Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England episode 227 Reformation Parliament.

Next week everybody we will start an Anne-Belin Benanza as well as continuing with the story

of the English Reformation and the break with Rome of course. So there will be prizes and

debates or wildly exciting. There will also be a special competition and prize draw for

the very special people i.e. the members of the History of England. This will be all about

who was responsible for Anne's execution and will be towards the end of October. Anyway,

just thought I would communicate my mounting excitement or will be revealed next week.

I will have two special guests to boot. Now then, last week Woolsey fell with a crash

and Henry's hope of a divorce seemed to have fallen with him. We have spoken at some length just

a few weeks ago about the state of the late Medieval Church. So what was the situation by the time

we get to 1529, 1532 and the Reformation Parliament gets into full swing? I have happily agreed

with the latest orthodoxy that actually the late Medieval Church was much better fettled

than the last 500 years of Protestant trash talk might suggest. But pointed out that,

like it or not, the Church did also have multiple areas where it was indeed vulnerable.

What this meant was there is a deal of anti-claricalism around. Now it's easy to dismiss this as

indeed some have as a purely negative thing, defined by a tearing down of the walls of the poor

old beast and feeding on its flesh. But it was for also for many a thrilling liberation.

Whether England's freedom to control her own observances, or the chance to read the word

of God for yourself, or being freed from the terrors of purgatory. One of the pieces of evidence

that historians have used to understand the spread of the new ideas and evangelicalism is that of

wills. Traditionists and evangelicals used very different formulae for wills. So the thinking goes,

if you look at wills for that first generation that lived under the Reformation Parliament

...