Tudor Religious Changes

TUDOR RELIGIOUS CHANGES

KEY STAGE 3

In the sixteenth century Britain and Europe experienced a hugely signiﬁcant and far-reaching challenge to existing ideas: the Reformation. This was a religious movement which clashed with the powerful institution of the Catholic Church and challenged people’s beliefs about God and the world. A new strand of Christian faith emerged from the Reformation called Protestantism. Protestants saw the old Catholic faith and those who practised it as their enemies. Catholics likewise viewed Protestants as heretics tearing down centuries of tradition.

The Reformation affected how ordinary people worshipped in their local churches but also how they thought about their place in society. Across Europe it also threatened kings and queens, toppled governments and sparked rebellions. Much of the blood spilled in sixteenth-century Europe was shed because of religion and battles over the Reformation.

As all of this shows, religion was a much more important part of this society than is the case in most western countries today. Everyone, from monarchs to peasants, saw religion as a crucial feature of their lives.

Imagine, then, the huge challenges presented by King Henry VIII’s decision in the 1530s to break with the Catholic Church and set England and Wales on the road to Protestantism. This struck directly at the religion which had been at the core of Welsh life and identity for a thousand years. Beloved beliefs and practices were forbidden. The worship of cherished local saints and pilgrimages to important shrines were stopped. Churches changed radically as colourful paintings were blotted out and beautiful images (like stained glass) and statues were vandalised or destroyed. The Latin of the Catholic Mass was replaced by English-language church services which most people in Wales could not understand. Monasteries which had been centres of learning and piety were dissolved and demolished. This was a revolution in thinking, in worship and in culture.

These challenges were made even more confusing for most people by the fact that Henry VIII’s successors each had different attitudes towards the Reformation, ranging from keen Protestantism to enthusiastic Catholicism. What should you believe in this topsy-turvy world? Most people were confused and bewildered.

Because of this confusion, many in Wales retreated back to a familiar type of Catholicism, even though this was illegal for most of the sixteenth century. The Reformation made very slow progress in Wales and the Protestant faith struggled to win over a people devoted to their old customs and beliefs. They were not enthusiastic about the new forms of worship.

The most spectacular demonstrations of this Catholic sympathy were the public executions of prominent Catholics like Richard Gwyn, who was hanged, drawn and quartered at Wrexham in

1584. Some die-hard Welsh Catholics even ﬂed to Europe. One of them, Morys Clynnog, developed a plan for a Catholic invasion of Britain which would land in Wales. Some Welshmen were even involved in plots to kill the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I.

For most Welsh people, however, the sixteenth century was a period of gradual adjustment to the Protestant religion. This process was helped enormously by the translating of the Bible into Welsh under Queen Elizabeth I. Slowly, slowly, Wales became a Protestant community as the sixteenth century progressed.