Product Description

Henry VIII's reformation remains among the most crucial yet misunderstood events in English history. In this substantial new account, G. W. Bernard presents the king as neither confused nor a pawn in the hands of manipulative factions. Henry, a monarch who ruled as well as reigned, is revealed instead as the determining mover of religious policy throughout this momentous period. In Henry's campaign to secure a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, which led him to break with Rome, his strategy, as Bernard shows, was more consistent and more radical than historians have allowed. Henry refused to introduce Lutheranism, but rather harnessed the rhetoric of the continental reformation in support of his royal supremacy. Convinced that the church needed urgent reform, in particular the purging of superstition and idolatry, Henry's dissolution of the monasteries and the dismantling of the shrines were much more than a venal attempt to raise money. The king sought a middle way between Rome and Zurich, between Catholicism and its imputed superstitions on one hand and the radicalism of reformers on the other. With a ruthlessness that verged on tyranny, Henry VIII determined the pace of change in the most important twenty years of England's religious development.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #227896 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 752 pages

Review
"The work is very readable thanks to Bernard's fluid prose, and the reader is rewarded with a vivid ... account." --Russell P. Dawn, Anvil, Volume 24, No.2 2007

History Today, January 2006
'[A] bold and strikingly original book.'

The Tablet, 3rd December 2005
'This is a brave book, tilting at many windmills, challenging many received ideas. It will certainly stimulate discussion...'

Customer Reviews

Informative but flawed
G.W. Bernard's "The King's Reformation" is an enormously important book, which helps redress some of the imbalances in modern historical study of this crucial period. He shows, convincingly, that Henry VIII was an immensely important driving force in the English Reformation and that he formulated and implemented his own religious ideas, rather than simply being the pawn of his courtiers. Where Bernard's book is somewhat flawed is in his refusal to allow court factions any real influence over the King. I agree with Bernard in saying that Henry was not a pawn, but neither was he totally immune to the influence of his courtiers. Bernard is especially keen to dismiss Anne Boleyn's supposed influence as practically fictional. In his opening assessment of her, he denies Anne any real emotional or moral depth and, with no evidence beside speculation, he pronounces that she had been Henry's mistress before he decided to marry her and decided to cease relations until marriage. This is a hugely revisionist (and psychologically unconvincing) argument, given that it is generally accepted by most historians that it was Anne who chose to reject Henry's advances and, at her insistence, did not sleep with him at any point prior to 1532. By failing to provide any substantial evidence for this claim, Bernard runs the risk of looking personally prejudiced againt Anne Boleyn which rather undermines the rest of his argument about her role in the English Reformation which - whatever one's feelings about her personality- was undeniably enormous.

Overall, 'The King's Reformation' was a long but intriguing look at the English Break with Rome and, in some parts, convincingly argued. There were however major flaws in Bernard's arguments and , at times, he failed to provide convincing supporting evidence.

The most important book on Henry VIII in a generation
For years, thanks to the misrepresentations of anachronistic TV 'history', Henry VIII has been seen as a cruel tyrant and a weak king. Worse still, his contribution to the Reformation has been seen as an accident, an unintended consequence of his obsession with divorcing Katherine of Aragon. However, scholarly works like this are beginning to put the record straight.

This is the Henry we never see on TV: strong, decisive and a keen and consistent reformer of the church he loved. A man with flaws, of course, but a man of his time and an important ruler in a time of enormous change.

I hope this fine work - the culmination of many decades of scholarship by one of our best historians - will help open up a long overdue debate on the role of kingship in early modern Europe and in particular the contribution of Henry VIII to the Reformation.