ABSTRACT
The first volume of Gilbert Burnet’s History of the Reformation of the Church of England was published in 1679. Burnet’s characterization of Henry VIII and his reign was crafted with (at least) one eye to serving particular ecclesiastical and political causes. Burnet had been active in publishing on the Whig side during the controversy of the ‘popish plot’. His theological and political commitments went beyond merely doctrinal objections to Roman Catholicism, and he was connected with several of the leading figures in the ‘Country’ or Whig party that, gathered around the first Earl of Shaftesbury, had organized opposition to the policies of Charles II’s court. He had become a prominent polemicist for the twin Whig objectives of state control of the church and the exclusion of the Catholic Duke of York (who would become James II) from the succession.1 Burnet was sufficiently well thought of in Whig circles to be identified in 1677 by Sir William Jones, a leading ‘Country’ politician, as the ideal candidate to write a history of England.
