By the summer of 1546, Kritchen, then alone in his house with no children to care for, pursued his path of examining religious affairs further and gathered inspiration through prayer. In the cold and bitter darkness he prayed for hours to understand his true purpose on this new journey. After coming to a resolution, he decided that the only way to spread God’s true word was to be bold, direct and without fear. He saw how the righteous, such as Sir Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, Robert Aske, Queen Katherine, and the Lady Mary, had been condemned for their compassion and silent allegiance to the Roman church. He resolved not to make the same mistakes. He sat to write down his thoughts and began openly preaching to his town. Deciding that his hometown was too sparsely populated to build a base for action, he moved with all of his meager possessions to the outskirts of London, where he was certain to find a far larger audience for his message.
Kritchen would choose a safe spot in the morning, before the sun became unbearable, and began preaching about the corruption at court. He focused his “lay ministry” on London due to its sheer size and thus ability to spread his message to large masses. Kritchen witnessed up front the lack of morality, sanitation, and what he viewed as the devil’s influences all around the great city. His passion for the papacy gradually led from speeches in the town square to the city. One night in 1546 a person suspected to be Kritchen gathered a pile of the new English Bibles and lit them ablaze. Because the fire was set near the outskirts of London, and no one claimed responsibility for the Act, Kritchen was never tried for the crime.
Early in the morning of November 6th, 1546, pamphlets by Kritchen, condemning the reforms and his King and Queen, were delivered to nearly every household in London; the printing was funded by an anonymous benefactor who some believe to have been Cardinal Pole. The news spread back to their majesties before supper. Anne presented a copy of the pamphlet to the King as to provoke him and called for the Archbishop to dine with them to share his thoughts on the matter. Cranmer was particularly insistent that those responsible were heretics and even traitors who sought nothing less than his majesty’s disgrace, the replacement of Prince Henry, and a return to the Catholic faith. The King ordered that Kritchen be found and brought in for questioning. This would prove easier said than done.
By winter of 1547, Kritchen had been roaming London for some time, teaching that the religious and educational reforms were nothing more than a call to turn good Christian people into heretics. He urged the good people of England to purify themselves and not fall for the state’s ploy, which would lead to the damnation of their souls. Initially his followers were few, and over the weeks to come, as the new religious courses had started, instructors noted a significant drop off in their numbers of students.
Henry was outraged to learn that this Kritchen’s sedition had been finding a willing ear in so many of his subjects. He raged to Anne at the Acts of this commoner and said he would have the traitor pulled limb from limb for daring to confront the throne and spread his sedition to the masses. Anne comforted the King, assuring him that he was right in his indignation against the papist Kritchen. Anne then took a step Henry had not anticipated. Upon cooling the King’s temper, Anne suggested that a far greater victory might be in Henry’s grasp. This won the King’s attention.
Anne, again showing both her skill at politics and her influence over the King, suggested that perhaps the King could turn the heretic’s Acts to Henry’s own advantage. She suggested that Henry could help put down not only Kritchen, but any potential followers, by confronting the commoner directly, and in so doing, also show that the reforms the crown had instituted were not being decreed and enforced solely through the power of the state to intimidate and suppress, but because they were right and true. His interest peaked, Henry asked his wife to go on.
She suggested that God might be presenting him an opportunity to appear both a man of reason and the best man in the Kingdom to head their faith. She asked whether the King, so learned in the faith—remember, he had initially been trained for the cloth and had once been called “Defender of the Faith” by a Pope—might benefit from publicly debating the seditious heretic, and showing the truth of his position before all the world. As Anne reasoned, even an impressive showing by Kritchen could be portrayed as the commoner’s merely spouting forth words put forth by a foreign agent, such as the Vatican or Spain, while a victory would forever cement Henry’s rightful status as head of the church. Henry was intrigued, and inwardly pleased to think that he was, indeed, more than up to defeating a challenge from a papist mouthpiece.
Henry sent agents to Kritchen’s home and, when the critic expected arrest and martyrdom for the Roman Church, stunned the commoner by instead presenting an invitation to court. Henry had decided, upon Anne’s advice, to address the matter directly by challenging Kritchen to an open debate at Westminster. She felt it would make Henry appear more civilized and show his people that all the executions had been at the hand of evil ministers before him, a play he fell for immediately. George prepared his speech for the debate; it would later be heralded as one of the best in his reign. Henry had come to see this as an opportunity to once more show that he was one with his people and to dispute papist claims head on. By disputing such statements outright and in person, he had become assured that his words would have even greater weight, and he could further consolidate his rule, this time without having to resort to force that might inspire further dissent in the future. The great question might at last be settled forever.
The debate was set for December of 1547, just before Christmastide. Kritchen spoke first, submitting his arguments alleging abuses by the crown in attempting to suppress those who remained loyal to the Roman church. He argued that the crown’s claims of seeking to free the people from idolatry were Actually an attempt to deny the very foundations of Christianity. He presented a very persuasive argument that the King had well enough authority to break with the political and business ties to any foreign power, including the Vatican, but said that it was beyond an earthly monarch’s authority to dictate the manner in which a subject showed spiritual allegiance to Christ. Attempting to minimize the charge that he was merely a zealot or foreign agent, Kritchen then applauded the crown for making such bold strides against corruption and abuses in the church. He also thanked Henry for weeding out those in the clergy who abused their offices. His praise, however, ended there. Kritchen went on to inflame the audience with the polarizing rhetoric he had promoted in his pamphlets.
The King’s response, carefully planned with Cranmer and Anne, was intelligent, poignant, and precise; his words struck Kritchen’s arguments like daggers. The King emphasized the virtue of promoting public education—particularly by allowing them to learn the Holy Bible in their native English—as being the truest means of bringing about reform. He stressed the importance of male education specifically, but said also that women should be able to know and understand the gospels, so they would be assured of their salvation even if they found themselves spinsters or widows. The King asserted that his educational reforms were meant to empower his people and set a standard for all of Europe that would forever lift them from the days of darkness that followed the collapse of Rome.
The King saw himself as God’s messenger to bring about the Lord’s truth. He railed against his European brethren for not invoking their divine duty to better their people and damned their realms for their insolence at the clear will of God that Christ’s message be spread. While powerfully moving, revisionist historians have questioned whether Anne’s guiding influence was present in the crafting of the speech. The attendees that day received free English Bibles and wine, along with being given the rare privilege to ask questions of and receive blessings from the King. The debate was exceptional public relations, and won mass approval for the King. Kritchen, humiliated and at a loss, would return to his home, by leave of the King. He would have a single return to the public eye yet before him.
10.2 Ed
ucating the Commons
Tudor England had one main industry, agriculture from farming or from fishing in coastal waters. The majority of the working class wound up serving in some agricultural capacity, with the rest in subsidiary industries such as creating textiles from farmed wool and cotton, working as servants to landowning nobles, mining and blacksmithing, or service in government. There were few comforts and no standards for setting a worker’s hours. Some commoners worked from dusk to dawn in back-breaking labor. Medicine was still very much in its infancy and Henry and Anne’s efforts to spark a medical Renaissance would only pay England large dividends much later. Coupled with disease, unsafe food and water, and the difficulty of the working conditions, the average life expectancy for those who survived childhood to become adults was only the mid-fifties.
Education was a privilege for those wealthy enough to afford it. Access to learning was believed to be divinely determined by order by birth and noble status, and not meant for the general population. Were one unfortunate enough to be born into poverty, it was unlikely that such a person would even achieve enough literacy to read and write one’s own name. With literacy rates so low, an entire profession began for clerks who made their living off of being paid to read and write letters to and from the government and family members, along with legal documents. Most times the only way to rise from the lower social classes to achieve higher standing came through having won the generosity of a benefactor who saw potential in a person’s mind or abilities and provided for their further education.
The feudal system was an accepted part of life, but as Henry VIII ruled with Anne’s advice, the times became increasingly ripe for change. Many subjects recalled the recent and bloody War of the Roses and saw the death and destruction that accompanied that contest for power. Those memories reinforced the people’s obedience to an ideology that kept rebelliousness in check. These fears were exploited heavily by the sitting regime to maintain its position in the system. The Pope also exploited these fears to preserve the Church’s authority by promising an eternity of bliss in exchange for supplication to the clergy, and by threatening the loss of such paradise by means of expulsion from the Church.
Anne felt that education could be used to give the people the analytical tools needed for them to recognize corruption and injustice, and see the correctness of her religious reforms. Maintaining a general level of ignorance had been the preferred means for the ruling class to keep the commons in line, with the people kept aware only of technical matters that were necessary for them to fulfill their assigned roles in the social order. As to religious education, the people had long been encouraged to remain pious and dutiful subjects based on religious obligation. However, Anne proposed that this type of oppression could only last but so long, and that a monarch who called for broad public education would win the loyalty of the people for all his reign.
The first detailed plans for educational houses were drawn up by Hugh Latimer, a reformer and devoted scholar and theologian who was well trusted by the Queen. The plans called for groups of male children aged 6 to 11 to be paired together in groups of 12 to learn to read the Bible in English, and be taught the rightness of the King’s religious reforms, with similar lesson plans to be set for groups of children aged from 12 to 17, and for subjects aged over 18. Latimer advised the Queen that this strategy of separation by age group had produced excellent results in trials, such as with the Children of St. Mary’s. The teenage curriculum would also contain English history, reformation principles, and training in a skill such as farming, blacksmithing, or one of the clerical trades.
His original plan called for only males to be allowed into the classes. Young girls would learn how to read and write limited English, barely more than enough to sign their names and understand marital contract clauses. They would also be required to study the English Bible. In wealthy homes girls would be taught by a Governess and would only be sent to formal instruction at the age of 12. In poor communities, lessons would be taught at their local monastery at the most appropriate time for the town and the children. The majority of commoner children would have to walk several miles to town just to attend. Teenage girls were originally intended only to learn basic English and home management skills, such as child rearing and sewing, but the Queen insisted that children of promise be offered the opportunity to further their education, at the crown’s expense, in either a monastery or the Queen’s nursing college.
Anne further insisted that girls’ classes also include learning to read and write to the same standards in English and Latin as the males. She successfully argued that a woman could not be prepared for this world if lacking in understanding of the very languages used in life and so much religious discussion. Cranmer reluctantly took Anne’s side and Latimer agreed to attempt to work the Queen’s wishes into the overall plan.
In an increasingly rare reversal by the King, Queen Anne’s amendments to the plan would fail. Girls would be taught to lesser standards, “based on their diminished need for such learning,” but the Queen understood to personally finance further education for girls in London and required monthly briefings on their progress. She also insisted upon the right to visit the children and attend their lessons.
The crown also agreed to finance the supplies needed for the lessons for a single year, subject to reassessment based on the results of the initiative. The royal exchequer had no concrete way of measuring the cost, and benefit, of a social program of this size. Their only experience to date had been in managing the cost of various court expenses and the cost of the armed services, which included salaries and equipment, and salaries for various government agents. The training of instructors for the education program was to be done by Latimer, Tyndale, and other professional educators they recommended, to ensure that the courses were adequately taught. For these courses to win support they would begin at court, as trial sessions, and gradually spread to cover the whole of the realm. Latimer proposed to begin himself tutoring the first group of 12 boys, in the presence of the royal court.
Adult classes would be taught in church, with a mandatory attendance for one hour per week following Sunday mass. Enforcing this mandate would prove difficult. Many subjects of the crown would obey partially out of fear of reprisal; many more would feign excuses or simply leave after the Priest’s sermon. Churches of that time only kept records for tax purposes and evaluating land. Adding education to Sunday mass would be the easiest way to spread the program to a mass group of people without causing disruption to labor productivity. Holding the programs apart from church services would risk losing valuable work in the fields and other industries.
For adult males, they would be provided with a more in-depth understanding of the abuses of the Catholic Church, the foundations of the Reformation and instruction as to how the reforms would affect their daily lives. They would also be taught to read and write limited English. Latimer designed the curriculum under the theory that by the time a person reached adulthood the majority of their skill level had already been set, and adults were not as capable of learning new ideas as were children. It was also thought at the time that women were intellectually inferior to men and thus that curricula designed for females should be less demanding; even with Anne’s influence and example, Henry would decree that learning would remain a privilege reserved for men.
The first series of trial classes were set to begin in London in February 1547. Sufficient time had to be allowed to coordinate logistics, including selecting and training tutors, and procuring supplies for each province in the country. These trial classes would test how receptive the people were to the content and allow for improvement before a final version of the courses could be designed and taught. Royal proclamations were ordered and posted all about the city of London, advising everyone of the purpose of the new requirement and urging all who were interested to tell the Mayor’s office of their interest, so as to provide the crown some indication of how many inst
ructors and supplies would be necessary. An overwhelming number of respondents flooded the Mayor’s office, so many that armed guards had to be paid to wait by the door at all hours and additional clerks needed to be hired by Cranmer.
Despite the obvious interest of the people, it remained difficult to gauge King Henry’s commitment to the program. In certain areas, especially on male lessons, he was encouraged and even eager for greater involvement in designing the curriculum. He even volunteered to write an accounting of his own reign for teaching to the people, to inform them of (a pro-Henry) description of current English history. When it came to educating women, the King was less than pleased. He argued that, while women should know homemaking and childrearing skills, they had little need for reading and writing of English, much less Latin. He argued that they were vulnerable, in need of protection from unsavory ideas, and ordered that literacy education be stricken from the girls’ program, with the exception that females be taught enough to sign their name.
Anne was not present at the meeting establishing this change in the program, and accounts from her ladies-in-waiting indicate that the couple had a rather intense fight when word got back to her. Indeed, the wood paneling in the King’s Privy Chamber would be chipped from the Queen having thrown her dinner plate at the wall. Henry reportedly grabbed the furious Queen and shook her so hard that she lost an earring. He bellowed that he had let her get away with far too much already and that she was the proof of the wisdom of keeping women uneducated and un-opinionated, before storming from the room. The couple did not speak for three days. By the fourth day, Henry was seen going into the Queen’s chambers and, after a good deal of shouting, followed by hours that could not be heard by staff outside the room, all was well again. The King’s order remained that reading and writing lessons be reincorporated into the female lesson plan, with an emphasis on learning enough to understand the Bible and 10 Articles. Tyndale, Cranmer and Latimer set about their preparations.
Had the Queen Lived: Page 34