Abstract
AbstractThat Henry VIII's religious policy after the break with Rome was ‘catholicism without the pope’ is a common characterization. Yet while it is fair to insist that he consistently rejected the teachings of Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli and never considered introducing a protestant reformation, Henry's attitudes to purgatory, to pilgrimage, to the intercession of saints, and to the monasteries were nonetheless a significant departure from straightforwardly orthodox catholicism. Desiderius Erasmus's ideas were the greatest influence on Henry whose reservations about aspects of ‘traditional religion’ were sharpened by his difficulties in securing his divorce and by the rebellions in 1536. The Church he then remade amounted not to ‘catholicism without the pope’ but was an idiosyncratic hybrid. If there were few committed Henricians, nonetheless the legacy of Henry's reformation would be felt in Elizabeth's reign and beyond.
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