Book Review: MacCulloch’s The Boy King
Diarmaid MacCulloch is recognized worldwide for his scholarship on the English Reformation. He has written extensively in this field in books and journal articles, including the definitive and exhaustive biographies: Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life.
MacCulloch delivered the 1998 Birkbeck Lectures at Cambridge University which he expanded into this book. In The Boy King: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation, MacCulloch addresses the six-year reign of King Edward VI (1547- 1553): what led up to his enthronement, the issues, challenges and accomplishments of his reign, and the lasting effects on church and society of a young king determined to land the newly formed Church of England in, what came to be called, Protestantism.
For everyone who is interested in tracking the development of doctrine in the hot days of the English Reformation, this book is a must-read. MacCulloch details the ingredients that went into writing and publishing the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549, and how its revision in 1552 is a reflection of Cranmer’s mature understanding of “real presence” in the eucharist. Especially interesting are the historical insights given about Edward’s Protectors, Somerset and Dudley, and the particular influences of the Continental reformers who flooded into England after the death of Henry VIII. It is impossible to overestimate the tectonic shift that happened in the Church of England under King Edward, from the disgruntled mess of Medieval Catholicism to a decidedly Protestant church, as defined by the Edwardian and Elizabethan Anglican formularies. “The extent of the change would have been obvious to anyone walking into a fully reformed English church building in 1553,” writes MacCulloch. He went on to explain that, for the first time, three new pieces of church furniture were in full view for everyone to see: a wooden moveable table for communion services (to emphasize the sacrifice of praise instead of the sacrifice of the mass), a poor box to collect alms for the needy who are made in God’s image (replacing graven images that were vestiges of Medieval pietism), and a pulpit visible and central (a reminder that God’s word read and preached carries the power of God’s promises). The last section in MacCulloch’s book addresses the impact the Edwardian revolution had on his half-sister Elizabeth, and on the early Caroline and Laudian divines.
This book is filled with historical details complete with extensive footnotes, but it is not a complicated read. MacCulloch is insightful, conversational, and accessible. If you are a conspiracy theorist who believes the Reformation didn’t happen in England or someone trying to argue that the 1549 was Edward’s and Henry’s favorite book, you will not like this book. MacCulloch, like Ashley Null and Jonathan Linebaugh, is convinced that the Lutheran understanding of justification by grace through faith alone is the doctrinal fuel for Reformation fires in England and elsewhere. If every Anglican minister and seminarian would read this book, it would do much to bolster our corporate and historical identity around the formularies: the Articles of Religion, the Homilies, and the Book of Common Prayer.