While religion was the central tenet of daily life in Tudor England, commoners could barely afford either the required tithing or, when rural, to travel long distances to attend services. One of the main changes in the second book was to this mandate that all persons attend mass weekly. The more obvious change was the use of the English language, so that the masses (at least those who were literate in their native tongue) could study the Bible themselves, without need to know Latin or Greek. It was under Anne that the first Bible was printed in English, with the Book of Common Prayer following that example.
Further, the very design of churches was changed, so that the hardworking commons could focus on their worship and even come to look forward to a time of peace and reflection. The modern church design, with rows of pews and pillows for kneeling in prayer, was also a concept that arose during this time. The pillows came later of course, but the pews themselves were introduced and allowed for a semi-comfortable place for families to be as one group when hearing the gospel. These slight renovations seem standard today, but in that time, the ideas were revolutionary. Henry had to be brought on board with these changes and was hesitant to implement them at first, but a few weeks of Anne’s careful nudging ensured that the improvements were executed.
When the news of the new prayer book was delivered to the clergy, a near revolt erupted, led primarily by Bishop Gardiner. Cranmer attempted to argue that the reforms were Actually quite small and to rationalize them, but the Bishop was not having it. Dissention erupted among the clergy and only when her majesty was brought into the discussions would the angry clerics tone down their disagreements (if only on the surface). Once it became clear that the clergy were largely on the verge of an outright revolt, Anne saw it necessary to put down the imminent rebellion. The Queen publicly reprimanded Gardiner and threatened him with the loss of his position if he did not mind himself.
A few short days later, presumably because of her threat, Gardiner lost his lucrative post as Bishop of Winchester. He was also stripped of his assets and his rich robes were directed by Anne to be sold to help finance her education plan, with Henry’s agreement. He retired the day he lost his bishopric on November 1st and died within the year. The cause of his death was never known and his estates were quietly returned to Henry.
Cranmer appointed as Bishop Gardiner’s successor a cleric named John White. White would turn out to be just as much of a papist as Gardiner had been, but not as vocally Active and far more willing to collaborate with the crown. He could also be bought. Cranmer felt his education, his meekness, and his reputation for virtue would serve the clergy well. Previously vulnerable, the reformers at court had at last landed the final blow to the entire conservative faction. The crown had done such an expedient job of removing political opponents, while simultaneously spreading their reforms, that the influence of papist sympathizers was all but eliminated—at least in public. Those who did remain devout to the old ways were harassed, humiliated at court, and their business interests all but eliminated. Henry had become, at Anne’s coaxing and with her counsel, the most singly powerful monarch in English history.
Chapter 10
Unifying a Kingdom
The early 1540’s as England was occupied with executions of traitors, dramatic shifts in domestic policy and further religious reforms; these would also contribute to the King becoming estranged from his dearest friend. The last of the monastic houses, Dunstable Priory, had been dissolved, and all its possessions had become property of the royal treasury. In the House of Lords Abbots had lost their seats, with Bishops and Archbishops retained only as advisors on religious policy. These Bishops represented the only voice of the clergy in government affairs in the chamber. For the first time in Henry’s reign, secular authority dominated Parliament, and with that came swift changes. In 1540 the King had officially sanctioned the destruction of shrines built to honor Saints. This action was meant to reinforce that England was wholly its own realm, beyond the grip of Roman rites and beholden to God alone, and to show the people that these shrines were a continued reminder of the papacy that would no longer be tolerated. This religious policy change was not without controversy.
In spring of 1545, the King’s closest friend, Charles Brandon, retired to his estates with his fourth wife Catherine Willoughby. His sons were Prince Henry’s playmates and he would often reminisce about his own days as a child with the King. He often wrote Henry, telling him of his deep affections for his old friend, his memories of the many hunts they had shared, and came to inform him about his ill health, and his will. Of all the courtiers who tried to take his place, none ever managed the feat. Charles truly was Henry’s closest and lifelong friend. He could anticipate the King’s mood better than almost anyone else, including his wife.
Brandon’ health had also become an issue; he was no longer the young robust man he had once been. His injury from 1536, along with his involvement in the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion, ruined him both physically and emotionally. Due to the exceptional care he had received, he had fully recovered in body from the shoulder wound he had suffered that morning of the joust, so many years before, but had ever afterwards suffered from debilitating migraines and severe mood swings. As he aged, he also suffered from arthritis and possibly had contracted dysentery. It remains unclear what combination of old wounds or new illnesses led to the event, but Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the King’s closest friend and brother-in-law, passed away August of 1545 at his estates in Guilford. He willed his personal library and all of its effects to the King.
Towards the end of his life, Brandon’s friendship with Henry had waned, mainly as the King grew to rely ever more upon Anne for counsel, but also, Henry’s continued religious reforms went beyond what Brandon could embrace. He was a true Catholic at heart. He knew well where the boundaries of his faith lay, and Henry pushed those to the extreme. When he sought leave to retreat to his estate and leave court, Henry gladly dismissed him. That would be the last time the two saw one another again. The King mourned the loss of his once-dear-friend greatly; he paid all of Brandon’s debts and paid for his burial in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor. Brandon, the one man who had always been true to him, was now gone. No one would remain who could restrain the King from pursuing even wider reform.
Court was changing in other ways as well, with foreign affairs being altered by Anne’s survival on the throne. After years of waiting, Chapuys was finally recalled back to Spain in January of 1546. He was replaced by Cristobal de Castillo, from Madrid. With the new Ambassador and a final Spanish acceptance of Anne’s status as Queen, Charles once more reconsidered the possibility of an English alliance, particularly given his ongoing competition with the French over their contested territories in Italy. Charles also factored in his realization that English naval power had made the prospect of invading Britain unappetizing, at best. By aligning with England, the Emperor could have a serious advantage over Ottoman trade routes, and all but eliminate the Caliphate’s ability to transport troops and supplies through the western Mediterranean. Nevertheless, despite the logic in approaching the English king with the prospect of a treaty, the injustices Charles suffered at Henry’s hand could not be easily dismissed.
Early in his tenure Ambassador Chapuys had advised hostility to England, and maneuvered to weaken the English court from within, but over years of being bested by Anne and her fellow reformists, he had come to reconsider his initial and instinctive opposition to friendship with England. Chapuys, as he aged, had longed to go home, and had become more familiar with the English people than he had first desired. His very close friendship with the Lady Mary and Queen Katherine perhaps clouded his initial objectivity. With the coming of a new, ambitious, and young Spanish Ambassador, and the prospect of returning home and no longer remaining in London, where Chapuys needed to balance his advice to Spain with the necessity of preserving his access to the English court, his old prejudices had fallen away.
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sp; Charles, too, was aging, and with the concurrent failing health of his adversary King Francis, Charles came to acknowledge his own mortality and seek more peaceful days. The 1539 Peace of Toledo had nearly collapsed on more than one occasion, and only survived through both signatories ignoring flashes of conflict on their borders. Tensions remained high through the 1540s. Even in old age and failing health, these leaders could not let go of their animosity for one another.
Meanwhile, the English had sought to bolster their sometimes strained friendship with France. King Francis had been unwell, suffering from syphilis he had caught when still a youth. It had been clear to the French court that Francis was preparing his son to take over the French throne. By 1546, Francis could barely get out of bed. The disease that had so ravaged his body did the same to his mind, so much so that he often forgot who or where he was. He finally passed away on his son Henry’s birthday, March 28th, 1547. It is said that upon hearing the news of Francis’ death Queen Anne wept for hours, remembering fondly when she served as girl at the French court. Despite his continued Catholicism, she considered Francis her strongest European ally. Henry sent the new French King, Henry II, a plate of gold and jewels, with a letter of condolence and an invitation to visit as soon as he was able. While the gesture was diplomatic, England and France had tense relations during Francis’ reign. He and Henry were similar in age and were both gifted in multiple areas. Henry viewed him as a rival but called him, affectionately, his cousin.
Francis was the first of the powerful European trio of leaders to pass, leaving only Henry VIII and Charles V, and both of these were increasingly ill, themselves. Henry had been going bald, was overweight, developed gout, and suffered from frequent bouts of indigestion, especially after heavy meals of meat. Anne and his doctors did what little they could to persuade him to alter his diet, but he remained stubborn. He also began having nightmares about God punishing him for his sins, and met regularly with Archbishop Cranmer for religious counsel. Perhaps prophetically, it was to be in a religious debate that Henry would secure his image with the public, and end widespread dissention with his policies.
10.1 The Kritchen Debate
In 1546 there was one remaining publicly “willful papist” that the regime had yet to eliminate. Pamphlets were being printed by a commoner named Reginald Kritchen—doubtless with backing from secret wealthy interests—criticizing the reformers for “intransigence against God’s rightful place” and calling for willful refusal to acknowledge the King as head of the church. He called the Queen a whore, accused her of sleeping with Archbishop Cranmer to solicit his “services” in the church, and labeled Henry a demon whose sole motive was to control the people’s minds with his dangerous and false prophetic language. These pamphlets said that the reformers had committed such grave actions that they should be labeled both heretics and traitors, and called for their execution. Further, he encouraged loyal Catholics to stay true to the Vatican. This commoner was taking unusual license in his statements, indeed, and would prove to be an important factor in the history of Henry VIII’s reign.
Kritchen was born in Shrewsburyshire in about 1487, the fourth of seven children of John and Margaret Kritchen, who had married around the late 1470’s. His father was a butcher, his mother a house servant. Little is known about his six siblings; Reginald would be the brightest and most renowned of the family. His family had been in the area since the 12th century, and a small parcel of land had been in his family’s ownership for at least six generations. Initially, this land had been used for sheep farming, but over the years it had grown to encompass over 57 acres, including one of the largest farms in the area. During the enclosure crisis, these lands were reduced to a mere 13 acres, dramatically affecting the family revenue.
Reginald’s most important influence was his father. As a child he had embraced hunting alongside his father, who would then carve and sell the meats they had killed together. His mother was a strict disciplinarian and ran the household with an iron fist. Each child was responsible for their part of the running the house. Meals were regimented and religious holidays always observed. They encouraged religious teaching in the home, although Reginald was initially bored with church. As he grew older he began to cling to their Catholic faith because of its promise of redemption and paradise, in contrast to the family’s meager accommodations on Earth. In adolescence it was rumored that he stopped courting a local village girl because she refused to admit she enjoyed church. As with most of the commons, religion was the only thing they had to turn to for hope and for explanations for life’s many unfortunate ills, from sickness to class structure. The church offered the oppressed peoples of all of Europe one simple explanation and promise for all ills: “It was God’s will, and if you have faith you will find eternal reward in the Afterlife.” Reginald took his Priests at their word.
In his early twenties, he began to re-evaluate Priestly teachings and would often speak out during sermons he found inconsistent. His objections to authority chiefly rested on his growing realization that the church was run like any other business, with just as much scandal and corruption as court life. Nevertheless, as a commoner with no experience in politics or international affairs, Kritchen remained a devout Catholic and saw abuses in the Church as merely being examples of local clergy exploiting their positions as intermediaries between the common people and the—no doubt—far more holy and righteous Pope.
To Kritchen, the resolution of abuses lay in reforming the clergy’s lifestyle and bringing them nearer the true Church. In essence, he felt that the papacy neither encouraged nor approved of the abuses of a parish Priest. In the eyes of Christ, such actions would be deemed a cardinal sin. How could the very instruments of God be disobeying their vows of poverty and chastity? Prior to its being shut down, Kritchen saw his local monastery’s Abbot living like a noble. Even the monks and nuns wore beautiful cloth, had rings of gold, and several had even taken missionary trips to the Vatican in the early 1510s, all at the expense of the townspeople. That very money Kritchen believed should have been going for the better treatment of the poor.
One evening in 1521 he snuck into a monastery and stole the house’s accounting records. Going through it line by line he discovered that, not only were they misusing their funds, they were paying for illegal and sinful products such as various exotic wines, written off as routine expenses, for use as sacramental wine, despite such wine never being used at Mass. The truth was that this wine had come from some of the most expensive vineyards in France, vineyards from which the King of France drank. His church was spending upwards of 3,000 pounds a year on importing this wine, and a mere 130 pounds a year on Actual sacramental wine. He also uncovered recurring payments to a local tailor maid with no note as to their cause.
He held onto the books and sought out the maid under the guise of soliciting her services. He flirted with her a bit during the visit and, while she did not directly give away that she was sleeping with the local Priest, she confirmed with a very affectionate tone that she was very fond of the Priest and enjoyed providing her services to him. This was merely circumstantial evidence at best, but enough to satisfy Reginald’s suspicions. The following week he confronted the Priest, who denied everything. Sometime soon after, Reginald was suspected of setting the church on fire, nearly destroying it. With his minimal understanding of the greater institution of the Catholic Church, he would come to think that the problem of corruption resulted not from the common church being too near to Rome, but too far from it.
In 1528, Kritchen applied to serve as a clerk to the clergy at Westminster. He was rejected with no reason given. Most likely he was rejected because he lacked formal experience and had no recommendations. Regardless, he held onto that rejection as a personal affront. He was forced to continue working on his father’s farm. As the reformation got underway, he came to resent Henry’s leadership and his involvement in religious affairs as an example of further corrupting the church
by injecting into it the well-known abuses of secular leaders.
When Anne became Queen, Kritchen was livid. He had been a loyal and loving supporter of Catholic Queen Katherine, viewing her as a true model of a Catholic royal. He viewed Anne as the devil’s handmaid and spread around town malicious rumors that she had used witchcraft to make the King love her (how else could the “Defender of the Faith” be so persuaded to the abominable Act of divorce?). While it took seven years for Anne to finally become Queen, to the people it did not feel merely long enough. Most of them hated her from day one, for the very same reasons that Kritchen despised her.
In the 1530s, when the Valor Ecclesiaste report came out and cited the continued abuses of the Shrewsburyshire monastery and recommended its closure, Kritchen could not have been more pleased. Personally, he had enjoyed some graces, finally marrying and having two daughters, but his wife died during the second birth, leaving him even angrier and convinced that God had punished him for not doing enough to support the true faith. This decade had indeed been a very trying time for him, including the death of his father and an elder brother, leaving him with the responsibility of managing the family farm and butchery. He was now a single father of two, running a stressful business he had no interest in working. Despite the difficult times, he took his family into town every weekend to hear the latest religious news and read to his girls nightly a new passage from the Bible. He saw his new destiny as in raising his children in the true faith and voluntarily took a vow of chastity following his wife’s death, in a desperate attempt to prove himself worthy of God’s acceptance. He often flagellated himself in private.
As the 1540’s came Reginald found himself more and more despondent with the state of religious affairs in his country. In 1545, his eldest daughter Ellen married a neighbor’s son, Jeremiah Wallace. Jeremiah had arranged for a modest cottage for the two, with an acre of land to work half a mile away from their parents. Reginald now had his youngest, Alice, 15 years old, to care for. Alice was a precocious young woman who made her father very proud. He was negotiating a pre-contract for marriage between Alice and another neighbor’s son, and was haggling over the price of her dowry. As he saw his role as a parent fading fast, he decided to get more involved in the religious affairs that he so passionately believed in.
Had the Queen Lived: Page 33