The State and Development of Protestantism in English Towns, 1520–1603

Abstract

PERHAPS the most immediately obvious difference between the dissemination of Protestantism in England and the Netherlands in the sixteenth century lies in the official nature of the English Reformation compared with the much more spontaneous growth of Protestantism in the Netherlands. In the reign of Henry VIII England’s separation from Rome took place through the action of the Crown-in-Par- liament. Under Edward VI by act of parliament it formally became a Protestant nation, and yet again, after the Catholic restoration of Mary, Protestantism was re-established by act of parliament in 1559. Yet the contrast between the development of Protestantism in England and parts of the Low Countries may not have been as absolute as this juxtaposition might suggest. With the publication of an increasing number of local studies on the assimilation of Protestantism in England together with some very recent synthesizing articles it is more and more becoming clear that in England also the emergence of an active commitment to Protestantism frequently depended upon what can best described as unofficial, local initiatives and not upon direct state sponsorship. Particularly in the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I when the monarch’s theological inclinations often moved in an opposite direction from those of their most fervent Protestant subjects the propagation of Protestantism had to be something of a semi-clandestine operation. A consideration of the ways in which Protestantism of a more advanced kind than that sanctioned by the crown came to be accepted in certain English towns may serve to highlight the resemblances as well as the divergences in the spread of Protestantism in England and the Netherlands.1