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Martin Luther's ‘Divine Right’ Kingship and the Royal Supremacy: Two Tracts from the 1531 Parliament and Convocation of the Clergy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

S. W. Haas
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Extract

Much recent commentary on Henry viii and Thomas Cromwell emphasises their use of propaganda against ‘papacy’ during the initial stages of the schism from Rome. G. R. Elton, for example, considers this genre to be well conceived and mature in technique, all the more remarkable since Cromwell's project was the ‘…first such campaign ever mounted by any government in any state of Europe’. Notwithstanding its sophisticated presentation during the years after the schism, such polemic has been described by Elton and others as having started ‘rather late’, i.e. when definite political action had already commenced. Its purpose, therefore, was to explain specific official enterprises, commencing with the legislation on Appeals in 1532–3. But was this an after-the-fact endeavour? Might not a creation so well-wrought in fact antedate Henry's use of parliament against Rome? At least two MS documents describing a new sort of ‘christian’ kingship survive to suggest that Henry's propaganda efforts commenced in early

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , July 1980 , pp. 317 - 325
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

1 Elton, G. R., Policy and Police: The Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age of Thomas Cromwell, Cambridge 1972, 206.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., 174-6, 205-7 ; Scarisbrick, J. J., Henry VIII, Berkeley 1968, 265, 392Google Scholar ; Lehmberg, S. ‘Parliamentary Attainder in the Reign of Henry VIII’. Historical Journal, xviii (1975), 681–3Google Scholar.

3 Harpsfield, N., A Treatise on the Pretended Divorce, ed. Pocock, N. (Camden Society, 2nd ser., xxi, 1878), 197.Google Scholar

4 For the text of what will hereafter be termed the Document , see Pocock, Nicolas (ed.), Records of the Reformation, the Divorce 1527-1533, Oxford 1870, ii. 100–3.Google Scholar A number authorities have associated the Document with the government: cf. Baumer, F. le van, The Early Tudor Theory of Kingship, New Haven 1940, 235Google Scholar , and Janelle, P., L'Angleterre catholique à la veille du Schisme, Paris 1935, 272nGoogle Scholar , who both date the Document later than its own title-page date of 1531. Their reasons for such postdating are refuted by evidence presented in , Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, 260–360.Google ScholarMcConica, J. K., English Humanists and Reformation Politics, Oxford 1965, 128Google Scholar , corrects this error, placing the Document in 1531.

5 Lehmberg, S. E., The Reformation Parliament: 1529-1 1536, Cambridge, 1970, 114Google Scholar , cites SP. 6/2, fos. 94-6, (Col. of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, ed. Brewer, J. S. et al., London 1862-1932Google Scholar (hereafter L & P). v, 1022, mis-dated 1532). See also Christ Church MS 306, fos. 34-5, for additional contemporary reference to such documents. Hereafter SP. 6/2, fos. 94-6, will be termed the Rochford MS.

6 Cf. Figgis, J. N., The Divine Right of Kings, 2nd edn, Cambridge 1934, 88–94Google Scholar , , Baumer, Tudor Kingship, 87-90, 120–4Google Scholar , and Clebsch, William, England's Earliest Protestants, New Haven 1964, 146–53, 240–51Google Scholar , for commentary on Luther's doctrine of Christian obedience.

7 Tyndale, William, ‘The Obedience of a Christian Man’, in Doctrinal Treatises and Introductions to Different Portions of the Holy Scriptures, ed. Walter, Henry, Cambridge 1848, 131–344Google Scholar ; Foxe, John, Acts and Monuments (The Book of Martyrs), ed. Pratt, J., London 1874, v. 119Google Scholar , speaks of the Obedience as a book where Tyndale ‘… instructeth all men in the office and duty of Christian obedience …’

8 Cf. Schuster, L. A., ‘Thomas More's Polemical Career’, in The Complete Work of St. Thomas More, New Haven 1973, 8. 3, 1137–268Google Scholar ; see also Stone, Lawrence, The Causes of the English Revolution, London 1972, 58-9, 88Google Scholar , and , Clebsch, England's Earliest Protestants, 240–51Google Scholar.

9 Strype, John, Ecclesiastical Memorials, Oxford 1820-1840, i. 172.Google Scholar, Foxe, Acts and Monuments, 53Google Scholar , spoke of what influence Simon Fish's Supplication for the Beggars had on Henry VIII. In another place I have described the debt of Fish's tract to Tyndale's Obedience. Cf. Haas, S. W., ‘Simon Fish, William Tyndale and Sir Thomas More's “Lutheran Conspiracy”’, this Journal, xxiii (1972), 125–36.Google Scholar, Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, 247Google Scholar , and Elton, C. R., Reform and Reformation; England 1509–1558, London 1978, 126Google Scholar , both remark upon the king's enthusiastic reception of the Obedience. Concerning Henry's subsequent recruitment of Tyndale, however, see the doubts expressed by Elton, C. R., Reform and Renewal: Thomas Cromwell and the Common Weal, Cambridge 1973, 38–41.Google Scholar Reference to B.L. Cotton MS Galba. B.x. 7, among other sources, puts to rest such doubt. The entire question of government ‘recruitment’ in 1530–1 is treated in a forthcoming article by the present writer.

10 , Elton, Reform and Reformation, 135.Google Scholar The compilation is entitled Collectanea satis copiosa (c. 1530-3). It is a gathering of legal, patristic and scriptural proofs for Henry's imperial authority and the autonomy of England. Elton claims too much for it as a source of proofs for die divine-right, absolutist kingship featured in Henrician polemic before the Royal Supremacy. In its 1531 edition, S.T.C. 14286-7 (Determination ofthe Universities …), no such assertions are included. Cf. Haas, S. W., ‘Henry VIII'S Glasse of Truth’, History, lxiv (1979). 353–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar where the question is discussed at more length.

11 L & P, v. 628 (June 1531). Sir Roger Page of Derbyshire repeated the rumour.

12 , Lehmberg, Reformation Parliament, 114.Google Scholar See ibid., 120-3, for Cromwell's association with such writers as John Rastell on other MSS and draft bills during this session. See also Merriman, R. B., The Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, Oxford 1902, i. 94Google Scholar , and Mattingly, G., Catherine of Aragon. New York 1950, 320Google Scholar , who noticed the circulation of MS tracts by the government at this time. Until Professor Lehmberg reviewed the evidence on this subject, however, their significance has generally been ignored ; , Baumer, Tudor Kingship, 235Google Scholar , may have post-dated a number of pieces. The most interesting of these is SP. 1/99, fos. 213-26, ‘The Obedience of Christian People to their King’, as it is apparently written in the same hand as the Rochford MS, and likewise pounds home the tenets of Christian obedience.

13 Document, 101-3 (Sec. 2-3, 9-15). cf. especially Sec. 12, where it is held ‘For the special favour of our Saviour Christe, it appeareth that he did more singularly declare it to Paule than Peter,…’ See also , Tyndale, Obedience, 310–19Google Scholar.

14 Document, 100 (Sec. 1).

15 Ibid. (Sec. 3).

16 Ibid. (Sec. 4).

17 Pollard, A. W. and Redgrave, C. R., A Short-Title Catalogue of Booh Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475-1640, London 1964Google Scholar , no. 12510 , Disputatio inter Clericum et Militem (Berthelet, T., London 1531).Google Scholar Thomas Berthelet was the official royal printer in these years, and his 1534 English translation of the text is in Perry, A. J. (ed.), A Dialogue between a Knight and a clerk, concerning the power spiritual and temporal, London, Early English Text Society 1925, no. 167.Google Scholar The reference cited here is in , Perry (ed.), Dialogue, 37–8Google Scholar.

18 Document, 101 (Sec. 5).

19 Ibid. (Sec. 6).

20 Ibid. (Sec. 7).

21 Ibid. (Sec. 8).

22 Ibid. (Sec. 9-11).

23 Document, 103 (Sec. 16).

24 SP. 6/2, fo. 96, as quote d in , Lehmberg, Reformation Parliament, 114Google Scholar.

25 SP. 6/2, fo. g4, The question moved whether [these] topics ensuenge perteyne especially to [spiritual] prelates or to temporal princes. John 20. Sicut misit me pater, ita et ego misso vos. Et Act 30. Attendite nobis et cuncto gregi in quo nos spiritus sanctus posuit episcopos est. Here cited as the Rochford MS.

26 L & P, xi. 84; cf. 83, 85. See also , Elton, Policy and Police, 185Google Scholar.

27 SP. 6/2, fo. 94V.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid., fo. 94V-95V. cf. , Tyndale, Obedience, 210–19Google Scholar.

30 SP. 6/2, fo. 95.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.The reference to Hebrew kings ‘setting forth the worde of god’ is noteworthy.

34 SP. 6/2, fo. 96. The Lutheran concept of the priesthood of all believers could not be more clearly put.

35 Ibid., fo. 94.

36 Ibid., fb. 96.