1536 to 1539, came without a repudiation of traditional, medieval
doctrine, as Henry VIII maintained a robust medieval piety throughout
his life. While the dissolution had hardly pleased the pious of England,
Henry VIII was not throwing some bone to the Protestants, and this, at
least, had suited the conservatives. Edward VI’s government, however,
suppressed chantries (chapels erected for prayers for the deceased) on the
doctrinal ground that they had been superstitiously founded on the
erroneous doctrine of purgatory:
The king’s most loving subjects ... in this present Parliament
assembled, considering that a great part of superstition and errors in
Christian religion has been brought into the minds and estimation of
men, by reason of the ignorance of their very true and perfect
salvation through the death of Jesus Christ, and by devising and
phantasizing vain opinions of purgatory and masses satisfactory ...
the altering ... of the same ... cannot ... be provided ... other ... than
{by} ... the king’s highness.^61
Aside from the changes Edward VI’s council imposed upon the church
in matters of the communion service, the content of the sermons, or
ecclesiastical rite and order, they also sought to influence the English
Church by changing the theological environment at Oxford and
Cambridge, the source of its ministry, by the importation of continental
Protestant Reformers. Following Charles V’s triumph over the
Schmalkaldic league at the battle of Muhlberg in April 1547, and with
Strasbourg no longer a safe haven, many Protestants found sanctuary in
England, for example, Martin Bucer, Bernardino Ochino and most
importantly, Peter Martyr Vermigli.^62
Pietro Martire Vermigli was born in Florence in 1499, entering the
Augustinian order in 1516. Educated in Padua (1518–26), he was,
according to the letter Bucer wrote Calvin the day Martyr arrived in
Strasbourg, ‘learned in Latin, Greek and Hebrew’. His Greek he picked
up in Padua, along with his Aristotelianism; he learned his Hebrew while
serving as vicar to the prior in Bologna. From 1533–36 he was abbot in
JEWEL TILL 1558 21
Almighty God, and for the honour of this realm, that the possessions of such small
religious houses ... his majesty shall have and enjoy to him and to his heirs for ever.’ Act
for the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries, 27 Henry VIII, cap. 28, in Gee and Hardy
eds.,Documents Illustrative, pp. 257–59.
(^61) Act Dissolving the Chantries, 1 Edward VI, cap. 14. in Documents Illustrative, pp.
328–29.
(^62) Others included the former Capuchin general Bernardino Ochino, John à Lasco from
Poland via Zurich, and the Strasbourg reformer Martin Bucer who went to Cambridge.
Elton,Reform and Reformation, p. 339. Though Elton gives the battle of Muhlberg a
causal influence on the continental emigres, Dickens instead saw it as the presence of an
opportunity to spread the Reformation in a realm given to its principles. English
Reformation, pp. 231–32.