cic Kingdom totally again and everyone thought that's that was you know returning to the status quo but for the moment the Henry VII story became important because one act of his changed the Society of England completely and that was the dissolution of the monasteries no one at the beginning of the 16th century could have believed that the monasteries would go so quickly in that way that by 1540 they were gone and they had all that happened really quickly and it really was it really was different from the the move towards uh um a separate England it was a matter of royal power uh which would become a Renaissance type of power saying I can't have a state which is answer able to the head of another state now no one had ever thought of that in in before that not only only real radicals thought of that before but there was a sense where in in medieval England the emperor the Holy Roman Emperor was the head of state and the pope was the head of the Heavenly Kingdom as seen here on Earth in the life of the church and there was a balance balance between the two that had already begun to break down when people little princes and kings around Europe began to to to resist the total power of the emperor but on the other hand it never really disappeared until the last hapsburg left Vienna and one remembers that when um the the Crown Prince at mying uh committed suicide and and uh they they brought the the thing to Francis Joseph and said well we can't have a funeral because he's a suicide and the the the the pope won't allow that and Francis Joseph this we're talking the late 19th century now Francis Joseph said what does that matter the pope is only our family chaplain and that was that that was old Imperial uh language but at this time in the uh 16th century you have the sense that if it's beginning to break up that it's too big to hold together and too many people know too many things because of the way in which both travel and also the printing press uh and the ability to look even outside this Earth with with a telescope the church lost control of being able to say to people that is evil you can't do that you can't read that and and so the Reformation found its its Locust not necessarily with Henry VII though of course he was the the flasho for a particular reason um but after that it began to unfold in a different way so if we look at what was happening with Henry VII to start with um and I suppose all this trouble began when Katherine of aragan came over to marry the heir to the throne Prince Arthur and they were married and two years later Arthur died of tuberculosis and so at the in in the beginning Henry V 7th thought that he who had just lost his Queen might marry her himself but then he thought no I'll um I'll give her as the wife to my second son Henry and so Henry was married to Katherine of aragan very devout Catholic princess and so life went on and a boy was born to Katherine of aragan who died 6 months later now Henry was always very worried about the succession and I think he didn't trust a succession to a woman he was wrong because one was going to come who was powerful enough to show them all but but uh at that time he thought I I I must have an heir and so Katherine produced then a little girl uh and from at that point um the princess Mary was Katherine's daughter and Henry VII's daughter but that wasn't good enough for him so as things proceeded two things came together Martin Luther with his thesis pinned onto the the door of the church at at vitberg um started the Protestant Reformation and the first person to write a a very cogent argument against it was none other than Henry VII for he was a great scholar and and knew what he was talking about uh and at the moment he he he still believed that he would have a son through through Catherine so that happened and the pope at the time gave Henry the title defender of the faith used to be on our penis FID Defensor and uh that was something that the the monarchy in England has has always treasured it was ratified by Parliament later on that this was one of the king's titles but then the trouble began because clearly Catherine was not going to give him a little boy as an heir and so he decided that something was wrong with the marriage and it must be God's will because the marriage was flawed because Katherine had been his brother's wife and think of John the Baptist talking to Herod it's not right that you should have your brother's wife in this way so Henry thought this is all the trouble it was never a real marriage in the first place I will get the pope to null this marriage for because it was never a real marriage and I can marry someone else who will give me a son and so he did the first thing of sending Cardinal woy to to the pope and the pope was a bit strapped at the time because he was a prisoner of the Holy Roman Emperor whose aunt was Catherine of aragan and so there was no way of of him just saying yes to this divorce W without getting the the Holy Roman Emperor was very powerful Emperor at the time um himself in trouble with with the emperor this went on and on one Ambassador after another went to Rome came back having failed and Henry was getting very erasable at this time and so you then have Henry turning against the church and deciding that he's going to head up the the church as well as the state as a real Renaissance Prince all the trouble of the next few years comes from that fact one person after another is beheaded because they've not if you think of the the the list of people who are beheaded who before were great counselor even Thomas Cromwell himself lost his head his next Queen an berin lost her head but first she had provided another princess Elizabeth but meanwhile Henry was Keen to eradicate the power that the the the church had over him and declare himself head of the English church and that situation then arrived when he said no no more of this I am now in charge of all things the monasteries he had already begun to dissolve and take the proceeds to furnish his Foreign Wars it was almost a sideshow but when you think how powerful those monasteries had been I think that that most of the land of Southwest England was owned by the the Abbot of glastenbury and the Abbot of shsb together and all that was seized and when the Commissioners came to glastenbury Abbey with massive Monastery in in Somerset uh they found when they went through all the books that Abott Whiting ran a very very tight and clean show there were no Faults found Henry said never nevertheless try him and and hang him and and uh do just that if you go to some you been to Wells Cathedral and Wells Cathedral has The Bishop's Palace next door and if you go into The Bishop's Palace at Wells there is the seat in which Abbott Whiting was seated when the trial took place and it was a fixed trial there was no doubt what the result would be the king had sent the result already and the Abbot was then in his lurgical vestments taken to the top of glastenbury tour and hanged and there were then um signs of stirring amongst the English population that this was somehow wrong and you began to get risings in different parts of the country wanting things to be put back as they were the the use of English in the mass which was then being um promulgated by Henry was resisted firmly by the Cornish because no one in cormal spoke English and they knew the Latin but but but they didn't understand the English and at the same time uh the the new Mass was was considered by the the pilgrimage of Grace in the north to be nothing better than party games and so we had all this going on and crma was brought in as the new Archbishop and Thomas Moore was executed that there is in the University Library here in our Yale the most wonderful brevier which Moore himself used in his last weeks in prison by himself and it's annotated down the side it's a book of ours really with illustrations but in it he writes the most lovely prayer about things that that as as he gives over his his life and remember his his last words to his uh to his family we shall merrily Meet in Heaven it was it was a a great um stand of Moore who on the scaffold said I die the king's good servant but God's first and he and Bishop Fisher were executed within two weeks of each other so all this was going on and then the king died and Edward I 6 as a little boy came in and he was given to Lord's protector to look after him while he was still a little boy and these were extreme Protestants so from that moment onwards the course was set not just to Luther but nearer to Calvin and you see how the two prayer books of 1549 and 1552 get rid of more and more of Catholic theology and sacramental theology we could we could actually um do a whole seminar this morning on the end of the prayer of Consecration and where the amen comes in either because uh in the the first it comes when the sacrament has been consecrated on the altar as the body of Christ in the second it comes at the end of all things when you've received your communion because Christ only appears when he's received with Faith by someone who's receiv received the the the sacrament the sacrament had no power itself it simply became active in those who were faithful when they when they Ed if they really were true people of Faith all these little details which kept changing on the way through but as we know Edward I 6 lived a very short time and at the end of that he nominated his nearest Protestant cousin to be his air her name poor soul was Lady Jane gray and she was made Queen for a short time but the rights of succession seemed to be more powerful to the English Parliament and the English people than the changes that had been made and so instantly they turned to Queen Mary the daughter of Katherine of aragan who came in as Queen and began to restore everything that had been that's why I say Henry VII is only one piece in all of this England was a totally Catholic Kingdom again and to seal that Mary married Philip II of Spain so together they were a young couple and it seemed to all intents and purposes that Catholic England was set to go on at that point like Catholic France no one knew that Mary would die so soon and when she did die then and Lady Jane gray had been dealt with and poor so executed just as a young girl not knowing really why she was being executed but that was to get her out of the way of of ever um having an a Mary herself has a really bad reputation because she she took things out on the ones who had really made her mother's life a complete misery and so Archbishop cranmer was burned at the stake in in Oxford and many Bishops suffered the same fate Latimer and and Ridley suffer the same kind of Fate but uh so she she she had a a bad press but nevertheless that was the way of monarchs in those days that you you did your best to get rid of those who might cause fermentation and revolution in your state so as it went on you then got Elizabeth coming in and Elizabeth was crowned in a Catholic Ceremony that was the last monarch of England to be crowned in a Roman Catholic Seminary but soon after she became Queen and she was a very educated lady and and spoke Latin and Greek and French and and and was certainly um well up to dealing with people like the king of Spain and the King of France and so on she was an evenhanded person who wanted elements of the old Faith because she loved the Liturgy and elements also of the new Faith because she was educated and wanted the people to read the Bible and have it read to them and so the book of common prayer which came into being in in her Reign was a nice amalgam of everything that had happened in 1549 book of common prayer 155 2 book of common prayer and she herself when when it um came to the the words of giving out the Holy Communion body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for The Preserve and keep the soul un everlasting life and that that was 1549 is actually saying the body of our Lord Jesus Christ so it's recognizing the sacrament 15 1552 said um the the that that he was do this in in in in memory of me and feed on him in Your Heart by faith with Thanksgiving nothing to do with the body of Christ in your hands uh and Elizabeth took the two sentences and melded them together so both appear as one sentence in the six in the 155 um8 prayer book of Elizabeth and they stay like that in 1662 when Charles II comes back issues and other Parable what you're seeing is England growing in different ways and uh in a few weeks time you'll you'll you'll have this this forum on the regicides I would say that the English Civil War was still part of the English Reformation so that when Elizabeth died with the way of and and she had kept a balance with her people James the James the the first was someone who came from Scotland and was very much I'm the king and divine right of kings and everything else but he was a scholar and one thing he did do was to gather the Protestants and the Catholic sides of the Church of England as it was together and try and knock their heads together and say come out with an accord well they didn't but what they did do they decided to get a new translation of the Bible which their best Scholars from both sides would join in on and these folk met in various committees and produced by 1611 the King James Bible which has become um the the standard work of the English people reading the Bible from then on and is not used so much now but I would say is a beautiful work of of of literature because it was made at the best time of English language so that you have this is the time of Shakespeare uh and and Marlo and and the the later on the Caroline poets and you get that lovely flavor of the English language we're told actually by the best uh Scholars that the English language is as it was spoken is best heard now where feter in Conneticut or somewhere like Appalachia Appalachia so the way in which it is spoken in the United States is much nearer to how the English people would have been speaking it so if an English person corrects you and say oh no that's not how you say this uh then tell them well actually you're the wrong one we're the ones with the we're the ones with the real roots in in the language here so all of this is is showing a development of humanity in the world at that time and the the English Reformation really then comes into its own again when you have this Cavalier and roundhead fight in the reign of Charles the Charles the first clearly was a king unlike um uh Elizabeth he didn't want to keep people mellow he saw himself as a a person who had divine right to make decisions and so he tried to rule completely without a parliament and uh he found in the end that he ran out of money and the law of England said he needed the parliament to vote money in so in calling the parliament again he found himself in real trouble because they were made up of a mixture of extreme Protestants and Cavaliers who had a more Catholic principle in the middle of all that you get these these characters like lovely George Herbert living out a Ministry which is which is of a very Catholic stamp and we still see sing three of his hymns the the um the uh best one is teach me my God and King in all things see to see and what I do in anything to do it has for thee I always think in in the church when we're looking at lovely glass Herbert's verse about a man that looks on glass on it may stay his eye or if he pleaseth through it pass and there the heaven a spy beautiful Caroline poetry uh Herbert like Nicholas faroh little Gidding died before the Terrible Things of the Civil War happened when everything of that sort was destroyed and once again England tried at the end of a desperate Civil War in which there was rather like your Civil War in the 19th century there were more percentage of the population killed in the English Civil War than in any other conflict in in uh in English History it was a terrible bloody sort of war and at the end the nation was exhausted and Oliver Cromwell came in to take over as the Lord protector and I think he ruined himself by getting rid of all the things that the English enjoyed doing so after a bit after 11 years to be exact um when all the map pills have been chopped down and people weren't allowed to have Christmas Day and and all all the rights and ceremonies and that actually bit hard into the English nation and it meant that that he really came to grief and when he died his brother Richard couldn't cope with it so back came the king but it Stuart family and the Stuart Family were were notoriously like the borons in France when when they were brought up back by the Duke of Wellington after the the Napoleonic Wars no notoriously stupid at gauging The Temper of the people and so by the time you get to Charles's Charles the first second son James who becomes a Roman Catholic antagonisms come up again and you then have this in 1688 this What's called the Glorious Revolution which was meant to put to bed all these conflicts it didn't uh it still goes on and I remember as a ryal gene trying to unite two parishes and it just wouldn't work and you said well why is this not work and the the church Warden said to me well you see we were on the side of the king in and they were on the side of the parliament and it's it's I found exactly the same with the dases of Herford and Worcester that that one was on the side of the king and one was on the side of the parliament things last long in in history in your own history too now in in all of that many people from that conflict escaped over here but as one's bound to say they they I was going to say they brought their prejudices with them I I'll use the word differently they brought their preferences with them and at that point uh they they managed to to make areas of the United States into to areas which had been very Cavalier and you would you would do that with sort of Williamsburg and that that sort of area there and Jamestown and so on or or very Pilgrim fathers uh coming across there to to escape persecution so that I think we can still say that within the compass of the Anglican communion which now represents that broad sve of of of our own tradition within that Compass there are still those two sides in a very wide thing battling it out and that there would be very very um firm evangelicals where every every word of the Bible had to be taken literally or you were damned and and and and there will be very firm people who had a Catholic perception of what was going on and in the middle there is should we say an Episcopal strand which which is which is holding both together and we have had chance since leaving Canterbury in uh August of of 2022 to be invited all over the world to Episcopal areas and and Anglican areas and finding that the the broad sweep of lurgical practice and understanding of the scriptures but standing in Hong Kong cedral preaching on Advent Sunday to 1200 communicants with totally beautiful Anglican liturgy and in the afternoon an advent Carol service that Kings College Cambridge would be proud of you feel that there there are these plants that have been nurtured across the world and again it comes down to a certain amount of personal preference but what goes wrong is when one side tries to dominate the other and take control and and then nothing ever goes right and it becomes a a a very difficult thing there was always a a thing about appointing archbishops of Canterbury that that uh one would go one way one would go the other and you could almost Trace them back because Justin is very much an Evangelical Archbishop Ronan Williams was a Catholic Archbishop George KY was the Evangelical Archbishop Robert ransy was a Catholic Archbishop Donald cam was an Evangelical Arch and so it goes back so so trying to be understanding of one another uh but the moment somebody steps forward and saying well the only way to do it is the only right way is my way then then things begin to go really badly wrong and this is a sweep of what have we done this morning how many centuries well since the the the 15th century right up to our own Century now and I would say a a canvas of the English Reformation is nowhere near complete and I hope you have fun with the regicides when you do that in E time we'll take any any questions or comments from from people that will be time yes please I'm kind curious about the um the effect of the um of of of the English Reformation on education this I'm guessing that not a whole lot of people at the time at at this time were literate was was that in the translation of the Bible but um U important in terms of more people getting oh yes indeed um and the King actually at the time ordered that the great Bible was to be chained in every church and and open for people to go and read but they in order to do that they had to be able to read but the school master or something in a village would then read it to them uh so so if they were taken in they would read and and Farah community at little Gidding for example on Sundays would organize Village School a Sunday school and that was mostly in those days teaching people to read and write so that they could come in and and and do all of that but of course it it took quite some time till to for the church to get its hands around the State education system but it did so and and the the the Vicor and church wardens in parishes were were absolutely um in charge of the Village School and it was their their right to appoint the school master or School mistress to to teach the village children children sorry I've got a mosquito or something F on um yeah please so a memorial the scale balancing Church values Christian values and government and it all depend the tip depended on who was on the scale at the time and which which side of the scale they were on I'm just wondering um how do you define English Reformation where does it endend how then do you say that's the that's the juncture in history that we call Reformation how you determining that Reformation how do you define English reation how do you define English Reformation I think you have to Define it in the fact sorry this pesky moso go away um I think you have to Define it by saying that in many ways whether you are of a should we say a Catholic persuasion or a a a a a Protestant um persuasion has an awful lot to do with your character and creative gifts and and it's very difficult to get round that because the Catholic soci is full of symbolism um but at the same time it's not just those creative gifts it's the depth of particular types of spirituality now thanks be to God in the the large Central area of Anglican Episcopal worship and thought many people come together in in being able to talk about these things and go on spiritual Retreats together and and can understand and then in discovering themselves they realize why they are as they are and why their brother or sister is is is quite different and that becomes massively important an in that but if people don't keep the balance then people are going to get hurt and that's the difficulty so if anybody is too strident in this we're having a thing in England at the moment but the the English little Parish churches where the parish priest has always been there to serve anyone who comes within his or her parish and uh but the parish churches are being starved on of of resources because there's an idea amongst the hierarchy that strategists and young Consultants will fill the pews in no time at all with some new device of and it doesn't work it it actually the the the Church of England's biggest card the best card to play was the fact that the priest was part of everything that went on in the village was painting the scenery for the local show or um chairing the gardening club or something of that that sort and it was there that people people could come up and say to them I'm having real trouble or my mother's rather ill would it be right she do come to church would it and and it was their duty to go and see them and and that was the way that the church was on the ground so if you lose that I think you you've lost the Balance power strugles were real right I mean strugles toist but how historians see it and Define it you know as as the oh well whatever an historian is making of the thesis they'll Define it in that way and you you you'll find you'll find it with the with the reges sites then the one book will tell it in one way one will tell it in another and you bet your bottom dollar if somebody comes out with a knockdown argument and says you know this is how it is the next person would take a distinctly opposite view because they want to make a good thesis so I would say that that it's in the hearts of the people that all of this is and seeing where worship flourishes and flowers and and what the needs of the people are and what they respond to as well we've we've had uh we've learned many lessons in in doing these these videos across the world when from the very morning that Fletcher said to me CU cazila was locked in the pandemic and so we went to say morning prayer in the garden and and and you said I'll bring a camera in case one us two of the members of the congregation want to join in and and from then on it took off because there was a need all over the world for this and it wasn't just Anglican Episcopal it wasn't even just Christians you had Jews and Islamic people from the rhythm of the Psalms and things of that sort just joining in together and you find that that that middle band of wanting understanding between one another is is is very strong yeah yeah please one of my favorite quotes from Richard hooker um he mentions uh that we're not seeking compromise for the sake of Peace but comprehension for the sake of Truth yeah and I guess as you see how power plays out through the history of the church from the Reformation continuing Reformation do you have any comments about how whether whether we how successful We are following comprehension rather than compromise well Richard hooker is a great friend of ours because he's he's buried just down the Valley from from from Canterbury uh and uh was the parish priest there uh and and so was working his way through a a small village community and and and writing in this way I think that uh he would have difficulty now with the way in which we are able to communicate with each other in a pictorial way and and send news with with very you know distinct viewpoints on your screen straight away so I think it's more difficult now than in his time to think that there is any truth that is uncompromised the minute somebody says something on the screen something will come up with some cogent argument from a journalist who standing in in in um the Middle East in the middle of all these terrible Wars uh or or in in Ukraine or or or or Russia and it is very difficult to say that is the absolute truth so and I think hooker would have had problems with that but nevertheless people know that the only way forward compromise is a dirty word I suppose and yet compromise is very often the way to stand on a platform of peace and and then let the truth to flourish again but it's essentially to care for the people which was Christ's First Command really and and so if something is getting the way of the caring physically mentally and spiritually of the people then the body of Christ has lost its lost its way so in a way when they our prayer book where they did meld things together so it's both the real presence and also in memory yeah uh that was very very close it it was that was Elizabeth she was clever yes remember how when she was asked what do you believe about the sacrament she quoted that little poem his were the words that spake it he took the bread and break it and what his word doth make it that I believe and take it make of that what you want sorry thank you for all of this I and speaking of Elizabeth you mentioned I learned so much about Henry that had Henry VII was not the reason for the English Reformation solely and wondering in the same way was it inevitable that the Church of England would retain their simultaneously um Catholic and um and Protestant aesthetic or do you think it was solely the work of one person namely Elizabeth the first no I don't I think she read the the the type of people that the English were that that they they aren't people that are going passionately to to to you know just go off the deep end about something or other they want a life where where their Church Life follows their in those days Village or or small town life and so I think she read the mood right she didn't create the mood she read it right and then people have done it or not since that yeah I have a question about reformation and comprehension in today in America if you're if you are really just strid different kind of church you break into a denomination and we have just and a few of them are very large we have many many independent churches I imagine England has the same thing but England has something I have noticed in America and that is there are what we would call snake Billy little Evangelical churches in England that are nothing like they are much more extremely like they're basically Baptist Churches yeah I mean you get that feeling if you would to see one of their services you would say this isn't this isn't an Eng or tradition and they're also uh Ultra montain angist yeah how how do the English people feel about all that being in one church that what does it mean to them to say they were all still the Church of England because I just don't think we have a similar experience here in America yeah I think that for most people it's just just taken as red that's that's how it goes unless it starts to starts to react on them so if you got a A Village or a town that had a church that had been one position and then the hierarchy try and force another on it then you've got trouble real trouble but you can have two churches up and down the street which are quite different and people would recognize that that's how it was and it's it's take your choice it's it's like supermarkets really you know I I go to waitr you go to foods that all of that sort of stuff but we're all fed we all need feeding in some way this is is recognized but it's when one starts trying to to say this is the only way and you must do this which isn't really the English way but yes thank could you say something about the role of the king or queen today in relation to the church um I find that one of the objections often raised by my Catholic friends is that they would um despite the say the history of of the papacy um nevertheless they would prefer to have the pope as their head rather than a lay head rather than say King Charles yes it's it's it's a strange one this because uh Elizabeth herself Elizabeth the resisted the title Supreme head of the Church of England so she she chose instead Supreme governor of the Church of England which meant that she would just oversee the fact that the church was fulfilling its functions according to all statutes and everything else that were were there and that's how it's remained that the Monarch would never take an an action which was against the life of the church but at the same time they would see themselves in Governor terms as as overseeing the fact that things were being done according to law and properly within the context of the state so it's it's something we just hold in a balance and um certainly our late Queen was one of the most faithful people that uh you could possibly imagine but always in her Christmas broadcasts which she gave every year on Christmas day she would talk about walking by the Light of the one who was born in Bethlehem herself with many other people who took that light but on each side of her were people carrying other lights from her other Realms and dominions across the world and that too was something she said she learned from but stayed faithful to you know the the the child at best him and I think that that that is is missing for the moment because paing Charles has hardly had a chance yet but he has been crowned in and anointed so to say that they are lay people in that way they they're anointed for the the task they do which is to be the servant of their people and I think that that's where they are H which part ofation should reate for me as a young Christian aside from historical perspective sorry I'm I'm I'm finding that to as a young Christian which part of the Reformation should resonate with her um aside from historical aside from the historical perspective oh okay I mean the most important thing of the Reformation I would say was the fact that you now have the Bible in so many different versions and languages and exciting ways that never forget to read a little bit of it daily because you've got that that's really important uh and to go back to the as we do always in church and then also see that the the the bread and the wine of the of the Eucharist is is something not only that unites you with Christ but unites you with one another so that we can become the body of Christ doing his work on Earth and I think that was a gift that the Reformation gave us in a really big way speaking of the body of Christ it's now time we'll see all there pleasure and Robert it's a joy to be with you thank you for this time and we'll look forward to hearing something absolutely thank you thank you