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There are ghosts in this place.
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You don't notice them right away.
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At first glance, Binham Priory in Norfolk
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looks much like
any other English country church -
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plain and simple, limestone, limewash.
Nothing fancy, really.
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But then you look around and realise
something else is going on here.
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That grandiose, timber-vaulted roof.
Those multi-storey arcades.
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Aren't they all just a bit too big
for a parish church?
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And then you start to fill in the gaps,
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and bit by bit a lost world remakes itself,
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a world of monks and masses,
of colour and plainsong.
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A world of brilliant images.
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The world of Catholic England.
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For centuries, this didn't sound strained.
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Catholic England was just another way
of saying Christian England, really.
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And then, in a generation,
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it stopped being a truism
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and started being treason.
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Images of the Virgin,
the apostles and the saints
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once cherished and glorified,
were now mocked and vandalised.
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Here at Binham, the saints
on the rood screen were expunged,
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painted over with verses
from an English Bible.
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Today, they're restored,
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but the world over which
they once presided is dead and gone.
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We can't bring back the lost world
of Binham's painted saints
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whole and alive again.
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But just because the death of that world
was so shocking, so utterly improbable,
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and because the Reformation
and the wars of religion it triggered
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cut so deep a mark
on the body of our country,
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we need to try and reassemble
the fragments of that world as best we can.
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Only then can we hope to answer one of
the most poignant questions in our history:
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Whatever did happen to Catholic England?
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We all grew up,
even a nice Jewish boy like me,
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with the idea that the English Reformation
was a historic inevitability,
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the culling of an obsolete, unpopular,
fundamentally un-English faith.
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But on the very eve of the Reformation,
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Catholicism in England was vibrant,
popular and very much alive.
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This is Walsingham in Norfolk,
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once the home
of the miracle working shrine
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of Our Lady of Walsingham.
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Along with the Becket shrine
at Canterbury,
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Walsingham was the must-see place
for all serious 16th-century pilgrims,
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a tradition revived this century
by High Church Anglicans.
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Today, you get only the faintest echoes
of what Walsingham once was,
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a gaudy, rowdy mix
of hucksterism and holiness,
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piety and plaster saints;
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the kind of place you'd expect to find,
say, in Naples or Seville,
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not in the depths of sober East Anglia.
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But even then, as today,
not everybody approved.
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Erasmus, the Catholic
scholar superstar of the age,
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came here on a mock pilgrimage
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and poured scorn on tales of sacred milk
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and chapels airmailed in
from the Holy Land.
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But his was the minority intellectual view,
safely expressed in Latin
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and tolerated,
though not necessarily endorsed,
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by members of the ruling Tudor dynasty.
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The Tudors were regular
and devout pilgrims.
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Henry VIII, early in his reign,
walked barefoot to the shrine,
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offering a necklace of rubies
and dedicating a giant candle
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in thanks for the birth
of his son, Henry, in 1511.
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Prince Henry died within weeks,
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but the king's candle continued to burn
at the shrine for many years to come.
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What a strange world
this Catholic England was.
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The urge for renewal and reform
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side by side with the ancient, the hallowed
and the occasionally fraudulent.
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But it seems
that all apparent contradictions
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could be accommodated
under the capacious skirts
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of the Catholic Mother Church.
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And what a mother she was!
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Come to Holy Trinity Church
at Long Melford in Suffolk,
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and you'll see just what I mean.
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This magnificent building
was paid for with Suffolk wool money.
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However, what you see today are just the
bare bones of what it was supposed to be.
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But we know what Long Melford
in its splendour was really like
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thanks to an account left by Roger Martyn,
who'd been a churchwarden here
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in the reign of England's
last Catholic ruler, Queen Mary.
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Writing in the very different times
of Queen Elizabeth,
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Roger Martyn,
with a mixture of pride and regret,
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set out to tell future generations
exactly what they were missing.
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At the back of the high altar
there was a goodly mount
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carved very artificially
with the story of Christ's Passion,
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all being fair, gilt and lively
and beautifully set forth.
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And at the north end of the same altar
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there was a goodly gilt tabernacle
reaching up to the roof of the chancel,
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in which there was one fair, large,
gilt image of the Holy Trinity,
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besides other fine images.
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But Martyn's church
was more than just a building.
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He describes a living world
of processions and festivals,
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ceremonies and rituals
involving the whole community.
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Above all this presided the "management",
without whom none of it made sense.
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The priests, guardians of the mystery,
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at the heart of traditional Christian belief.
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Every time the priest
celebrated communion,
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Christ crucified would be there
in flesh and blood.
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The priest was the indispensable man,
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and there was no getting to Heaven
but through his hands.
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But elsewhere
other hands were hard at work.
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The miracle-working priest was about
to be challenged by the word of God itself,
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translated into English
and printed in black and white.
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Hand-written English Bibles had been
in circulation since the days of the Lollards,
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that Protestant heresy
that flourished briefly in the early 1400s.
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But manuscripts represented hard labour
and cost pounds to buy.
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A printed New Testament, on the other
hand, could be mass-produced
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and sold for a tenth of the price.
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The idea of a Bible in English, cheap and
freely available to anyone who could read,
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put the fear of God into the authorities.
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William Tyndale, an ordained priest,
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was the first to take on the dangerous task
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of translating, publishing and printing
an English version of the New Testament.
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Tyndale is a recognisable historical type.
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Austere, steely, unswerving,
even a little fanatical,
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and disarmingly clear
in his own convictions.
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"It was not possible," he wrote,
"to establish the laypeople in any truth
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"except the Scriptures were plainly laid
before their eyes in their mother tongue."
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In 1524, Tyndale fled London
for mainland Europe,
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ending up in Worms in Germany,
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a city which had recently been made
safely Protestant
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by its allegiance to
the new radical doctrines of Martin Luther.
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Tyndale's English New Testament
was completed there by January 1526,
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and within weeks
copies were on sale in London.
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What followed was
an English version of the Inquisition.
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Denunciations, arrests,
book burnings, show trials.
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Those who recanted were forced
to carry before them faggots of wood,
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symbols of the bonfire that would consume
them if they ever lapsed again.
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And in 1530 symbolism gave way
to gruesome reality
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when a priest named Thomas Hitton
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confessed to smuggling in
a New Testament.
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Condemned as a heretic, he was burned
at Maidstone on the 23rd of February.
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The Reformation had claimed
its first victim.
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And cheering all this on from the sidelines
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was the king, Henry VIII,
dutiful son of the Church,
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whose candle at Walsingham had been
burning brightly for nearly 20 years.
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In the winter of 1530, as the fire was lit
under the unfortunate Hitton,
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there was no reason to think
that anything would ever change.
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To understand why it did, you have
to understand something about Henry,
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the man who without
ever really meaning to
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turned Catholic England
into a Protestant nation.
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Well, for a start,
he was never supposed to be king.
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But when his older brother Arthur died,
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Henry, aged 11, became heir apparent.
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He also acquired his brother's wife,
the Spanish Catherine of Aragon.
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The marriage alliance
between Spain and England
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was just too important
to be allowed to lapse.
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In 1509, King Henry VII died,
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and his 17-year-old son
came into his own.
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The young king was a spectacular sight.
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You could practically smell
the testosterone.
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Any way and anywhere
he could flash that burly energy, he did,
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in the saddle, on the dance floor
or here on the tennis court,
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where a besotted courtier
wrote of the king's skin,
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"glowing through the fabric
of his finely woven shirt".
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Then there was the famous breezy charm,
dispensed like the English weather -
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in sunny periods, alternating with cloudy
spells and sudden bursts of heavy thunder.
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The charm was
of the rib-poking, back-slapping,
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punch-in-the-belly-
arm-around-the-shoulders kind,
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which, depending on
the mood of the month,
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could betoken either sudden promotion
or imminent arrest.
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Henry wallowed in the praise
droolingly lavished on him
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by courtiers and ambassadors.
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Henry the gallant, Henry the handsome,
Henry the clever, Henry the superstar.
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The only king to have his own
personal band hired to go touring with him
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and featuring young Henry himself
as lead singer/songwriter.
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Egged on by the Pope, who dangled before
him the title of Defender of the Faith,
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Henry was determined to make
a splashy debut on the European scene.
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He tried to get his Spanish father-in-law,
King Ferdinand,
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to come in on joint ventures against
their mutual enemy, King Louis of France.
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But when it came to snake-pit politics,
Ferdinand was a real pro,
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shamelessly exploiting
Henry's lust for glory,
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but failing to deliver
on the promised armies.
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Henry pushed on without him
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and, in the summer of 1513,
talked up a skirmish with French knights
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into a major victory
called the Battle of the Spurs.
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Meanwhile, back home,
Queen Catherine and her councillors
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managed a military victory
of major importance at Flodden Field,
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which left the king of the Scots, James IV,
and a dozen Scottish earls
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dead on the battlefield.
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But behind all this activity
at home and abroad,
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keeping the army supplied, negotiating the
treaties, channelling the king's energies
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was one of the greatest
organisational brains of the age -
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Archbishop of York, soon to be
Chancellor of England, Thomas Wolsey.
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Let's face it, if we could find one,
we could all use a Wolsey,
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a Jeeves with an attitude, someone who
comes to work every day and says,
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00:16:23,249 --> 00:16:27,037
"And what would be your pleasure,
Majesty?" and then goes off and does it.
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Oh, the occasional document will come
sliding across the desk for signature,
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but nothing, really, to interrupt
a hard day's hunt.
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Wolsey was a consummate manager,
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attentive to detail in both matters and men,
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someone who could stroke Parliament
when that was necessary
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and who could bang heads together,
even very aristocratic heads,
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when that was called for.
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He was a master manipulator
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of patronage, of honours,
of bribes and of threats.
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00:16:56,409 --> 00:17:01,244
In other words, he was a psychologist
in a cardinal's hat.
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00:17:04,049 --> 00:17:09,999
Wolsey also understood the relationship
between display and power.
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He used it for his own ends
here at Hampton Court,
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but he also used it for the king,
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acting as impresario for one
of the greater shows in his career,
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the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
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The meeting in 1520 between Henry
and the young French king, Francis I,
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00:17:34,169 --> 00:17:37,798
was supposed to be
a demonstration of heartfelt amity
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00:17:37,969 --> 00:17:43,202
and a pointed message to the recently
elected Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V,
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00:17:43,369 --> 00:17:47,567
that old enemies could,
if needs be, become friends.
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00:17:47,729 --> 00:17:50,721
But it came to war anyway,
not with weapons,
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00:17:50,889 --> 00:17:55,121
but something
much more deadly - style.
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In the greatest transportation exercise
seen since the campaigns of Edward III,
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00:18:03,689 --> 00:18:07,443
Wolsey shipped over
the entire ruling class of England.
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00:18:07,609 --> 00:18:11,488
Earls, bishops,
knights of the shire - 5,000 men,
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including, in a display
of unconvincing humility,
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00:18:14,849 --> 00:18:20,401
the Cardinal himself on muleback
dressed in crimson velvet.
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00:18:21,289 --> 00:18:25,521
Music played, wine ran red and white
from fountains,
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00:18:25,689 --> 00:18:27,998
a great deal of heron got eaten.
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00:18:28,169 --> 00:18:31,286
The two kings spent hours
trying on glamorous outfits
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00:18:31,449 --> 00:18:33,963
that could be worn only once.
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00:18:34,129 --> 00:18:38,520
They wrestled, not only with knotty
problems of state, but with each other,
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00:18:38,689 --> 00:18:42,398
the nimbler Francis at one point
throwing Henry on his back.
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00:18:42,569 --> 00:18:46,482
No doubt he laughed,
no doubt he hated it.
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00:18:48,609 --> 00:18:51,328
Somewhere in the middle
of all this overdressed melee
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00:18:51,489 --> 00:18:53,366
was a young English woman,
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00:18:53,529 --> 00:18:57,442
a lady-in-waiting to Claude,
the wife of the French king.
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00:18:57,609 --> 00:19:01,363
This was the woman who would bring
Wolsey's immense house of power
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00:19:01,529 --> 00:19:03,520
crashing down in ruins
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00:19:03,689 --> 00:19:09,286
and with it, inconceivably, the power
of the Roman Church in England.
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Her name was Anne Boleyn.
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00:19:19,049 --> 00:19:23,361
So much saccharine drivel has been
written on the subject of Anne Boleyn,
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00:19:23,529 --> 00:19:25,520
so many Hollywood movies made,
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00:19:25,689 --> 00:19:28,965
so many bodice-buster
romances produced
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00:19:29,129 --> 00:19:32,724
that us serious historians
are supposed to avert our gaze
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00:19:32,889 --> 00:19:35,642
from the tragic soap opera of her life
229
00:19:35,809 --> 00:19:37,879
and concentrate on meaty stuff,
230
00:19:38,049 --> 00:19:41,928
like the social and political origins
of the Reformation
231
00:19:42,089 --> 00:19:44,728
or the Tudor revolution in government.
232
00:19:44,889 --> 00:19:49,724
But try as we might, we keep coming back
time and again to the subject of Anne,
233
00:19:49,889 --> 00:19:54,360
because on close inspection
it turns out that she was, after all,
234
00:19:54,529 --> 00:19:56,804
historical prime cause number one.
235
00:20:00,049 --> 00:20:04,645
At the time of the Field of the Cloth of Gold,
Anne would have been a teenager.
236
00:20:04,809 --> 00:20:08,006
She'd been away from England
off and on since the age of 12,
237
00:20:08,169 --> 00:20:11,127
when her well-connected
diplomat father, Thomas,
238
00:20:11,289 --> 00:20:14,804
arranged for her to become maid of honour
to Margaret of Austria
239
00:20:14,969 --> 00:20:17,403
at one of her many courts,
240
00:20:17,569 --> 00:20:21,278
this one here at Mechelen in Flanders.
241
00:20:24,769 --> 00:20:28,842
Margaret was recognised
as the world authority on courtly love,
242
00:20:29,009 --> 00:20:31,921
that theatrical form of aristocratic flirtation
243
00:20:32,089 --> 00:20:35,718
around which a whole culture
had grown up.
244
00:20:35,889 --> 00:20:41,725
Desire endlessly deferred, sexual passion
transfigured into pure selfless love,
245
00:20:41,889 --> 00:20:46,724
troubadours, masks,
silk handkerchiefs, a lot of sighing.
246
00:20:46,889 --> 00:20:48,880
That was the theory anyway.
247
00:20:49,049 --> 00:20:51,199
While underneath
the stage-managed surface,
248
00:20:51,369 --> 00:20:55,681
the old basic instincts seethed away.
249
00:20:58,329 --> 00:21:01,207
Anne returned to England in 1522,
250
00:21:01,369 --> 00:21:06,841
a sophisticated, accomplished, ambitious
young woman with a mind of her own.
251
00:21:12,809 --> 00:21:16,279
Anne Boleyn entered
the glittering, dangerous world
252
00:21:16,449 --> 00:21:18,838
of the Tudor court in her 20s.
253
00:21:19,009 --> 00:21:25,118
Physically she was no raving beauty,
despite the long black hair and dark eyes,
254
00:21:25,289 --> 00:21:29,407
but she knew how to exploit
her natural vivaciousness
255
00:21:29,569 --> 00:21:34,040
to play the game of courtly love
for all it was worth.
256
00:21:36,169 --> 00:21:41,607
One of the first to fall was a man
every bit as sophisticated as she was,
257
00:21:41,769 --> 00:21:45,808
Thomas Wyatt, the epitome
of the Renaissance courtier.
258
00:21:45,969 --> 00:21:50,167
A soldier, a diplomat and, above all, a poet.
259
00:21:50,329 --> 00:21:54,447
His poems are heavy
with the conventional lover's sighs,
260
00:21:54,609 --> 00:22:00,127
but in those apparently inspired by Anne
the sighs come from the heart.
261
00:22:00,289 --> 00:22:04,999
Wyatt, unhappily married,
realised he stood no chance with her,
262
00:22:05,169 --> 00:22:08,605
and in one of his famous poems
compares himself
263
00:22:08,769 --> 00:22:12,808
to a hunter, vainly chasing a deer.
264
00:22:15,609 --> 00:22:18,282
Unable to divorce his wife,
265
00:22:18,449 --> 00:22:22,727
all that Wyatt could offer Anne
was that she should become his mistress,
266
00:22:22,889 --> 00:22:26,325
not good enough
for an ambitious girl on the make.
267
00:22:26,489 --> 00:22:30,846
And beside, there was another reason
why Wyatt would never catch his hind,
268
00:22:31,009 --> 00:22:33,967
as his poem goes on to explain.
269
00:22:34,129 --> 00:22:36,927
"And graven with diamonds
in letters plain
270
00:22:37,089 --> 00:22:41,640
"There is written her fair neck roundabout,
'nole me tangere'
271
00:22:41,809 --> 00:22:48,203
"For Caesar's I am and wild for to hold
though I seem tame."
272
00:22:48,369 --> 00:22:51,406
"Nole me tangere" -do not touch,
273
00:22:51,569 --> 00:22:54,845
for Caesar,
otherwise known as Henry VIII,
274
00:22:55,009 --> 00:22:57,762
had already committed himself
to the chase,
275
00:22:57,929 --> 00:23:02,605
and the king, as we know,
was an inexhaustible hunter.
276
00:23:03,929 --> 00:23:09,720
Henry really had to work hard to get
Anne, harder than at any time in his life.
277
00:23:09,889 --> 00:23:13,359
The man who, as Wolsey could testify,
hated writing letters
278
00:23:13,529 --> 00:23:17,408
wrote umpteen
in his attempts to woo her.
279
00:23:17,569 --> 00:23:20,845
She represented everything
Catherine of Aragon was not.
280
00:23:21,009 --> 00:23:24,160
Ten years younger,
merry rather than pious,
281
00:23:24,329 --> 00:23:27,287
spirited rather than gravely deferential,
282
00:23:27,449 --> 00:23:31,078
Anne opened the way to sexual bliss,
domestic happiness
283
00:23:31,249 --> 00:23:36,881
and, perhaps more important than any
of these, the possibility of a son and heir.
284
00:23:39,729 --> 00:23:44,484
The estrangement between Catherine
and Henry went back as far as 1511
285
00:23:44,649 --> 00:23:46,640
and the death of their son Henry,
286
00:23:46,809 --> 00:23:51,485
who despite the offerings made
at Walsingham lived only a few weeks.
287
00:23:51,649 --> 00:23:56,769
Catherine had gone on to produce
a daughter, Mary, born in 1516.
288
00:23:56,929 --> 00:24:00,046
But Henry began to recoil from his queen.
289
00:24:00,209 --> 00:24:02,200
After more than 20 years,
290
00:24:02,369 --> 00:24:06,521
Henry had no legitimate male heir
and no prospect of one.
291
00:24:07,769 --> 00:24:09,919
By the time that Anne came on the scene,
292
00:24:10,089 --> 00:24:15,322
Henry was convinced that his marriage
to Catherine had been divinely cursed.
293
00:24:15,489 --> 00:24:18,287
The king was
an assiduous reader of Scripture,
294
00:24:18,449 --> 00:24:20,679
and there must have been
a sharp intake of breath
295
00:24:20,849 --> 00:24:24,364
every time he read Leviticus
chapter 20, verse 21,
296
00:24:24,529 --> 00:24:26,804
in which God himself tells Moses,
297
00:24:26,969 --> 00:24:31,087
"If a man shall take his brother's wife,
it is an unclean thing...
298
00:24:31,249 --> 00:24:35,003
"...they shall be childless."
299
00:24:36,489 --> 00:24:40,448
Driven by his fear of dynastic extinction
and his passion for Anne,
300
00:24:40,609 --> 00:24:43,362
who, as usual, refused
to become his mistress,
301
00:24:43,529 --> 00:24:48,523
Henry seized on divorce
as the answer to all of his problems.
302
00:24:49,769 --> 00:24:54,206
Henry wanted a papal annulment
of the marriage on grounds of incest.
303
00:24:54,369 --> 00:24:56,360
But the Pope couldn't oblige,
304
00:24:56,529 --> 00:25:01,444
for in May 1527 the armies
of the Emperor Charles V sacked Rome,
305
00:25:01,609 --> 00:25:04,407
and made Pope Clement a virtual prisoner.
306
00:25:04,569 --> 00:25:07,367
And Charles,
who was Queen Catherine's nephew,
307
00:25:07,529 --> 00:25:11,761
wouldn't allow an annulment
while he was in control.
308
00:25:11,929 --> 00:25:15,604
Wolsey was the first to be dragged under
by this crisis.
309
00:25:15,769 --> 00:25:19,045
Henry had no use
for a Mr Fixit who couldn't fix it,
310
00:25:19,209 --> 00:25:23,919
and Wolsey was quickly got rid of,
ostensibly for fraud and corruption.
311
00:25:24,089 --> 00:25:30,244
Within a year, he was dead, charges
of high treason still hanging over his head.
312
00:25:31,729 --> 00:25:35,278
It was Anne herself who,
at some point in 1530,
313
00:25:35,449 --> 00:25:38,407
steered the whole problem
in a radically new direction.
314
00:25:38,569 --> 00:25:40,958
She put literally into Henry's hands
315
00:25:41,129 --> 00:25:44,360
a little book that to her seemed
not only fundamentally true,
316
00:25:44,529 --> 00:25:49,398
but also, given present circumstances,
extremely useful.
317
00:25:49,569 --> 00:25:53,608
It was by that arch-propagandist
William Tyndale, and it was called
318
00:25:53,769 --> 00:25:59,127
"The obedience of a Christian man
and how Christian rulers ought to govern".
319
00:26:00,329 --> 00:26:03,605
Like all Tyndale's work
it was a pungent read.
320
00:26:03,769 --> 00:26:09,207
"One king, one law, is God's ordnance
in every realm," he wrote.
321
00:26:09,369 --> 00:26:15,239
In other words, the writ of the Bishop
of Rome did not run in England.
322
00:26:17,049 --> 00:26:19,040
But Anne wasn't finished yet.
323
00:26:19,209 --> 00:26:21,677
With a typical mixture of conviction
and self-interest,
324
00:26:21,849 --> 00:26:25,524
she got a think tank of theologians,
including Thomas Cranmer,
325
00:26:25,689 --> 00:26:29,079
to come up with documents
from the history of the early Church
326
00:26:29,249 --> 00:26:32,286
proving royal supremacy.
327
00:26:33,489 --> 00:26:38,563
The more he learnt about his supreme
power, the better Henry liked it.
328
00:26:38,729 --> 00:26:42,119
It may have begun as a tactic
in political intimidation,
329
00:26:42,289 --> 00:26:47,921
but now the royal supremacy seemed,
on its own merits, a self-evident truth.
330
00:26:48,089 --> 00:26:51,525
You can almost hear him clapping his hand
to his head and exclaiming,
331
00:26:51,689 --> 00:26:55,318
"How could I have been so dull
as to have missed this?"
332
00:26:59,769 --> 00:27:03,364
Not surprisingly, then,
around the summer of 1530,
333
00:27:03,529 --> 00:27:09,638
the telling word "imperial" begins to
show up regularly in Henry's own remarks.
334
00:27:09,809 --> 00:27:14,564
Emperors, of course,
acknowledge no superior on earth.
335
00:27:14,729 --> 00:27:18,802
Henry's ego, never exactly
a modest part of his personality,
336
00:27:18,969 --> 00:27:22,325
now began to bloom
to imperial proportions.
337
00:27:22,489 --> 00:27:27,961
And he got the palaces to house it, too,
50 of them before his reign was done.
338
00:27:28,129 --> 00:27:31,041
Some of the greatest and grandest
had been Wolsey's,
339
00:27:31,209 --> 00:27:33,245
most notably Hampton Court,
340
00:27:33,409 --> 00:27:39,166
which now became the stage
for the swaggering theatre of court life.
341
00:27:42,849 --> 00:27:47,684
Nothing measures the imperial scale
of Henry's court better
342
00:27:47,849 --> 00:27:51,239
than the size of the space needed
to feed its gut.
343
00:27:51,409 --> 00:27:55,960
Here at the kitchens at Hampton Court,
230 people were employed,
344
00:27:56,129 --> 00:28:01,681
servicing another 1,000 who every day
were entitled to eat at the king's expense.
345
00:28:03,369 --> 00:28:06,042
Three vast larders for the meat alone.
346
00:28:06,209 --> 00:28:09,599
A specially designed wet larder
for holding fish,
347
00:28:09,769 --> 00:28:12,841
supplied by water
drawn from the fountains outside.
348
00:28:13,009 --> 00:28:17,241
Spiceries, fruiteries,
six immense fireplaces.
349
00:28:17,409 --> 00:28:22,403
Three gargantuan cellars capable
of holding the 300 casks of wine
350
00:28:22,569 --> 00:28:27,962
and the 600,000 gallons of ale
downed each year by this court.
351
00:28:28,129 --> 00:28:30,165
And at the centre of it all,
352
00:28:30,329 --> 00:28:33,639
though carefully protected
in the privy chamber from undue exhibition,
353
00:28:33,809 --> 00:28:35,879
was England's new Caesar -
354
00:28:36,049 --> 00:28:40,201
the king, at 40, colossal, autocratic,
355
00:28:40,369 --> 00:28:44,442
bestriding the realm
with all the god-like power and authority
356
00:28:44,609 --> 00:28:47,328
of the Roman Caesars.
357
00:28:49,689 --> 00:28:53,568
And now inevitably, the Church,
with its allegiance to Rome,
358
00:28:53,729 --> 00:28:57,517
found itself on the wrong side
of a nasty argument.
359
00:28:58,289 --> 00:29:02,328
How they must have shivered at the
Archbishop of Canterbury's palace in Lambeth
360
00:29:02,489 --> 00:29:04,878
when they heard Henry say of his bishops,
361
00:29:05,049 --> 00:29:10,885
"They be but half our subjects,
yea, and scarce our subjects."
362
00:29:14,529 --> 00:29:18,124
The threat was clear
and the capitulation inevitable.
363
00:29:18,289 --> 00:29:23,761
It came in the spring of 1532 with
the so-called Submission of the Clergy,
364
00:29:23,929 --> 00:29:26,841
which conceded all of Henry's demands.
365
00:29:27,009 --> 00:29:31,639
From now on, the laws of the Church
would be governed by the will of the king,
366
00:29:31,809 --> 00:29:34,164
and the king's will was clear:
367
00:29:34,329 --> 00:29:39,722
Divorce from Catherine, marriage to Anne,
Princess Mary to be declared a bastard,
368
00:29:39,889 --> 00:29:44,485
recognition for the unborn child
that by the spring of 1533
369
00:29:44,649 --> 00:29:47,766
was already swelling Anne's belly.
370
00:29:48,889 --> 00:29:52,279
Anne was duly crowned
at Westminster Abbey in May
371
00:29:52,449 --> 00:29:54,804
by a new Archbishop of Canterbury,
372
00:29:54,969 --> 00:29:58,006
the obliging Thomas Cranmer.
373
00:30:05,209 --> 00:30:10,442
So, a reformation of sorts,
but not yet a Protestant reformation.
374
00:30:10,609 --> 00:30:12,839
The English Church
may have broken from Rome,
375
00:30:13,009 --> 00:30:15,603
but no core doctrines had been touched.
376
00:30:15,769 --> 00:30:18,727
The real presence of Christ
in the mass was preserved.
377
00:30:18,889 --> 00:30:20,959
Priests were still expected to be celibate.
378
00:30:21,129 --> 00:30:23,962
Prayers in the Bible were still in Latin.
379
00:30:24,129 --> 00:30:27,644
The beautiful stained glass
at Fairford Church in Gloucester
380
00:30:27,809 --> 00:30:30,960
offended no official doctrines.
381
00:30:31,849 --> 00:30:34,886
And so things might have remained,
but they didn't.
382
00:30:35,049 --> 00:30:37,199
To understand why, we need now
383
00:30:37,369 --> 00:30:41,681
to look at one of the most extraordinary
working partnerships in British history,
384
00:30:41,849 --> 00:30:45,239
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer
and Thomas Cromwell,
385
00:30:45,409 --> 00:30:50,529
Wolsey's former enforcer
and now Secretary of State.
386
00:30:51,809 --> 00:30:54,528
Here they are, then, the Tudor odd couple,
387
00:30:54,689 --> 00:30:58,523
on the frontispiece of an English Bible.
388
00:30:59,369 --> 00:31:02,679
You take away one, and the Reformation
wouldn't have happened,
389
00:31:02,849 --> 00:31:05,443
at least not the way it did.
390
00:31:05,609 --> 00:31:08,681
Because they were like two pillars,
theological on the left
391
00:31:08,849 --> 00:31:14,685
and the political on the right,
with the king, triumphant, in the middle.
392
00:31:14,849 --> 00:31:18,319
Their agenda was always
more radical than the king's.
393
00:31:19,129 --> 00:31:21,120
Cromwell's Protestantism
394
00:31:21,289 --> 00:31:24,201
was the product of the kind
of anti-establishment killer instinct
395
00:31:24,369 --> 00:31:28,726
you might expect from a Putney
clever Dick out to make a name for himself.
396
00:31:28,889 --> 00:31:33,041
Cranmer's convictions
were more profound and thoughtful,
397
00:31:33,209 --> 00:31:37,282
but he too had strong personal reasons
to side with the Reformers.
398
00:31:37,449 --> 00:31:40,566
Shortly before he was appointed
Archbishop of Canterbury,
399
00:31:40,769 --> 00:31:44,398
Cranmer had secretly married
a German woman, Margareta,
400
00:31:44,569 --> 00:31:50,326
thereby committing himself to one
of Luther's most shocking innovations.
401
00:31:51,929 --> 00:31:55,399
Cranmer, like Cromwell, was devoted
to the Renaissance idea
402
00:31:55,569 --> 00:31:59,721
of a strong prince
in a strong Christian state.
403
00:31:59,889 --> 00:32:03,848
The people were going to be given
their Bible from on high,
404
00:32:04,009 --> 00:32:07,843
authorised, and no other version
was going to be tolerated.
405
00:32:08,009 --> 00:32:12,161
This picture of an orderly,
even authoritarian Church of England
406
00:32:12,329 --> 00:32:16,561
is exactly what you see
on the frontispiece of this Great Bible,
407
00:32:16,729 --> 00:32:21,757
officially commissioned by Thomas
Cromwell and published in 1539.
408
00:32:27,049 --> 00:32:30,962
Thomas Cromwell is probably
the least sentimental Englishman
409
00:32:31,129 --> 00:32:33,120
ever to run the country.
410
00:32:33,289 --> 00:32:36,599
He understood with a clarity
that Henry could never quite manage
411
00:32:36,769 --> 00:32:40,000
that it would not be enough for the break
with Rome to be proclaimed
412
00:32:40,169 --> 00:32:42,967
and then expect everyone to fall into line.
413
00:32:43,129 --> 00:32:48,078
He was anticipating a fight,
and he was prepared to fight hard.
414
00:32:49,969 --> 00:32:51,960
Cromwell knew that sooner or later
415
00:32:52,129 --> 00:32:54,962
the Pope would throw
his big gun into the battle -
416
00:32:55,129 --> 00:32:58,758
excommunication.
And if the king was to win the war,
417
00:32:58,929 --> 00:33:03,161
he'd better fight back with something more
or less novel in the language of politics,
418
00:33:03,329 --> 00:33:05,479
namely patriotism.
419
00:33:05,649 --> 00:33:10,598
The country had to be aroused to a new
sense of its sovereignty, its potency.
420
00:33:10,769 --> 00:33:15,240
Demonise Rome as the foreigner,
the alien, the enemy.
421
00:33:18,969 --> 00:33:21,563
To this engine of chauvinist propaganda,
422
00:33:21,729 --> 00:33:25,642
Cromwell added the necessary
machinery of coercion.
423
00:33:25,809 --> 00:33:29,688
An oath had to be sworn
recognising the royal supremacy,
424
00:33:29,849 --> 00:33:32,807
the legitimacy of the heirs
of the king and Queen Anne,
425
00:33:32,969 --> 00:33:36,757
and the bastardisation of the Lady Mary.
426
00:33:37,689 --> 00:33:39,964
Insulting the new queen was treason,
427
00:33:40,129 --> 00:33:43,599
calling the king a schismatic
or a heretic was treason.
428
00:33:43,769 --> 00:33:49,366
For the first time in English law,
it was a crime just to say things.
429
00:33:51,289 --> 00:33:56,443
Cromwell managed to turn England
into a frightened, snivelling, jumpy place
430
00:33:56,609 --> 00:34:00,318
where denunciation
was a sanctimonious duty
431
00:34:00,489 --> 00:34:04,926
and countless petty little scores got settled
by people who were protesting
432
00:34:05,089 --> 00:34:08,559
that they were just doing "the right thing".
433
00:34:14,289 --> 00:34:16,928
Nowhere in Cromwell's strong-arm regime
434
00:34:17,089 --> 00:34:20,286
did his shock troops seem to enjoy
their work more thoroughly
435
00:34:20,449 --> 00:34:23,282
than in the visitations to the monasteries,
436
00:34:23,449 --> 00:34:30,127
done with lightning speed during
the course of 1535 and early 1536.
437
00:34:31,649 --> 00:34:35,244
The uprooting of nearly
10,000 monks and nuns,
438
00:34:35,409 --> 00:34:38,401
the destruction
of an entire ancient way of life
439
00:34:38,569 --> 00:34:42,323
had little to do with reforming zeal.
440
00:34:45,929 --> 00:34:49,638
When you look at Cromwell's flying squads
up close and in action,
441
00:34:49,809 --> 00:34:51,845
you don't really get the impression
of a bunch of men
442
00:34:52,009 --> 00:34:56,207
who thought of themselves as renovators.
Wreckers, more likely.
443
00:34:56,369 --> 00:34:59,918
For one thing, they seemed to enjoy
their work a bit too much.
444
00:35:00,089 --> 00:35:03,240
"I laid unto him a concealment of treason,"
445
00:35:03,409 --> 00:35:08,483
wrote one of Cromwell's hit men to his chief
about a prior he had at his mercy.
446
00:35:08,649 --> 00:35:13,598
"I called him heinous traitor
in the worst terms I could devise,
447
00:35:13,769 --> 00:35:18,081
"and him all the time kneeling
and making intercession unto me
448
00:35:18,249 --> 00:35:22,527
"not to utter to you
the premises of his undoing."
449
00:35:22,689 --> 00:35:25,601
Such were the pleasures of reform.
450
00:35:27,649 --> 00:35:31,244
The property bonanza that followed
the dissolution of the monasteries
451
00:35:31,409 --> 00:35:36,164
was on a scale no other English revolution
ever approached.
452
00:35:36,329 --> 00:35:40,607
Abbeys like this one at Laycock
were offered at bargain basement prices,
453
00:35:40,769 --> 00:35:45,638
and loyalty to the new order
secured with bricks and mortar.
454
00:35:45,809 --> 00:35:48,198
The former residents were soon forgotten
455
00:35:48,369 --> 00:35:54,922
or reduced to delectable family legends
of headless nuns and spectral monks.
456
00:36:13,569 --> 00:36:19,166
Let's call the next chapter of the story,
"circa regna tonat" -
457
00:36:19,329 --> 00:36:23,368
around the throne the thunder roars.
458
00:36:25,209 --> 00:36:30,408
Thomas Wyatt used the line in a poem
written in a cell in the Tower of London
459
00:36:30,569 --> 00:36:34,642
after he'd just witnessed
the execution of five innocent men.
460
00:36:34,809 --> 00:36:38,643
A few days later,
an innocent woman would also die.
461
00:36:38,809 --> 00:36:41,642
As you probably know,
she was Anne Boleyn,
462
00:36:41,809 --> 00:36:45,438
and as you can probably guess,
the author of this bloody drama
463
00:36:45,609 --> 00:36:47,998
was Thomas Cromwell.
464
00:36:51,489 --> 00:36:57,519
It wasn't the birth in 1533 of a baby girl,
Elizabeth, that did for Anne.
465
00:36:57,689 --> 00:37:02,080
Henry was disappointed,
but he didn't turn against his new wife.
466
00:37:02,249 --> 00:37:05,082
No, he laid his hand on the baby's head,
467
00:37:05,249 --> 00:37:08,047
recognising her as his legitimate daughter
468
00:37:08,209 --> 00:37:10,803
and hoped for better luck next time.
469
00:37:11,809 --> 00:37:16,007
18 months later, Anne was pregnant again.
470
00:37:16,169 --> 00:37:20,367
At the beginning of January 1536,
more good news.
471
00:37:20,529 --> 00:37:23,043
Catherine of Aragon was dead.
472
00:37:23,209 --> 00:37:26,121
Henry was relieved.
"God be praised," he said,
473
00:37:26,289 --> 00:37:30,123
"that we are free
from all suspicion of war."
474
00:37:32,449 --> 00:37:36,920
Maybe it was at this point that the cogs
and wheels of Cromwell's mind
475
00:37:37,089 --> 00:37:39,080
started to whirl.
476
00:37:39,249 --> 00:37:42,241
For Cromwell had decided
to engineer a reconciliation
477
00:37:42,409 --> 00:37:45,640
between Henry
and the Emperor Charles V.
478
00:37:45,809 --> 00:37:48,084
With the Emperor's Aunt Catherine
now safely dead,
479
00:37:48,249 --> 00:37:54,085
the timing was perfect
except for one thing - Anne.
480
00:37:54,249 --> 00:37:58,800
For the price of peace would doubtless
include the relegitimising of Lady Mary,
481
00:37:58,969 --> 00:38:01,961
and to this Anne would never agree.
482
00:38:02,129 --> 00:38:06,168
Therefore, so Cromwell reasoned,
Anne must go.
483
00:38:08,849 --> 00:38:12,319
On the 29th of January,
Anne miscarried.
484
00:38:12,489 --> 00:38:15,287
Had the baby lived,
it would have been a boy.
485
00:38:15,449 --> 00:38:19,806
The disaster seems to have reawakened
Henry's darkest fears.
486
00:38:19,969 --> 00:38:24,884
"I see now that God will never
give me a male heir," he told Anne.
487
00:38:25,049 --> 00:38:30,965
To one of his intimates he hinted that
Anne had seduced him through witchcraft.
488
00:38:31,129 --> 00:38:33,120
Anne was defenceless.
489
00:38:33,289 --> 00:38:37,077
Cromwell moved against her
with breathtaking speed and ferocity.
490
00:38:37,249 --> 00:38:41,322
From the decision to act,
taken around Easter time 1536,
491
00:38:41,489 --> 00:38:44,879
to the first arrests,
took just two weeks.
492
00:38:45,049 --> 00:38:47,085
Anne was doomed.
493
00:38:50,489 --> 00:38:55,404
What Cromwell now cooked up
was a thing of pure devilry,
494
00:38:55,569 --> 00:39:00,404
a finely measured brew,
one part paranoia, one part pornography.
495
00:39:00,569 --> 00:39:05,199
Moments of dalliance, nothing really
untoward in a Renaissance court.
496
00:39:05,369 --> 00:39:09,044
A handkerchief dropped at a May Day tilt,
not belonging to the king.
497
00:39:09,209 --> 00:39:13,407
A dance taken with a young man,
also not the king.
498
00:39:13,569 --> 00:39:15,560
A blown kiss, a giggle.
499
00:39:15,729 --> 00:39:22,407
All these were twisted by Cromwell
into a carnival of unholy, traitorous sex.
500
00:39:24,529 --> 00:39:28,238
The Queen, it seems,
had had sex with just about everyone.
501
00:39:28,409 --> 00:39:33,244
She'd had sex with her court musician,
she'd had sex with the Groom of the Stool,
502
00:39:33,409 --> 00:39:36,003
the most important courtier
in the privy chamber.
503
00:39:36,169 --> 00:39:40,321
She'd had sex with the king's tennis
partner, presumably between sets.
504
00:39:40,489 --> 00:39:43,526
She'd even had sex
with her own brother.
505
00:39:43,689 --> 00:39:47,204
She had presided
like some possessed Messalina
506
00:39:47,369 --> 00:39:50,520
over this diabolical orgy of treason,
507
00:39:50,689 --> 00:39:54,967
even perhaps conspiring to pass off
the poisoned fruit of all this copulation
508
00:39:55,129 --> 00:39:57,040
as the royal heir.
509
00:40:00,929 --> 00:40:06,003
It was the confession of her musician,
Mark Smeaton, extracted under torture,
510
00:40:06,169 --> 00:40:11,323
that supplied the fig leaf of legality
for Cromwell's judicial murders.
511
00:40:11,489 --> 00:40:15,801
It was enough to send all five of Anne's
so-called lovers to the block.
512
00:40:15,969 --> 00:40:20,520
Thomas Wyatt, swept up in a wave
of arrests, but spared prosecution,
513
00:40:20,689 --> 00:40:25,809
saw them die, peering through
a grating of his cell in the bell tower.
514
00:40:27,769 --> 00:40:33,719
"The bell tower showed me such a sight
that in my head sticks day and night,
515
00:40:33,889 --> 00:40:38,644
"that did I learn out the grate,
for all favour, glory or might,
516
00:40:38,809 --> 00:40:43,564
"that yet circa regna tonat."
517
00:40:47,649 --> 00:40:51,198
Two days later, it was Anne's turn.
518
00:40:51,369 --> 00:40:53,360
As a special privilege,
519
00:40:53,529 --> 00:40:57,522
an expert swordsman had been brought
over from France to do the job.
520
00:40:57,689 --> 00:41:02,558
"I heard say the executioner is very good,"
Anne told the constable at the Tower.
521
00:41:02,729 --> 00:41:05,084
"And I have a little neck."
522
00:41:05,249 --> 00:41:09,367
And then she put her hands around
her throat and burst out laughing.
523
00:41:21,169 --> 00:41:24,286
When news of Anne's execution
reached Dover,
524
00:41:24,449 --> 00:41:30,126
it was said the candles
in the town's church spontaneously ignited.
525
00:41:31,689 --> 00:41:33,680
For the vast majority of the country,
526
00:41:33,849 --> 00:41:38,240
which despite the break with Rome
still regarded itself as Catholic,
527
00:41:38,409 --> 00:41:41,526
her death seemed
like a long overdue judgement
528
00:41:41,689 --> 00:41:46,604
on those they called heretics
and twopenny bookmen.
529
00:41:53,729 --> 00:41:57,563
Cromwell, meanwhile, stepped up
his assault on the old religion
530
00:41:57,729 --> 00:42:02,007
with a series of fierce injunctions,
enforcing royal supremacy
531
00:42:02,169 --> 00:42:06,048
and crushing the cult
of saints and shrines.
532
00:42:07,489 --> 00:42:10,640
The Becket shrine in Canterbury,
the richest in the land,
533
00:42:10,809 --> 00:42:13,926
was vandalised and ransacked.
534
00:42:14,969 --> 00:42:19,804
The following year, 1537, Henry,
with a new wife, Jane Seymour,
535
00:42:19,969 --> 00:42:24,645
celebrated the longed for arrival
of a son, Edward.
536
00:42:25,729 --> 00:42:29,847
But twelve days later,
mourned the death of his new queen.
537
00:42:32,849 --> 00:42:36,558
At Walsingham,
the statue of the Virgin was burned.
538
00:42:36,729 --> 00:42:41,245
Henry's account book for that year
contains the following bald statement:
539
00:42:41,409 --> 00:42:44,606
"Payment for the king's great candle
at Walsingham.
540
00:42:44,769 --> 00:42:48,523
"Salary for the abbot - nil."
541
00:42:50,649 --> 00:42:53,607
But then, a remarkable thing happened.
542
00:42:53,769 --> 00:42:59,639
The king decided enough was enough
and tried to put the genie back in its bottle.
543
00:42:59,809 --> 00:43:04,246
An instinctive conservative, he'd been
angered and alarmed by the passions
544
00:43:04,409 --> 00:43:06,525
that religious controversy had aroused.
545
00:43:06,689 --> 00:43:09,487
And he blamed the English Bible.
546
00:43:09,649 --> 00:43:12,322
Instead of being read quietly with silence,
547
00:43:12,489 --> 00:43:16,482
the Bible was now being bandied about
in acrimonious disputes
548
00:43:16,649 --> 00:43:19,368
that raged in ale houses and taverns,
549
00:43:19,529 --> 00:43:22,680
the exact opposite
of the respectful scenes
550
00:43:22,849 --> 00:43:25,807
promised in Cromwell's Great Bible.
551
00:43:26,689 --> 00:43:31,604
In 1543, a law was introduced restricting
the reading of the Bible in English
552
00:43:31,769 --> 00:43:35,239
to churchmen, noblemen and gentry.
553
00:43:35,409 --> 00:43:39,561
For ordinary people who'd got used
to the idea of an English-speaking God,
554
00:43:39,729 --> 00:43:42,289
this was a real deprivation.
555
00:43:42,449 --> 00:43:45,168
We get an inkling of that
in a brief inscription
556
00:43:45,329 --> 00:43:48,048
written that year
by an Oxfordshire shepherd
557
00:43:48,209 --> 00:43:51,326
on the flyleaf of a small religious tract.
558
00:43:51,489 --> 00:43:55,721
It reads, "I bought this book
when the Testament was abrogated
559
00:43:55,889 --> 00:43:58,449
"that shepherds might not read it.
560
00:43:58,609 --> 00:44:01,442
"I pray God amend that blindness.
561
00:44:01,609 --> 00:44:06,364
"Written by Robert Williams,
keeping sheep upon Saintbury Hill."
562
00:44:12,409 --> 00:44:15,446
By the time Williams wrote his prayer
on his hillside,
563
00:44:15,609 --> 00:44:20,524
the course of reform in England
had suffered major setbacks.
564
00:44:20,689 --> 00:44:25,763
In 1540, Cromwell had fallen,
tossed to the executioner
565
00:44:25,929 --> 00:44:31,242
after his schemes for an alliance
with Europe's Lutheran princes collapsed.
566
00:44:32,129 --> 00:44:36,600
Unfortunately for Cromwell,
the Lutheran princess, Anne of Cleves,
567
00:44:36,769 --> 00:44:39,329
the mail-order bride
he'd arranged for Henry,
568
00:44:39,489 --> 00:44:44,961
had turned out to be nowhere near as cute
as Hans Holbein had painted her.
569
00:44:48,329 --> 00:44:51,605
By then, Parliament had enacted
the six articles
570
00:44:51,769 --> 00:44:55,205
which under pain of death
outlawed marriage for priests
571
00:44:55,369 --> 00:44:58,839
and reaffirmed the sanctity of the mass.
572
00:45:00,729 --> 00:45:02,720
To the dismay of the reformers,
573
00:45:02,889 --> 00:45:07,280
these core Catholic beliefs
turned out to be Henry's, too.
574
00:45:09,929 --> 00:45:13,968
So Henry's final position
on matters of religion was this:
575
00:45:14,129 --> 00:45:19,567
A national Church divorced from Rome,
but remarried to the English crown,
576
00:45:19,729 --> 00:45:24,200
stripped of cults and shows,
but still in essence Catholic.
577
00:45:24,369 --> 00:45:26,360
All things considered,
578
00:45:26,529 --> 00:45:30,078
Henry was pretty satisfied
with the middle way he thought he'd found.
579
00:45:30,249 --> 00:45:34,686
Which is what we see in this massive
picture from the studio of Hans Holbein.
580
00:45:34,849 --> 00:45:38,319
King Henry, all-powerful, all-knowing,
581
00:45:38,489 --> 00:45:43,927
the guardian and ruler of the temporal
AND the spiritual realm.
582
00:45:47,529 --> 00:45:52,319
The munchkins grovelling at his feet
are the Guild of Barber-Surgeons.
583
00:45:52,489 --> 00:45:55,526
They hail the king as the healer
and a great physician,
584
00:45:55,689 --> 00:45:59,364
which is just how Henry liked
to see himself in his final years -
585
00:45:59,529 --> 00:46:04,557
the Tudor medicine man who had laid
the body of England on the operating table
586
00:46:04,729 --> 00:46:08,802
and cut out the cancers
of popery and superstition.
587
00:46:08,969 --> 00:46:12,564
The patient was now fully recovered,
the nation duly grateful,
588
00:46:12,729 --> 00:46:16,005
the operation a complete success.
589
00:46:18,329 --> 00:46:23,198
Except, of course, it wasn't, because
after Henry would come Henry's children,
590
00:46:23,369 --> 00:46:27,806
each with their own idea
of what was best for the country's health -
591
00:46:27,969 --> 00:46:32,724
Edward, the heir apparent,
and his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth,
592
00:46:32,889 --> 00:46:35,084
both of whom were restored
to the succession
593
00:46:35,249 --> 00:46:38,446
a few weeks before their father's death.
594
00:46:39,169 --> 00:46:41,160
Between them
they covered the religious spectrum
595
00:46:41,329 --> 00:46:45,004
from hard-line Protestant
to fanatical Catholic.
596
00:46:45,169 --> 00:46:47,319
And the road the country took after Henry,
597
00:46:47,489 --> 00:46:51,402
back to a Catholic past
or forwards into a Protestant future,
598
00:46:51,569 --> 00:46:58,088
would depend, like never before, on
the lottery of births, deaths and marriages.
599
00:47:01,209 --> 00:47:03,803
When Henry died in 1547,
600
00:47:03,969 --> 00:47:10,363
he left �600 to pay for two priests
to say prayers for his soul forever.
601
00:47:11,849 --> 00:47:14,443
You have to wonder
how he apparently failed to notice
602
00:47:14,609 --> 00:47:17,681
that Edward had been educated
by fervent Protestants
603
00:47:17,849 --> 00:47:22,365
who obviously had no time
for such superstitious nonsense.
604
00:47:25,049 --> 00:47:28,803
Led by Thomas Cranmer,
they saw the nine-year-old boy king
605
00:47:28,969 --> 00:47:30,960
as a new Josiah,
606
00:47:31,129 --> 00:47:36,408
the biblical king who had taken it
as his mission to destroy idolatry.
607
00:47:39,409 --> 00:47:42,799
Now this would be the real Reformation.
608
00:47:42,969 --> 00:47:46,359
For just look what happened
in the six years of Edward's reign.
609
00:47:46,529 --> 00:47:49,441
All the customs and ceremonies
of the old Church,
610
00:47:49,609 --> 00:47:54,922
the blessing of candles at Candlemas
and palms on Palm Sunday were banned.
611
00:47:55,089 --> 00:47:58,843
Away went the religious guilds
and fraternities.
612
00:47:59,009 --> 00:48:02,638
The cults of saints
that had survived Cromwell's attacks,
613
00:48:02,809 --> 00:48:06,484
along with their relics
and their pilgrimages, were forbidden.
614
00:48:06,649 --> 00:48:10,847
And images, statues,
stained-glass, paintings,
615
00:48:11,009 --> 00:48:14,684
were attacked
with chisels and limewash.
616
00:48:21,889 --> 00:48:26,121
A new Book of Common Prayer
required in all parishes for the first time
617
00:48:26,289 --> 00:48:30,760
brought English into the heart
of the church service.
618
00:48:30,929 --> 00:48:34,717
To get a measure of the cultural revolution
that took place,
619
00:48:34,889 --> 00:48:38,882
you need only come here
to Hailes Church in Gloucestershire.
620
00:48:43,289 --> 00:48:48,238
Three years of state-sponsored
iconoclasm have produced this.
621
00:48:48,409 --> 00:48:54,678
No more stone altar,
just a user-friendly communion table.
622
00:48:59,089 --> 00:49:02,286
This whole arrangement is designed
to abolish the distance
623
00:49:02,449 --> 00:49:04,758
between the priest and his flock.
624
00:49:04,929 --> 00:49:09,002
The screen which had been a barrier
protecting the mystery of the mass
625
00:49:09,169 --> 00:49:12,081
is now just a way in to the communion,
626
00:49:12,249 --> 00:49:16,401
a gathering of the faithful
along with their priest.
627
00:49:18,329 --> 00:49:21,162
As if all this wasn't shocking enough,
628
00:49:21,329 --> 00:49:24,321
imagine that some day in 1550,
629
00:49:24,489 --> 00:49:30,325
when, for the first time, the priest invited
the congregation to partake of communion,
630
00:49:30,489 --> 00:49:34,767
using those English words
never before heard in church,
631
00:49:34,929 --> 00:49:37,443
"dearly beloved".
632
00:49:37,609 --> 00:49:41,318
The familiarity of this
must have made many of them squirm,
633
00:49:41,489 --> 00:49:46,847
rather like these days hearing
a trendy vicar insist, "Call me Bob."
634
00:49:48,689 --> 00:49:51,886
This radical transformation
wouldn't have been possible
635
00:49:52,049 --> 00:49:54,768
without the active support of Edward.
636
00:49:54,929 --> 00:50:00,481
While Edward led the Protestant state,
resistance came close to home,
637
00:50:00,649 --> 00:50:03,447
as he recalls in his diary.
638
00:50:03,609 --> 00:50:07,238
The Lady Mary, my sister,
came to me at Westminster,
639
00:50:07,409 --> 00:50:11,766
where after salutations she was called
of my council into a chamber
640
00:50:11,929 --> 00:50:15,444
where it was declared how long
I had suffered her mass.
641
00:50:15,609 --> 00:50:19,966
She answered that her soul was God's,
and her faith she would not change.
642
00:50:20,129 --> 00:50:23,917
Nor would she dissemble her opinion
with contrary doings.
643
00:50:25,169 --> 00:50:28,161
Edward's chronicle
records one of several run-ins
644
00:50:28,329 --> 00:50:30,559
he and his councillors had with Mary.
645
00:50:30,729 --> 00:50:35,086
The mass had been outlawed
since the Act of Uniformity in 1549,
646
00:50:35,249 --> 00:50:37,683
but Mary ignored the ban.
647
00:50:37,849 --> 00:50:42,877
Indeed, she increased her attendance
to two, even three times a day.
648
00:50:43,849 --> 00:50:46,761
She may have had
a martyr complex a mile wide,
649
00:50:46,929 --> 00:50:51,525
but Catholic Mary knew her challenge
was simply to bide her time,
650
00:50:51,689 --> 00:50:55,284
to wait for Edward to die,
preferably childless.
651
00:50:55,449 --> 00:51:00,967
And sure enough, in 1553,
this is just what happened.
652
00:51:06,689 --> 00:51:10,398
And so England's first female ruler
since Queen Matilda
653
00:51:10,569 --> 00:51:13,686
ascended the throne
with just two aims in mind:
654
00:51:13,849 --> 00:51:16,317
To return England
to its obedience to Rome,
655
00:51:16,489 --> 00:51:21,643
and to produce a Catholic male heir
who would keep it that way.
656
00:51:21,809 --> 00:51:25,006
Mary's first aim was achieved
with amazingly little resistance
657
00:51:25,169 --> 00:51:27,922
after it was made clear
all those rolling acres
658
00:51:28,089 --> 00:51:31,923
and all real estate sold off
during the dissolution of the monasteries
659
00:51:32,089 --> 00:51:35,479
would not be restored to the Church.
660
00:51:36,369 --> 00:51:41,887
In 1554, both Houses of Parliament,
contrite as naughty children,
661
00:51:42,049 --> 00:51:46,247
knelt and asked forgiveness
from the Pope's legate, Cardinal Poole,
662
00:51:46,409 --> 00:51:51,164
for all the anti-papal legislation passed
since the 1530s.
663
00:51:52,849 --> 00:51:56,762
Orders went out for the repainting
of churches, the carving of roods,
664
00:51:56,929 --> 00:52:00,444
the restoration of the Latin mass.
665
00:52:00,609 --> 00:52:04,318
Heretical England had been received
back into the fold,
666
00:52:04,489 --> 00:52:07,401
had been forgiven by Mother Rome.
667
00:52:11,729 --> 00:52:14,607
But all this would be literally fruitless
668
00:52:14,769 --> 00:52:19,763
if Mary was unable to produce
a good Roman Catholic heir.
669
00:52:19,929 --> 00:52:23,604
Her choice of husband
was Philip II of Spain.
670
00:52:23,769 --> 00:52:27,762
To Mary, of course, this union
had special personal meaning,
671
00:52:27,929 --> 00:52:32,286
the vindication of a long dead Spanish
mother, Catherine of Aragon.
672
00:52:32,449 --> 00:52:36,124
If a Spanish Catholic marriage
had been right for England then,
673
00:52:36,289 --> 00:52:39,201
then it should be right for England now.
674
00:52:39,369 --> 00:52:41,360
But that was 50 years ago.
675
00:52:41,529 --> 00:52:45,317
Much had been done
that could not now be undone.
676
00:52:50,489 --> 00:52:56,007
A Catholic marriage now was not
something that could be taken for granted.
677
00:52:57,609 --> 00:53:01,602
It now seemed a bad match.
It seemed a foreign idea.
678
00:53:01,769 --> 00:53:04,761
The Queen is a Spaniard at heart,
it was said,
679
00:53:04,929 --> 00:53:08,001
and loves another realm better than this.
680
00:53:09,809 --> 00:53:13,722
When Thomas Wyatt, the son
of Anne Boleyn's old poetical admirer,
681
00:53:13,889 --> 00:53:18,360
led an army to the gates of London,
he cast himself as a patriot,
682
00:53:18,529 --> 00:53:22,681
pledged, as he said,
"to the avoidance of strangers".
683
00:53:23,609 --> 00:53:26,806
Xenophobia was not enough
to dethrone Queen Mary.
684
00:53:26,969 --> 00:53:30,086
Wyatt's army melted away.
685
00:53:38,689 --> 00:53:41,761
Ecstatic that for the first time
in her lonely life
686
00:53:41,929 --> 00:53:45,763
she had someone she could rely on,
a Spanish consort,
687
00:53:45,929 --> 00:53:51,242
Mary set about the zealous work of cleansing
her realm of the Protestant heresy,
688
00:53:51,409 --> 00:53:55,197
undoing Edward's reformation
as completely as she could.
689
00:53:55,369 --> 00:54:00,807
By fire, if that's what it took
to do the job properly, and it did.
690
00:54:02,969 --> 00:54:10,000
In three years, 220 men and 60 women
were burned on Mary's bonfires.
691
00:54:10,169 --> 00:54:15,368
Some, like Archbishop Cranmer,
were high-profile victims,
692
00:54:15,529 --> 00:54:19,886
but most were ordinary people,
cloth workers and cutlers.
693
00:54:22,129 --> 00:54:24,723
And it wasn't just the literate who died.
694
00:54:24,889 --> 00:54:30,043
Rawlings White, a fisherman, paid for
his son to go to school and learn to read,
695
00:54:30,209 --> 00:54:34,999
so the boy could then read the Bible to him
each night after supper.
696
00:54:35,169 --> 00:54:38,127
Joan Waist of Derby,
a poor blind woman,
697
00:54:38,289 --> 00:54:44,319
saved up for a New Testament
and then paid people to read it to her.
698
00:54:47,929 --> 00:54:53,162
But all this was in vain,
for Mary, like Edward, died childless,
699
00:54:53,329 --> 00:54:56,799
suffering frantically
through two false pregnancies,
700
00:54:56,969 --> 00:54:59,961
the second a cancer of the womb.
701
00:55:00,129 --> 00:55:04,486
The resurrection of Catholic England
was doomed.
702
00:55:04,649 --> 00:55:08,244
Anne Boleyn had triumphed from the grave
over Catherine of Aragon,
703
00:55:08,409 --> 00:55:14,678
as her daughter, Elizabeth, would outlast
Mary and undo all her pious hopes.
704
00:55:21,009 --> 00:55:23,603
Elizabeth cast herself as the healer,
705
00:55:23,769 --> 00:55:27,444
someone who would bring the violent
pendulum swings of the religious war
706
00:55:27,609 --> 00:55:30,123
back to a calm and steady centre,
707
00:55:30,289 --> 00:55:36,444
a middle way between the courses chosen
by her half-brother and her half-sister.
708
00:55:41,529 --> 00:55:45,488
She outlawed the mass and brought back
the Book of Common Prayer,
709
00:55:45,649 --> 00:55:49,278
but she allowed and encouraged priests
to remain celibate
710
00:55:49,449 --> 00:55:55,399
and was certainly in no hurry to abolish
the Catholic calendar of saint's days.
711
00:55:57,449 --> 00:56:00,885
But if Elizabeth put out the fires
of religious fanaticism,
712
00:56:01,049 --> 00:56:05,884
she lit them in the breasts
of patriotic Englishmen and women.
713
00:56:06,049 --> 00:56:10,839
For as cautions as she was, Elizabeth
couldn't help her reign being seen by many
714
00:56:11,009 --> 00:56:15,002
as the reinstatement of a truly English way.
715
00:56:17,449 --> 00:56:20,361
Under Elizabeth,
Englishness was discovered,
716
00:56:20,529 --> 00:56:23,282
celebrated, shouted from the roof tops,
717
00:56:23,449 --> 00:56:27,044
and it was, above all,
a Protestant Englishness.
718
00:56:27,209 --> 00:56:32,488
With hindsight, God must
have meant this to happen all along.
719
00:56:34,289 --> 00:56:38,760
Now, Protestantism and patriotism
were one and the same,
720
00:56:38,929 --> 00:56:41,079
and the history you've just seen,
721
00:56:41,169 --> 00:56:44,559
which at the outset had nothing to do
with national identity,
722
00:56:44,729 --> 00:56:47,607
at the end became obsessed with it.
723
00:56:47,729 --> 00:56:51,802
And when the Pope offered to bless
anyone who would assassinate Elizabeth,
724
00:56:51,969 --> 00:56:54,608
that bond only became stronger.
725
00:56:54,769 --> 00:57:00,162
Now Catholics would be forced to choose
between their Church and their Queen.
726
00:57:03,569 --> 00:57:06,845
English Catholic priests
trained in foreign seminaries
727
00:57:07,009 --> 00:57:10,206
would be smuggled into the country
and end up either dead
728
00:57:10,369 --> 00:57:16,239
or in hiding with Catholic families who were
rich and powerful enough to protect them.
729
00:57:21,529 --> 00:57:26,159
So if we ask ourselves the question we
asked at the beginning of the programme,
730
00:57:26,329 --> 00:57:29,241
"Whatever happened
to Catholic England?"
731
00:57:29,409 --> 00:57:32,685
The answer is that it ended up down here,
732
00:57:32,849 --> 00:57:38,401
in a priest-hole, like this one
at Sawston Hall outside Cambridge.
733
00:57:38,569 --> 00:57:44,360
The splendour of Long Melford reduced
to a cloak-and-dagger church.
734
00:57:49,769 --> 00:57:52,237
For the Catholics of Elizabeth's England
735
00:57:52,409 --> 00:57:54,877
the retreat of the priesthood
to the country house
736
00:57:55,049 --> 00:57:57,847
would be a final disaster.
737
00:57:58,009 --> 00:58:03,481
What was once the national Church
would become a faith on the run.