Success and Failure in the English Reformation
Christopher Haigh
Past and Present, No. 173. (Nov., 2001), pp. 28-49.
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SUCCESS AND FAILURE IN THE
ENGLISH REFORMATION
The sound of the gospel hath gone over all the world, and the whole
world is awakened therewith and draweth to it. The sun is risen; the day
is open; God hath made his kingdom wonderful among us. It is now time,
now is it time that we should arise from sleep; for now is our salvation
near. Now it is in our mouth; we can speak of it: God grant it may be
nearer us, even in our hearts. The night is past: God grant that it be past
for ever, that we be never again thrown into the darkness of death, that
the word of life, the truth of Christ, be never again taken from us. And
it shall never be taken away, if we be thankful.
'It is now time . . . The night is past!', John Jewel had cried at
the beginning of Elizabeth's reign. For English Protestants, for
returning exiles, it was a time of hope and confidence. God had
preserved his people and crushed the persecutors, the idols had
been torn down, doctrine had been purified, and the gospel could
be preached: the Word would work. The victory of the gospel
was the will of God, and its rapid progress throughout Europe
was proof his favour: 'For you must not think that all these things
have come to pass rashly or at adventure: it hath been God's
pleasure that, against all men's wills wellnigh, the gospel of Jesu
Christ should be spread abroad throughout the whole world at
these days. And therefore men, following God's biddings, have
of their own free will resorted unto the doctrine of Jesus Christ'.'
The Lord had intervened directly to save his people in England:
'always the godly hath been persecuted of the wicked papists, in
France, Spain, Germany, Italy and here in England, sparing no
age nor woman, bishop, peer nor any men, no not the heirs
apparent to the crown; but when as we perceived ourselves to be
sold unto strangers' hands, that is to the pope, we called unto
God and he sent us Deborah and the true preaching of the gospel'.
The godly had cried for succour, God had acted, and now the
papists faced inevitable defeat. 'I will speak unto the enemies of
God's truth: strive no more against the stream and kick no more
against the truth, for behold how God beginneth to pare your
pope's triple crown, to fleece him of his kingdoms, and at length
' Tlze W i ~ r k sofJoht1 Jezcel, ed. John Aye, 2 vols. (Parker Soc., Cambridge, 1845-50),
i, 1046, 1026; ii, 55, 107.
The Past and Present Society, Oxford, 2001 c
29 SUCCESS AND FAILURE IN THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
he will turn him into his doublet and hose', warned John
Oxenbridge at St Paul's Cross in January 1566.' The victory of
truth was assured, and popery was collapsing.
The preachers of the Word claimed early success: 'When we
solemnly treated of conversion to Christ by true repentance, many
tears from many persons bore witness that the preaching of the
gospel is more effectual to true repentance and wholesome
reformation than anything the whole world can either imagine or
approve', Thomas Lever reported to Zurich in August 1559.
When the Word was preached, the people listened and turned to
Christ's religion. After services at St Paul's Cross in the winter
of 1559-60, six thousand people, 'old and young, of both sexes',
would stand singing English psalms and praising God. It was
truly a time of miracles, as John Pady told his audience at the
Cross in September 1566: 'the blind heart is opened and the dead
soul is made alive with the word of God, and with their preachings
the ears of man's heart is opened: these miracles are in England
wrought daily by the ministers of God's word'.3 Error was in
retreat, the gospel was triumphing: 'It is now time . . . The night
is past!'
A generation later, however, it was the evangelical optimism
which was past and the shine had gone off Reformation. William
Perkins was a shrewd observer of contemporary morals and reli-
gion - and he thought that the gains of the gospel had been
limited and religion was actually in recession.
We must take notice of the common sin of our times. For in the practice
of our religion we are deceived. We are not now that which we have been
twenty or thirty years ago. For now the world abounds with atheists,
epicures, libertines, worldlings, neuters that are of no religion, and sundry
that have heretofore showed some forwardness begin to fall and stagger
and look another way.
The Word had been preached, the Scriptures had been freely
available, but 'the ignorant multitude' was as ignorant as ever:
'For the remainders of popery yet stick in the minds of many of
them, and they think that to serve God is nothing else but to deal
truly with men and to babble a few words morning and evening,
at home or in the church, though there be no understanding'.
Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Tanner 50, fos. 34", 35". See also John Foxe, The
Acts und Mo7zz1tizenrs, ed. Josiah Pratt, 8 vols. (London, 1877), i, pp. xvi, xxxiv-xxxv.
' The Zurich Letters (Second Series,, 1558-1602, ed. Hastings Robinson (Parker
Soc., Cambridge, 1846), 30; The Zurich Lerters, 1558-1579, ed. Hastings Robinson
(Parker Soc., Cambridge, 1842), 71; Bodleian Library, MS Tanner 50, fo. 82'.
30 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 173
For Perkins, the English Reformation had, in some measure,
failed: 'We in England have heard the calling of God more than
forty years, and yet very few of us are moved to change and
amend our lives. This shows our atheism and unbelief: here is
almost nothing but heaving, shoving and lifting for the ~ o r l d ' . ~
And Perkins was not alone.
Other godly ministers were just as gloomy, and agreed that
true religion was in decline. In 1595 William Burton of Reading
published seven sermons on 'the rousing of the sluggard' - the
need to awaken the lazy Christian. 'What shall we find but in the
most of them through the land a general numbness and apostasy,
having put off the shoes of preparation for all kinds of vanity,
preferring plays before preaching, tables and cards before the
Old and New Testament'. The young had once responded to the
preachers, but now their enthusiasm had gone and they turned
against religion. 'The wicked go scoffing at the children of God:
"Oh, there go puritans and precisians", etc. And "What, are you
so precise? Why, this is but a little oath, a little merriment, a
little of the fa~hion ." '~ Most had no real faith, and the few who
did have were accused of fanaticism. Religion had been comprom-
ised by worldliness and sin; men and women would not be
made godly.
In 1596 Josias Nichols told his readers that religion, morals,
good order and family life were in decline, and something had to
be done. 'The great carelessness and coldness (that I say not
contempt) of religion may hereby appear, that atheism, drunlzen-
ness and other very great sins are waxen bold and shameless'.
Those who kept their word or took religion seriously were
mocked, and children were out of control: the failings of parents
'have so hardened the necks of children and servants with the
loose reins of liberty and licentiousness that very few can abide
this wholesome yoke of Christian nurture'. It was all the fault of
parents and schoolmasters, who were not teaching Christian moral
values. There were no excuses: 'although the greatest part pretend
it a very hard thing in these days to bring their families to
Christian knowledge and soberness, yet the not having them so
consisteth not in the hardness of the work or the unruliness of
The IY'i~l'orks of 'Clr. LY'illiitr~l Prrk i i~s ,3 vols. (Cambridge, 1608, STC no. 196491, ii,
260; i, 670; ii, 372.
W[illiam] B[urton], The Row~irrg ttiie Slug~uvi?(London, 1595, STC no. 4l i6) ,
58, 74-5, 77-9, 114.
31 SUCCESS AND FAILURE IN THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
the people, but in the common neglect of many governors' (i.e.
'governors' of households - fathers and master^).^ The reason
why children misbehaved, adults got drunk, the poor took to
stealing, and unmarried women had babies was their lack of true
religion. The faith which might have made them all obedient,
sober, honest and pure had not been offered to them -or, if it
had been, they had not responded.
Although we have had the Gospel, by the mercy and long suffering of
God, seven and thirty years, under the happy reign of our most dear and
gracious sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth (who I heartily pray our good
God may yet reign many years over us) there are to be found so many
that know not how they shall be saved, or how they are justified, why
they are called Christians, what is Christ in his person, and suchlike
(which every beginner and youngling in Christ ought to be skilful in, and
without the knowledge whereof a man is like a brute beast) . . .
After the vicissitudes of the English Reformation, there had been
free, open preaching of Protestant religion throughout Elizabeth's
reign, but Nichols thought the campaign had largely failed.
I have had conference in some parishes with 400, some 1,000, some less,
and have made trial, and do make trial every day, that I speak to any
man that I know not, that I am ashamed to think so many Christians in
name, and baptised, should be so ignorant and brutish, and so far from
being indeed that which they delight to be called. For I take it that faith
making the being of a Christian, and these who have no knowledge cannot
have faith, which will then appear when Christ shall come in flaming fire
to render vengeance to them that do not know God.
Nichols gave more detailed evidence for this argument in 1602.
He had carefully examined 400 communicants in a Kent parish:
he found that only one in ten had even a basic understanding of
Christian belief, and only one in a hundred understood and
accepted the central tenet of the Reformation - justification by
faith. There was 'scarce one but did affirm that a man might be
saved by his own well-doing, and that he trusted he did so live,
that by God's grace he should obtain everlasting life by serving
of God and good prayer^'.^ This was not what the preachers had
been telling them.
Perhaps Nichols was a bit of a crank, a fanatic: after all, on his
own admission he stopped strangers in the street and quizzed
them on theology. But many others had reached the same conclu-
Josias Nichols, Atz Order of Household I t~s t ruc t~o i i(London, 1596, STC no. 18540),
sigs. B2, B4.
Ibzd., sig. B1; Josias Nichols, The Plea of the Irltzocer~t (n.p., 1602, STC no.
18542), 212-13.
32 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 173
sions. In the same year as Nichols's Order of Household Instruction,
Edward Topsell published The Reward of Religion, based on a
series of sermons. He saw war, food shortage, inflation and disease
as God's punishment for sin and warning to repent. But sinners
took no notice, and the clergy preached in vain:
Such pollution of sabbaths as never was, yea even in this time of dearth
and famine, drinking and drunkenness, dancing and riot, feasting and
surfeiting, chambering and wantonness, swearing and forswearing,
accounting gain for godliness and godliness to be the burden of the world,
with a thousand greater and more grievous calamities.'
Topsell's diagnosis was much the same as that of Nichols, and so
was his cure: parents must teach their children the Creed,
Commandments and Lord's Prayer, show them supporting texts
from Scripture, and lead them to deliverance in Christ from sin.
At bottom, the country's problem was lack of faith.
The godly preachers of the 1590s were convinced that the
Reformation had failed, that one or two generations of evangelism
had not converted England. Perhaps in the crisis years of 1594-8
the preachers were unreasonably pessimistic, especially likely to
find failure in religion the cause of the nation's many ills.9 After
1598 the economic crisis passed, harvests improved, epidemics
abated, prosecutions (if not crimes) fell. Sin did not go away, but
the respectable were less frightened of it. The moral panic sub-
sided. But the godly preachers did not change their view: they
remained convinced, even in better times, that true religion had
not worked. For a while they blamed shortage of preachers, but
by the 1610s there were preachers almost everywhere and still
the Word had not worked. Ministers saw failure all around,
despite their best endeavours. George Webb berated his parish-
ioners at Steeple Ashton (Wilts.) in 1617: 'How great and gross
is the ignorance of many, notwithstanding the clear light of the
gospel so long shining amongst us'. 'I marvel how it cometh to
pass that in some places, even where learned preachers have
killed themselves with sore labours, the greater number of people
are grossly ignorant', wailed Richard Kilby of Derby in 1618.
Henry Vesey had been wearied by his efforts in Essex: 'I find
your number great, and your knowledge in spiritual matters (for
Edward Topsell, Tile Renirrci of Religioiul, (London, 1613 edn, STC no. 231301, '.
For the problems of the 1590s, see especially Jim Sharpe, 'Social Strain and Social
Dislocation', in John Guy (ed.:, Vie Reigtl of Ellzaberh I : Court and Cttlturc iiz rhc
Lirst Decade (Cambridge, 1996).
33 SUCCESS AND FAILURE IN THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
the most part) so little'. Some had listened to him, 'yet with a
great many (to my grief) I can find no better fruit thereof than
that a breath goeth from my mouth and sound cometh to your
ears, and there is the end of my whole week's pain and study'.''
Of course, the clergy -of whatever religion -always complain
that their people will not listen, will not improve, will not have
faith and be better. It is a permanent cry: in every age, the people
are never good enough. They could always do more of whatever
it is that current religious fashion requires - give more to the
poor, go on more pilgrimages, pay for more candles, fast more
frequently; or, later, pray more fervently, study the scriptures
more carefully, go to sermons more diligently, treat the clergy
more respectfully, understand more fully -and have more faith.
In the Christian life, there is always room for improvement, so
failure is a constant, and the preacher's job is to tell us so. Failure
is a topos too, a rhetorical convention: Christian preachers have
the parable of the sower to spice up a sermon, and complain that
some seed falls upon barren ground. William Harrison told a
Lancashire congregation in 1614 that
The Lord hath sent many skilful and painful husbandmen to sow his field
with us, who according to their office and duty sow it in due season, after
a good manner and with the best seed. And yet it yieldeth little fruit.
People hear much, learn little and practise less. Which cannot be imputed
to the want of good preaching, but rather to the want of good hearing."
And failure is a theological principle. Calvinist preachers knew
there are sheep and goats, the elect and the reprobate: the godly
will listen and learn, God's chosen will be called, but the fallen
are lost and will not heed the word. Sin is not a passing lapse,
lack of faith is not a temporary error; they are signs of reproba-
tion, indicators of eternal damnation - so be good now, believe
now, or you may be one of those who will burn for ever.
When the preachers talked of failure, perhaps they were not
lo George Webb, A Brief E.uposiriot~ of the Pri>zciples of Christiatl Religiori (London,
1617 edn, STC no. 25158), sig. A3; Richard Kilby, Hallelu-iail: Praise Yee the Lord
(Cambridge, 1618, STC no. 14955), 82; Henry Vesey, The Scope of the Scripture
(London, 1633 edn, STC no. 24695), sigs. A2-A3.
"William Harrison, A Plaine atzd Projitable Expositiorl of the Parable of the Sower
and rile Seede, Where177 Is Plainly Se t Forth tile Difference of Hearers (London, 1625
edn, STC no. 12870.51, sig. A4.
34 PAST AND PRESEXT NUMBER 173
commenting on late Elizabethan or early Stuart England: perhaps
they were commenting on the human condition and the will of
God; perhaps they were kicking the sinners towards godliness.
Perhaps their statements were pastoral or theological rather than
factual. Perhaps they were wrong. l2
But the preachers were not lazily recycling the rhetoric of
reform. It is clear from their anguish that they really thought they
were experiencing defeat, and their sense of failure, institutional
and personal, was strong. They blamed the queen and the court
for milking the church; they blamed the bishops for ordaining
dumb dogs; they blamed the gentry for impropriations and poor
stipends; they blamed each other for not trying hard enough, or
for preaching the wrong kind of sermons. And they blamed their
people for not listening -with real anger and frustration, they
spoke specifically to their own congregations, they used concrete
examples, they quoted the kind of response they got, they told
it as they saw it. What they saw was their own failure.
Were they right? Had their Reformation really failed? And
how can we tell? If we cannot entirely trust the preachers, where
can we look? As is well known, in 1975 Gerald Strauss published
'Success and Failure in the German Reformation'. He noted that
Luther, Melanchthon and other evangelists soon concluded they
had been defeated by ignorance and indifference - and then he
produced evidence which seemed to show that they were right.
The church authorities in Lutheran Germany held careful visita-
tions of rural parishes, questioning ministers and people on the
state of religion. In Electoral Saxony in the 1570s the visitors
found that attendance at church was poor and at catechism classes
worse: 'You will find more of them out fishing than at service'.
Half a congregation would walk out when the sermon began,
and despite admonitions the people took no notice of their
preachers - 'Why pray? The Turk and the pope are not after
us!' they mocked. Ignorance, blasphemy, fornication, adultery,
drunkenness and gambling were widespread, and children grew
up 'like the dumb beasts of the field, without an inkling of the
word of God'. l 3
l 2 For pessimistic rhetoric at St Paul's Cross, see Alexandra Walsham, Pro.i.idr~lce
iiz Early ,Wt~cicrii Eiyliiizd (Oxford, 1999), ch. 6; cf. Emory Elliott, Pc7i~i.r irrid the
I'ulpit i'i
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