BRITAIN IN EUROPE

Part II

All Scripture references are to the Anglicised New International Version (NIV-UK) unless stated otherwise

Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake

to every authority instituted among men:

whether to the king, as the supreme authority,

or to governors, who are sent

by him to punish those who do wrong and to

commend those who do right.

1 Peter 2: 13, 14

AT 20 INCHES high and 230 feet long, the Bayeux Tapestry illustrates the Battle of Hastings in 72 finely-embroidered scenes. The flat perspective and bold outlines give it a cartoon-like appearance. Like the frames of an animated film, the tapestry stylises events and gives history an emphasis from the standpoint of the victors. The tapestry begins with the acts of intrigue between Harold Godwinson and Duke William. The final scenes of battle have made the tapestry famous. Above the detail in which a Saxon warrior is plucking an arrow from his eye are embroidered the words, hic Harold Rex interfectus est – ‘here King Harold is slain’.

William the Conqueror

William of Normandy crossed the Channel in 1066 and defeated the Anglo-Saxon army at Hastings.

The Pope sponsored the Norman expedition, issuing a bull to authorise the conquest and sending the banner of St. Peter to bless it. In Christmas of that year William was crowned king at Westminster Abbey, later dividing England among his knights.

During his reign William co-operated with Rome in its intervention in the clerical appointments of the English church. Supporters loyal to the Pontiff retained their office, while the disloyal were ejected. Pope Gregory VII’s Dictatus Papae issued in 1075, while William still ruled England, manifests Rome’s motives. The Dictatus proclaims her demands for religious and secular supremacy.[fn1] Twenty-seven articles arrogate judicial and law-making powers to the Pope, claiming authority over kings and bishops, laymen and churchmen alike. Organised Christianity united Britain with the nations of Europe.

Dawn of the Reformation

The power and influence of Rome prevailed in England until Henry VIII. In earlier times Robert Grosseteste and John Wycliffe had protested against Rome’s suzerainty, but it was Henry who broke the nation’s ties to the Pope. Britain’s island geography and long tradition of liberty had fostered free and independent thinking. Men and women enlightened by Scripture were prepared to doubt the Pope’s authority and teaching. The official switch to Protestantism under Henry put Britain beyond Rome’s frontier.

Henry could not have succeeded without the priest, Thomas Cranmer. Henry’s request to the Pope to grant a divorce from Catherine of Aragon had been refused. Cranmer questioned the Papal ruling and advised Henry to raise the issue with the universities and church scholars. In 1533 Cranmer was promoted to the office of Archbishop of Canterbury; two months later he pronounced the marriage between King Henry VIII and Catherine null and void.

Break from Rome

Cranmer defied Rome in the confident belief that the English church should be subject to the civil power. His view was not uncommon, but very few have had the privilege or authority to shape a nation in accordance with this doctrine. Papal claims for authority over clergy and laity had long been denied by the English church. Augustine had attempted to subject it to Rome in 603 but was resisted by the bishops he met.[fn2] Cranmer based his beliefs on the New Testament, where St. Paul declares (Romans 13: 1-3) : -

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgement on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong.

Church of England Formally Established

The Pope was essentially a foreign bishop, and so was excluded from influence in the English church by Cranmer’s defence of Apostolic teaching. England declared its independence from Rome in the Act of Supremacy of 1534. Parliament issued the Act in recognition of the English monarch’s power over the church: -

. . . that the king, our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England, called Anglicans Ecclesia; . . .[fn3]

England was not alone in her defiance. All across Europe, bold Christians such as Luther, Calvin and Zwingli publicly contradicted Rome’s teachings. The Bible, newly-translated into various European languages, inspired a generation. Much religious truth that had been lost for centuries in Latin, now shone brightly and fuelled the work of reform. Rome’s claims were seen to be false. The schism between England and Rome was just one of several cracks which opened up in the Holy Roman Empire.

In Germany, the states of Saxony, Hesse, Brunswick, Brandenburg and Prussia joined together in the Schmalkaldic League, united by their profession of Christianity according to Martin Luther. The League garnered support from other countries and parties seeking liberty from Rome. Independence from the Empire and membership of the League offered more than religious freedom, securing political and economic advantages also.

John Calvin is accorded the chief position of influence in the development of several Protestant movements in France. By 1559 Protestant churches had large followings in the French country towns and their members included important figures in the aristocracy, army and government. The Waldenses and Huguenots were fiercely persecuted, but events like the massacre of the Waldenses at Mérindol in 1545 did not deter French Protestants nor suppress their faith. During the persecution of the Huguenots in the late 1500s, many fled to England for refuge.

Counter-Reformation

The Protestant Reformation stirred the Roman Catholic church into action. Shaken by the departure of many of its adherents and the widespread exposure of its abuses, the Catholic church agreed on the need to reform itself. In 1540 Pope Paul III established the order of Jesuits – an elite and disciplined organisation dedicated to serving the Papacy. Reformation met with counter-reformation and the Holy Roman Empire mobilised to reclaim Protestants to the Roman faith.

Charles I of Spain, Emperor of Catholic Europe, led an army into Germany to challenge and conquer the Protestant forces of the Schmalkaldic League. The Imperial army defeated the Lutherans in the battle at Mühlberg on the Elbe in 1547. In France the religious war of words boiled over into civil war. The Wars of Religion between 1562 and 1598 divided town against town, family against family. The troubles eased when King Henry of Navarre took the French throne and granted religious freedom to Protestants.

Christendom Divided

The Reformation divided the church at Christendom’s centre, and from there the division spread through nation, state and family – Protestant against Catholic. Europe’s struggles culminated in the Thirty Years War between 1618 and 1648. Over eight million died in the fighting and from the famine that followed.

Europe’s religious infighting and descent into war gave time for reform to flourish in England. By her intrepid diplomacy, Queen Elizabeth I consolidated and preserved national independence against Catholic intrigue. During the days of ‘Good Queen Bess’ England’s navy grew to ascendancy, Sir Walter Raleigh established a settlement in America, and the renaissance of art and learning began. William Shakespeare, John Milton and Francis Bacon are just a few of the literary giants from the Elizabethan age.

Absolute Monarchy

After Elizabeth’s death, the tussle between Protestantism and Catholicism continued and transformed into a simmering dispute between the rights of the monarch versus the rights of Parliament, resulting in the beheading of King Charles I; the Civil War of 1642-1648; the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II; the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the flight of King James II to France; and the installation in 1689 on the English throne of the Protestant Dutch Prince, William of Orange.

Under William the relationship between monarch and Parliament was re-balanced out when Parliament presented him (and Queen Mary) with the Bill of Rights. The bill curtailed royal power by preventing the monarch from interfering with the nation’s government. The royal prerogatives to raise taxes, maintain a standing army and act as supreme judge were made subject to the civil authority of Parliament.

William was soon obliged to defend his adopted kingdom against the pro-Catholic army of James II at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland in 1690. William’s victory consolidated Protestant control of Ireland. The Act of Union of 1707, during the reign of Queen Anne, welded England and Scotland into the United Kingdom. Modern British identity dates from this point. Over the next two hundred years Britain would come to dominate the world’s oceans with her navy, forge a globe-girdling empire, and initiate the Industrial Revolution.

To Be Continued

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NOTES

Citations to Web pages are correct as of the dates retrieved, but sites may expire or be moved.

[fn1] The text of the 27 Papal dictates appears at the Internet Medieval Source Book hosted online at Fordham University, New York.

<http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/g7-dictpap.asp> (retrieved 13 October 2011).

[fn2] Bede, A History of the English Church and People, ed. by Leo Shirley-Price, second edition, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968), 2.2, p. 100 .

[fn3] The Act of Supremacy is an important part in Britain’s constitutional legacy.

The Act was not a declaration of a new decision but an affirmation of a long-established fact. The prerogative of the English monarch to exercise supreme authority over church and laymen alike pre-dates King Alfred. An English translation of the Act can be found online here:-

<http://www.britainexpress.com/History/tudor/supremacy-henry-text.htm> (retrieved 13 October 2011).

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