Sir Richard Morison (c.1513-1556) is best known as Henry VIII's most prolific propagandist. Yet he was also an accomplished scholar, politician, theologian and diplomat who was linked to the leading political and religious figures of his day. Despite his prominence, Morison has never received a full historical treatment. Based on extensive archival research, Renaissance and Reform in Tudor England provides a well-rounded picture of Morison that contributes significantly to the broader questions of intellectual, cultural, religious, and political history. Tracey Sowerby contextualizes Morison within each of his careers: he is considered as a propagandist, politician, reformer, diplomat and Marian exile. Morison emerges as a more influential and original figure than previously thought.

Sir Richard Morison (c.1513-1556) is best known as Henry VIII's most prolific propagandist. Yet he was also an accomplished scholar, politician, theologian and diplomat who was linked to the leading political and religious figures of his day. Despite his prominence, Morison has never received a full historical treatment. Based on extensive archival research, Renaissance and Reform in Tudor England provides a well-rounded picture of Morison that contributes significantly to the broader questions of intellectual, cultural, religious, and political history. Tracey Sowerby contextualizes Morison within each of his careers: he is considered as a propagandist, politician, reformer, diplomat and Marian exile. Morison emerges as a more influential and original figure than previously thought.

The sixteenth century was an age of Reformation. There was religious reformation, as Protestantism came to England, Scotland and even Ireland, bringing liberation, chaos and bloodshed in its wake. And there was political reformation, as the Tudor and Stewart (later 'Stuart') monarchs made their authority felt within and beyond their kingdoms more than any of their predecessors. Together, these two reformations produced not only a new religion, but a new politics -absolutist yet pluralist, populist yet law-bound - and a new society - controlled, fractured, yet more widely engaged and empowered than ever before. In this book, Alec Ryrie provides an authoritative overview of these momentous events, showing how religion, politics and social change were always intimately interlinked, from the murderous politics of the Tudor court to the building and fragmentation of new religious and social identities in the parishes. Drawing on the most recent research, he explains why events took the course they did - and why that course was so often an unexpected and an unlikely one.

This study considers sixteenth century evangelicals' vision of a ›godly‹ commonwealth within the broader context of political, religious, social, and intellectual changes in Tudor England. Using the clergyman and bestselling author, Thomas Becon (1512–1567), as a case study, Brian L. Hanson argues that evangelical views of the commonwealth were situation-dependent rather than uniform, fluctuating from individual to individual. His study examines the ways commonwealth rhetoric was used by evangelicals and how that rhetoric developed and changed. While this study draws from English Reformation historiography by acknowledging the chronology of reform, it engages with interdisciplinary texts on poverty, gender, and the economy in order to demonstrate the intersection of commonwealth rhetoric with Renaissance humanism. Furthermore, the experience of exile and the languages of prophecy and companionship directly influenced commonwealth rhetoric and dictated the priorities, vocabulary, and political expression of the evangelicals. As sixteenth-century England vacillated in its religious direction and priorities, the evangelicals were faced with a political conundrum and the tension between obedience and ›lawful‹ disobedience. There was ultimately a fundamental disagreement on the nature and criteria of obedience. Hanson's study makes a further contribution to the emerging conversation about English commonwealth politics by examining the important issues of obedience and disobedience within the evangelical community. A correct assessment of the issues surrounding the relationship between evangelicals and the commonwealth government will lead to a rediscovery of both the complexities of evangelical commonwealth rhetoric and the tension between the biblical command to submit to civil authorities and the injunction to ›obey God rather than man‹.

Argues that England's earliest Protestants were involved in drama as patrons, playwrights, performers and spectators.

The Reformation era has long been seen as crucial in developing the institutions and society of the English-speaking peoples, and study of the Tudor and Stuart era is at the heart of most courses in English history. The influence of the Book of Common Prayer and the King James version of the Bible created the modern English language, but until the publication of Gerald Bray's Documents of the English Reformation there had been no collection of contemporary documents available to show how these momentous social and political changes took place. This comprehensive collection covers the period from 1526 to 1700 and contains many texts previously relatively inaccessible, along with others more widely known. The book also provides informative appendixes, including comparative tables of the different articles and confessions, showing their mutual relationships and dependence. With fifty-eight documents covering all the main Statutes, Injunctions and Orders, Prefaces to prayer books, Biblical translations and other relevant texts, this third edition of Documents of the English R

This text draws upon the growing genre of writing about British History to construct an innovative narrative of religious change in the four countries/three kingdoms.