The great upheaval of the Reformation occurred in London and throughout England during a span of twenty-two years. It started with the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 and closed with the death of Mary I and the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558. During this period England went through a painful and often violent transition from Roman Catholicism as the state religion to the moderate Protestantism of the Church of England.
In many ways London was still a medieval city even after the Reformation ended and, indeed, for another century or more. Walls surrounded the city as they had for hundreds of years. Old London Bridge, built up with houses and shops, was still the only crossing over the Thames. The great 493-foot spire of Old St Paul’s could still be seen for miles away. The Tower of London, with its moat and turrets and contingent of beefeaters and soldiers, still guarded the eastern approach of the river; and the steeples and towers of over a hundred parish churches were still crowded together within its one square mile.
But in 1536 came the beginning of sweeping changes. All the monastic houses, great and small, some of which had been a part of Christian London for 500 years, were now being closed and the properties either put to other uses or pulled down. The interiors of many of the churches were being altered as well, with the images disappearing, the stained glass and religious pictures being removed or whitewashed over, and everything generally being made much more plain and simple. In addition, a few miles up the Thames near the village of Hampton, there was a gorgeous new royal residence built by Cardinal Wolsey but handed over to Henry VIII. This was to be home for five of Henry’s brides, and the scene of the undoing of three of them. The changes brought about by the English Reformation seem to fall into the following steps, as Edward Cheyney has described them. The church was subordinated to the state, and was also separated from the authority of the pope, the king being made its supreme head on earth. Monasteries and monastic orders were abolished. The Bible and the church liturgy were changed to English. Ceremonies of the church were simplified, and long-accepted Roman Catholic doctrines were discarded and replaced by doctrines more in line with the Bible.
The first two of these steps were accomplished by the ‘Reformation Parliament’ in co-operation with Henry VIII. The third was masterminded by Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s chief advisor, whom he appointed vicar-general for ecclesiastical affairs after the death of Wolsey. The translation of the Bible into English and its use in the churches was partly brought about by Henry VIII as well, but the genius of William Tyndale, Miles Coverdale and others in achieving a superior translation was also a major factor. The king was no Protestant, and he had no idea of changing the doctrines or ceremonies of the old church. The remaining changes occurred during the short reign of the boy-king Edward VI when there was a rapid swing of the pendulum toward Protestantism. The chief lasting Christian contribution during Edward’s reign was made by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who produced the initial version of the Book of Common Prayer.
To understand what happened in London and the rest of England during the Reformation it is necessary not only to see what was accomplished during these twenty-two years but also to look from two other perspectives. First, one has to go back in time and consider all the pre-Reformation factors at work: the Wars of the Roses, John Wyclif and the Lollards, the Renaissance or ‘New Learning’, the Textus Receptus, and finally the courageous men and women who braved the rack and the stake during the early part of Henry VIII’s reign to spread Luther’s ideas in England. Second, it is very important to see that the most significant results of the Reformation took place over a century or more beyond the actual twenty-nine years of the Reformation period, when the people of London and England through the impact of the Bible became Christians personally.