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Religious Wars and the “Common Peace”: Anglican Anti-War Sentiment in Elizabethan England*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Ben Lowe
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Extract

The “age of religious wars” usually serves as the main interpretive framework for students of late sixteenth-century European history. This period is often conceptualized as just preceding the establishment of a secularized, politique-based state system that provided domestic tranquility as welcome relief from extended, highly partisan warfare. It is true that religious sentiments ran high among certain Protestants and Catholics who believed millions of souls were at stake, and that passionate defenses of doctrinal purity, to the point of taking up arms, characterize a good deal of the polemic of the age. Consequently, since prominent clerics were most vocal and influential in stirring up pious fervor for holy causes, many historians have focused on clerical martial rhetoric and found in it the ideological basis for the “religious wars” that ensued. Unfortunately, a hint of teleology informs much of the historical narrative that then follows, as if confessional devotion were synonymous with volatile, even bellicose calls for godly reform. A broader, more nuanced look at some of the pertinent sources, however, suggests that in many, perhaps even the majority, of cases, newly energized evangelicals found holy causes abhorrent and contrary to the gospel message.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , Fall 1996 , pp. 415 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1996

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Janelle Greenberg and Linda Levy Peck for offering helpful suggestions on an earlier version of this article.

References

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21 During the crisis of the 1580s and 1590s, Sir Walter Raleigh referred to these two camps as the “men of war,” and the “scribes.” The foreign secretary, Francis Walsingham, stood out in the first group, while Lord Burghley and his son, Robert Cecil, dominated the second. Wernham, R. B., The Making of Elizabethan Foreign Policy 1558-1603 (Berkeley, Calif., 1980), pp. 82-84, 92Google Scholar. Jorgensen, Paul A., “Theoretical Views of War in Elizabethan England,” Journal of the History of Ideas 15 (1952): 469-79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Waggoner, G. R., “An Elizabethan Attitude Toward Peace and War,” Philological Quarterly 33 (1954): 20–33Google Scholar.

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24 This point was reiterated over and over, especially in Parliament. In 1571 Lord Keeper Nicholas Bacon said that through peace “we generally and joyfully possess all,” and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Walter Mildmay, opened the subsidy discussions in 1576 with a striking recitation on England's peace and justice as the envy of all its wartorn neighbors. Even with the realization that war with Spain was approaching in 1586-87, the somewhat modified message exalted more the inward peace of England, with its “mild Church of the gospel” that foreign Catholics were trying to destroy. Hartley, , Proceedings, pp. 36, 184-85, 442, 502-04Google ScholarPubMed; idem, Elizabeth's Parliaments: Queen, Lords and Commons, 1559-1601 (Manchester, 1992), pp. 54-55.

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27 The use of martial language to describe spiritual struggles or battles dates back to the apostle Paul's letter to the Ephesians in which he enjoined the church to “put on the full armor of God” (including swords, shields, arrows, etc.), but at the same time emphasized that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood., but against the spiritual forces of evil” (Letter to the Ephesians, 6: 10-18). Erasmus, the most pacifist humanist of his day, vividly, even militantly, laid out his Enchiridion militis Christiani (1503) in much the same way. The book was very popular in England, especially in high circles.

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29 Even though the existence of “Anglicanism” before Richard Hooker has been questioned of late, we can use the term here simply to refer to those Elizabethan prelates who served the Church of England faithfully by accepting both episcopacy and the royal supremacy. This clearly differentiated them from Presbyterians and radicals. Lake, Peter, Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker (London, 1988), p. 227Google Scholar.

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41 Ibid., pp. 427, 432.

42 Ibid., pp. 433-34.

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44 According to Donald Kelley, the “vernacular Scriptures” served as the main source for the language of social protest that arose out of the Reformation's “purification of language,...doctrine and Christian life in general. Law, Liberty, Authority, Tradition-these totemic concepts were all purged and redefined.” Kelley, Donald, “Ideas of Resistance before Elizabeth,” in The Historical Renaissance: New Essays on Tudor and Stuart Literature and Culture, ed. Dubrow, Heather and Strier, Richard (Chicago, 1988), p. 48Google Scholar.

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54 This statement bears striking resemblance to Origen's polemic against so many kingdoms in his day taking vengeance at every opportunity and being a “hindrance to the spread of the doctrine of Jesus throughout the entire world.” Origin, , Against Celsus, 2: 30Google Scholar, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, 4: 444. Jewel may be reflecting also the poor reputation of soldiers, which he would have had in common with Tertullian and Origen as well.

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60 Latimer asserts “that where war is, there be all discommodities; no man can do his duty according to his calling, as appeareth, now in Germany, the Emperor, and the French king being at controversy.” Latimer, Hugh, Sermons, ed. Corrie, George Elwes, Parker Society, vol. 27 (Cambridge, 1844), pp. 390-91Google Scholar.

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62 Ibid., p. 83.

63 Ibid., pp. 282-86.

64 Ibid., p. 257.

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66 Sandy's Sermons, p. 286.

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69 Curteys was a zealous reform-minded prelate whose ambitious ideas engendered hostility and opposition within his diocese, eventually culminating in his suspension before his death in 1582. The best treatment of the bishop in action is Manning's, Roger B.Religion and Society in Elizabethan Sussex: A Study of the Enforcement of the Religious Settlement 1558-1603 (Leicester, 1969), pp. 63–125Google Scholar. Manning calls Curteys a “conforming Puritan,” because he supported both episcopacy and the Prayer Book but also promoted bible-based preaching in every parish (pp. 71-72).

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79 Ibid., p. 644.

80 Ibid., pp. 644-46.

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