Part the Seventh, wherein Bloody Mary runs amok and the phrase "I'm gonna get mediæval on yo ass!" first enters the lexicon.
And so we continue our merrie tale in Tudor times with Norwich Castle serving as prison and torture chamber for Lollards and early Protestants, then for Catholics, then for Protestants again and then for Catholics once more as kings and queens played and lost the Game of Thrones.
Edward VI, the Godly Imp.
After Henry the Eighth's festering leg finally did for him, young Edward the Sixth succeeded to the crown. Somerset's fall from grace after the disastrous slaughter of Kett's rebellion was swift, he was booted out even before Kett was hanged and soon after was himself executed.
His successor, Northumberland was out to loot crown and country for all he could get. It was his stupid idea to halve the value of the currency (see previous post) and the resulting famine and disaster led to him losing the Treasury, handing it to Norfolk man Thomas Gresham (he of the grasshopper, the tale of which is somewhere in the dim recesses of my blog), who somehow managed to drag the economy back from the brink.
Thomas Cranmer, looking very po-faced on the interweb.
Edward developed anti-Catholic tendencies from a young age, particularly under the influence of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. They got together a bunch of reformers and traditionalists to bash out a new form of liturgy for the nascent Church of England, which became the first version of the Book of Common Prayer.
This, being a compromise by committee, pleased no-one and put both Catholic and Protestant noses out of joint. Under the influence of the more zealous Protestant reformers, the Imp had Cranmer revise the Book of Common Prayer in an ever more anti-Catholic manner, effectively abolishing the Mass and outlawing the adoration of Saints and their relics.
Foxe admiringly called the little fella "The Godly Imp."
At the Imp's behest, those Lollards still surviving in the Norwich Castle torture chamber were set free and replaced with Catholic activists, mostly Jesuits. The burnings and torture went on; the tortured and torturers just switched places.
Gotta love Christianity …
Next time, Eddie kicks the bucket, the tragedy of Lady Jane Grey and Mary stages a coup.
Sources:
Acts and Monuments: Foxe: Old Dive's 1621 edition.
The History of the Reformation of the Church of England: Gilbert Burnett: Old Dive's 1730 edition.
Clark's Lives - The Marrow of Ecclesiastical History: Samuel Clark: Old Dive's 1675 edition.Francis Blomefield: An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 3: The History of the City and County of Norwich: published 1753 to 1775
Lollardy and the Reformation in England: An Historical Survey: James Gairdner: 1908: 4 Vols
Norfolk Museums Service and the Norfolk Archæological Society
East Anglian Archæology Vol. 132: Norwich Castle: Excavations and Historical Survey: 1978-1988: Part II: c.1345 to Modern: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2009
Holinshed's Chronicles: 1577: Old Dive's 1808 edition. 5 Vols.
The Printed Plans of Norwich 1558-1840, A Carto-Bibliography: Raymond Frostick: 2002
Norwich Cathedral - Church, City and Diocese: 1096 - 1996: Various Eds. 1996
Norwich Cathedral Close: Roberta Gilchrist: 2005
Norwich Since 1550: ed: Carole Rawcliffe & Richard Wilson: 2004
Norwich - The Growth of a City: Barbara Green & Rachel M R Young: Norfolk Museums Service: 1981
Norwich Houses Before 1700: Vernacular Architecture, Vol 14: 1983
6 comments:
Great illustrations in that first Book of Common Prayer. But "Away with butter and cheese."? That pretty much takes the fun out of eating.
If it had read "Away with coffee and bacon" I'd be really worried.
Away with chocolate and ice cream!
It was Oldenbourg's "Massacre at Montségur" that turned me from agnostic to atheist. I'm not picky, though, Christianity does not have a lock on the horrors of religion.
That's fixed it; my lunch today will involve butter, cheese, coffee, bacon, chocolate and ice cream.
I'm with Laplace on religion. When asked by Napoleon why his work did not mention god, he replied, "I had no need of that hypothesis."
Thanks for that, I wasn't familiar with the quote. My thoughts exactly, though I wasn't phrasing it as well.
Laplace was a brilliant mathematician and physicist who luckily survived the Revolution. Poor Lavoisier got guillotined for being a tax farmer. If you get to Paris again his entire beautiful laboratory is set up in the Musée des Arts et Metiers (HUGE thanks to Katie for taking me there).
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