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The rise of Protestantism among English monarchs from Henry VIII is well documented. However, after a bit of light research, I have been unable to find many resources on how the general population felt about the change, or how it came to be a popular majority position in a relatively short space of time.

Although Henry VIII broke with the Pope, the early Church of England remained essentially Catholic in its practices. During Edward's regency, Protestantism was effectively forced upon the country. But there seems to have been no great outbreak of upset or unrest at this even though when Mary gained the throne, they settled easily back into Catholic practice.

Yet during Elizabeth's reign of 45 years, the country gained a Protestant majority, again with little seeming fuss or protest from the general populace. By the time of Charles, a mere 22 years later, it was established enough and with sufficient devotion to be a major cause in the outbreak of civil war.

I could accept that most of the population simply didn't care enough one way or the other. They just went to church and worshipped as the minister lead them. But if this is the case it would seem to stand in stark contrast with the considerable fervour which Londoners and the urban population in general greeted Charles' vague defences of Catholicism.

How were the general public persuaded to change their religion so smoothly, and so totally, in the space of 70 years?

Bob Tway
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    note that the Charles situation is intrinsically bound up in the doctrine of 'divine right of kings' so the fervour may be in fact more political than religious –  May 22 '18 at 11:13
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    The answer to this is complicated, and could easily take an entire book to answer. Two books that might help you are Voices of Morebath by Eamon Duffy and The Reformation and the English People by J.J Scarisbrick – sempaiscuba May 22 '18 at 11:35
  • @Orangesandlemons For sure, but that's only tangentially related to this question. Prior to the outbreak of the war, there were sizable Protestant mobs roaming London, shouting down the appointment of Laudian Bishops, which certainly looks a whole lot more religious than political. – Bob Tway May 22 '18 at 12:36
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    I am not sure that "smooth" is a word that applies to martyrdom. – MCW May 22 '18 at 14:48
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    They had a "do or die" approach to it. Quite literally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_martyrs_of_the_English_Reformation. And of course, most regimes prefer to quietly ignore the tainted parts of their history and are more comfortable talking only about the nice ones; the mere fact that people are allowed to discuss the tainted parts is an often understated achievement. – SJuan76 May 22 '18 at 15:40
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    Can I advocate for this being changed to "England", "English monarchs", and the tags being changed accordingly too? The stories of Protestantism in England and Scotland aren't unrelated, but they're definitely different. – owjburnham May 22 '18 at 16:55
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    @owjburnham I would award a bounty to that comment if I could. I can hear my Presbyterian mother tsk'ing that I missed it. Cannot do the edit from my cell. – MCW May 22 '18 at 17:35
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    @MarkC.Wallace I could do it, but I thought that I'd leave it to the OP as it was (perhaps) sufficiently substantive that I didn't want to be putting words in mouths. – owjburnham May 22 '18 at 17:37
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    @owjburnham done. – Bob Tway May 22 '18 at 17:51
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    Can the Anglican Church really be considered "protestant"? I'm no theologian, but it seems they started out by divorcing from the authority of the Pope, and have evolved from that position. But to a casual observer like me, they seem far closer to Catholics than most Protestant sects. – jamesqf May 22 '18 at 18:27
  • Can denying the Pope's authority really not be considered "protestant"? – Beanluc May 22 '18 at 22:49
  • No one has mentioned the zealous Protestant "missionaries" who spread all over Europe after Bibles started being printed in native tongues. – RonJohn May 23 '18 at 03:19
  • @Beanluc: How so, if the beliefs and practices remain otherwise the same? Most of the other sects seem to have started by protesting (hence "Protestant") some of the established Church's basic beliefs and practices; the Anglican seem to have kept most of those. – jamesqf May 23 '18 at 04:33
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    @Beanluc Henry VIII was strongly anti-Protestant. The Church of England as he set it up was "English Catholics" under the British Monarch, as opposed to the "Roman Catholics" under the Pope or "Eastern-Orthodox Catholic Church" under the Ecumenical Patriarch. It was Edward VI who converted it to Protestantism (or, rather, his "advisors" - he was only 9 when he was crowned, and 15 when he died. Which pretty much makes it a classic case of teenage rebellion) – Chronocidal May 23 '18 at 12:22
  • The Pope's authority is a matter of doctrine. Rejecting that bit of Catholic doctrine absolutely is a Protestant position. I'm just answering the question "Can Anglican be considered Protestant", the answer absolutely is Yes, it can, and for many (not all), it must. – Beanluc May 23 '18 at 18:15
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    TL;DR, sometimes "Protestant" means "Not Roman Catholic" and sometimes it means something more specific.There's actually a lot of controversy over whether Anglicans are "Protestant" or not. Not everyone agrees that the word "Protestant" applies to all non-Catholic sects, and even the word "Catholic" is used to describe both the Anglican and Episcopalian faiths by their respective adherents. "Catholic but not Roman, and not Protestant" is something Anglicans and Episcopalians have said. I doubt many/any would consider Eastern Orthodoxy "Protestant", and it's not Roman Catholic either. – Todd Wilcox May 23 '18 at 19:37
  • @Beanluc: I think you're just playing with semantics :-) The average English person was far removed from the head of the Church, whether that head was Pope or King. So if they go to the same church every Sunday and perform the same rituals, why would most of them care about the difference? – jamesqf May 24 '18 at 17:57
  • First correction: the Anglican Church is a flavour of Catholic, not Protestant like Lutheran, Calvinist, etc. On top of that, this should have given you pause for thought: "I have been unable to find many resources on how the general population felt about the change, or how it came to be a popular majority position in a relatively short space of time". The victor writes history. Since the low countries and Germany were undergoing their own (actual) protestant reformations, perhaps redo your research down Spanish and Italian Catholic lines, perhaps also French, looking for mention of old Hank. – Rich May 24 '18 at 19:07
  • "And so, with gods and men/The sheep remain inside their pen/Though many times they've seen the way to leave" – Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні May 25 '18 at 00:21

5 Answers5

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Well, it wasn't smooth.

First of all, there was already a minority of "reform" viewpoint in England before Henry VIII. It was centered in the intelligentsia and gentry.

So when Henry VIII decided to divorce the Church to marry Anne Boleyn, a significant and influential minority not only was in favor, but wanted to go further, faster.

And, as always, a big group of people just wanted to get on with their lives and hoped it would all go away.

Henry VIII's extravagance had bankrupted him and the country (there was not much distinction between the two at that time) so his other motive (besides Anne) was the wealth of the monasteries. By plundering them, he restored his checkbook's balance. Key point: He didn't keep the church lands, but sold it for ready cash to the gentry. Now, the gentry -- whose lifestyle revolved around the land -- had an incentive to support the new regime, since a return to the old would probably mean the disgorgement of all that lovely land. "Return to the True Church? Of course I'm in favor! Always have been. But those monasteries were pretty bad -- do you know what I saw on Facebook the other day? They were doing terrible things! -- Maybe we should restore the Church, but leave the lands alone. So that the Church can focus on saving souls, of course."

Once Queen Elizabeth took over from her activist siblings, she ruled as a kinder, gentler Protestant and -- mostly -- didn't punish people for what they believed, but for what they did. "Be Catholic if you like. Just be discreet about it, don't support the Spanish or the French, or Mary Queen of Scots, and don't expect royal favor." It wasn't a happy time for Catholics, but it was -- mostly -- tolerable as long as they avoided religious politics.

By the time that the Stewarts came in and made things a bit more difficult, this state of affairs had been in place for most people's whole lifetimes. It could be lived with. And it was.

But Catholicism never died and was a significant minority religion throughout.

Tom Hundt
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Mark Olson
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    Thanks for this, but it doesn't explain how a significant proportion of the common folk went from a position of wanting to "get on with their lives" to actively supporting Protestantism and reviling Catholics instead of finding they "could be lived with". That's the crux of my question. – Bob Tway May 22 '18 at 12:39
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    Time. Once the gentry and the local priests went Anglican, the populace mainly followed. The many pious were still pious, but in new ways. The people for whom religion was mostly social had no problem making the transition. And some resisted and were shunned or worse. And some saw in the new religion an opportuinity to gain status over their neighbors and seized it. The usual messy, complicated, inelegant way most things happen. – Mark Olson May 22 '18 at 12:47
  • I vaguely remember a civil war creeping in there somewhere as well. – Strawberry May 22 '18 at 16:31
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    England had some shiny colonies that minority religious folk could run away to after a time. England largely avoiding the entanglements of the Thirty Years War is another huge factor. – Michael W. May 22 '18 at 16:41
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    Some of my ancestors left "merry old England" for the Puritan haven of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635, after having to answer questions put forward by the elders of the local church establishment. Similar conditions resulted in Quakers moving to Pennsylvania, and Catholics to Maryland later in the same century. This escape valve perhaps makes the situation back home seem smoother than it really was. – Peter Diehr May 22 '18 at 18:45
  • There doesn't seem to be much in here about the actions of Mary I and her husband Philip II of Spain, which I always heard was a big factor. – Spencer May 22 '18 at 22:33
  • Queen Elizabeth wasn't particularly less activist - for example,she introduced the recusancy acts which made not taking part in Anglican religious activities illegal. (Minor pseudo-topical note: prominent recusants include the Duke of Norfolk, who lives in Sussex. The Duke of Sussex is, as of 5 days ago, Prince Harry) – Chronocidal May 23 '18 at 12:30
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    @MattThrower: consider what the life expectancy was among the "common folk". Really you're asking, "why did a significant proportion of the children or grandchildren of people who believed X, believe Y". I mean, it's possible that a significant proportion of people changed their belief/prejudices rather than just doing as they thought they were told at each point in time, I don't know. But it makes it sound less astonishing when you contrast X with Y, if you consider that it's different people who grew up in different political climates. – Steve Jessop May 24 '18 at 16:25
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    @SteveJessop Life expectancy for those who lived long enough to have much of an opinion about religion (i.e. into adulthood) would have been not all that much less than today's (i.e. around 50 or 60, maybe even into their 70s). Historical life expectancies were so low because of extremely high infant and child mortality rates, not because everyone suddenly keeled over from whatever cause at 30. So, while you might be on to something by suggesting that new religions were more readily adopted by new generations, keep in mind that the previous (adult) generation was still mostly around. – 8bittree May 24 '18 at 22:26
  • And, of course, how did the monasteries end up with so much land. People gave it to them! "Errrrm, excuse me, your Bishopness - might I have a word?" "Of course, my son". "Well, it's the middle ages...disease...famine...you know how it is...so, I'm dying". "A sad thing, most assuredly". "...and...well, you know...I've led an indolent life - to the fullest, as you might say...and now...well, I don't really want to go to hell". "Of course not". "Sooooo...is there any way I can, you know, get a free pass into heaven?" "Of course. We get your lands, you get into heaven. Sign here". Wooooo! – Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні May 25 '18 at 00:28
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Not only was it not totally smooth, but it also wasn't much of a change. At least not on personal human timeframes.

You have to realize that the break in England didn't happen because anybody had any kind of doctrinal issue with Rome. King Henry VIII was not a protestant, did not like Protestantism, and did not want protestants in his Church. The only part of Catholicism he ever had any trouble with was the part where he wasn't allowed to do what he wanted.

At first you would have to have been part of the upper Church hierarchy to even notice a difference. The head of the Church of England no longer reported to the Pope, but rather served at the pleasure of the Monarch. The rites themselves didn't change all that much. The split between the two was always much more about politics than about religion.

It wasn't until the excommunication of Elisabeth I, 40 years later, that there was any truly significant doctrinal break between the two. Prior to that there were still CoE Bishops openly talking about reconciliation, or even alternatively joining with the Eastern Orthodox rite, as viable future options. People who held more typical European "Protestant" beliefs were not accomodated in the Church and were forced to become religious dissenters (eg: Puritans).

That papal bull was significant, because it was designed to empower an active rebellion against the Monarch. Effectively, it turned the political dispute between Rome and London into an active threat to the State. What followed was a couple of hundred years where the Catholic hierarchy was trying various ways to depose the leadership in England, and thus being a supporter of theirs was tantamount to treason.

So the main bone of contention was never really religious, and the practice didn't change all that much. The most obvious thing, performing mass in English, Catholic churches in English-speaking countries have changed to doing anyway. So even today, a lot of the more "high church" Anglican services would feel very familiar to a modern Catholic.

T.E.D.
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    Henry VIII had biblically relevant reasons for doing what he did. At his father's bidding, the Pope conveniently ignored a biblical passage that forbade a man to marry his brother's widow and Henry felt that he was being punished by God for it, as the Bible warned. The Pope then refused to annul the marriage (that would be admitting that the first papal exception was a mistake). Breaking from Rome wasn't solely an excuse to do whatever he wanted. – CJ Dennis May 23 '18 at 02:22
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    @CJDennis, are you sure that Henry wasn't (deliberately or not) misinterpreting a passage which forbids marrying your brother's divorced ex-wife rather than his widow? Marrying your brother's widow was mandated in the Mosaic law. – Peter Taylor May 23 '18 at 08:03
  • @PeterTaylor I'm not an expert in any form of the Bible. I don't know if Catholics follow Mosiac (i.e. Jewish?) law. Wikipedia says: A papal dispensation was only needed for the "impediment of public honesty" if the marriage had not been consummated as Catherine and her duenna claimed, but Henry VII and the Spanish ambassador set out instead to obtain a dispensation for "affinity", which took account of the possibility of consummation. It seems odd to apply for papal dispensation if the Bible clearly says "It's your duty to do so". – CJ Dennis May 23 '18 at 08:46
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    Amazing coincidence how the one Bible verse he was willing to defend the theological sanctity of against even the Pope in Rome happened to be one that said he could do what he wanted to do... – T.E.D. May 23 '18 at 13:46
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    @CJDennis Henry VIII was the one who asked for the papal exception in the first place. He ignored the passage when it was convenient, and then used it as a pretext when he changed his mind. – Acccumulation May 24 '18 at 15:53
  • I think T E D's answer understates the importance of the changes before Elizabeth I's reign although is right that many of them came in gradually. e.g. Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and convents, a noticeable change even if the king's motives were monetary. English language services were officially published in 1544 and the Edward VI version of the Book of Common Prayer a few years later. People would not only have noticed that church services were now in English, not Latin, but they placed less emphasis the cult of saints. English translations of the Bible were also introduced. – Timothy May 24 '18 at 17:48
  • @Timothy - You could say he "dissolved" them. I'd say that he helped himself to all their sweet, sweet land. I'd considered mentioning that, but then as far as impact on the average person, again not really much of anything. Remember, this is a question about the English people at large and how they interacted with their Church. Even if you happened to be one of the very few peasants attached to one of those properties...well...as they say if you aren't the lead sled dog, the view never changes. – T.E.D. May 24 '18 at 17:58
  • @Timothy - The bit about switching to English is a big deal though. I'd tried to look up when that happened, but couldn't find it easily. I'll try again, and add what I find. – T.E.D. May 24 '18 at 18:06
  • @Timothy - ....yeah, found what I did last time, but with a bit more detail. There was an English language communion rite put in the Book of Common Prayer as an option during Edwards' time, but it wasn't made mandatory to use it until the year after the Papal Bull. Presumably that means a significant number of parishes were still using Latin up to that time. – T.E.D. May 24 '18 at 18:20
  • Yours is the best answer to the question as posed, without being explicit about the core reason: the fact is that the Anglican Church is Catholic; not Protestant. Only an Anglican or a Roman would call it "Protestant"; because it didn't, as you say, do much. Basically, Liz is the eldest Catholic Pope at the mo; with your Ratzinger bloke being retired-but-still-Pope, and that other fella from Brazil or wherever being the main one. (Not to mention the singer off Ghost.) – Rich May 24 '18 at 19:14
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    @Acccumulation Henry VII (the father) asked for the first dispensation, Henry VIII (the son) asked for it to be revoked. – CJ Dennis May 24 '18 at 20:15
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    I largely agree about Henry, but not his successors. Edward VI seems to have sincerely been Calvinist in his beliefs and the Church of England was moving in that direction with the adoption of the Forty-Two Articles. These were revoked when Mary I took the throne, but Elizabeth I restored most of them with her Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563. While moderate in some respects (arguing against Anabaptist positions, for instance) they are still evidently Protestant in their theology (especially articles IX through XVIII) - http://anglicansonline.org/basics/thirty-nine_articles.html – JTM May 26 '18 at 17:19
  • @Rich - what you describe may be the Anglo-Catholic (High Church) position but is not true of all Anglicans. There are more evangelical-minded Anglicans who adhere more strictly to the Thirty-Nine Articles (linked in my previous comment). – JTM May 26 '18 at 17:21
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Have you heard of the Pilgrimage of Grace? This was a major rebellion against Henry's move to break with Rome. The execution of over 200 of the participants was probably a very effective incentive for others to accept the change.

As others have said, for many the 'conversion' was a matter of convenience and survival. When Mary I came to the throne a substantial portion of the population reverted very happily to the old practices.

Lars Bosteen
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Martin Owton
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    And those that didn't revert happily to old practices merrily burned at the stake instead. The average person never had a lot of choice in the matter. – Separatrix May 23 '18 at 09:57
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I'm not sure I'd really describe it as either "smooth" or "peaceful", given that Catholic-Protestant rivalry can still divide families and is still capable of producing street riots in Britain today. Usually around the "Old Firm" football matches, but occasionally elsewhere.

There are really two factors to the Reformation, and church practice is only one of them. Loyalty is the other. At the start of the process, the church was unpopular enough (see Luther's 95 theses) that people were glad of change - and the opportunity to participate in looting and vandalism. I think people forget the huge ISIS-style erasure and destruction of religious art that happened in this period. Not to mention the martyrs of both sides being publicly burnt at the stake.

But each incoming monarch cared primarily about loyalty and the maintenance of absolute rule. The question was not so much one of religious belief as whether a given person would support the monarch by adopting their religion. Failure to do so was effectively treason. Changing religion easily was a matter of simple survival.

There's a song about this, The Vicar of Bray.

(This discussion leaves out Ireland and Northern Ireland. Ireland remained Catholic, and Northern Ireland had a sectarian civil war in the 20th century!)

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Protestant_martyrs_of_the_English_Reformation vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_martyrs_of_the_English_Reformation

pjc50
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    I'm not convinced the Scottish Catholic-Protestant rivalry to which you refer has much to do with Henry VIII, who was King of England. Instead, they relate to Catholic-Protestant rivalry in Ireland which - as you note - has its own history and complications. – Jack Aidley May 22 '18 at 13:50
  • Sure, "ISIS-style", but remember this has a long tradition going back way before Al Qaeda destroying Buddhist temples, or Buddhists destroying their antecedents' monuments, probably also happening even before Tutankhamen's erasure: Tyrants gonna tyr. – Rich May 24 '18 at 19:19
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It wasn't smooth and there were strong undercurrents both ways.

I just finished reading Ken Follett's book A Column of Fire', which although historical fiction, it covered many of the historical facts and highlighted a major difference between Mary and Elizabeth.

Mary had many executed by the inquisitors because they refused to believe as Rome did, ie the protested and paid with their lives.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, held the view that no-one should be executed for their religious belief, and regarded it as a matter of private conscience.

Many of those executed under her reign were found guilty of treason, mostly because they wanted to unseat Elizabeth in favour of a Catholic monarch.

Other contributors above have said there was little doctrinal difference until after Elizabeth's ascension. I suggest that the fundamental difference of 'justified by faith in the risen Lord' vs 'justified by obedience to Rome' has been around for many centuries, and persists until today, albeit in more subtle forms. Under Elizabeth, people were free to choose; under Mary, they were not.

Stephen Barrett
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