To ask the historians among you to explain this even from the tudors to me? ( reformatiin related).

[malificent7]

So from what I gather Henry 8th sought to break from Rome as he wanted to divorce Katherine and Marry Anne Boyelyn. Hence the advent of the Prostestant church. Catholicism was brutally surpressed etc.

However in season 4, episode 9, a protestant lady was tortured and burned as a heretic for her protestant beliefs including the rejection of the holy communion for being the body and blood of Christ. Also some Catholic priests were plotting unsuccessfully to accuse protesrant Katherine Parr of being a heretic.
But I thought Henry wanted a protestant nation? Or could he not make up his mind? Am i missing something as I'm confused!?

Reformation*

No. Henry was not a supporter of Protestantism in the mould of Martin Luther. In fact, he wrote against it, the Pope rewarding him with Fidei Defensor (still on coins). What Henry wanted was an Anglican church - English Catholic. This would serve two purposes, to end his marriage and to access Church property and wealth.

So he made himself head of the Church in England, I should have added.

He made it up to suit him. I think he wanted Protestantism on his terms but Katherine Parr and the woman tortured (Anne Atkins) were too radical

Henry VIII never changed his religion, born and died a Catholic, albeit an excommunicated one!

Protestantism never really came in until Elizabeth I.

Don't get confused between the Church OF England and the Church IN England.

I've got no idea what you might be watching but if it's a drama it'll be incorrect.

He was a committed Catholic and wrote an attack on a leading Protestant, Martin Luther. For attacking Protestantism he was given the title 'Defender of the Faith' by the Pope.
www.historyofparliamentonline.org/schools2/ks3/reformation/short-overview

He didn't set up the protestant church nor did he follow it. He was more of a hybrid believer.

The protestant movement was started by someone called Martin Luther who nailed complaints to the door of a church and his followers were called protestants.

Henry viii broke with Rome but basically ran the church as Catholic but with him the head of the church rather than the pope. That was it really. He didn't believe in having the bible in English or that transtabuation was symbolic not actually the blood and body of christ etc which the protestant did

Therefore he still believed protestants were bad and they were outlawed until the reign of his son, Edward

Henry wasn’t really a protestant. He initiated the split with Rome in a fit of pique because the Pope wouldn’t annul his marriage, it wasn’t really anything to do with religion. He spent the rest of his reign swinging between more Catholic-friendly policies and more radical ones, depending on what was expedient at the time and which faction he wanted to please or punish.

Henry was an egotistical, intelligent but lazy man with no strong convictions about anything but his own power and right to pick up and drop women at a whim. He was heavily influenced by a series of behind the scenes advisors who had huge amounts of power and pissed off ministers and officers of state by exercising it, until they fell out of favour, were summarily dismissed and defended and missed by nobody. Sound familiar?

Henry wanted an Anglican church with himself as the head. That provided him with the ability to divorce his first wife without Rome's approval, grant access to the wealth of the Church, and provide no small amount of political power to be wielded against France/Spain/whomever else.

In Henry's Church, the concept of transubstantiation was still very much alive, and during his reign there were still plenty of Protestants executed.

If Catherine of Aragon's nephew Charles hadn't been holding the pope prisoner at the time,. it is highly likely Henry would have been given an annulment. Whether he would have disestablished the monastaries anyway is an interesting quesiton. Edward and Elizabeth were true protestants though.

Henry was born and died a catholic. He had the last rites on his deathbed. All he changed really was who was head of the church.
If you look at his actions during the English reformation then he had a brief period of ‘radical’ change with eg Act of Supremacy and the break with Rome, dissolution of the monasteries etc, then when he had got what he wanted (power and money) he ‘stepped back’ towards Catholicism by banning the bible in English, arresting Protestants and reintroducing catholic ideas and laws such as the Act of 10 Articles and the Bishops Book. He was afraid of the extreme Protestants from the continent and feared them just as much as the extreme catholics.
Arguably for Henry the reformation was about getting what he wanted, not about theological beliefs.
The dissolution of the monasteries was the baby of Cromwell who was a Protestant and Henry allowed this as it gained him the cash he desperately needed. Once Cromwell had fallen from Grace (and life) Henry moved much more back to the old catholic ideas.

Hope that makes sense?

Yes, the Break with Rome (to obtain the divorce from KofA) isn't the se as the reformation (beginning of Protestantism).

Henry regarded Lutheran Protestantism as heresy I would think, as it would be a threat to his authority. He wanted to break from Rome so that he was the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and his subjects didn't owe allegiance to any foreign power (is the Pope as the Head of the Roman Catholic church).

Many Anglicans today would not describe themselves as protestant - in fact there is a theological part of the CofE known as Anglo-Catholicism.

Lots of good answers and knowledge on here but a couple of errors, Protestantism deco sly came in, albeit briefly, under Edward, and the concept of Anglicanism wasn’t really considered until after Elizabeth’s reign.

Sorry…teacher

Op, can I ask what it is you're watching please,

This is all facinating stuff...thank you!

@Jjacobb

Op, can I ask what it is you're watching please,

OP says it in the subject, it's The Tudors.

The Tudors.

I think that the executed lady was called Anne Askew.

Take the history with a pinch of salt in the Tudors but it's gripping drama!

Elizabeth favoured the Middle Way, but you get the idea, OP!
I'm a History teacher like pp, and teach this period to my A level students who love it! It's definitely interesting!

Very true, @RedHelenB!

Just to be confusing, I think Katherine Parr was a Protestant - she wrote a lot of theological material and was quite well known for it (Boleyn was also a Protestant). Henry remained a Catholic as others have said.

@malificent7

I think that the executed lady was called Anne Askew.

If that's who was being executed yes, she was being executed for "preaching heresy" but I'm not sure if the show goes into the political aspect of the execution -- the faction who wanted Katherine Parr to be found to be a Protestant sympathiser and then also executed or otherwise removed to make way for Queen #7.

The Defendor of the Faith stuff was before he wanted his divorce though. The Pope subsequently revoked it. If we are being charitable then we can say that there was some genuine belief that there needed to be church reform. But he wasn't a Protestant. Things got much more Protestant when he died and Edward VI succeeded, swang back to Catholicism under Mary, and Protestant again under Elizabeth.

I love Tudor history. Does anyone want to play “how many wives did Henry VIII have and who were they?” It’s my favourite game, you can wreck an entire pub quiz by playing.

I’ll go with three. Katherine of Aragon, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves. Anyone want to go higher or lower?

It also wasn't black and white - on one side one brand of catholicism, and on the other a homogenous brand of protestantism, and one was good the other bad. There were many forms of protestantism on a scale from fairly orthodox to very radical, and both ends of the scales were seen as heretical at various points during Henry's reign, depending who was in favour at the time.

Earlier on in his reign, after the break from Rome but while Thomas Cromwell was still in favour, reform was seen as a good thing. But then the extreme reformers became more radical, and later in his reign, when Jane Seymour's family and then the Howards were in favour, and Cranmer was archbishop, radical reformers were regularly being burnt and tortured - things like the Pilgrimage of Grace and the northern rebellions, and so on.