The King’s Reformation
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Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church
G.W. Bernard
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A major reassessment of England’s break with Rome
Henry VIII’s reformation remains among the most crucial yet misunderstood events in English history. In this substantial new account G. W. Bernard presents the king as neither confused nor a pawn in the hands of manipulative factions. Henry, a monarch who ruled as well as reigned, is revealed instead as the determining mover of religious policy throughout this momentous period. In Henry’s campaign to secure a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, which led him to break with Rome, his strategy, as Bernard shows, was more consistent and more radical than historians have allowed. Henry refused to introduce Lutheranism, but rather harnessed the rhetoric of the continental reformation in support of his royal supremacy. Convinced that the church needed urgent reform, in particular the purging of superstition and idolatry, Henry’s dissolution of the monasteries and the dismantling of the shrines were much more than a venal attempt to raise money. The king sought a middle way between Rome and Zurich, between Catholicism and its associated superstitions on one hand and the subversive radicalism of the reformers on the other. With a ruthlessness that verged on tyranny, Henry VIII determined the pace of change in the most important twenty years of England’s religious development.
G.W. Bernard is professor of early modern history at the University of Southampton. His books include Power and Politics in Tudor England.
“Big, erudite, trenchant and readable, this is a masterpiece drawing on decades of research and reflection, and a work of international scholarly importance.”—Ralph Houlbrooke, University of Reading
"[A] bold and strikingly original book."---Andrew Pettegree, History Today
"... the book is a superb achievement. It advances an extraordinarily skilled understanding of the intricate relationship of religious belief, religious life, political necessity and political opposition. It will infuriate a great many people, but inspire a great many more."---Lucy Wooding, Literary Review
"Professor Bernard writes in elegant trenchant English. He orders a mass of material with lucidity... This massive history, the fruit of a lifetime of research and reflection, is a work of exceptional interest and importance."---The Spectator
"Professor Bernard's readable and interesting book, a monument to technical scholarship and sheer erudition is in many ways a first-class production, full of new wisdom and original slants on old chestnuts."---The Sunday Herald
"This is a brave book, tilting at many windmills, challenging many received ideas. It will certainly stimulate discussion... Everyone interested in the Tudor Reformation will therefore want to read this book."---Eamon Duffy, The Tablet
"The King's Reformation is unquestionably a work of substance...Bernard is to be congratulated on his achievement, and it is to be hoped that The King's Reformation will be a stimulus to further work on this most engrossing of subjects." - Colin Armstrong, BBC History Magazine
Publication Date: August 21, 2007
12 b/w illus.
