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Originally Posted by quest_ioner
I am astonished. I've adored Thomas Moore since first seeing, A Man For All Seasons, at 14, and never heard hints his ethics were suspect. I, have the books, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society, and Utopia, although it's been years since I picked them up. Heroes with feet of clay make for more interesting heroes. But heroes who're actually dogmatic church beaurocrats are a waste of shelf space. Cromwell has always been such an interesting character. May have been the brains as well. I understood Woolsey as a baffoon, I know nothing more than the obvious, but would love to learn. Recommendations?
Perhaps it's too harsh to say that Thomas More was a complete dick, but I have not found him to be any more worthy of praise than, say, Cromwell, who is demonized in the hagiographic
A Man for All Seasons (which is a great book and film, but a horribly warped picture of the period's history). More giddily burned heterodox texts, supported the burning of heretics, threw a remarkable lack of force behind critiques of the Inquisition, and was much more politically calculating than he is usually portrayed (even in
The Tudors, which few would criticize as being too friendly to Catholicism). Although one must be careful not to put too much stock in the polemics of John Foxe (an anti-Catholic Elizabethan propagandist), More never spoke of any distaste for torture for heretics. Although nominally peace-loving on account of his "humanism," More certainly relished the
language of the Crusades when it came to his critiques of Protestantism. Certainly More was aware of what was likely to happen to those publishers and agitators he suspected and "investigated" for heresy. Again, this isn't to say that he was worse than his contemporaries, but he was hardly a pacifist or icon for toleration (despite what he says in
Utopia, although you will notice his harsh treatment of "atheists," who More would have considered to encompass most other religions). Even among his contemporaries, More was quite authoritarian in his political leanings. He was a major supporter of the Imperial faction in court and tended to favor policies beneficial to Imperial and Spanish interests. If you want the other side of the coin to
A Man for All Seasons, I'd go with Hilary Mantel's
Wolf Hall. Though still fictionalized and hardly objective (it is primarily from Cromwell's perspective), I think it is a little more realistic representation of the Tudor court. It's certainly better researched, even if it is a novel.
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Yes, much of this I knew, just considered it unlikely to draw attention to the thread. Perhaps I'm underestimating this group. The politics and economics are the more interesting issue. I've often wondered to what degree Henry was managed by his cabinet, (or what passes for it) A personality like that could be convinced to champion any issue, if done deftly with delicacy; especially one disputing his manhood and sovreignty. I don't think the reformation in Germany can be discounted either. Martin Luther had many converts and prospective converts before this began, altering also their economic balance. What do you think of Queen Mary's reign? Hardly the Bloody she acquired as suffix, but the attempt to return catholicism after everthing suffered, was evidence of a disturbed mind. The former Anglicans, now reconvened catholics had repeated ethical quagmires. I guess you could deduce England wasn't deeply commited to either incarnation, or perhaps just more reliably, devoted, to thier heads.
The extent to which the Reformation was "supported" by the commons is still a point of considerable contention among historians. Many seemed to like the addition of the vernacular language to church services, but many also opposed campaigns to dissolve the monasteries or engage in iconoclasm. Henry VIII in particular remained rather committed to a very conservative Reformation, which was nominally Protestant in doctrine, but still quite Catholic in form (Henry still liked the ritual and hierarchy, which, after all, buttressed his own position). There were strong reactions among sections of the common people, though. Large scale meetings, especially in the South and urban centers, agitated strongly for more vigorous reforms, and many members of the commons and the gentry enthusiastically spread English translations of the Bible, at the time a radical act that Henry never really approved of. On the flip side, the Pilgrimage of Grace (also known as the Rebellion of the Five Wounds) was a reaction of rural, mostly Northern peasants that had largely pro-Catholic leanings, though they did not explicitly support the papacy (they were certainly anti-Reformation insofar as it involved structural changes to the Church).
Mary was perhaps not any "Bloodier" than her contemporaries, but certainly she persecuted Protestants with far more zeal than her predecessors or Elizabeth did to suspected Catholics. In fact, throughout the Reformation, the most violently suppressed "heretics" at each stage were radical Protestants, the people now usually classified as
Puritans in an umbrella term. In any case, Mary was not a particularly competent monarch, and her contemporaries in the aristocracy were probably quite right to worry that she was giving far too many privileges to the Spanish (her husband was King of Spain, remember) and the Papacy. However, it's worth noting that while Mary was idealistic, she was also rather naive, as she had never really been groomed for the throne, and her father and brother were quite adamant about not wanting her anywhere near the crown (hence the attempt by Edward's regents to install Jane Grey in a coup following Edward's death). She was never really able to revamp the Church in England, partly because many of the Catholic lands had been sold off under Henry and Edward, and there was no way she could wrest them from the aristocracy.
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Really. I'd like to hear more about King Edward. Jane Seymore's son, wasn't he? Anything you can suggest I'd appreciate. Are you a history teacher? Sorry it took me so long to reply to the other post. I've you've read it you understand why.
If you're looking for a very complete (if somewhat dry) account of the period, I'd start with John Guy's
Tudor England. It's pretty much the gold standard for period at the moment, and Guy is pretty much, well, the guy when it comes to the period. Very few scholars have done more direct research on the period.
Edward's reign is usually characterized by the actions of his regents, Somerset and Northumberland, and religious contemporaries like Thomas Cranmer and Hugh Latimer, but Edward had a few writings of his own, and he appears to have been an exceedingly bright young man who did in fact have strong opinions on religious matters (it's worth noting that Catherine Parr, Henry's final wife, arranged for Edward to have Protestant tutors of a more radical leaning). Though he died at 15, Edward was enthusiastic in his support of further Reformation (the Book of Common Prayer and the Forty-Two articles that remain the core of the Anglican Church originated in this period).