ENA,LAND AND SCOTLAND. It has long been asserted that there was a strong popular sup port among the common people of these countries for the Reformation ideas, traceable mainly to the work set on foot by John Wielif, and that as early as the beginning of Luther's activity there were indications of a revival of evangeli cal religious life among the tradesmen of Lon don, and the peasantry in different parts of the country, particularly in Lincolnshire. The resi dence of Erasmus in England in the begin ning of the reign of Henry VIII_ stimulated a. spirit among the educated classes which, while it remained for the most part faithful to the Roman Catholic Church. as in the case of More and others. yet helped to advance a dissenting movement. In 1529, a year before the meeting of the Diet of Augsburg in Germany, the usurpations of the elerge and the manifold ecclesiastical abuses prevailing in the country were the sub ject of Parliamentary legislation. But the most recent historical research has tended to show that the survival of Lollard ideas and the popu lar support of such a movement have been much overestimated. In both and Scotland, the Reformation was closely bound up with po litical conditions. In Scotland the nobility made use of it as a trenchant instrument against royal authority: and in England Henry VIII. espoused its cause in furtherance of his own policies. The negotiations as to Henry's divorce from Catharine had been proceeding for some time, and the coun try was greatly excited by the course of events. In 1533 Henry was married to Anne Boleyn and his former marriage with Catharine was declared void. All appeals to Rome were forbidden. Henry found it helpful to his own plans to be free from ecclesiastical interference, and in the two follow ing years the sovereign was declared to be the supreme head of the Church of England. with authority to redress all errors. heresies, and abuses in the Church: the monasteries were dis solved: and Parliament petitioned that a new translation of the Scriptures might 1w authorized and set up in churches. (See ENGLAND: VIII.) In all this course of reformation, how
ever. there was hut little religious impulse on Henry's part, for we find him again in 1539 pass the statute known as the Six Ankles. which rendered it. penal to deny the doctrine of transub stantiation, or to affirm that priest; might marry. The Ring's move, however. fell in with the vigorous growing spirit of English nation ality and Ionic received suppoH. With the ac cession of Edward VI. in 1517 the Reformation _neatly advanced. The statute of the Six Articles v as repealed with other measures of the close of Henry's reign. The Parliament of 154S estab lished the use of the Book of Common Prayer: the eh rry were permitted to marry: the cup was allowed to the laity: and in 1551 the 42 articles of religious belief. afterwards redueed to 39, were promulgated. The temporary resto ration of Catholicism by Mary and the final es tablishment of Protestantism under Elizabeth are well-known events, belonging to the special history of these reigns.
1n Scotland the reforming impulses began with Patrick Hamilton. Hamilton was educated in Paris and in Germany, and learned there the doctrines which he introduced into his native country. There was something, indeed, of the s:une popular movement, known under the name of Lollardism in Scotland. as in England, and Hamilton's preaching may have served to kindle the dying embers of this movement. His early death in 1528 undoubtedly produced a great effeet. After Hamilton George Wishart appears as the next c•h:unpion (q.v.) of the Scottish Reformation; and in connection with him we first hear of John Knox, who became finally the leading spirit of the movement, by whose influ ence the Reformation was established in Scot land in 1560. The Scottish Reformation fol lowed the type of the Calvinistic Reformation in Geneva, where Knox had taken refuge during the period of persecution in Scotland, and acted for some years as the companion of Calvin. Episcopacy was abolished, and the Reformed Church set up in every respect as far as possible in opposition to the Papal system.