Opposition to Religious Change (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes
Opposition to religious change
Overview of opposition
During the late 1520s and early 1530s, numerous individuals across England harboured suspicions about the religious transformations occurring under Henry VIII. However, historical evidence reveals more about the views of educated elites than those of ordinary villagers or townspeople. This imbalance stems from the nature of historical sources, which tend to preserve the actions and beliefs of prominent figures rather than common people.
Religious conservatives encountered a substantial obstacle: uncertainty about the trajectory of events. Before the 1534 Act of Supremacy formalised the break with Rome, no single decisive moment existed against which to mount organised resistance. Even after 1534, many people (including the Pope himself) believed the separation was temporary—that Henry would eventually resolve his marital difficulties and reconcile with Rome.
As historian Christopher Haigh observed, conservatives failed to prevent the changes because "they did not know that they were in 'the Reformation'". This uncertainty about the permanence of religious changes proved to be a critical factor in the weakness of early opposition.
This uncertainty meant that opposition before 1534 remained feeble and disorganised. By the time opponents recognised the permanent nature of the break and attempted more vigorous resistance, the opportunity to challenge Henry's plans effectively had passed.
Resistance at court
Traditional nobles and courtiers
Several individuals at Henry's court held firmly traditional religious beliefs. Sir Thomas More and established noble families such as the Howards exercised considerable influence within royal circles. These figures attempted to use their positions to resist the infiltration of Protestant ideas and challenge the King's religious policies.
Sir Thomas More
Sir Thomas More served as one of the most prominent opponents of both the royal divorce and the religious changes of 1534. He had replaced Cardinal Wolsey as Lord Chancellor in 1529, but fell from royal favour when he demonstrated reluctance to support Henry's proposed marriage to Anne Boleyn.
When Parliament passed the Succession Act in 1534, it declared Anne Boleyn's children the legitimate heirs to the throne. This legislation simultaneously rendered Catherine's daughter Mary illegitimate, based on the premise that Henry's marriage to Catherine had been invalid. More refused to swear the required oath accepting these provisions. His refusal led to his imprisonment in the Tower of London.
More declined to explain his reasoning for rejecting the oath, though it appears he believed acceptance would contradict papal authority. Although More carefully avoided directly incriminating himself, a trial orchestrated by Thomas Cromwell sealed his fate.
According to evidence presented by Sir Richard Rich (one of Cromwell's supporters destined to lead the Court of Augmentations in 1540), More allegedly stated whilst imprisoned that he did not accept Henry as head of the Church. This constituted slender proof of treason, yet proved sufficient for the court to order his execution in 1535.
More employed passive resistance to signal his opposition to the transformations occurring around him, but his fame as a politician and respect as a humanist scholar were too great to permit his survival through persecution.
The Aragonese faction
Before 1534, opponents of the attack on the Church generally expressed their concerns through sympathy for Catherine of Aragon regarding the royal divorce. Within the nobility and at court, Catherine commanded a personal following known as the Aragonese faction. This comprised a small group of nobles and courtiers, led by Henry Courtenay (Marquis of Exeter) and the northern Lords Darcy and Hussey, who supported Catherine throughout the divorce proceedings.
Courtenay held membership in the King's Privy Chamber, whilst another supporter, Sir Henry Guildford, served as Comptroller of the King's Household. From 1532 onwards, the increasingly prominent presence of Anne Boleyn and her supporters at court, combined with Thomas Cromwell's growing influence within the King's Council, largely silenced the Aragonese faction.
Nevertheless, the Aragonese faction remained hopeful after the divorce that Catherine's daughter Mary would receive recognition as Henry's heir. Mary's exclusion from the succession in 1536 would ultimately drive some members to support rebellion.
Mary's exclusion from the succession in 1536 prompted Darcy and Hussey to support the northern rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Courtenay did not become involved in the rebellion itself, but he did establish connections with the activities of Reginald Pole, his distant cousin who descended from the Yorkist kings overthrown by the Tudors. This association proved sufficient grounds for Henry to arrest Courtenay and order his execution in 1539.
Resistance within the clergy
John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester
One bishop particularly distinguished himself through opposition to Henry's policies. John Fisher had served as Bishop of Rochester since 1504, never displaying interest in worldly advancement or wealth. He devoted himself to study and prayer, genuinely believing that Henry's actions against Catherine were morally wrong. Fisher expressed this view directly to the King's face.
Henry initially adopted a relatively lenient approach towards Fisher's refusal to swear the oath accepting the divorce. However, Fisher found himself imprisoned in the Tower. When the Pope declared Fisher's elevation to Cardinal, Henry acted swiftly.
Fisher faced accusations of high treason, underwent trial, and suffered execution in 1535. Whilst Fisher was technically guilty under English law, Henry's action generated support for Fisher's cause and provided evidence for accusations that Henry behaved as a tyrant when it suited his purposes.
Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent
Elizabeth Barton had experienced visions since her teenage years, following an illness in 1525 and an apparently miraculous cure through a vision of the Virgin Mary. She acquired local fame and was sent to a nunnery under the protection of Dr Edward Bocking, a Canterbury monk. By 1528, her visions had begun to focus on the King's marriage, warning of disastrous consequences should he abandon his wife. Her threats continued and escalated, including telling the King to his face that he would die within a month if he divorced Catherine.
The likelihood is that Elizabeth herself genuinely believed her visions, though those around her were manipulating the situation for political purposes. By 1530, Bocking had developed Elizabeth's warnings into a broader campaign against changes in the Church, the influence of humanism, and the Boleyn marriage.
Bocking encouraged pilgrims and published books describing her visions and the warnings they contained. Rumours circulated deliberately about miraculous interventions, including a story that an angel had appeared whilst the King attended mass and seized the communion bread from his hands. Letters were sent to More and Fisher; links were established with Exeter, Courtenay and Hussey, and with the Carthusian monks in London, who sought to establish themselves as the centre of resistance to the Royal Supremacy in 1534. All this suggested that an orchestrated campaign was being prepared.
Confronted with this evidence, Cromwell acted decisively. The nun and her mentors were arrested in September 1533. After a public humiliation at St Paul's Cross in London, where Elizabeth confessed that her visions were false, they were executed in April 1534. The judges could identify no specific crime committed by Elizabeth, but the group received condemnation through an Act of Attainder.
Whilst the nun's fate was tragic, her mentors had cynically exploited her fame for several years, and their attempts to co-ordinate a resistance movement represented a genuine threat that no government could afford to ignore.
Monastic resistance
By far the strongest clerical resistance to Henry originated from the monastic orders. Whilst the Cistercians and Benedictines, who owned the great rural monasteries dissolved after 1536, were not widely active, many examples existed of individual monks who preached against the divorce, the supremacy, and the new heresies that accompanied them.
More organised, and certainly more determined, was the reaction of the widely respected London monks of the Carthusian order, who had remained closer to the strict ideals of monasticism. In 1532–33, they refused to accept the divorce. In 1534, they resisted government pressure to agree to a declaration against the authority of the Pope.
The government could not permit such defiance, and after the passage of the Treason Act, forced the Carthusians to submit, arresting the most reluctant and executing eighteen of them between 1535 and 1540.
Resistance within the country
The government's success in containing opposition has led some historians to argue that resistance to the Henrician Reformation was both weak and minimal, never constituting a serious threat to the King's position. However, in 1536, riots erupted in Louth in Lincolnshire. The townspeople took pride in their tall church spire, which had been completed in 1515 and stood nearly 300 feet high. Three sets of royal commissioners had visited the town within a few weeks of each other, and wild rumours circulated that the King or his ministers intended to close all the churches and that taxes would increase. The town also possessed a large monastery with a small number of monks that was being closed.
The riots in Lincolnshire spread rapidly across the whole of the north. At the height of the rebellion, the King's forces faced approximately 40,000 pilgrims in arms. This constituted the most serious challenge to royal authority thus far within the Tudor period.
The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536–37
The rebellion began in Louth, Lincolnshire in October 1536. The immediate trigger was the townspeople's fear that Cromwell's commissioners intended to strip the parish church of its ornaments. Eighteen local gentry arrived on 4 October to lead the rebellion. They demanded broader reforms, such as the dismissal of Cromwell and repeal of the unpopular Statute of Uses (which had forced the gentry to pay a tax on inherited land).
The rebels marched towards Lincoln to present their demands, joined by local monks. The Duke of Suffolk collected an army at Stamford ready to lead against the rebels, but the Lincolnshire rebels dispersed rather than face the royal army.
Meanwhile, the rebels moved on to Doncaster, by which time they numbered about 40,000 men. There, they presented their petition to the Duke of Norfolk. The rebels moved from York to Pontefract, where they seized the castle and formulated their demands—the Pontefract Articles.
At the same time, Robert Aske visited the rebels at Caistor. He travelled back to York, collecting support along the way. Henry VIII decided to grant a general pardon and to promise that Parliament would consider their demands. The rebels dispersed.
Fresh rebellions in January 1537 gave Henry the excuse to arrest and execute rebel leaders, including Robert Aske, who was hanged at York. This demonstrated Henry's ruthlessness in dealing with opposition once the immediate threat had passed.
Historian John Guy characterised the Pilgrimage of Grace as threatening because nobles, gentry, clergy and people combined forces, and because they shared an ideology. He argued that this revolt was "neither a clash among different social groups nor a split within the governing class, but a popular rising by northerners in general".
Scale of resistance against the religious changes
It must be acknowledged that the momentous social, economic and cultural changes resulting from the closing of all the religious houses caused little in the way of revolt. It used to be claimed by writers from a Protestant viewpoint that this occurred because most people had grown fed up with the shortcomings and scandals of the Catholic Church and welcomed the changes.
However, this picture of a Church in crisis waiting to be reformed is false. The Church was in no worse situation in the 1500s than it had been for at least a century, and most ordinary people were not interested in the novelties of religious doctrine. What happened in church services in these years had not greatly altered—until the Bible in English appeared.
Cromwell ensured that all the changes appeared legal—they were passed by Act of Parliament and therefore had the approval of the important people in each locality. The Treasons Acts were employed where necessary to silence opponents.
Once the process of dissolving the monasteries was under way, the heads of religious houses received generous pensions and the monks a basic pension. The piecemeal process by which the monasteries were dissolved also reduced the scope for any opponents to mount a united opposition to what was happening.
Key dates
- 1532 Resignation of Sir Thomas More
- 1534 Execution of Elizabeth Barton and others following an Act of Attainder
- 1535 Execution of Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher
- 1535–40 Execution of eighteen Carthusian monks
- 1536–37 Pilgrimage of Grace
Key Points to Remember:
- Opposition to religious change was limited and disorganised before 1534 because conservatives did not realise the break with Rome would be permanent.
- High-profile resisters at court (More, the Aragonese faction) and within the clergy (Fisher, Barton, Carthusian monks) were systematically suppressed through execution and imprisonment.
- The Pilgrimage of Grace (1536–37) represented the most serious challenge to royal authority, involving approximately 40,000 rebels across northern England, but was ultimately crushed.
- Cromwell's strategy of making changes legal through Acts of Parliament, using the Treason Act to silence opponents, and granting pensions to dispossessed monks reduced the scope for united opposition.
- Whilst the dissolution of the monasteries brought momentous social and economic change, the scale of popular revolt remained relatively limited.