CHAPTER FIVE WILLIAM TYNDALE, HENRY VIII, AND THE ROYAL SUPREMACY I. Henry VIII: “Defender of the Faith” and “Supreme Head of the Church of England” In his recently revised work, Henry VIII and the English Reformation, Richard Rex has argued that a proper understanding of the royal supremacy must lie at the heart of any valid account of the reforma- tion in England. In Rex’s words, “The single determining event of Henry VIII’s Reformation was the establishment of the royal suprem- acy over the Church of England. Without this, the changes which ensued would hardly have been possible and, if possible, would cer- tainly have been different.”1 This view reflects the consensus of a wide range of scholars over the last half century that the reformation in England was largely a top-down phenomenon.2 Certainly in the early sixteenth century, there was little doubt that power to preserve or to change the existing religious order was perceived to lie first and fore- most with Henry VIII (r.1509–1547). This is evident in the fact that both conservatives and reformers appealed repeatedly to the king for his support.3 1 Richard Rex, Henry VIII and the English Reformation, 2nd Ed. (New York: Palgrave, 2006), xiii. 2 G.R. Elton developed the top-down interpretation in Reform and Reformation: England 1509–1558 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), a still influential political history of the period that explored the mechanisms whereby Henry VIII and his chief minister Thomas Cromwell orchestrated a legislative revolution. The revi- sionists, most prominent among them J.J. Scarisbrick, Eamon Duffy, and Christopher Haigh, have also advocated a top-down interpretation of the Reformation, although they have done so by demonstrating the vitality of parochial religion and the lack of any widespread discontent with the English church [J.J. Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People (New York: Blackwell, 1984), Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c. 1400–c. 1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), and Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics, and Society under the Tudors (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993)]. 3 That appeals to the king could serve the purposes of both reformers and conserva- tives is evident in a letter of the Bishop of Norwich to the Archbishop of Canterbury from May of 1531 complaining about rumors that Henry VIII condoned the reading 146 chapter five Such appeals took place in the midst of ongoing and heated debates about exactly what Henry’s role in and relationship to the English church ought to be. The complexity of the situation and the range of possible views are reflected in the various ways in which different writ- ers appealed to and interpreted Henry’s title, “Defender of the Faith.”4 In his Supplication of Souls of 1529, Thomas More would remind his readers of Henry’s title “defensoure of the fayth gyvē his grace by the see apostolyque” and would argue that “the good & gracyouse catho- lyke mynde . borne by the kynges hyghnes to the catholyk fayth” was well known.5 However, as the previous chapter demonstrated, More was actually at odds with Henry regarding Simon Fish and his recently published Supplication of the Beggars, which More was attempting to refute. As such, his reference to Henry’s title was intended to remind the king of his responsibilities to the Catholic Church.6 The chancel- lor probably also hoped to circumscribe Henry’s freedom of action by reinforcing the king’s public image as a staunch defender of Catholic orthodoxy.7 Several of the exiled English reformers also appealed to Henry’s title, although they unsurprisingly argued that the faith he should defend must be understood in light of the new evangelical theology. In the midst of the section of his Supplication unto Henry VIII (1531) entitled “Only faythe Justifyeth by fore god,” Robert Barnes declared: of certain heretical books, among them Tyndale’s New Testament. Bishop Nix asked that representatives of the king be sent to his diocese to “shew and publiche that it is not his pleasure that suche bokes shuld be had or red” [Alfred Pollard, ed., Records of the English Bible: The Documents Relating to the Translation and Publication of the Bible in English, 1525–1611 (London: Oxford University Press, 1911), 159–161]. The circulation of such rumors reminds us that one did not have to actually address the king personally in order to appeal to him. 4 Pope Leo X had granted Henry VIII the title Defensor Fidei in October 1521. Scarisbrick points out that the pope did not intend it as a hereditary title and that it would be an act of Parliament in 1543 that made it the perpetual possession of Henry’s heirs, which it has remained down to the present [J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 117)]. 5 Thomas More, A supplcacyon of soulys made by syr Thomas More knight (London, William Rastell, 1529), sig. E1r, E4r. 6 Louis Schuster has suggested that, “In spite of the ‘simple folk’ it purports to address . one soon discovers that More wrote the book primarily for Henry” [Louis Schuster, “Thomas More’s Polemical Career, 1523–1533,” in Louis Schuster, Richard Marius, James Lusardi, and Richard Schoeck, eds., The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, Vol. 8, Pt. III (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), 1202]. 7 J. Christopher Warner, Henry VIII’s Divorce: Literature and the Politics of the Printing Press (Rochester: The Boydell Press, 1998), 49..