ABSTRACT
How far was the official reformation the creation of Henry VIII? What role did the monarch play in policy-making and government? Most recent interpretations of the role of Henry VIII in shaping the reformation have been reactive to A.F. Pollard’s assumption that Henry was in control after the fall of Wolsey and personally made reformation policy. Pollard was chiefly concerned with explaining why the people of England permitted Henry to exercise this power. While Pollard and his disciples (for example, Bindoff) saw the Reformation as the creature of Henry’s will, they modified their voluntaristic approach. Henry designed the Reformation but he was allowed to create it by the nation and, especially, by parliament. Mid-century, Geoffrey Elton began to present a new view of the role of Henry in government and in the creation of the Reformation. He questioned the assumption that Henry’s reign could be divided neatly into two: a period from 1514 to 1529, when Henry let Wolsey govern, and a period from 1529 to 1547 when Henry took the reins. He argued that: (a) Wolsey had never been entirely free to do as he wished and; (b) after Wolsey it was Thomas Cromwell who devised and controlled policy broadly to the King’s liking. He substituted a much more complex division of the reign. Cromwell established the reformed state as a limited monarchy in which parliament was an active partner and not as a despotism. Elton’s views have been challenged from various standpoints: Joel Hurstfield plumped for a Tudor despotism, parliament or no; J.J. Scarisbrick returned to a modified Pollardian argument, once again exalting Henry’s personal responsibility for the reformation; A.G. Dickens explored further the impact of Thomas Cromwell’s own religious convictions upon the course of the official reformation. More recent works adopt permutations of the above. John Guy’s narrative history Tudor England offers reasoned treatments of the ‘revolution in government’ thesis. He is especially strong on the relative importance of Cromwell and factions at Henry’s court. G.W. Bernard, The King’s Reformation, presents Henry as the masterful, deliberate and consistently radical architect of the English Reformation and its middle way between Rome and Zurich.
