1 00:00:02,080 --> 00:00:06,200 Royal history is at the heart of our national identity. 2 00:00:07,360 --> 00:00:11,160 We think of it as the definitive truth about our past. 3 00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:13,120 Kings and queens, 4 00:00:13,120 --> 00:00:15,000 dates and facts, 5 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:19,760 all consigned to a past that's unchanging and fixed. 6 00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:22,600 But it's not like that at all. 7 00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:25,480 History is a chorus of voices, 8 00:00:25,480 --> 00:00:29,480 each of them shouting out its own version of the story. 9 00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:35,040 And very often it's the loudest voices that get heard most clearly. 10 00:00:35,040 --> 00:00:40,120 In this series, I'm lifting the lid on three of royal history's 11 00:00:40,120 --> 00:00:42,280 great nation-building stories. 12 00:00:43,640 --> 00:00:45,160 The Spanish Armada. 13 00:00:45,160 --> 00:00:48,920 Elizabeth I's naval triumph is still celebrated 14 00:00:48,920 --> 00:00:52,640 as a founding moment of the British Empire. 15 00:00:52,640 --> 00:00:57,080 But was it really the decisive victory we've been led to believe? 16 00:00:59,920 --> 00:01:03,200 Queen Anne helped create Great Britain. 17 00:01:03,200 --> 00:01:06,280 She's remembered as a disastrous monarch, 18 00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:10,120 but did her liberal enemies destroy her reputation? 19 00:01:11,240 --> 00:01:15,280 And in this episode - Henry VIII's Reformation, 20 00:01:15,280 --> 00:01:19,640 a religious schism that broke England's ties with Europe 21 00:01:19,640 --> 00:01:22,880 and delivered absolute power to the king. 22 00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:28,120 But it's often told as a bawdy royal soap opera. 23 00:01:28,120 --> 00:01:30,200 - Henry VIII, what a guy. 24 00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:32,920 Got on bended knee and declared, 25 00:01:32,920 --> 00:01:36,560 "My darling Anne, I will love you for the rest of...your life." 26 00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:38,600 - LAUGHTER RIPPLES 27 00:01:38,600 --> 00:01:40,200 - Cheeky, cheeky. 28 00:01:41,320 --> 00:01:43,240 - In lots of versions of the story, 29 00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:46,720 the Reformation almost seems like a side product 30 00:01:46,720 --> 00:01:51,440 of Henry's love life, a consequence of his desire for a divorce from 31 00:01:51,440 --> 00:01:55,120 Catherine of Aragon, so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. 32 00:01:55,120 --> 00:02:00,120 But has this focus on Henry's love life blinded us to the wider 33 00:02:00,120 --> 00:02:03,840 political impact of the Reformation that's still playing out 34 00:02:03,840 --> 00:02:07,040 on the streets of Brexit Britain today? 35 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:10,560 - I think the Reformation reinforced the sense that Britain is separate, 36 00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:12,440 and I think that's where your scepticism 37 00:02:12,440 --> 00:02:14,240 has its deep roots in the Reformation. 38 00:02:14,240 --> 00:02:18,280 - So what's the real story of the Reformation - 39 00:02:18,280 --> 00:02:22,560 lust and the obsessive desire for an heir, 40 00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:27,560 or a political earthquake that shapes the nation to this day? 41 00:02:28,640 --> 00:02:31,360 It seems we just can't decide. 42 00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:34,120 And maybe that's because many of the stories told 43 00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:38,840 about the Reformation have been spun from myths, fabrications 44 00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:41,920 and some of royal history's biggest fibs. 45 00:02:58,240 --> 00:03:03,760 The story of the English Reformation begins on Halloween 1517, 46 00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:08,920 when the monk Martin Luther nailed a document to the door of a church 47 00:03:08,920 --> 00:03:13,680 in Wittenberg, north-east Germany, attacking the Roman Catholic Church. 48 00:03:18,440 --> 00:03:22,120 Luther believed that the Catholic Church was corrupt. 49 00:03:22,120 --> 00:03:25,680 He thought that the clergy had tricked people into thinking 50 00:03:25,680 --> 00:03:28,200 they could buy their way into heaven 51 00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:32,480 by paying priests to say masses to wash their sins away. 52 00:03:32,480 --> 00:03:37,880 He believed that faith, not money, was what got you redemption. 53 00:03:37,880 --> 00:03:43,440 Luther's protest in Wittenberg is often seen as THE decisive act 54 00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:46,480 that inspired Henry VIII's break with Rome. 55 00:03:46,480 --> 00:03:50,120 But this founding moment may well be the first fib in the story. 56 00:03:51,680 --> 00:03:55,760 Like all the best stories, it's probably been hammed up a bit 57 00:03:55,760 --> 00:03:58,560 and it's doubtful that this scene with the church door 58 00:03:58,560 --> 00:04:00,280 ever took place. 59 00:04:00,280 --> 00:04:04,400 Luther has left us no fewer than 120 volumes of writing, 60 00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:07,040 about all different aspects of his life, 61 00:04:07,040 --> 00:04:09,520 including a really bad case of constipation, 62 00:04:09,520 --> 00:04:12,000 which he thinks was given to him by the devil. 63 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:14,480 But nowhere in any of this does he mention 64 00:04:14,480 --> 00:04:16,680 nailing anything to any doors. 65 00:04:19,480 --> 00:04:22,480 However Luther's message was first delivered, 66 00:04:22,480 --> 00:04:25,800 it quickly spread and unleashed a religious and political 67 00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:28,280 revolution across Europe. 68 00:04:28,280 --> 00:04:31,200 But when it came to the attention of Henry VIII, 69 00:04:31,200 --> 00:04:32,920 it left him cold. 70 00:04:32,920 --> 00:04:36,520 Over the centuries, Henry has sometimes been claimed 71 00:04:36,520 --> 00:04:39,520 as one of history's great Protestants. 72 00:04:39,520 --> 00:04:44,160 But when Luther's revolutionary message started to arrive in London, 73 00:04:44,160 --> 00:04:46,560 Henry was dead against it. 74 00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:53,280 After reading Luther's tract, Henry fired off an angry response. 75 00:04:54,520 --> 00:04:59,000 It was called the Defence of the Seven Sacraments. 76 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:01,640 SHE CHUCKLES And he didn't hold back. 77 00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:06,080 Henry said that Luther was "a venomous serpent", 78 00:05:06,080 --> 00:05:10,840 "a pernicious plague", an "infernal wolf". 79 00:05:10,840 --> 00:05:14,880 He said he had an infected soul, and he also called him 80 00:05:14,880 --> 00:05:19,280 a "detestable trumpeter of pride, calumnies and schism." 81 00:05:19,280 --> 00:05:22,560 So Henry wasn't particularly promising material 82 00:05:22,560 --> 00:05:24,760 as a convert to Protestantism. 83 00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:27,520 And in fact, he never would become a Protestant. 84 00:05:27,520 --> 00:05:30,880 He would remain a Catholic until the day he died. 85 00:05:32,440 --> 00:05:36,560 Henry's attack on Luther so delighted Pope Leo X 86 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:40,760 that he rewarded Henry with a title - Defender of the Faith. 87 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:46,000 But Henry's love-in with the Pope wouldn't last long. 88 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:49,440 Soon, he himself would be branded a heretic. 89 00:05:51,320 --> 00:05:53,120 So what went wrong? 90 00:05:57,960 --> 00:06:01,120 According to the popular version of the story, 91 00:06:01,120 --> 00:06:03,720 it was a seductive 21-year-old 92 00:06:03,720 --> 00:06:07,640 who'd lure Henry away from his Catholic faith. 93 00:06:07,640 --> 00:06:11,080 Anne Boleyn arrived at Henry's court as lady-in-waiting 94 00:06:11,080 --> 00:06:14,920 to Catherine of Aragon in 1522. 95 00:06:14,920 --> 00:06:20,200 By 1527, Anne had completely turned the king's head. 96 00:06:20,200 --> 00:06:23,720 And the story of how Henry dumped his old wife 97 00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:27,680 in favour of the younger, sexier model has formed the plot line 98 00:06:27,680 --> 00:06:30,440 of royal bonk busters ever since. 99 00:06:31,840 --> 00:06:37,000 From the early days of silent cinema to more recent TV dramas, 100 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:40,120 directors, too, have delighted in casting 101 00:06:40,120 --> 00:06:43,320 the demure and devoutly Catholic Catherine 102 00:06:43,320 --> 00:06:46,440 against the sexy Protestant pin-up, Anne. 103 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:52,320 16th century artists also portrayed her as a great beauty. 104 00:06:52,320 --> 00:06:55,640 But the truth is, no-one really knows what Anne looked like, 105 00:06:55,640 --> 00:06:59,800 because this small medallion is the only surviving portrait 106 00:06:59,800 --> 00:07:02,800 known to have been made during her lifetime. 107 00:07:04,240 --> 00:07:08,920 And this has meant that Anne's image has become a sort of battle ground. 108 00:07:08,920 --> 00:07:12,920 She shifts shape according to who's telling her story. 109 00:07:12,920 --> 00:07:15,560 Only one thing is absolutely certain, 110 00:07:15,560 --> 00:07:18,960 Anne was much more than just a pretty face. 111 00:07:21,720 --> 00:07:26,520 Anne Boleyn arrived at Henry's court fired up with radical ideas. 112 00:07:27,800 --> 00:07:30,920 She grew up here at Hever Castle in Kent, 113 00:07:30,920 --> 00:07:33,040 the daughter of Lady Elizabeth Howard 114 00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:34,640 and an ambitious diplomat, 115 00:07:34,640 --> 00:07:36,480 Thomas Boleyn. 116 00:07:38,520 --> 00:07:42,640 Thomas secured his younger daughter a coveted position 117 00:07:42,640 --> 00:07:45,200 as maid of honour in the French court. 118 00:07:47,960 --> 00:07:51,600 And it was there that Anne was introduced to the new ideas 119 00:07:51,600 --> 00:07:53,520 that were transforming Europe. 120 00:07:58,600 --> 00:08:00,320 - During those years, 121 00:08:00,320 --> 00:08:04,960 she came in contact with evangelical Protestants, 122 00:08:04,960 --> 00:08:09,280 people who were rethinking old verities, 123 00:08:09,280 --> 00:08:12,120 who were coming up with new ways of approaching everything, 124 00:08:12,120 --> 00:08:13,600 including faith. 125 00:08:13,600 --> 00:08:16,960 - What were these, perhaps, contentious new religious ideas 126 00:08:16,960 --> 00:08:19,400 that Anne was picking up in France? 127 00:08:19,400 --> 00:08:22,360 - A key one is the source of authority. 128 00:08:22,360 --> 00:08:25,360 So when you're making decisions about religious matters, 129 00:08:25,360 --> 00:08:29,160 who do you look to as the authority on that matter, 130 00:08:29,160 --> 00:08:33,160 whether it's the Bible, scripture, which is what these evangelicals 131 00:08:33,160 --> 00:08:37,440 were arguing, or whether you turn to the wisdom of the Church? 132 00:08:37,440 --> 00:08:43,440 And followers of Luther said that, actually, the Church was flawed, 133 00:08:43,440 --> 00:08:46,120 that the Pope was fallible. 134 00:08:46,120 --> 00:08:49,440 - Do you think Henry would have taken these ideas about the authority 135 00:08:49,440 --> 00:08:53,080 of the Pope to heart if it hadn't been for Anne? 136 00:08:53,080 --> 00:08:57,800 - I think Anne's pivotal because we know that Henry hates Luther. 137 00:08:57,800 --> 00:09:02,000 Anne obviously had a real hold on his heart and so could introduce 138 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:05,440 ideas to him that other people couldn't possibly say. 139 00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:08,040 - And is this something that's been downplayed by the people 140 00:09:08,040 --> 00:09:09,800 who see her as just a sexpot? 141 00:09:09,800 --> 00:09:12,640 - I think that comes down to pretty misogynistic ways 142 00:09:12,640 --> 00:09:15,360 of seeing Henry VIII's wives in the past, actually. 143 00:09:15,360 --> 00:09:18,760 And it's much easier if you can, sort of, boil them down 144 00:09:18,760 --> 00:09:21,640 to being a bit of skirt and not really anything more. 145 00:09:21,640 --> 00:09:24,520 And, actually, with Anne we do have something more. 146 00:09:24,520 --> 00:09:28,320 She is somebody who makes a massive difference 147 00:09:28,320 --> 00:09:30,520 in terms of English history. 148 00:09:30,520 --> 00:09:34,080 We could argue that Henry VIII would not have broken 149 00:09:34,080 --> 00:09:37,960 with the Roman Catholic Church if it weren't for Anne's influence. 150 00:09:39,640 --> 00:09:43,920 - At this time, the Protestant scholar William Tyndale was marked out 151 00:09:43,920 --> 00:09:47,880 as a heretic for wanting to translate the Bible into English. 152 00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:52,920 But Anne had one of his books smuggled into England from France, 153 00:09:52,920 --> 00:09:57,640 and she risked putting it right under the king's nose. 154 00:09:57,640 --> 00:10:01,640 It was called The Obedience of a Christian Man, 155 00:10:01,640 --> 00:10:04,640 and Anne went about this in a very clever way. 156 00:10:04,640 --> 00:10:08,920 She marked up a passage in Tyndale's book where he implied that kings 157 00:10:08,920 --> 00:10:11,640 had lost their power to the Church. 158 00:10:11,640 --> 00:10:13,720 "Kings", Tindale says, 159 00:10:13,720 --> 00:10:18,960 "they are but shadows, vain names and things idle, 160 00:10:18,960 --> 00:10:21,160 "having nothing to do in the world 161 00:10:21,160 --> 00:10:24,360 "but when our Holy Father needeth their help." 162 00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:28,360 Tyndale was provoking the monarchs of Christendom 163 00:10:28,360 --> 00:10:30,720 to reject papal authority. 164 00:10:30,720 --> 00:10:34,040 And the idea that he could be king of an autonomous nation 165 00:10:34,040 --> 00:10:35,880 appealed to Henry. 166 00:10:37,040 --> 00:10:38,680 He's supposed to have said, 167 00:10:38,680 --> 00:10:41,440 "Well, this is a book for me and all kings to read." 168 00:10:42,720 --> 00:10:46,840 And this little interaction shows her beginning to persuade him 169 00:10:46,840 --> 00:10:50,400 that maybe not all radical Protestants are bad, 170 00:10:50,400 --> 00:10:54,040 and that maybe breaking with Rome could be good. 171 00:10:56,160 --> 00:10:59,920 Anne was winning Henry round to some Protestant ideas. 172 00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:04,880 And she refused to sleep with the king until 173 00:11:04,880 --> 00:11:07,640 he'd made her his new queen. 174 00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:09,880 But there were many obstacles in her way. 175 00:11:09,880 --> 00:11:14,400 Henry was still married and his wife had many supporters at court. 176 00:11:14,400 --> 00:11:17,480 Chief amongst these was Eustace Chapuys, 177 00:11:17,480 --> 00:11:20,920 the Spanish ambassador to Emperor Charles V, 178 00:11:20,920 --> 00:11:24,240 the standard bearer for Catholicism across Europe. 179 00:11:29,200 --> 00:11:32,680 Eustace Chapuys was devoted to Charles V, 180 00:11:32,680 --> 00:11:36,680 who just happened to be the nephew of Catherine of Aragon. 181 00:11:36,680 --> 00:11:39,880 Chapuys really loved Catherine of Aragon. 182 00:11:39,880 --> 00:11:43,560 It was said that he venerated her like a saint, 183 00:11:43,560 --> 00:11:47,840 and, partly as a result of this, he really hated Anne Boleyn. 184 00:11:47,840 --> 00:11:50,320 In his letters to Charles V, 185 00:11:50,320 --> 00:11:54,080 Chapuys describes Anne as more Lutheran than Luther, 186 00:11:54,080 --> 00:11:56,760 and he slut shamed her. 187 00:11:56,760 --> 00:12:00,760 He called her "the concubine" and "the whore." 188 00:12:00,760 --> 00:12:04,040 And Chapuys really set up this image of Anne 189 00:12:04,040 --> 00:12:09,520 that does survive to this day, as the wicked, evil seductress, 190 00:12:09,520 --> 00:12:11,920 as the original other woman. 191 00:12:11,920 --> 00:12:16,360 Anne's genuine intelligence and sense of political strategy 192 00:12:16,360 --> 00:12:19,280 just don't fit into this soap opera version of the story. 193 00:12:21,360 --> 00:12:25,560 By 1527, the king's desperate desire for a male heir 194 00:12:25,560 --> 00:12:28,800 had become known as The King's Great Matter. 195 00:12:30,320 --> 00:12:33,800 After nine years of marriage, Catherine had produced six children, 196 00:12:33,800 --> 00:12:37,440 but all had died, apart from a daughter - Mary. 197 00:12:38,560 --> 00:12:42,440 Henry wanted a son to continue the Tudor dynasty, 198 00:12:42,440 --> 00:12:45,880 and he was now convinced that Anne Boleyn could deliver. 199 00:12:47,440 --> 00:12:49,840 It was time to come up with some fibs 200 00:12:49,840 --> 00:12:52,120 to help him get rid of Catherine. 201 00:12:53,920 --> 00:12:58,240 In 1527, Henry asked Pope Clement VII 202 00:12:58,240 --> 00:13:00,080 to annul his marriage. 203 00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:04,400 It seems that Henry had suddenly woken up to the fact that Catherine 204 00:13:04,400 --> 00:13:08,680 had previously been married to his older brother, Arthur. 205 00:13:08,680 --> 00:13:12,240 And this, according to the Bible, was a bad thing. 206 00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:14,560 The Book of Leviticus said that 207 00:13:14,560 --> 00:13:17,960 if a man shall marry his brother's wife, 208 00:13:17,960 --> 00:13:19,960 it is an unclean thing. 209 00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:23,760 And Henry now argued that this uncleanliness was the reason 210 00:13:23,760 --> 00:13:27,360 that Catherine had never produced a healthy baby boy. 211 00:13:27,360 --> 00:13:31,400 Their marriage, he now said, had been blighted from the start 212 00:13:31,400 --> 00:13:33,280 in the eyes of God. 213 00:13:34,640 --> 00:13:39,800 But Henry's manipulation of biblical quotations failed to impress. 214 00:13:39,800 --> 00:13:43,440 The Pope refused to annul his marriage 215 00:13:43,440 --> 00:13:46,080 and his wife refused to go quietly. 216 00:13:47,920 --> 00:13:51,440 Henry had hopes that with the offer of a generous settlement, 217 00:13:51,440 --> 00:13:55,480 Catherine would give way gracefully and go off to a nunnery, 218 00:13:55,480 --> 00:13:57,800 but no, she wasn't having that. 219 00:13:57,800 --> 00:14:01,400 We've made vows, she said, they cannot be undone. 220 00:14:03,280 --> 00:14:06,800 As a Roman Catholic himself, Henry would have understood this, 221 00:14:06,800 --> 00:14:09,960 but he was determined to get his divorce. 222 00:14:09,960 --> 00:14:15,600 And thanks to Anne, Henry no longer saw the need to kowtow to the Pope. 223 00:14:16,960 --> 00:14:19,600 And there was somebody else close to Henry 224 00:14:19,600 --> 00:14:22,880 who was manipulating facts to persuade the king 225 00:14:22,880 --> 00:14:26,760 that breaking with Rome could lead to unexpected rewards. 226 00:14:31,680 --> 00:14:35,880 In 1533, Thomas Cromwell became Henry's chief minister. 227 00:14:37,560 --> 00:14:42,120 Unlike Henry, he was a radical Protestant who saw Luther 228 00:14:42,120 --> 00:14:44,480 as a progressive force. 229 00:14:44,480 --> 00:14:48,280 An ally of Anne Boleyn, he saw The King's Great Matter 230 00:14:48,280 --> 00:14:51,920 as an opportunity to advance the Protestant cause. 231 00:14:54,240 --> 00:14:59,760 So Cromwell began to weave some expert political propaganda. 232 00:14:59,760 --> 00:15:03,760 He assured Henry that there was a way to get him his divorce, 233 00:15:03,760 --> 00:15:05,360 improve his finances 234 00:15:05,360 --> 00:15:07,840 and enhance his political power. 235 00:15:09,600 --> 00:15:12,920 It would just take two acts of parliament. 236 00:15:12,920 --> 00:15:16,680 The first was drafted in 1533. 237 00:15:20,080 --> 00:15:25,280 This is the real, actual Act in Restraint of Appeals. 238 00:15:25,280 --> 00:15:27,960 And because this act banned appealing to the Pope 239 00:15:27,960 --> 00:15:31,840 in ecclesiastical matters, it meant that Catherine was now banned 240 00:15:31,840 --> 00:15:36,040 from appealing to the Pope in her and Henry's great matter. 241 00:15:36,040 --> 00:15:40,640 From this point onwards, it would be parliament, not the Pope, 242 00:15:40,640 --> 00:15:44,520 it would be London, not Rome, that would be the final authority 243 00:15:44,520 --> 00:15:48,040 on the constitutional affairs of England. 244 00:15:49,400 --> 00:15:53,160 By this time, Anne had succumbed to Henry's advances 245 00:15:53,160 --> 00:15:57,360 and in January 1533, before the act had even been passed, 246 00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:00,120 Anne discovered she was pregnant. 247 00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:03,960 To make sure a potential baby boy was legitimate, 248 00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:06,000 they quickly got married. 249 00:16:06,000 --> 00:16:10,760 Henry, who was still married to Catherine, was now a bigamist. 250 00:16:10,760 --> 00:16:14,720 The Pope expelled him from the Catholic Church. 251 00:16:14,720 --> 00:16:18,400 This guaranteed that Henry would burn in hell for eternity. 252 00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:23,560 But Henry didn't seem to mind too much 253 00:16:23,560 --> 00:16:28,280 because, with Cromwell busy drafting his revolutionary acts, 254 00:16:28,280 --> 00:16:32,360 Henry seemed to feel that his powers were limitless. 255 00:16:34,640 --> 00:16:37,560 A year later, Cromwell produced a second bill - 256 00:16:37,560 --> 00:16:40,200 The Act of Supremacy. 257 00:16:40,200 --> 00:16:44,440 This made Henry the supreme head of a new Church of England, 258 00:16:44,440 --> 00:16:47,000 and severed all ties with Rome. 259 00:16:48,520 --> 00:16:53,520 But how could he possibly justify this massive break with Rome? 260 00:16:53,520 --> 00:16:56,760 Well, the first clue comes in the very first line 261 00:16:56,760 --> 00:16:58,960 of The Act in Restraint of Appeals, 262 00:16:58,960 --> 00:17:01,520 where we begin to see Cromwell emerging 263 00:17:01,520 --> 00:17:04,000 as one of history's biggest fibbers. 264 00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:08,800 It says, "By diverse and sundry old authentic 265 00:17:08,800 --> 00:17:11,920 "histories and chronicles, 266 00:17:11,920 --> 00:17:16,840 "it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm 267 00:17:16,840 --> 00:17:20,040 "of England is an Empire... 268 00:17:20,040 --> 00:17:23,600 "..governed by one Supreme Head 269 00:17:23,600 --> 00:17:28,520 "and King having the dignity and royal estate 270 00:17:28,520 --> 00:17:31,480 "of the imperial Crown." 271 00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:35,200 What he's saying here is that Henry rules an empire. 272 00:17:35,200 --> 00:17:40,080 He is an emperor, as kings of England have been for centuries, 273 00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:45,560 and emperors are beholden to nobody, certainly not to the Pope. 274 00:17:45,560 --> 00:17:49,280 But where did this whole idea of empire come from? 275 00:17:49,280 --> 00:17:51,360 Who was Cromwell kidding? 276 00:17:53,800 --> 00:17:57,640 The truth is that Henry had no empire beyond the British Isles, 277 00:17:57,640 --> 00:18:00,640 apart from a precarious foothold in Calais, 278 00:18:00,640 --> 00:18:04,160 that was increasingly expensive to defend from the French. 279 00:18:06,040 --> 00:18:09,240 But Cromwell wasn't about to let facts like these 280 00:18:09,240 --> 00:18:12,320 get in the way of his master plan. 281 00:18:12,320 --> 00:18:16,240 To justify the passage of power from Rome to London, 282 00:18:16,240 --> 00:18:19,080 he manipulated English history. 283 00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:26,680 This is the 12th century book that Cromwell used as his source 284 00:18:26,680 --> 00:18:28,960 and his justification. 285 00:18:28,960 --> 00:18:31,520 It's The History of the Kings of Britain 286 00:18:31,520 --> 00:18:34,760 by a Welsh monk called Geoffrey of Monmouth. 287 00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:37,880 And in it he takes the story of the kings of Britain right back 288 00:18:37,880 --> 00:18:41,120 to one of Britain's best loved legends, 289 00:18:41,120 --> 00:18:44,040 King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. 290 00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:47,840 But this is really pseudo history. 291 00:18:47,840 --> 00:18:51,040 It's more like a collection of fairy stories. 292 00:18:51,040 --> 00:18:54,520 But these fairy stories were the diverse and sundry 293 00:18:54,520 --> 00:18:58,640 old authentic histories and chronicles Cromwell was relying upon 294 00:18:58,640 --> 00:19:02,160 for his claim that England really was an empire. 295 00:19:03,960 --> 00:19:08,080 The idea that the Reformation could bolster his image as an emperor, 296 00:19:08,080 --> 00:19:10,360 descended from the mighty King Arthur, 297 00:19:10,360 --> 00:19:12,320 was especially appealing to Henry. 298 00:19:14,160 --> 00:19:18,160 Henry had always fancied himself as a 16th century King Arthur. 299 00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:21,360 So he was quite happy to go along with a bit of colourful 300 00:19:21,360 --> 00:19:23,400 myth-making from back in the mists of time, 301 00:19:23,400 --> 00:19:26,440 especially if it got him what he wanted. 302 00:19:26,440 --> 00:19:30,640 Henry had an extraordinary gift for believing most sincerely 303 00:19:30,640 --> 00:19:33,800 in things which just happened to be to his advantage. 304 00:19:35,720 --> 00:19:40,080 Cromwell's revolutionary acts gave Henry the power he craved, 305 00:19:40,080 --> 00:19:43,120 but they also left him isolated. 306 00:19:43,120 --> 00:19:46,920 Rejecting Rome wasn't only a religious matter. 307 00:19:46,920 --> 00:19:51,120 The Pope also had diplomatic and economic powers. 308 00:19:51,120 --> 00:19:55,120 He even had approval on international trade deals. 309 00:19:56,560 --> 00:19:59,440 And, by rejecting the Lutheran cause, 310 00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:02,200 Henry was also driving a wedge between England 311 00:20:02,200 --> 00:20:05,600 and the rest of Protestant Europe. 312 00:20:05,600 --> 00:20:08,480 Adrian, do you think there's a connection between 313 00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:11,480 people today talking negatively about Europe 314 00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:14,480 and those acts that Henry and Cromwell set up 315 00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:17,960 saying, "England is exceptional, it stands alone. 316 00:20:17,960 --> 00:20:20,920 "It's an empire entirely self-contained"? 317 00:20:20,920 --> 00:20:23,800 - Oh, undoubtedly. I think this idea that when you're an island, 318 00:20:23,800 --> 00:20:27,280 you are naturally disconnected from the Continent and you are, 319 00:20:27,280 --> 00:20:31,800 you know, very special and your fate and destiny lie elsewhere. 320 00:20:31,800 --> 00:20:35,360 Clearly, that is what, you know, the Reformation and I think, 321 00:20:35,360 --> 00:20:38,960 you know, people having this sort of discourse today have in common. 322 00:20:38,960 --> 00:20:41,560 Really, I think, what those two acts do is they essentially say 323 00:20:41,560 --> 00:20:43,520 there's only one source of legitimacy, 324 00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:46,240 and that is now the nation represented by the monarch. 325 00:20:46,240 --> 00:20:48,960 And that really changes the relationship hugely 326 00:20:48,960 --> 00:20:52,120 to other countries, to the papacy, to institutions, you know, 327 00:20:52,120 --> 00:20:55,120 across the world, because you're essentially saying 328 00:20:55,120 --> 00:20:58,480 the individual has rights, you know, his or her individual rights, 329 00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:00,560 plus the state essentially guarantees them 330 00:21:00,560 --> 00:21:03,360 and nothing mediates that relationship any more. 331 00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:10,320 - By 1536, Henry had absolute power over both nation and the Church. 332 00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:14,520 But, after three years of marriage to Anne, 333 00:21:14,520 --> 00:21:18,120 Henry still had no male heir, only a daughter - Elizabeth. 334 00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:24,040 So Henry now ordered his fixer, Thomas Cromwell, to find a solution. 335 00:21:25,120 --> 00:21:29,400 Operating in Henry's court was notoriously a dangerous affair. 336 00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:33,320 You had to stay a step ahead of your enemies 337 00:21:33,320 --> 00:21:35,720 and keep your allies close. 338 00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:39,720 But although Anne was super smart, her strong character 339 00:21:39,720 --> 00:21:43,800 and radical views hadn't endeared her to everybody. 340 00:21:43,800 --> 00:21:48,000 And it would be her former ally, Thomas Cromwell, who produced 341 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:52,480 the damaging evidence that would eventually bring her down. 342 00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:58,200 In May 1536, Anne was brought to the Tower of London 343 00:21:58,200 --> 00:22:01,920 to be tried on charges of adultery, incest 344 00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:04,680 and conspiracy to kill the king. 345 00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:08,800 Cromwell had witnesses tortured to help create a dodgy dossier 346 00:22:08,800 --> 00:22:13,520 against her, which would seal her reputation as a wanton woman. 347 00:22:14,880 --> 00:22:16,920 - We have from Anne's trial the indictment, 348 00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:21,480 and there's a list of five men with whom she's accused of adultery. 349 00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:23,000 She's also accused of incest 350 00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:25,400 because one of those five men is her brother. 351 00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:29,640 And, crucially, she's accused of conspiring the king's death. 352 00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:33,480 - Do you think that Anne did anything, anything wrong, 353 00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:36,840 anything that we can blame for her downfall? 354 00:22:36,840 --> 00:22:40,400 - Well, I don't think that she committed the adultery 355 00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:43,120 and the incest that she was accused of. 356 00:22:43,120 --> 00:22:45,760 But I do think she did the conspiring the king's death, 357 00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:49,840 if we understand that to be talking about the king's death. 358 00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:53,080 Because there's a moment with a man called Henry Norris, 359 00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:56,200 who's one of the king's best friends, where she said to him, 360 00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:59,600 "You look for dead men's shoes, for if aught came to the king but good 361 00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:01,240 "you would look to have me." 362 00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:02,640 In other words, she's saying, 363 00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:05,200 you want to marry me when my husband's dead, don't you? 364 00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:07,320 And under the 1534 Treasons Act, 365 00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:10,160 if you think of the king's death in words, 366 00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:12,200 you are committing treason. 367 00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:14,120 - Suzie, why do you think that Cromwell, 368 00:23:14,120 --> 00:23:17,960 who used to be Anne's ally and supporter, turned against her 369 00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:20,480 and produced his dossier of evidence? 370 00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:24,040 - Well, ultimately, Cromwell is doing what Henry tells him to do. 371 00:23:24,040 --> 00:23:25,680 And Henry has told him, 372 00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:28,640 look, there are these charges against Anne, look into them. 373 00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:31,160 And Cromwell finds the dirt. 374 00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:35,240 - Anne was found guilty on all charges. 375 00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:38,640 But, as the case against her was based on fibs, 376 00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:42,240 her guilt seems both morally and legally dubious. 377 00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:46,280 This has given Anne her lasting appeal as a martyr. 378 00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:50,720 And she still has a starring role in the tours of the Tower of London. 379 00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:53,520 - The year was 1536. 380 00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:56,320 Swordsman walked towards the Queen of England. 381 00:23:56,320 --> 00:24:00,400 He called out, "Boy, bring me my sword." 382 00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:03,520 That got the queen's attention enough to look up. 383 00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:05,640 The neck was there for the taking. 384 00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:08,280 In one motion, the swordsman bent down, picked up the sword, 385 00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:10,000 and the head was off. 386 00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:15,280 - Barely 24 hours had passed before Henry became engaged 387 00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:17,880 to his third wife, Jane Seymour. 388 00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:22,720 A year later, she gave birth to his long awaited son - Edward. 389 00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:27,520 Henry now had a male heir to secure the Tudor dynasty 390 00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:31,560 and this helped build England's autonomy as a nation state. 391 00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:38,600 But by this time, Henry was in financial trouble. 392 00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:42,680 He'd frittered away his father's inheritance on grand palaces 393 00:24:42,680 --> 00:24:46,640 and luxuries, and he'd spent huge sums on battles with France. 394 00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:53,800 The king was broke, but Cromwell had a way of helping him 395 00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:55,640 to fill his coffers. 396 00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:59,480 Cromwell said that the Church owned nearly a third 397 00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:02,600 of all the land in England, and this was true. 398 00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:06,480 Cromwell said that the Church was richer than the king was, 399 00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:08,760 and this was true, too. 400 00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:13,160 But Cromwell claimed that the clergy were syphoning off these huge sums 401 00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,240 of money to Rome, where the Pope was spending them 402 00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:20,280 on all kinds of excesses, and this was less true. 403 00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:24,880 This was Cromwell spinning his story in order to get his own way. 404 00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:30,240 Once again, Cromwell was using Henry's personal problems 405 00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:33,520 to further his own Protestant agenda. 406 00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,920 History remembers the next stage of the Reformation 407 00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:40,240 as just an act of religious vandalism. 408 00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:44,200 In fact, it was also a far-reaching political reform. 409 00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:47,160 Henry's fixer had the monasteries in his sights. 410 00:25:48,360 --> 00:25:51,880 Cromwell hated these Catholic institutions. 411 00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:56,200 He felt they were centres of homosexuality, of depravity, 412 00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:59,400 of superstition and corruption. 413 00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:04,040 This would be a radical transfer of wealth and power 414 00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:05,960 from church to state. 415 00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:09,360 Cromwell was setting out to destroy the web of religious communities 416 00:26:09,360 --> 00:26:13,160 across England that provided work, education 417 00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:15,440 and welfare for local people. 418 00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:18,680 He now sent the king's men all over the country, 419 00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:22,440 knocking on the doors of monasteries and nunneries to find evidence 420 00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:25,240 to blacken their reputation. 421 00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:28,240 This process was politely known 422 00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:30,280 as the visitation of the monasteries. 423 00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:34,440 Actually, it involved interrogation and terror. 424 00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:37,680 The findings were placed before parliament 425 00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:40,000 in the Compendium Competorum, 426 00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,360 which means the compendium of true facts. 427 00:26:43,360 --> 00:26:47,000 And in this we discover the nuns at Grace Dieu 428 00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:50,560 were accused of superstition, of holding in reverence 429 00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:53,720 the girdle and parts of the tunic of St Francis, 430 00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,440 which was thought to be helpful to women in labour. 431 00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:00,160 Then at the monastery of Garendon, 432 00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:04,880 whoa, this is bad, they had discovered five sodomites. 433 00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:08,480 But, given Cornwell's economic agenda for the dissolution 434 00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:12,440 of the monasteries, how much of this compendium of true facts 435 00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:15,840 is reliable and how much is fiction? 436 00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:22,040 Is there any evidence for actual financial wrongdoing 437 00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:23,480 on behalf of the monasteries? 438 00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:25,760 Were they really sending all this cash to Rome? 439 00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:27,560 - Well, I suppose like any institution, 440 00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:29,400 there's some mismanagement. 441 00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:32,320 There's some abbots and priors who aren't behaving 442 00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:34,120 as they're entirely supposed to be. 443 00:27:34,120 --> 00:27:37,080 But the idea that the monasteries are sending huge sums 444 00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:40,800 of money to Rome is absolutely a fantasy. 445 00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:42,640 Erm... 446 00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:46,920 as after the Reformation, 447 00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:48,320 the English Crown takes much more money out of the Church 448 00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:51,440 than the popes were ever able to do. 449 00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:53,400 - Now, these people examining the monasteries, 450 00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:55,760 they seem very keen on superstition, that excites them. 451 00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:59,040 They like a good bit of superstition to catch. 452 00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:01,480 What does that mean exactly? 453 00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:03,280 - I think this is an area where the monasteries are vulnerable. 454 00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:06,160 Many of them have large collections of relics. 455 00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:09,800 And of course, kind of by definition, these relics, 456 00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:11,920 which have been there for a very long time, are difficult to verify 457 00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:14,680 or prove that they genuinely are the bone of this or that saint. 458 00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:18,640 But the visitor's clearly have a brief to try and make 459 00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:22,280 these things sound like forms of fraud. 460 00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:24,880 - And what about this emphasis on the sex lives of the clergy? 461 00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:28,240 It's like Mary Whitehouse. It's very prurient, isn't it? 462 00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:30,880 - It is, and I suppose it works as propaganda 463 00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:33,920 because it fits with some of the cliches. 464 00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:36,680 You know, the lecherous monk or friar 465 00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:38,920 is a well-known literary type in the Middle Ages. 466 00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:42,760 One of the things that the compendium produces 467 00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:45,800 is very long lists of sodomites. - Yes. 468 00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:49,320 - That seems to be the kind of headline sin 469 00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:51,640 that is being highlighted. 470 00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:53,560 But in fact, when one drills down into that a little bit, 471 00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:56,920 many of these so-called sodomites, it appears, 472 00:28:56,920 --> 00:29:00,240 are sodomites per voluntarias polluciones, 473 00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:03,840 a rather, sort of, roundabout Latin phrase, 474 00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:07,320 "through voluntary pollution". In other words, masturbation. 475 00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:11,160 - Sodomy's a very large catchall term. 476 00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:13,040 - Sodomy is a very large catchall term. 477 00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:15,080 And, in fact, it's not nearly as endemic or widespread 478 00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:18,440 as the Compendium Compertorum is trying to pretend, or to spin 479 00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:23,040 the material in such a way that it looks as if the monasteries 480 00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:26,720 are these kind of cesspits of vice. 481 00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,240 - Using this dubious evidence, 482 00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:32,120 Cromwell unleashed a four-year campaign of destruction. 483 00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:35,920 By 1540, 800 religious houses had been dissolved, 484 00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:40,160 along with their hospitals, schools and provision for poor people. 485 00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:44,240 Some were sold off to wealthy landowners who supported the king. 486 00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:48,840 Others, like Tintern Abbey, were deliberately left in ruins 487 00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:53,280 as a reminder that the Church was being cleaned up 488 00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:56,480 and absorbed into the state. 489 00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:58,520 Now, if you were to read your standard Victorian history textbook, 490 00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:03,080 it would suggest that the Reformation was a good thing 491 00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,800 in very basic terms. 492 00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:07,520 But would you say something was lost here, something important? 493 00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:10,800 - The great promise was to liberate the individual 494 00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:13,160 from a corrupt Catholic Church, 495 00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:14,880 you know, from a sort of overbearing papacy that would tell 496 00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:18,040 you how to live your life and control your every movement, 497 00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:21,200 to essentially a more personal relation between the individual 498 00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:24,080 and God, no longer mediated by the Church. 499 00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:27,120 I think in reality what happened is that the Reformation 500 00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:29,760 really subordinated the individual to the national state 501 00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,360 and also increasingly to the economy. 502 00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:34,600 That is to say, Henry really concentrated wealth in the hands 503 00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:37,880 of the landed gentry, and he centralised power. 504 00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,800 And that meant that the individual was actually stripped 505 00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:43,200 of all sorts of support. 506 00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:44,720 The monasteries were a huge source of support for individuals, 507 00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:47,520 and when they were dissolved by Henry, it basically meant that 508 00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,320 all sorts of things like education, 509 00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:52,080 what we would now call social services, 510 00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:54,080 essentially, you know, were no longer there 511 00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:56,480 to support people where they lived. 512 00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:58,280 So power moved to London, wealth moved to the landed gentry, 513 00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:01,160 and lots of individuals were basically without support. 514 00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,760 - Protestant propagandists would have us believe 515 00:31:03,760 --> 00:31:07,280 that the Reformation was widely welcomed. 516 00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:10,520 But the destruction of the monasteries was met with resistance, 517 00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:14,360 especially in the north of England. 518 00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:17,120 Thousands marched on London in angry protest 519 00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:19,880 against Cromwell's radical reforms, 520 00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:22,640 that were overturning centuries of belief and a whole way of life. 521 00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:26,800 Though it's not surprising that Cromwell's legacy 522 00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:31,160 as a progressive Protestant hero 523 00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:33,120 has taken quite a battering over the years. 524 00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:35,640 Some historians have described him as a brute, a thug 525 00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:42,040 responsible for this, for ruins. 526 00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:44,600 One of the great acts of vandalism in the story of our nation. 527 00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:48,560 But is this really fair? 528 00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:51,720 Diarmaid, where has this idea of Cromwell the terrible thug 529 00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:55,360 come from? Is it Catholic propaganda? 530 00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:57,760 - Well, it certainly is Catholic propaganda, 531 00:31:57,760 --> 00:31:59,880 because they were part of an old world, 532 00:31:59,880 --> 00:32:01,720 and his Reformation was determined to destroy that old world. 533 00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:06,400 He is actually carrying out the king's policy 534 00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:09,040 of breaking with the Pope, breaking with Rome, 535 00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:12,240 but was also doing things off his own bat. 536 00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:14,600 He had his own policies, which weren't quite King Henry VIII's. 537 00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:18,600 - Now, this is intriguing. 538 00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:20,080 What was Cromwell's real agenda then? 539 00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:23,280 - A very radical Protestant Reformation, 540 00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:26,040 more radical than that of Martin Luther in Germany. 541 00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:29,520 He wanted to do something with what Henry had done, 542 00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:32,600 which was break with Rome, push the Protestant Reformation. 543 00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,680 He pushed an English Bible when the king didn't want it. 544 00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:38,320 He's an impressive man. 545 00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:40,640 This is someone who has got a very determined agenda 546 00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:43,560 to change and reform this country, to make it better. 547 00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:47,440 - You're on his side. - I'm on his side because I think he had a sense 548 00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:51,120 of social justice, reform. 549 00:32:51,120 --> 00:32:54,000 I can see that he's also, in many ways, a thug. 550 00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:57,880 But anyone in politics at the time was a thug. 551 00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:01,080 Alongside that, though, there is this idealism, 552 00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:04,200 this determination to get things done. 553 00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:07,040 - As part of his national reforms, Cromwell tabled the Vagabond Act. 554 00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:12,320 This required every community to fund a system 555 00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:15,360 of state poor relief, to replace the Church's charity. 556 00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:19,800 - The Vagabond Act was an attempt to start 557 00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:21,920 the very first national system of relieving the poor. 558 00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:25,600 Now, in Thomas Cromwell's eyes, 559 00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:27,440 the Church wasn't the organisation to do it, it was the king. 560 00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:30,680 It was this new independent kingdom of England, 561 00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:34,080 the Church of England under the king. 562 00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:36,840 And so, this is an attempt to solve a problem 563 00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:39,880 by parliamentary legislation. 564 00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:42,240 - I suppose, that's a new and exciting and radical thing to do. 565 00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:46,120 But I find there's something quite scary about Cromwell. 566 00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:49,560 He appears to be a zealot, and a very clever and successful, 567 00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:52,760 and almost frighteningly efficient zealot. 568 00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:55,360 - I'm sure you're right. 569 00:33:55,360 --> 00:33:56,680 But someone's got to think about these things. 570 00:33:56,680 --> 00:33:59,760 His king didn't have the time or the inclination 571 00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:03,520 to sort problems out. 572 00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:05,360 Cromwell was there to sort things out, and he did. 573 00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:09,320 - We often think of Henry and Cromwell as a reforming team. 574 00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:14,240 But, while Cromwell was a true believer, 575 00:34:14,240 --> 00:34:17,320 Henry was still resisting any move towards Luther's ideas. 576 00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:21,560 So what exactly were his people supposed to believe? 577 00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,840 How should they pray? How should they live? 578 00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:28,120 Henry attempted to clarify things with another Act of Parliament. 579 00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:33,040 This is the Act of the Six Articles of 1539, 580 00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:38,640 also known as an Act for the Abolishing of Diversity in Opinions, 581 00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:43,760 which sounds rather like the thought police. 582 00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:46,080 In this one, Henry sets out his own, rather singular, version 583 00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:50,840 of Anglo-Catholic doctrine. 584 00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:54,040 The things listed here include a belief in celibacy for the clergy, 585 00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:58,960 a belief in confession and in communion. 586 00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:02,880 And, actually, people were left feeling even more confused 587 00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:06,720 because these things were really ancient Roman Catholic rituals 588 00:35:06,720 --> 00:35:11,240 and beliefs, and very far distant from the radical, new 589 00:35:11,240 --> 00:35:15,040 Protestant direction of Henry's closest advisers. 590 00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:19,200 The gulf between Cromwell's belief in the Lutheran revolution 591 00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:24,480 and Henry's Anglo-Catholicism 592 00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:26,720 kept on growing. 593 00:35:26,720 --> 00:35:27,920 Finally, Henry turned on his fixer. 594 00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:31,000 In June 1540, Thomas Cromwell was taken to the Tower 595 00:35:32,720 --> 00:35:37,040 charged with heresy and treason. 596 00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:39,360 The story usually goes that Cromwell fell 597 00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:45,920 because of his role in Henry's disastrous fourth marriage 598 00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:50,080 to Anne of Cleves, the one he didn't fancy, 599 00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:53,120 and therefore divorced. 600 00:35:53,120 --> 00:35:54,760 But there's more to it than that. 601 00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:57,200 Cromwell's trial records show that he was also in trouble 602 00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:00,560 for failing to enforce Henry's Six Articles. 603 00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:03,720 For years, Cromwell had managed Henry, 604 00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:08,320 but finally, in his enthusiasm for religious reform, he'd gone too far. 605 00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:13,760 And Henry could be ruthless if you questioned his authority. 606 00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:18,400 Cromwell was executed without trial. 607 00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:22,600 He was buried alongside the Protestant ally he'd betrayed - 608 00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:26,320 Anne Boleyn. 609 00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:28,000 As Protestant ideas continued to spread across England, 610 00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:32,680 Henry's Anglo-Catholicism became more entrenched. 611 00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:36,680 His last will and testament stipulated that twice daily masses 612 00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:41,200 be said by his tomb in perpetuity. 613 00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:44,280 Henry VIII, always remembered as the great reformer, 614 00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:48,360 would remain Catholic for eternity. 615 00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:50,440 But his surviving children - 616 00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:53,480 zealous Edward, 617 00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:54,640 who was raised entirely in the Protestant faith, 618 00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:57,160 Roman Catholic Mary, 619 00:36:57,160 --> 00:36:59,200 and Anglo-Catholic Elizabeth 620 00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:01,960 were all named by Henry as his heirs. 621 00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:04,320 The truth is that Henry's hedging of all of his bets 622 00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:11,160 would plunge England into turmoil after his death. 623 00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:14,960 This is the moment the story of the Reformation starts to be told 624 00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:19,120 and retold to suit the needs of each successive 625 00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:22,720 Protestant and Catholic monarch. 626 00:37:22,720 --> 00:37:25,080 Henry had set the stage for centuries of confusion and lies. 627 00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:31,520 In 1547, Henry was succeeded by his nine-year-old son, Edward, 628 00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:38,360 and a new hard line Protestant Reformation began. 629 00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:42,840 All of Henry's Catholic concessions, 630 00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:46,080 including his Six Articles, were scrapped. 631 00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:48,760 The Latin Mass was replaced by the English Book of Common Prayer, 632 00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:53,840 celibate priests by married clergy. 633 00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:57,760 But Edward died after just five years on the throne. 634 00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:01,160 The crown now passed to his Roman Catholic half-sister, Mary, 635 00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:06,560 who immediately reversed all of Edward's Protestant reforms. 636 00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:10,480 Latin masses were reinstated and the Pope was declared 637 00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:16,360 head of England's Roman Catholic church once more. 638 00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:19,600 Mary also restored medieval heresy laws. 639 00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:27,680 Protestants who refused to recant were burnt alive at the stake. 640 00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:32,760 Between 1555 and '57, 641 00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:35,640 17 men and women from the Protestant stronghold of Lewes 642 00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:39,720 in southeast England were put to death in this way. 643 00:38:39,720 --> 00:38:43,280 The first of them was a Flemish immigrant called Derek Carver, 644 00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:49,040 he was a brewer. 645 00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:50,840 He was arrested at his house because he'd been holding 646 00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:54,280 an illegal session of reading the Bible in English. 647 00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:58,400 He was tortured for eight months. 648 00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:00,600 He eventually signed a confession to heresy. 649 00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:03,640 And then, when he came to be punished, 650 00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:05,760 in a really nasty nod to his profession, 651 00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:08,280 they put him inside a barrel of beer 652 00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:10,560 before burning him alive. 653 00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:12,800 Within three years, over 300 men and women died at the stake 654 00:39:15,240 --> 00:39:18,600 across England. 655 00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:20,240 Around 800 Protestants fled to Germany and Switzerland. 656 00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:26,720 And these exiles began to wage a propaganda war against Queen Mary. 657 00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:33,480 They would seal her reputation as a bloody tyrant. 658 00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:37,080 A historian called John Foxe was the most influential of all. 659 00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:42,440 This book is John Foxe's Actes and Monuments, 660 00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,520 usually known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs. 661 00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:51,840 It tells what happened to the people who were persecuted 662 00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:54,880 under Mary I's counter-reformation. 663 00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:57,560 It's really detailed and vivid as well. 664 00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:00,840 He compiled it from trial records and from eyewitness accounts. 665 00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:05,480 And after Mary died in 1558, 666 00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:08,680 this would become a key piece of pro-Elizabethan propaganda. 667 00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:14,040 The reason that a lot of people to this day 668 00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:16,920 think of Mary I as Bloody Mary 669 00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:20,560 is essentially this book. 670 00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:22,200 Foxe's graphic account of Bloody Mary 671 00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:29,280 helped strengthen support for the Reformation in England. 672 00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:33,280 And for the Protestants who still commemorate the Lewes Martyrs, 673 00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:37,480 Foxe's book is nearly as important as the Bible. 674 00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:41,080 Since 1605, crowds have regularly descended on Lewes to take part 675 00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:51,280 in the town's notorious Bonfire Night on November 5th. 676 00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:55,240 It marks the day when the Catholic rebel Guy Fawkes was foiled 677 00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:00,760 in his attempts to blow up Parliament. 678 00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:03,720 But its roots lie in the anti-Catholic period 679 00:41:03,720 --> 00:41:07,120 that immediately followed Mary's death. 680 00:41:07,120 --> 00:41:09,560 As you can see, it's quite a riotous affair. 681 00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:13,160 There's something of the medieval carnival about it, 682 00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:17,800 and the local authorities have tried lots of times to get this stopped. 683 00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:22,120 I think that's because, on one level, it is about intolerance. 684 00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:26,760 You worry what might happen to any Catholics who might be brave enough 685 00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:30,560 to show their faces here. 686 00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:32,880 It's true to say that the spirit of John Foxe is alive and well 687 00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:37,040 on the streets of Lewes. 688 00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:39,160 The 17 Lewes Martyrs commemorated in Foxe's book 689 00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:45,320 are represented by 17 burning crosses 690 00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:49,160 proudly held by the Bonfire Boys, as they call themselves. 691 00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:52,640 They still believe that Catholic Mary had far more blood on her hands 692 00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:56,840 than her Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth. 693 00:41:56,840 --> 00:42:00,000 When Mary died childless in 1558, 694 00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:02,920 Elizabeth took the throne just as Henry had wished. 695 00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:06,960 Like her father, she initially pursued a middle way 696 00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:12,120 with her state religion, 697 00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:13,840 and allowed some Catholic rituals to remain in place. 698 00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:17,600 But, in 1570, this tolerance suddenly stopped. 699 00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:22,960 The Pope was encouraging Catholic Spain to invade England 700 00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:26,360 and replace Elizabeth with her Catholic cousin, 701 00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:29,840 Mary, Queen of Scots. 702 00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:32,040 - 1570 is a massive game changer. 703 00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:35,040 Pope Pius V excommunicates Elizabeth I. 704 00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:38,160 So, he declares her a heretic, he says she's illegitimate 705 00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:41,480 and he says she's a usurper, a monster-like usurper. 706 00:42:41,480 --> 00:42:45,440 - A monster-like usurper? That's a brilliant phase. - I know. 707 00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:49,200 And he orders her subjects, her Catholic subjects, to disobey her. 708 00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:53,680 So what Elizabeth's Privy Council come up with 709 00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:56,600 is something that is known as the Bloody Question. - Sounds sinister. 710 00:42:56,600 --> 00:43:01,240 - It is, it is sinister and it's a bloody difficult question as well. 711 00:43:01,240 --> 00:43:04,320 I mean, effectively it is, 712 00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:06,120 if the Pope backs an invasion of England 713 00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:08,840 to restore the Catholic faith to England, 714 00:43:08,840 --> 00:43:11,440 who are you going to support? 715 00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:13,040 Are you going to support the Pope or are you going to support the Queen? 716 00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:16,560 It's very tough for the Catholics because now they've suddenly got, 717 00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:19,800 really, the choice of two betrayals. 718 00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:21,840 You know, you can betray the Pope and condemn your souls to damnation 719 00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:24,760 forever, or you can betray the Queen 720 00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:27,560 and subject your body to all sorts of temporal punishment. 721 00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:31,400 - In the 1580s, the conflict with Catholic Europe intensified. 722 00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:37,040 England was now at war with Spain. 723 00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:39,440 Every Catholic priest was seen as a potential traitor, 724 00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:44,440 secretly plotting to kill the queen. 725 00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:47,200 It was the start of a dark, but often forgotten, chapter 726 00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:50,200 in Tudor history. 727 00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:52,440 - For 1585, if you're a priest and you've been ordained abroad 728 00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:56,080 and you even set foot on English soil, 729 00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,120 then you will be automatically deemed a traitor 730 00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:00,560 and you will be hanged, drawn and quartered. 731 00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:02,840 And the ordinary Catholic who puts him up in his house, 732 00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:05,800 they too will swing for it. 733 00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:07,600 So some very grim things happen in Elizabeth's reign. 734 00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:11,720 This is not a golden age for the Catholics. 735 00:44:11,720 --> 00:44:14,240 - Who was driving this witch-hunt, if you like, 736 00:44:14,240 --> 00:44:16,880 against the Jesuit priests? 737 00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:19,120 - There's a guy called Richard Topcliffe, 738 00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:21,880 who is a priest hunter. 739 00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:24,280 He's also a torturer and a sadist, almost certainly a rapist. 740 00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:27,360 I mean, he really loved his job. 741 00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:29,720 And he would go after priests, 742 00:44:29,720 --> 00:44:31,560 and he would harangue them at the gallows. 743 00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:34,160 And there are even documents, there are lists that he had 744 00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:36,840 with priests' names on them, 745 00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:38,280 and he would draw a little gallows sketch 746 00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:41,280 by the names of the ones he wants executed. 747 00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:43,640 - This is Harvington Hall in Warwickshire. 748 00:44:46,240 --> 00:44:48,800 Buried within its walls lie hidden clues that reveal 749 00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:54,880 just how bloody Queen Elizabeth herself could be. 750 00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:58,360 Harvington was home to the Pakington family. 751 00:44:59,960 --> 00:45:02,800 To the outside world, they appeared to be respectable Protestants. 752 00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:07,520 But Humphrey Pakington, 753 00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:17,520 who remodelled medieval Harvington in the 1580s, 754 00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:22,040 was in fact a closet Catholic. 755 00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:24,760 This wasn't all that unusual. 756 00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:26,760 Lots of Catholic families went on worshipping the old way 757 00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:30,480 behind the closed doors of their private chapels, 758 00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:34,440 despite the risk of persecution and execution. 759 00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:38,640 As the death toll rose, though, 760 00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:41,800 Pakington had to come up with more and more ingenious ways 761 00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:45,560 of keeping his secret, and of protecting the lives 762 00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:49,720 of the Catholic priests who were now being hunted down 763 00:45:49,720 --> 00:45:53,560 by Elizabeth's henchmen. 764 00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:55,800 To help him provide sanctuary for these persecuted men, 765 00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:01,480 Humphrey Pakington employed a lay Jesuit brother, 766 00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:04,800 a master carpenter, Nicholas Owen. 767 00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:08,240 Owen clearly had one of those brains that works in 3D, 768 00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:13,880 a bit like a computer-modelling programme, 769 00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:17,080 and he set about devising secret hiding places for priests 770 00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:21,960 all over what's already a really baffling house. 771 00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:26,960 Everything you see is designed to trick you, to deceive the eye. 772 00:46:26,960 --> 00:46:31,800 This really is a Tudor house of fibs. 773 00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:35,840 Like this, for example. Looks like an ordinary bedroom, 774 00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:45,200 looks like an ordinary fireplace. Clearly it's being used, 775 00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:49,000 it's covered in soot. 776 00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:50,720 Aha! Until you look closely, 777 00:46:50,720 --> 00:46:53,000 and you realise that this soot of ages is in fact black paint. 778 00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:56,480 And up here there are a couple of little footholds 779 00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:59,760 so that the chimney can be used as an escape route to the roof. 780 00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:04,440 Owen always worked alone 781 00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:07,440 and each priest hole he devised was different, so it provided 782 00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:11,160 no clues about the mechanisms or the positions of the others. 783 00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:14,760 And here in the library is the best priest hole of all. 784 00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:21,480 It's so well-hidden, it was only rediscovered in the 19th century. 785 00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:26,080 You think, mm, books, more book shelves up here, 786 00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:29,080 here's a ladder for getting the books. 787 00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:31,520 But there's something odd about these beams. 788 00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:35,520 There's one beam. 789 00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:36,840 It's on a swivel! 790 00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:40,040 I think you'd suffer from claustrophobia 791 00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:51,920 if you had to spend any amount of time in here. 792 00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:55,400 Conditions inside these hiding places were truly grim, 793 00:47:56,920 --> 00:48:00,520 but countless lives were saved thanks to Owen. 794 00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:04,360 He himself wasn't so lucky. 795 00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:06,360 - Nicholas Owen was eventually caught in a raid, 796 00:48:07,720 --> 00:48:10,480 in a house not far from Harvington, 797 00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:12,280 and he was taken to the Tower of London, 798 00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:14,320 and he was tortured, and he died in his cell. 799 00:48:14,320 --> 00:48:16,960 But what is certain is that he never gave up the secrets of his hides. 800 00:48:18,240 --> 00:48:22,480 - Do you think that Elizabeth knew what these sometimes 801 00:48:24,720 --> 00:48:28,680 sadistic priest hunters were up to in her name? 802 00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:31,880 - Yes, yes. 803 00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:33,360 I mean, she doesn't want to be seen to be torturing, of course, 804 00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:36,080 and it's officially illegal, 805 00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:37,960 so that's why someone like Topcliffe is very useful to her. 806 00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:41,040 And there are, sort of, letters where she unofficially 807 00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:44,040 lets some of these priest hunters know that she is pleased 808 00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:47,200 with their good services. 809 00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:49,080 - You're making her sound quite cruel. 810 00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:51,040 And of course, everybody knows that it was Mary, her half-sister, 811 00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:54,440 who was the bloody one. 812 00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:56,280 How would you compare the two of them? 813 00:48:56,280 --> 00:48:58,560 - If we're looking at the, sort of, bloody balance sheet, 814 00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:02,080 about 300 people are burnt in Mary's reign 815 00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:04,720 in a short period of time, a few years. 816 00:49:04,720 --> 00:49:07,880 And Elizabeth's reign, it's almost 200 people for religious reasons, 817 00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:11,360 but over a much longer time span. 818 00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:14,120 - It's quite close in numbers, though, isn't it? 819 00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:16,720 - Well, it is quite close in numbers. 820 00:49:16,720 --> 00:49:18,240 And also, you know, what's worse, being burnt at the stake 821 00:49:18,240 --> 00:49:21,040 or being strung up, cut down while you're still alive, 822 00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:23,360 have your intestines pulled out in front of you, burnt in front of you, 823 00:49:23,360 --> 00:49:26,520 and then have your head chopped off? 824 00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:28,200 You know, possibly with being tortured beforehand. 825 00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:30,520 So it's, you know... It's pretty macabre, neither is pleasant. 826 00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:33,400 - And yet, she has this whole image, doesn't she, as Good Queen Bess? 827 00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:36,320 Where does that come from? 828 00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:38,000 Who's doing her propaganda for her? 829 00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:39,960 - Well, she had some very good playwrights, 830 00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:42,160 she had some good dramatists, 831 00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:43,760 she had some excellent writers in her reign. 832 00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:46,200 And I think we have to acknowledge 833 00:49:46,200 --> 00:49:48,000 that the winners write the national story. 834 00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:50,360 - This Protestant propaganda was met 835 00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:56,960 with some Catholic counter-propaganda 836 00:49:56,960 --> 00:50:00,160 by a priest called Nicholas Sander. 837 00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:02,600 He'd escaped the heretic state of Elizabethan England 838 00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:07,160 to find sanctuary in Rome. 839 00:50:07,160 --> 00:50:09,200 This book is The Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism 840 00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:14,240 by Nicholas Sander. 841 00:50:14,240 --> 00:50:16,120 It was the first widely distributed Catholic account of the Reformation. 842 00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:20,680 It's a lurid retelling of the story of the break with Rome, 843 00:50:20,680 --> 00:50:25,640 full of pride and lust and perversion. 844 00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:29,360 In it, Elizabeth becomes an evil thing, 845 00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:32,640 the bastard child of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, 846 00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:36,000 whose unlawful coupling has opened the floodgates 847 00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:39,680 to all of this Reformation heresy. 848 00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:41,840 And in Sander's version of the story, 849 00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:44,920 things are even worse than that for Elizabeth, 850 00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:47,920 because she is the product of incest. 851 00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:51,000 Anne Boleyn is not only Henry VIII's wife, 852 00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:53,760 she is also his daughter, according to Sander. 853 00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:58,320 And in support of his argument 854 00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:00,200 he produces the evidence of what she looks like, 855 00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:03,840 which is clearly, weirdly, incestuously monstrous. 856 00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:08,440 In Sander's hands, her olive-skinned complexion becomes sallow, 857 00:51:10,800 --> 00:51:16,200 as if troubled with jaundice. 858 00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:19,320 A projecting tooth under her upper lip distorts the shape of her mouth. 859 00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:24,080 On her right hand, a vestigial fingernail growth 860 00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:27,560 becomes a whole extra finger, 861 00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:30,240 and a slight swelling on her neck becomes a large wen, 862 00:51:30,240 --> 00:51:33,960 or goitre, whose ugliness, Sander claims, 863 00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:37,480 she tried to hide by wearing a high dress covering her throat. 864 00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:42,120 The fact that Anne didn't wear high-necked dresses, 865 00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:50,680 she was much too elegant for that, didn't seem to bother Sander. 866 00:51:50,680 --> 00:51:55,400 He was effectively describing her as if she were a witch. 867 00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:59,520 By the time he was publishing in 1585, Anne Boleyn was long dead, 868 00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:04,520 so clearly his target was Anne's daughter, Elizabeth. 869 00:52:04,520 --> 00:52:08,840 With a mother like that, what must the daughter be like? 870 00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:12,480 Sander's book was another attempt to incite a coup against Elizabeth. 871 00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:18,000 It became a bestseller in Catholic Spain and France 872 00:52:18,000 --> 00:52:22,360 and it encouraged these countries to invade and liberate England 873 00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:26,120 from Protestant rule. 874 00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:28,160 But in 1588, Elizabeth cemented her reputation 875 00:52:28,160 --> 00:52:31,600 as the warrior Virgin Queen, 876 00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:34,160 by defending England against the Spanish Armada. 877 00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:37,560 Sander's demonization of Anne Boleyn was harder to shake, 878 00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:41,800 and it still colours the contradictory ways 879 00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:44,680 we view Anne today. 880 00:52:44,680 --> 00:52:46,480 - # Listen up, let me tell you a story... # 881 00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:51,320 - But now a 21st century spin on the story of Henry and his six wives 882 00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:56,520 is recasting Anne as a post-feminist pin up. 883 00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:59,480 - # What about the glories and the disgraces? # 884 00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:02,760 - In the West End musical Six, 885 00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:05,640 Henry's wives compete in a talent show 886 00:53:05,640 --> 00:53:08,320 to prove who suffered most at his hands. 887 00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:11,160 In the end, they decide not to define themselves 888 00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:14,600 as someone's wife. 889 00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:16,160 So they go from being the six wives of Henry VIII 890 00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:18,560 to the girl band Six. 891 00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:20,480 - # Ex-wives 892 00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:21,960 # We're Six Whoa, whoa. # 893 00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:24,720 - Here we are in the stalls at Six, the musical. 894 00:53:24,720 --> 00:53:27,960 Tell me, which wife do you find that the audience who come here 895 00:53:27,960 --> 00:53:31,480 are most interested in? 896 00:53:31,480 --> 00:53:33,640 - I think Anne Boleyn. She's the one that everybody knows about, really. 897 00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:36,760 So in the show, before her number, have a kind of pre-number, 898 00:53:36,760 --> 00:53:39,920 about like introducing her as the one you've been waiting for. 899 00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:42,480 - # But then I met the king 900 00:53:42,480 --> 00:53:44,160 # And soon my daddy said, you should try and get ahead. # 901 00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:47,160 - The thing that everybody knows about Anne Boleyn is kind of 902 00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:51,440 the myth surrounding her, like her being the other woman. 903 00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:54,520 This kind of calculating, manipulative person. 904 00:53:54,520 --> 00:53:57,200 There was a sort of sense of her pre-planning and plotting 905 00:53:57,200 --> 00:54:01,160 to kind of steal Henry and kind of break the Church apart 906 00:54:01,160 --> 00:54:04,080 and all that kind of stuff. 907 00:54:04,080 --> 00:54:06,000 And we kind of wanted to fly in the face of that kind of hysteria. 908 00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:10,160 So she is a kind of cheeky, fun-loving 909 00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:13,240 sort of party girl, really, 910 00:54:13,240 --> 00:54:15,560 who just likes to have a good time, doesn't worry too much 911 00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:18,320 about the consequences of her actions. 912 00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:20,400 And then when they do kind of backfire, sort of shrugs it off 913 00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:22,800 and says, "Oh, well!" 914 00:54:22,800 --> 00:54:23,920 "Sorry, not sorry" is kind of her refrain. 915 00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:26,480 So, yeah, our version is very different 916 00:54:26,480 --> 00:54:29,320 to the historical narrative that everyone knows. 917 00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:32,560 - You're making a joke against historians, aren't you? 918 00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:34,760 - Yeah. Oh, completely. - It strikes me this is quite sophisticated. 919 00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:37,680 You've got to know a bit about Tudor history in order to get the jokes. 920 00:54:37,680 --> 00:54:41,480 Do you think you're sending away a new, more educated generation 921 00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:45,320 of young historians? 922 00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:47,080 - Well, I mean, I hope so. 923 00:54:47,080 --> 00:54:49,600 You obviously need to know a little bit of context, but actually, 924 00:54:49,600 --> 00:54:52,520 I think, what I kind of hope people go away from the show with 925 00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:56,240 is not just a sense of them knowing more about these specific women, 926 00:54:56,240 --> 00:54:59,720 but also understanding the way in which we've been taught history 927 00:54:59,720 --> 00:55:02,560 and understood history has been very patriarchal for a long time. 928 00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:06,160 I guess, it's about how kind of women...women's actions get 929 00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:10,280 misconstrued or analysed in a different way to men's. 930 00:55:10,280 --> 00:55:13,560 So, for example, Anne Boleyn being like calculating and manipulative, 931 00:55:13,560 --> 00:55:17,080 if those qualities were in a man, they'd potentially be 932 00:55:17,080 --> 00:55:20,040 kind of being savvy, and political and charismatic, I guess. 933 00:55:20,040 --> 00:55:23,640 - Anne Boleyn's reputation will no doubt continue to be rewritten, 934 00:55:25,120 --> 00:55:29,960 and the story of Henry VIII and his six wives 935 00:55:29,960 --> 00:55:32,960 will go on pulling in the crowds. 936 00:55:32,960 --> 00:55:35,240 But it shouldn't blind us to the wider political legacy 937 00:55:35,240 --> 00:55:38,040 of the Reformation, because Henry's break with Rome 938 00:55:38,040 --> 00:55:41,280 caused a lasting schism. 939 00:55:41,280 --> 00:55:43,320 And now Britain is breaking away from Europe all over again. 940 00:55:43,320 --> 00:55:47,720 Adrian, what parallels do you see between the Reformation and Brexit? 941 00:55:47,720 --> 00:55:51,560 - The most striking parallel, I think, 942 00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:53,320 is this idea that we are better off on our own, 943 00:55:53,320 --> 00:55:55,680 we're better off out, 944 00:55:55,680 --> 00:55:56,880 and essentially national sovereignty and the will of the people 945 00:55:56,880 --> 00:55:59,960 should prevail over anything else. 946 00:55:59,960 --> 00:56:02,240 So, at the time of the Reformation, it was about the Catholic Church 947 00:56:02,240 --> 00:56:05,000 being corrupt, being decadent, being over centralised 948 00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:08,200 and not really, sort of, being to our benefit. 949 00:56:08,200 --> 00:56:10,800 And now it's about the EU being undemocratic, 950 00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:13,880 potentially authoritarian and, sort of, riding roughshod 951 00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:17,480 over what people really need and want. 952 00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:19,640 The Reformation reinforced the sense that Britain is separate 953 00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:22,600 rather than actually seeing Britain as part 954 00:56:22,600 --> 00:56:24,680 of a wider European continent. 955 00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:26,680 And I think that's where EU scepticism has its deep roots 956 00:56:26,680 --> 00:56:29,080 in the Reformation. 957 00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:30,440 - So it all happened in the 1530s. 958 00:56:30,440 --> 00:56:32,600 That's when a lot of these seeds were planted 959 00:56:32,600 --> 00:56:34,960 that are still shooting up to the sky today. 960 00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:36,880 - If you're looking for the origins of Brexit, 961 00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:38,720 look no further than Henry VIII. 962 00:56:38,720 --> 00:56:40,680 - Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell used a dodgy reading of history 963 00:56:43,640 --> 00:56:47,960 to spin a story about a proud and independent nation. 964 00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:52,560 One that was separate from the Catholic world 965 00:56:52,560 --> 00:56:55,400 and separate, too, from the Protestant nations of Europe. 966 00:56:55,400 --> 00:56:59,000 And this is still a powerful vision of history, 967 00:56:59,000 --> 00:57:02,480 one that sees Britain flourishing without interference 968 00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:05,960 from its European neighbours. 969 00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:08,560 That view has informed 970 00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:11,240 the way we've done business with Europe ever since. 971 00:57:11,240 --> 00:57:14,680 From Churchill's post-war insistence 972 00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:16,880 that we were with Europe but not of it, 973 00:57:16,880 --> 00:57:20,160 to Margaret Thatcher's rejection of the Maastricht Treaty in 1990. 974 00:57:20,160 --> 00:57:24,960 - No. No. No. 975 00:57:24,960 --> 00:57:28,320 - And for many, the idea of Britain as an exceptional island nation 976 00:57:28,320 --> 00:57:34,120 is as strong as ever. 977 00:57:34,120 --> 00:57:35,840 For them, Henry's Reformation was the making of this country 978 00:57:35,840 --> 00:57:39,120 and can be again. 979 00:57:39,120 --> 00:57:41,880 - I think, outside, we will do incredibly well. 980 00:57:41,880 --> 00:57:44,800 It's like another Reformation. 981 00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:46,480 It will be the same explosion of talent and opportunity. 982 00:57:46,480 --> 00:57:49,680 - Right, Mr Duncan Smith... - It's a new Reformation. 983 00:57:49,680 --> 00:57:52,720 - The story of Henry VIII's break with Rome 984 00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:55,800 so he could get his divorce and marry Anne Boleyn 985 00:57:55,800 --> 00:57:59,120 has been entertaining us for centuries 986 00:57:59,120 --> 00:58:01,880 and that's because it's a fabulous royal soap opera. 987 00:58:01,880 --> 00:58:05,080 - Brexit! - When do we want it? - Now! 988 00:58:05,080 --> 00:58:07,440 - But now, that issue of breaking so decisively with Europe 989 00:58:07,440 --> 00:58:11,960 is once again taking centre stage, 990 00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:14,760 and it's partly because of those myths that Henry and Cromwell 991 00:58:14,760 --> 00:58:17,920 started spinning in the 16th century. 992 00:58:17,920 --> 00:58:20,880 They are still splitting the country to this day. 993 00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:24,320 Next time - 994 00:58:26,520 --> 00:58:27,840 Elizabeth I and her navy defeat an invincible Spanish Armada. 995 00:58:27,840 --> 00:58:32,520 A valiant Virgin Queen rallies her troops 996 00:58:32,520 --> 00:58:36,600 and puts England on the map. 997 00:58:36,600 --> 00:58:38,520 But how much of this ripping yarn is true?