Diarmaid MacCulloch

Suffolk and the Tudors : politics and religion in an English county, 1500-1600

Suffolk was one of the most interesting counties in 16th-century England. The scene of the only two successful rebellions in Tudor England, Suffolk also underwent an incredible turnaround from being a haven of Catholic worship in 1500 to becoming one of the strongholds of radical Protestantism less than a century later. That same period saw the shocking ousting of its Duke in 1538, an influential landowner in the county and close confidant of Henry VIII. By investigating the historical background to such dramatic developments, this book throws new light on the relationship between the counties and the central government and on the changing political and religious views at the time of the English Reformation.

PRINCESS MARY'S HOUSEHOLD AND THE SUCCESSION CRISIS, JULY 1553

This article reconsiders Mary Tudors victory in the succession crisis of July 1553. It challenges the traditional interpretation which accounts for Marys unexpected triumph as the result of a ‘spontaneous’ rising of the East Anglian gentry. Instead it reclaims a central role for Marys household affinity in the succession crisis and as such presents a longer-term perspective than accounts of Marys coup d’etat have provided hitherto. It concludes by pointing to the implications of the role of Marys household for interpreting the politics and religion of her reign.

Henry VIII and the Reform of the Church

Two provinces of the western church Catholic happened to coincide with the frontiers of the medieval kingdom of England: Canterbury and York. There were clear contrasts between them. York was much smaller than Canterbury, with only three dioceses to Canterbury’s fourteen; it was remoter from the centre of national affairs, and it was a poorer region overall. Either province had its own clerical parliament, Convocation, but the Convocation of Canterbury met while the national parliament was assembled and had real significance as a lawmaking body; York more or less rubber-stamped decisions from the south. After long and bitter disputes over three centuries from the Norman Conquest, the archbishop of Canterbury had emerged with a subtly-adjusted title of precedence over the archbishop of York: ‘Primate of All England’, as against York’s ‘Primate of England’.1

Putting the English Reformation on the Map (The Prothero Lecture)

The essay examines how the international Protestant identity of the English Church came to be in tension with the later assertion of sacramentalist or Catholic values within it. It chronicles how the Reformation in England came to align not with Lutheranism but with Reformed Protestantism, and compares Henry VIIIs reforms with contemporary Reformations in mainland Europe seeking a ‘middle way’. Edward VIs Church is contrasted with the temperature perceptible in Elizabeth Is religious settlement – which nevertheless asserted Protestant values with no concessions to Catholicism. The anomalous role of the cathedrals in England is identified as a major source of the English Churchs later deviation from mainstream European Reformed Protestantism, which itself produced attempts to recreate a Reformed Church in the English north American colonies. (READ 7 July 2004)

The Maritime Trade of the East Anglian Ports 1550-1590.

This book offers an account of the inland and foreign trade of East Anglian ports, from Kings Lynn to Ipswich, during the reign of Elizabeth I. Drawing on state papers, customs documents and other original sources, it gives a general picture of the economic life of the region. The survey is not confined to general statements, statistical tables or movements of commodities, but includes sketches of individual merchants, pirates and smugglers. The author argues that the significance of provincial trade at this time has been undervalued in comparison with that of London, and that the East coast ports have been neglected by historians in comparison with those of the West Country. The author was winner of the Royal Historical Societys Whitfield Prize.

FOXES, FIREBRANDS, AND FORGERY: ROBERT WARE'S POLLUTION OF REFORMATION HISTORY *

This is an analysis of the extensive forgeries of Reformation history by Robert Ware of Dublin in the late seventeenth century, one of which, Archbishop Cranmers speech at Edward VIs coronation, is still widely quoted and used as historical evidence. Wares activity is explained in the context of Popish Plot agitation in Ireland and England, and John Strypes part in preserving some of the forgeries in the historical record is delineated. The survival of Wares forgeries in English and Irish historiography over three centuries to the present day is exposed.

Factional politics and the English reformation, 1520-1540

Part 1 Introduction - faction and reform. Part 2 The Boleyn faction. Part 3 Conservatives and reformers. Part 4 Cromwellian ascendancy - patronage and reform. Part 5 The voice of reform. Part 6 Church and commonwealth - the cure of souls. Part 7 The Protestant faction. Part 8 Conclusion - Cromwells fall and the triumph of faction.

Worcester: a Cathedral City in the Reformation

This study concentrates on a narrative of religious change in sixteenth-century Worcester, contained in a largely unknown Worcester chronicle; it compares what the chronicle tells us with what we know of religious changes elsewhere, particularly in other cathedral cities, during the English Reformation. The Worcester Chronicle, recently rediscovered by Dr Pat Hughes of Worcester, deals with civic matters as well as the religious changes chiefly under consideration here; it forms five folios in a manuscript volume of miscellaneous collections and memoranda. 1 It is structured as a list of the annually-elected pair of senior and junior bailiffs of the city of Worcester from 1483 to 1578; to this list, annalistic entries have been added, taking the year of the bailiwick from September to September. Internal evidence indicates three levels of compilation in the work. First, entries up to 1547 are fairly laconic; second, from 1547 on, the descriptions of events are clearly those of an eye-witness with decided opinions, particularly about religion. From the tone of their comments, both pre- and post-1547 chroniclers are conservative in religious sympathy. Third, the whole work is now in the hand of an early seventeenth-century copyist, who has added material of a commonplace nature about kings and queens, after he had copied the more interesting original entries.

Gregory Cromwell: Two Portrait Miniatures by Hans Holbein the Younger

This paper presents a probable identification of not one but two portrait miniatures of Gregory Cromwell, only son of Englands only vice-gerent in spirituals, by Hans Holbein the Younger. The historical evidence has hitherto remained unconnected because of misunderstandings about Gregorys age, which are clarified here, and also thanks to the unexpected modern locations of the two relevant miniatures.

Parliament and the Reformation of Edward VI

This article explores the ways in which parliament was used to shape the accelerating protestant reformation undertaken by successive governments under Edward VI. It underlines the significance for constitutional history of Thomas Cromwells extraordinary promotion of Englands parliament to enact the break with Rome and evangelical religious change, and the corresponding use of parliament after Cromwells fall by conservatives to combat evangelical gains, which at first constituted an obstacle to Protector Somersets plans. There was a steady deliberate erosion of conservative episcopal votes in the Lords through political manœuvres from 1547; nevertheless, up to late 1549, the weight of conservative opposition in the Lords (without much obvious corresponding traditionalist support in the Commons) dictated crabwise progress in legislation. The convocations of Canterbury and York played a more marginal role in religious change. Somersets unsuccessful attempt at populist innovation in parliament was, arguably, an important element fuelling the coup against him in autumn 1549. Thereafter, events moved much more rapidly, aided by further compulsory retirements of bishops. Attention is drawn to the frustration felt by some enthusiastic evangelicals at the pace of change dictated by parliament, leading the prominent refugee, Jan Łaski, sarcastically to characterise the Edwardian Reformation in retrospect as ‘parliamentary theology’. From late 1552, divisions between clergy and nobility in the evangelical leadership over plundering of church wealth led to confusion, ill will and the disruption of further progress, even before it was obvious that King Edward was rapidly dying.