The history of England church is dated traditionally by the church of Gregorian mission through St. Augustine of Canterbury. From the perspective of Anglican, Christianity under Augustine mission was authorities by pope until 1534 when King Henry viii became the head of England church. The arrival of Christianity in Britain was around AD 47, during the period of the Roman Empire. The root of Christianity developed in Sub-Roman Britain and later spread to Scotland, Ireland, and Pictland. The church was restored fully to be under Rome in 1555, it was during the reigning of King Philip and Queen Mary. The authority of the pope was rejected after Queen Elizabeth took over the kingship. Elizabeth settlement in 1558 suggested that the church will be both reformed and Catholic. During the early church in England, the Bishop's or the Leaders in the church used to be treated like Kings. They were consulted for advice by Kings and Queens; they lived a luxurious life compared to common men. During 1534, the parliament in England changed religious establishment. There was the passing of supremacy and England church was born with Henry vii becoming the head of the church. The power of the church was taken from the papacy. Giving power to the king gave rise to different problems. The first information to look at from the document is the primitive Church of England before King Henry vii made reformations (BERNARD, 1990; Graves, 2003).
The Church Reformation during his Reign and the Anabaptism
Before the authority of the church was passed to King Henry vii, the leadership of the church was under the clergy, Bishops and church officials. The church was primitive and the church leaders had great powers over common people. Ordinary people complained a lot about different issues. According to the document, the Bishops and religious officials imposed excess fines to the commoners for probation of testaments. Before the king, the ordinary people had other six complains that are worse than fines including excess taxation while taking their corpse to the mortuary. Priests were also surveyors, officers, and Stewards to bishops and other spiritual heads; therefore, they grazed in every country because they had occupied lands and granges so that they poor people could only depend on them for survival. The fifth problem of the primitive church was that spiritual leaders had great benefits from kings; they used to live in Lord’s houses while their flock lived a poor life. Therefore, all parishioners lacked true preaching of the word of God. The last problem was that a priest who has a little learning would have twelve benefices from several universities and given positions to teach and preach more than the scholars who are well learned. All the issues about the spiritual leaders were never to be talked about by anyone because; anyone who tried to talk about them was to lose everything that he or she had. Bishops and other church leaders were counselors and also ruled everything about the king. The document is biased about the powers of the spiritual leaders and the difference between them and the common people. The document does not give information on how the priest and church leaders were chosen in such a society. If at all they used to live a luxurious powerful life, everyone would have shown interest or rather try their best to also be ordained as bishops and priests (Graves, 2003; Key & Bucholz, 2009).
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The reformation of the church began with King Henry viii in 1532, the document reveals that it is God who opened the eyes of the King to see what was really going on in church. Though it doesn’t say how God illuminated the king’s eyes, the king became aware of more problems in the church through common people's complain about the spiritual leaders. People began to have a desire for reformation and presented their grudges to the king. People who have learned law were selected to the parliament to prepare one bill. They drew a bill on mortuaries, wills, testament, and farms taken by spiritual leaders. The bishops were then charged with different offenses, ranging from land grabbing to money grabbing in the name of many spiritual days. Henry viii gained new title because of the act of supremacy. However, there was still a problem because it only defined the new powers that the king has. The church under the power of the king was faced with a challenge of developing new rules (Key & Bucholz, 2009).
Under the reign of Henry viii, there was a great reformation which considered ordinary people. They were allowed to make their religious belief well known. After removing the power of the pope, he tried to maintain a church either less or more traditional in rituals and theology. His name is powerful in the history of England as a king who stopped religious reforms, performs executions like that of Cromwell (1540) and some Protestants. He abolished diversity in opinions; it was called the act of six articles. He was able to use sacramentaries and Anabaptist because they were not a threat to the state. He uses Anabaptism as a manipulation tool to grab his power and control the church. Henry’s move to grab power started in 1530 when he was against the leadership of the clergy in the Roman Catholic Church. Fifteen clergymen were charged with a crime due to the fact that they were under papacy leadership ("Henry VIII, 1875; Key & Bucholz, 2009).
The king demanded to be recognized as a supreme head and a sole protector. Being the head of the church in England and without the authority of the church leaders, the issue of faith in England church arouse especially about the doctrine and practices of the church. Therefore, the king accepted all the doctrines and practices of the Catholics as long as they don’t challenge the King’s authority. However, definitions and doctrine were created to make it clear on what will be considered as a challenge to the King’s authority and what is expected to by the King. It took about four years to establish the doctrine. The first document was produced in 1535, in 1536, the royal prohibited the printing of scriptures without a license. The reformation in 1535 started to affect the world, Thomas Cromwell was sent on a mission to search and find out the practices and wealth of the religious houses. The government seized the properties of the religious leaders dissolved the lesser monasteries in 1536 and the greater in 1539.The monasteries were doing the opposite of what is expected of them, their work was supposed to be, providing medical care and charity (Warner, 1999).
The author of the document on religious reformation is not mentioned. But the speaker at the beginning uses first-person narration to pass information on church reformation in England. However, as the document progresses, the point of view changed to be third person narration. The purpose of the document is to provide history on how the church was reformed in England and reasons why there were changes in the religious system. The document also gives information on how powerful king Henry viii was, and his contributions to church reforms. It also creates awareness to the believers on the fact that leaders in the church are supposed to be charitable rather than enrich themselves. Despite the fact that Henry was hush and demanded authority of the church in England, he also contributed a lot on the policies of the modern churches leadership (Henry VIII, 1875; Key & Bucholz, 2009).
The use of Anabaptist by the Henry was just a way was just to create more establishment of churches in England that will be under his own power. He demonstrated his power clearly by pretending to forgive the Anabaptists. He also used the trial of John Lambert to demonstrate his power. Being a sacramentary, he tried to appeal for the trial, and the king acted very fast because it was an opportunity to display to the public and increase his powers as the head of the church in England. They had disagreed with the king about the Eucharist and Lambert decided to submit himself to the king for the trial. At the trial, the king ordered for the killing of Lambert (Henry VIII, 1875; Key & Bucholz, 2009).
King Henry creation of a separate church with new doctrines was not only influenced by his greed of power in the church, but also on his views on marriage and divorce. According to the church law, divorce was not allowed but Henry annulled his first marriage without the approval of the pope. He married six wives of which both marriages ended differently. Two ended in divorce, two in deaths and two went through beheading due to alleged adultery. Henry wanted the law of the church to fit his lifestyle, for example, Christianity advocate for forgiveness, but Henry punished two of his wives by killing them for committing adultery. Murder is also against the law of Christianity including any form of divorce. Henry viii died during his birthday on January 28 th , 1547 and was succeeded by his nine years old son Edward (Henry VIII, 1875; Key & Bucholz, 2009).
In conclusion, it was important for Henry to have Anabaptists in his government to provide the heresy. Anabaptists were greatly feared, he used them to create a precedent which the new church could not tolerate. He was able to increase his powers of the church through them and provide clarity of his leadership and control towards the church. In 1534, the pope’s power was replaced by King Henry Viii
References
Bernard, G. (1990). The Church of England c. 1529–c. 1642. History , 75 (244), 183-206. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-229x.1990.tb01514.x
Graves, M. (2003). Henry VIII . London: Pearson / Longman.
Key, N., & Bucholz, R. (2009). Sources and debates in English history 1485-1714 . Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Henry VIII: April 1529, 1-5 | British History Online . (1875). British-history.ac.uk . Retrieved 16 April 2018, from http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol4/pp2376-2385
Warner, J. (1999). Henry VIII's divorce . Woodbridge: Boydell Press.
