Henry VIII Protestant?

Was Henry VIII a Protestant? Certainly not! He killed Protestants who threatened the Roman Catholic air he breathed. He never accepted the Reformation’s central idea of justification by grace through faith alone, and with the help of Cardinal Wolsey and others, he burned Martin Luther’s writings, and imprisoned and killed his followers. Historian Alec Ryrie claims that Henry’s reforms look more like “Catholicism without the pope” than “Lutheranism without justification by faith,” and surely he was right. Henry wrote a rebuttal of Luther for which Pope Leo X awarded him the title of “Defender of the Faith.” But late in his life he sometimes tipped his hat towards the Lutheran movement in England in surprising ways that clearly helped further the English Reformation. He was no friend to the Reformation: he who helped the 16th century Reformation take root in England. Under the same roof of tip-toeing evangelicals who were deeply influenced by Tudor humanism and the continental Reformation (Thomas Cromwell, Anne Boleyn, Thomas Cranmer, and Catherine Parr), the staunch Roman Catholic King of England and Ireland helped paved the way for the decidedly Protestant sovereigns who followed him on the throne, namely his son Edward VI and daughter Elizabeth I. 

In his last speech before Parliament (1545), during which he reportedly wept, King Henry placed his stake in the middle ground between those who “be too stiff in their old mumpsimus” and  those  who were “too busy and curious in their new sumpsimus.” Thomas Cranmer and others certainly agreed with the middle way, they just had different understandings of what the middle was. Philip Melanchthon, Martin Luther’s protege, had a particularly close relationship with Robert Barnes and other English reformers. When Henry wrote his Assertion of the Seven Sacraments, Luther replied in his predictable antagonistic way. This permanently soured Henry to Luther, but he found Melanchthon to be moderate and he was eager to discuss with Melanchthon the differences he had with Lutherans about the sacraments and the necessity of good works. Melanchthon was invited twice to teach in England which he never ended up doing. His 1535 edition of Loci communes was dedicated to Henry at Barnes’ suggestion, but after all the effort, Melanchthon decided to direct his time and energy away from England toward others who were more receptive to reforming the church. Clearly Henry’s relationship with Melanchthon and the quiet Lutherans on his staff and in his family had an influence on him. 

Henry had a love/hate relationship with the Bible. After observing the rumblings caused by Luther and the similar theological disturbances of the Lollards (the Bible-loving followers of John Wycliffe in England), he outlawed Bible translations in English and prohibited people from reading it. Before the 16th century Reformation, the church held tenaciously the belief that the Bible cannot be trusted to be understood by untrained lay men and women (what Alister McGrath calls “Christianity’s Dangerous Idea”). Henry even had William Tyndale tracked down in exile overseas and killed for promoting the idea that the Bible should be available for popular consumption - even to the common plowboy who would know more Holy Scripture than the pope. But, in a change of mind, Henry issued a royal proclamation May 6, 1541 that an English translation of the Bible be in every church in England. This was on the heals of the Vicar General's order (Thomas Cromwell, 1538) to provide "one book of the Bible of the largest volume in English, and the same set up in some convenient place within the said church that ye have care of, whereas your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it." The Bible commissioned by King Henry was The Great Bible, a 1539 revision of William Tyndale's New Testament and Myles Coverdale's Old Testament translation. Between 1527 and 1547, about 800 separate editions of Christian books (mostly Protestant) were printed in English. The Bible in English and the learning of these books changed everything!

Henry also developed an evangelical-like distrust of clergy, especially for those hiding behind the Medieval veil of privilege and pompous entitlements. This led him to downgraded “those of the traditional church’s seven sacraments whose administration might be seen as unnecessarily emphasizing clerical mystique: confirmation, unction and ordination” (D. MacCulloch).  Henry supported Cromwell’s plan for destroying the bastions of Roman Catholicism: shrines, monasteries, and images which were the objects of devotion and pilgrimage - seizing and dismantled over eight hundred religious houses starting in 1536.  He also permitted Anne Boleyn’s and Thomas Cromwell’s involvement in the selection of many bishops and leaders who were sympathetic to the Lutheran revival, and he allowed Protestants to teach and mentor his own children (not least of which was Queen Catherine Parr), and he attacked the Medieval Church’s understanding of penance - reducing purgatory to a vague idea and forbidding people to use the word “purgatory” (in his Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for Any Christian Man, also called the King’s Book, 1543). 

Henry’s settlement was in many ways a political Reformation of convenience, and he clearly did not intend his heirs to embrace Protestantism. Nevertheless, his actions made a way for this outcome. There was no question but that Edward VI and Elizabeth I grounded the newly formed church on the Protestant teaching of the centrality of the preaching and consumption of the word of God, to worship in the common language that expresses the truth of justification by grace through faith alone, to an understanding of universal priesthood (of all believers who each has equal access to God), and to an understanding of “real presence” as the spiritual presence of Christ that is not in the bread and wine of Holy Communion but in the hearts of those who receive the grace of the sacrament by faith.