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Religion and the Wyatt Rebellion of 1554

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Malcolm R. Thorp
Malcolm R. Thorp
Affiliation:
assoctate professor of history inBrigham Young University, Provo, Utah
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Extract

In his book Two Tudor Conspiracies, D. M. Loades challenged the traditional view among historians that the Wyatt rebellion was influenced by Protestant concerns over the Catholic policies of Mary Tudor. In Loades' account of the event, religion played no prominent part; the conspirators were secular and anti-clerical, but otherwise their religious convictions remain “shadowy.” Loades contends that apart from William Thomas, the well-known Protestant enthusiast, “all had conformed without protest under Edward, and those still alive were to do so again under Elizabeth, but throughout the period of the rebellion and trials which followed it, all protested their loyalty to the Catholic Church.” The real reasons for the revolt, he asserts, were secular and political—namely, fear of foreign domination through the Queen's intended marriage to Philip of Spain.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , December 1978 , pp. 363 - 380
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1978

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