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lucymcclellan's review against another edition
5.0
I initially gave this a lower rating, but I keep getting pulled back to this book and re-reading sections of it. It really is incredibly researched and executed (lame, nearly undetectable pun intended). I think it just took me a while to get used to the writing style, which feels chatty and voluble (if writing can be described this way) but also somewhat difficult and scholarly. So. A great work that is challenging to read.
socraticgadfly's review against another edition
5.0
MacCulloch shows once again how and why he is the dean of British Reformation historians with this magnificent, magisterial biography.
At core, MacCulloch shows that, while there would not have been an English Reformation without Henry VIII and his concern for his succession (obviously) that Reformation happened as it did do to the activity of Cromwell more than any other single person. And, that was with Cromwell regularly pushing the bounds and envelopes of both his official power, and even more, of Henry's intent for what the Church of England should look like.
In his earlier years in power, Cromwell did that mainly through his title of Vice-Gerent, which officially made him Henry's right-hand man for religious regulation in England. Cromwell started the process of monastic dissolutions and mergers and later extended that to friaries. At the same time, by the monasteries he did not consolidate, he used this in connection to bestowing political favors. He went on to to that with the award of leading bishoprics.
MacCulloch also shows that while Cromwell and Anne Boleyn worked at somewhat similar purposes, they were not allies and that, for a variety of reasons religious and non-religious, he took a leading role in her downfall.
He reached his peak of power when Henry then married Jane Seymour, aided in large part by his son Gregory marrying Jane's sister.
But the fall eventually came. Not so competent in foreign affairs in general, he pushed the idea of a foreign marriage, and that of Anne of Cleves in particular, onto Henry. When Henry found zero bond with her and resolved immediately on annulment, Cromwell was in trouble. One or two unforced errors by him aided Henry and Cromwell's enemies.
That said, Henry did not put his head on a pike, and soon thereafter, regretted his decision — as he did the rest of his reign.
Beyond the above, MacCulloch shows how Cromwell had two major controls on the direction of the Reformation in England.
One was, as hinted above, to move the movement beyond Henry's idea of an Anglo-Catholicism to something that was truly Protestant. To do this, Cromwell made extensive connections with the movement in the Low Countries and Germany, talking to leaders of both the Lutheran side in North Germany and Reformed leaders in the Rhineland (Bucer mainly) and Switzerland (eventually centering on Bullinger).
He tied this to political efforts, looking at an alliance with the German Lutheran Schmalkaldic League. However, due to a mix of German arrogance and Hapsburg HRE Charles V making peace with France, the League looked like it might be a thin reed.
Meanwhile, as MacCulloch shows, Cromwell himself was becoming more explicitly Reformed in his beliefs during this time. And, before he died, he had tilted enough this way, with enough intervention, that the Reformed side of Protestantism had definite roots. This was probably helped by the Reformed, not Lutherans, also taking the lead in the Netherlands, though MacCulloch doesn't go too much into relations there in the latter part of the book, other than how they involved English Protestants in exile there.
This contradicts what I had learned in my conservative Lutheran seminary years, namely, the idea that the Lutheran movement still had some influence under Edward VI and only totally lost its chance under Elizabeth. Some other light reading further confirms MacCulloch is right, and my old profs, for whatever reasons, were wrong.
I won't write any more, so I don't get into spoiler alert territory.
At core, MacCulloch shows that, while there would not have been an English Reformation without Henry VIII and his concern for his succession (obviously) that Reformation happened as it did do to the activity of Cromwell more than any other single person. And, that was with Cromwell regularly pushing the bounds and envelopes of both his official power, and even more, of Henry's intent for what the Church of England should look like.
In his earlier years in power, Cromwell did that mainly through his title of Vice-Gerent, which officially made him Henry's right-hand man for religious regulation in England. Cromwell started the process of monastic dissolutions and mergers and later extended that to friaries. At the same time, by the monasteries he did not consolidate, he used this in connection to bestowing political favors. He went on to to that with the award of leading bishoprics.
MacCulloch also shows that while Cromwell and Anne Boleyn worked at somewhat similar purposes, they were not allies and that, for a variety of reasons religious and non-religious, he took a leading role in her downfall.
He reached his peak of power when Henry then married Jane Seymour, aided in large part by his son Gregory marrying Jane's sister.
But the fall eventually came. Not so competent in foreign affairs in general, he pushed the idea of a foreign marriage, and that of Anne of Cleves in particular, onto Henry. When Henry found zero bond with her and resolved immediately on annulment, Cromwell was in trouble. One or two unforced errors by him aided Henry and Cromwell's enemies.
That said, Henry did not put his head on a pike, and soon thereafter, regretted his decision — as he did the rest of his reign.
Beyond the above, MacCulloch shows how Cromwell had two major controls on the direction of the Reformation in England.
One was, as hinted above, to move the movement beyond Henry's idea of an Anglo-Catholicism to something that was truly Protestant. To do this, Cromwell made extensive connections with the movement in the Low Countries and Germany, talking to leaders of both the Lutheran side in North Germany and Reformed leaders in the Rhineland (Bucer mainly) and Switzerland (eventually centering on Bullinger).
He tied this to political efforts, looking at an alliance with the German Lutheran Schmalkaldic League. However, due to a mix of German arrogance and Hapsburg HRE Charles V making peace with France, the League looked like it might be a thin reed.
Meanwhile, as MacCulloch shows, Cromwell himself was becoming more explicitly Reformed in his beliefs during this time. And, before he died, he had tilted enough this way, with enough intervention, that the Reformed side of Protestantism had definite roots. This was probably helped by the Reformed, not Lutherans, also taking the lead in the Netherlands, though MacCulloch doesn't go too much into relations there in the latter part of the book, other than how they involved English Protestants in exile there.
This contradicts what I had learned in my conservative Lutheran seminary years, namely, the idea that the Lutheran movement still had some influence under Edward VI and only totally lost its chance under Elizabeth. Some other light reading further confirms MacCulloch is right, and my old profs, for whatever reasons, were wrong.
I won't write any more, so I don't get into spoiler alert territory.
traveling_in_books's review
5.0
A richly detailed account of the extraordinary life of Thomas Cromwell, who rose from a low-born family and became the second most powerful man in the court of King Henry VIII. MacColluch presents Cromwell as neither hero nor villain, but as a man with keen wit and intelligence who managed to navigate the troubled political waters of his time while enacting sweeping reforms that affected English politics for centuries after his death.
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