. Here they were comforted and safe and fell under the liturgical spell and genius of John Calvin. To say they were not reformed would be an understatement for under Calvin a new form of Protestantism would manifest itself with the English expatriates. A pure form of worship to God and to Jesus Christ would emerge with the purity of life itself and all that it meant – in work, in culture, in education, in governance, in worship and in all things being. Puritanism!
“For Henry, spiritual divorce from the Roman Catholic Church and Rome was not likely for he was adamantly, violently opposed to the Lutheran, Protestant Doctrine and the new ways of worship. Physical divorce? Now that was another matter and Henry pursued this path with vigour when it became clear that Rome under Pope Clement would not grant him an annulment from his wife Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn.
“Without a male heir with Catherine of Aragon and enamoured by the charms, wit and class of French educated Anne Boleyn, Henry was determined to win a divorce from Catherine and marry Anne. When Rome refused to grant Henry an annulment Henry sought out the counsel of the intellectual sect and the intelligentsia of Oxford and the religious order from Canterbury. Canterbury in itself was an interesting ally for Henry because the Archbishop and his religious cohorts were beginning to lean toward Protestantism but dared not to do so publicly while Henry was still betrothed to Catherine. Of equal importance however was the threat of death through execution if one disagreed with or refused to publicly support Henry in his quest for divorce. And Henry was a master in the art of intimidation. The executioner was literally and figuratively Henry’s right hand man. Off with his or her head became the brand of Henry’s reign. Thousands would die.
“Backed by his own counsel Henry broke away from Catholicism and papal control by establishing himself, that is by his position as the King of England, as the head to the new Church of England. This new church with its basis in Canterbury was not Catholic in name but it was not quite Protestant either. Henry just couldn’t seem to rid himself of the religious icons, some of the liturgical doctrine or the ceremonial and ritual nuances of the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps he was a bit paranoid and riding the theological fence on this one.
“Rome would not capitulate on this issue. Consequently, the Church of England was born by a Reformation Parliament. In 1536 the Act of Supremacy was legislated thereby emasculating all of the power of Rome over England. Henry, through his hand picked Archbishop of Canterbury, was now king of the new Church of England. And with any reforms, or revolution / evolution of newness the bloodbath began. Henry went off on a religious rampage to oust or destroy and execute all of those who disagreed with his Act of Supremacy. Thousands were killed. Most notably was Thomas More, Lord High Chancellor of England, in essence Henry’s Chief of Staff, who refused to agree to Henry’s Act of Supremacy and his break with the Church. Henry’s Act of Treason legislation in the same year ensured compliancy of the rigours of his new church with fear of death. Death came to Thomas More in 1534. He was canonized as a saint in your day for his stance against a King and a Country that challenged God himself. Such arrogance!
“Interestingly, Henry swept across this land and laid waste to all of the religious “Priories, Abby’s, Monasteries,” citing a fear of disloyalty to the Supremacy Act. Thus, under the threat of the Treason Act, Henry destroyed a way of life that invoked religious traditions over a thousand years. No matter to Henry. Their infrastructure – abodes, buildings and agrarian machines were burned to the ground, destroyed and their lands confiscated without compensation. Land titles were reassigned through sales to the highest bidders. This had a two fold consequence. On the one hand it ensured compliance and loyalty to the new Church of England by rooting out all dissenters to Henry’s acclamations while on the other hand it filled the royal coffers of much needed funds for Henry’s indulgences and interests. One of the Priories that was destroyed by Royal Decree would play some part, not insignificant mind you, in my own story of my own kin and their ancestors. Tillmore Gardens, which encompassed the working orchards of some Franciscan monks, was one of these Priories. Nestled among the hills and valleys of the so named South Downs of the Hampshire County, near Winchester, it would fall into the hands of a distant relative. This would have a profound impact on my own sense and sensibilities, and loyalties to my King and Country, as you shall soon see.
“Luther was summarily excommunicated for his beliefs but no matter. For what was the authority of the Church or the Pope if not for God’s laws and the word of Jesus Christ as the only true word for a God fearing Christian to believe.
“In spite of all of this, it was a wonderful time to be alive, to be a Christian and to be free of the financial burden, encumbrances and stranglehold of a pompous papacy. For the working classes, of which I now belonged, it was also a very, very dangerous time.
“What were the consequences of this religious reformation and the 95 Theses of Martin Luther? Churches were burned or stripped bare of any vestiges of Catholicism; religious icons were demolished and destroyed; defrocked Priests and Nuns were suddenly free to marry; Papal Bulls galore, excommunications, heretical dictates, the Inquisition, murders, debauchery, fraud, licentiousness, wars and purges. Life was anything but boring in this new awakening.
“As this reformation took hold across much of Europe and the British Isles there was no turning back as new leaders of the Reformation would emerge. John Calvin, born in Picardy France, schooled in Paris, and enemy of Catholic France, practiced and preached his unique form of Protestantism in Switzerland and Strasbourg. He was a liturgical genius who transcribed what could be called a religious Declaration of Independence, his “Institutes.” In them he laid down the foundation and pillars of worship for this new form of worship. His sermons in Geneva were legendary so much so that the city fathers protected him from every threat that could be conceived by the Catholic Church to undermine his personal security. His work emerged as seminal and his doctrine, interpretation of the word of God and his view of worship ultimately spread to France, the Lowlands, Switzerland, Germany, the New World and South Africa. Italy was a non sequitur to this new doctrine of Christ. France was unique however in that France could not decide how it would go. Nationally, officially, this country was Catholic but there were many who leaned toward the Protestant way. Huguenots, The House of Burgundy were renowned in the Protestant faith but a purely Machiavellian scheme by Catherine de Medici arose to undermine the Protestant cause. This led to the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre in August, September, 1572 in which up to 30,000 French Protestants were killed in Paris and outward across France. If anything else the efficacy of killing in the name of the Catholic faith was impressive and without equal.
“St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was the worst of the religious skirmishes to date although there was worse to come. The 80 years war between Spain and the Low Countries, 1568 – 1648, would result in the Dutch Republic and Dutch Calvinism and the Dutch “Golden Era”. The 30 Year’s War, 1618-1648, enveloped much of central Europe and culminated with the Treaty Of Westphalia of 1648. The interesting thing about the 30 Year’s War was its brutality. Ferdinand II of the Holy Roman Emperor thought to impose Catholicism as the national and only religion across his entire empire. Naturally, this sparked outrage and rebellion. He failed to implement his Catholicism at great cost in human and material resources. It is thought that up to 8 million fatalities occurred, about a third of the population of Europe. Most of the European nations and nation or city states were engaged in this Protestant versus Catholicism conflict. The plague returned. Famine was rampant. Religious fervour, especially Catholicism, was severely undermined. It would never return as the dominant form of worship in Europe. Westphalia? Finally, officially, underscored and under written by a political treaty, meant religious freedom and respite from the shackles of Rome, the Papacy and the Roman Catholic Church. Westphalia also meant the genesis of the European nation states.
“Who would have thought that such carnage could occur over the Love of Christ? We here in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland however were not immune to the chaos. While Europe was aflame in one of the most terrifying and devastating conflicts in World History, we were experiencing our own form of religious terrorism. This so called religious reformation was evident in our island nation. Our King, Henry VIII, watched the events of Reformation Europe unfold with the writings and teachings of Martin Luther and later John Calvin. However he was not a admirer of this monk and publicly criticized and adopted religious change but purely for his own selfish reasons.
“This Martin Luther is an abomination, a religious zealot, insane, with the peasant mind. These 95 Theses? Religious, heretical trash from the mind of a mad monk” so thought Henry VIII. He added to that with his infamous pamphlet “Defence of the Seven Sacraments.”
You can imagine how Pope Leo X viewed Henry’s remarks.
“The defender of the Faith.” he exclaimed of the robust, dynamic and influential monarch.
“I am “The Defender of the Faith” retorted Henry, who was justly proud of this confer and publicly rejoiced in the papal laurel right up until he died. Indeed the English Kings and Queens right up to your day and age still confer upon themselves this title, proudly.
Too bad these brothers didn’t get along. Great group.
More from the introduction of the book I am working on:
“You should also know that the Holy Roman Empire in 1500, of which Luther belonged, was comprised primarily of a hodgepodge of small, some large, Duchies, Kingdoms, Archbishoprics, Dioceses and Free City states. All Catholic. Some small city states of Northern Italy, the Lowlands and Austria / Hungary were also part of this empire. This myriad of states were held together surreptitiously by the strong arm rulers of Spain such as Charles V and the Habsburgs. A real piece of work that Charles but he was in many aspects religiously fair minded and wise but his successor, Phillip II, in 1556, proved to be the embodiment of hell itself but in an earthly reality. Just ask my Dutch friends. It took them 80 years of war to rid their nation state of the Spanish religious yoke and unique reign of terror imposed by Phillip. As luck would have it, especially for the Dutch, Phillip had a very long life for the times and an equally long reign of terror of 42 years. I say unique because only the Spanish with divine heavenly grace and papal intervention could dream up something called the “Inquisition.”
“Phillip II arose near the beginning of this conflict known as the 80 Years War and made it known to all of the Dutch people, including William “The Silent,” who was the founding father of this new republic, this nation of hard working souls, that the Catholic Church and Rome would not stand for Dutch insolence, Calvinism, or the audacity and challenge they and their new found religious beliefs presented to the integrity and holiness of the Roman Catholic faith. Such a lack of respect for God and the Holy See, God’s representative on earth, could not go unpunished. Indeed, and this shows the absolute arrogance of Spain and the papacy in that the entire Dutch population was found guilty of heresy and sentenced to death by burning at the stake. I would have loved to see how they were going to carry out that edict.
“The Spanish Inquisition arose in the late 1400s by Ferdinand and Isabella, primarily in Spain. It came to the fore in Europe in the early 1500s to address the religious reformation and anti catholic, anti papal and anti liturgical fervour that was evident in Spain but also beginning to take hold over much of Europe. This religious terrorist organization was responsible for a least a few thousand deaths and was omnipresent in the form of the Inquisition of the Netherlands. Heresy, heretical thought was a prime motivator of this religious tool but other forms of sinful activity were subjected to this unique form of justice. Sodomy being one of them. Interestingly, 19% of all sodomites brought under this code of religious discipline were clergy. We had a good chuckle over that one.
“Thousands of deaths permeated from this inquisition as it spread across our lands like some form of ecclesiastical virus. It was also cause for consternation among us working folk with its promise of eternal damnation in hell or purgatory. Or worse! This held sway over us, although like France and England the peasant and working classes of the Holy Roman Empire were slowly evolving. Almost ungovernable in what you would know as Germany today. But in my day every one of those little Kingdoms and regions had their own Prince, King, Queen, Duke or Duchess held together with the threat and the guilt penitent riddled proclamations of God through his papal representative on earth within the hierarchical tenets of the Holy Catholic Church. And I can tell you with certainty that those tenets were brutally harsh.
“Brutally harsh? Now that was an understatement. Even Luther chastised us peasant classes whereas, as his reformation was beginning to take hold in Germany, some 100,000 of us clashed with our noble overseers only to lose by the end of the sword, the rack or the stake. Luther even had a dislike for the Jews and vilified them in one of his treatises or pamphlets. Yes, his anti-Semitic stance became a black mark on his incredible legacy. But his reforms transformed all aspects of life in Germany. For all of the classes. Not just for the noblemen and women or rulers. Indeed, one of Luther’s protectors, Frederic The Wise, Elector of Saxony and one of the founders of Wittenberg University, saw the potential and notoriety that Luther would bring to his university. Frederick the Wise was very wise indeed and a medieval entrepreneur without equal because for every indiscretion that the Catholic Church undertook to fleece the flock, Frederic saw an opportunity. In Martin Luther, Frederic saw the entrepreneurial potential of this man as a reformation magnet to his University at Wittenberg and as another way and means to replenish his own personal coffers. Consider this: Frederic collected many relics in his castle church; his inventory of 1518 listed 17,443 items, including a thumb from St. Anne, a twig from Moses’ burning bush, hay of the holy manger, and milk from the Virgin Mary. Money was paid in order to venerate these relics and thus escape years in purgatory. A diligent and pious person who rendered appropriate devotion to each of these relics could merit 1,902,202 years worth of penance (an earthly equivalent of time otherwise spent in Purgatory, removed by indulgences). Two years later, the collection exceeded 19,000 pieces.[1] Frederic the Wise was a happy man. And we were fools. But why not? Good on Frederic for it was the Church’s arrogance that a man could be saved solely by indulgences even if he was deemed to have had sex figuratively with the Virgin Mary. Evan a poor peasant such as me saw the humour in that one.
“This may all seem laughable, incredulous to you but for the times this was extremely serious business. For one’s salvation or damnation was held in the cards by the Holy Catholic Church by way of the Holy Roman Emperor, France and even my own abode, England as well as Wales and Ireland. The Scots in those early pre reformation days did not matter to us in the least.
“The papacy could no longer depend upon the superstitions and ignorance of the peasantry and the emerging middle class to maintain their hold over them or their hold over religious men such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox and others. As the bible and Jesus Christ had once said: “the seed had been sewn.” There was no turning back.
“And what a papacy it was. Rotten to the core, for centuries these so called religious men, exploited and mined Christ’s rock for every conceivable treasure trove that this religious order had to offer. Rich beyond belief, the Catholic Church became the world’s first International Conglomeration. The Church of Rome, the world’s first multinational corporation with its hierarchical levels of pious minions throughout the various kingdoms, lands, territories and new found lands controlled everything. Baptism…necessary to get into heaven in the first place…pay. Marriage…pay, work,,,pay, worship…pay, death…pay. And pay and pay we did. Perhaps this is how the expression “Death and Taxes” came about. The papacy owned the land and the buildings and all of the rent controls. Worshippers were expected to donate to the church for all services rendered. We could ill afford to do so. But it was a Catholic world and the Catholic way to salvation. We knew of no other.
“And what about some of these popes in this time of religious and cultural upheaval and rebirth? Alexander VI? Corrupt, licentious, perverted, murderer. His reign of terror in Rome began in 1491 ending with his death in 1503. It is said, although I cannot be sure of this, that he had 12 bastard children. We also know what he thought of his faith: “Almighty God! How long will this superstitious sect of Christians, and this upstart invention, endure?” His weapon of choice to deal with his enemies was poison, and sometimes the stake, as in burning. The rack was also a desirable tool in his papal church of horrors. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom for us. We did have our sense of humour to deal with religious reprobates and degenerates such as Alexander VI. When he died “his passing was greeted with celebrations in the streets of Rome and around the known world. The papal doctor was sent gifts and was congratulated for failing to keep the pope alive.”
“Then came Julius II, “The Warrior Pope.” Another non believing, corrupt pope. Only he spent most of his time outside of Rome engaged in war with many of his enemies, primarily with France over the papal states of Italy. He had many children, chided the catholic faith and Christianity and was a purveyor of unnatural sexual acts. We finally saw the end of him in 1513. Pope Julius unknowingly summarized some of the attitude that was beginning to surface at the time with respect to Christian orthodoxy: “Christians are the unstable, unlettered, superstitious masses”[1] and we can clearly understand why he is dismissed as an embarrassment…His only saving grace was his contribution to the Renaissance in Rome through his commissions with Michelangelo and Raphael. I can also tell you with no less certainty that Martin Luther’s pilgrimage to Rome in 1510 occurred when Julius was the pope. He was not impressed with what he saw. Cynicism ruled the day and it disgusted him.
“But the worst was still to come. Some would say he was the catalyst to the Lutheran, Protestant movement that we know and that you know as the Reformation. Pope Leo X: a corrupt, a sexual pervert, indulgent fraud, a liturgical shyster. It has been noted that this new pope accepted the pagan enjoyment of life and was “exceedingly devoted to the flesh, especially those pleasures, which cannot, with decency, be mentioned.”[2] Pope Leo X’s parties and orgies were well known throughout the city of Rome and beyond. He managed in just a few short years to deplete the papal treasury almost to the point of papal bankruptcy. He needed money and the only sure fire way for the papacy to get the funds needed to finish the Basilica of St Peters, as well as many other Renaissance initiatives throughout the city, was through that well known but sure-fire Catholic methodology for raising money…indulgences.
“And they were good at it.
“The Catholic Church even had its own “holy jingle” in marketing these indulgences. First came the movement in the papal states in northern Italy but then a real focus emerged in the Holy Roman Empire regions of Germany. Johann Tetzel, a Dominican Friar and a marketing genius for these times came up with this little marketing gem to promote these indulgences on behalf of the Pope: “As soon as the gold in the casket rings, the rescued soul to heaven springs.” ingenious, and our peasantry loved it. The money poured in. But when Tetzel took his entourage to Germany, a different outcome emerged. Incensed with this affront to Christianity and God himself with the sale of these indulgences, Martin Luther, that insignificant and tortured monk, rose to challenge and discredit Tetzel, the Roman Catholic Church and the absolute corruption of the papacy.
“No one can buy their way into heaven or out of Purgatory” Luther proclaimed.
“Especially for dead relatives.” he added.
Perhaps he was right and we should have known better but as peasants and working class we were extremely superstitious, uneducated and naïve. We believed everything we were told. Consequently, the money poured into the Vatican coffers. But unbeknownst to Pope Leo X and the Church, and our ruling classes, these indulgences would ignite a religious firestorm that would have far reaching consequences on our entire way of life. It would go down as one of the most important events of our limited history. I know that it had a profound impact on mine.
