Cromohs Virtual Seminars

Destructive Defiance:
Catholic and Protestant Iconoclasm in England, 1550-1585

David Davis
University of Exeter

D. Davis , "Destructive Defiance: Catholic and Protestant Iconoclasm in England, 1550-1585",
in M. Caricchio, G. Tarantino, eds., Cromohs Virtual Seminars. Recent historiographical trends of the British Studies (17th-18th Centuries), 2006-2007: 1-5
<http://www.fupress.net/public/journals/49/Seminar/davis_iconoclasm.html>

1. Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, 'The reputation, the name, and appearance of things have grown on-and-into things and become their very body.'[1] For iconoclasts, the things that once appeared to be devotional and sacred were transformed into detestable idols that needed to be destroyed. How a thing was defined could determine its survival. Currently, several discourses on European iconoclasm exist, but Margaret Aston's work on sixteenth century English iconoclasm remains the most nuanced and informed argument.[2] Though this paper does not wish to contend with her findings, the story of iconoclasm has several questions that need to be asked and answered. First, while there were a variety of iconoclasts, the historiography too often portrays iconoclasm as a homogenous movement, dividing the 'intensely visual' Catholic and the 'the invisible, abstract, and didactic word' of the Protestant.[3] Further complicating things, recent studies have highlighted that the visual culture of early modern England was more diverse and ambiguous, in its permissibility, than the dogmatic distinction between Protestant and Catholic.[4] Also, much has been said about the religious attitudes and the changing religious climate that informed iconoclasm. But as Joel Budd has correctly said, 'It is far from clear that the laity perceived iconoclasm as a generalized assault on the old faith.'[5]

Any future studies on iconoclasm must pay more careful attention to the subject of iconoclasm, the visual image. We must understand how people perceived acceptable and unacceptable images, examining how people distinguished between the two. In England, certain images were allowed in one context and destroyed in another. Some images merely changed hands or changed media. They were transformed or reformed and then reused. Some images ordered destroyed were saved. Others, intended by the monarch to be used, suffered annihilation. How were such things determined? Was it simply unsystematic or worse haphazard? Or, was there a more widespread understanding of why images were destroyed?

This paper will examine the ways in which English Protestants and Catholics understood images, and the necessity of destruction, in the mid and late sixteenth century. In this, radical iconoclasm will be highlighted as a distinct act revealing a much more complex relationship between images and the radical culture of early modern England than has often been understood. For both religious groups, legally and surreptitiously, used and abused certain images when it suited their purposes. Iconoclasm was much more than a religiously motivated act. Certain cases of destruction were conscious acts of defiance against the monarch, and others, as John Walter has shown, were intended to upset or reform the social order.[6] These acts that included Puritan and Catholic, noble and popular people should be discussed on their own terms as something distinct from sanctioned destruction. In this, the radical iconoclast possesses a unique quality of belief, or zealous rage, which influenced the destruction and can speak to the ways a specific type of iconoclast perceived images and distinguished what needed to be destroyed from what could be used. With the example of radicalism, the complexities surrounding both Protestant and Catholic iconoclasm will be highlighted, calling for a greater understanding of the place of the image and the impact of both its destruction and survival in early modern culture.

2. Before discussing Protestant destruction, it is important to establish an ideological framework which informed the boundaries of the Protestant visual culture, giving parameters to the iconoclasm. Currently, fewer historical studies have been done on the Protestant theology of images compared to those on iconoclasm and the reasons for destruction. In studies on iconoclasm, a strong emphasis has been placed on the second commandment because Protestants stressed this law more than most. But, this focus has often overshadowed the acceptance and use of religious visual images, which certainly played a role in the Protestant mentality of destruction. A greater understanding of this theology of the visual can inform the current conceptualisation of iconoclasm, while also providing a theological and social context for radical iconoclasm.

It is a fact that as Protestants destroyed images, most made attempts to maintain a distinct place for visual imagery. Along with the destruction of thousands of icons in England, Protestants were also motivated to create for themselves new religious images in a context which they found more acceptable. The major examples of this are the over five thousand printed images produced between 1536 and 1603 and the lavish decorative images in architecture and artwork, which have both been catalogued and discussed in other works.[7] However, the reasons and explanations for the prominence of such a visual culture deserve further exploration. As Susan Hardmann Moore has asked, 'zealous Protestants wanted to strip images out of churches and books.So why fill the mind's eye with pictures?'[8] While such an investigation is not possible here, it leads to questions of radicalism and extremist destruction. If as Keith Thomas has said, 'the Elizabethan Church never formally prohibited all religious imagery, as such,' then some destruction crossed an invisible line.[9] Both in the minds of the theologians and in the statutes of the monarchs, there was a degree of acceptability that certain images should be left alone. In specific incidences, the use of such images was offensive to iconoclastic Protestants and Catholics.

In general, a degree of Lutheran theology informed a more moderate view of images up to the Edwardian period. Many English theologians had retained the Catholic idea of images as layman's books, permitting the use of religious images as devotional aids for the illiterate.[10]  After this, most English reformers followed Calvin's line that only 'historical, which give a representation of events, and pictorial, which merely exhibit bodily shapes and figures' subjects were to be permitted. Hugh Latimer stated that "It is lawful, I own, to make use of images." And even the Puritan theologians like William Perkins believed that images could be made for good uses, particularly for the 'commemoration' of the past.[11]

Because of this permissibility of certain images, there was a need to clearly distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable. Though opinions varied, by Elizabeth's reign, the devotional use of images for Protestants was suppressed, and the location of images became one of the most decisive factors. This particularly focused on any image that was in a church or in a place of public honour. For in such places, the intent of the image was clearly to be reverenced or even worshipped, and as such could not be permitted. Martin Bucer was among the first to elucidate this principle in the 1520s, and it became a mainstay of English and Reformed image theology.[12] In 1548, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer echoes Bucer's theology:

'the commen place to honor god alone, and therefore they [image worshippers] ronne rather to one churche than to another, and honor one Image rather than another for elles why are not the ymages in the caruers and painters shoppe as wel kneled unto and worshipped as they yet be set in ye church.'[13]

Elizabeth's articles in 1559 sustained that any image 'whether in their churches and chapels.of feigned and false miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry, and superstition be removed, abolished, and destroyed.' Also, the Elizabethan Homily against the deckynge of images (1563) made the location of the image of primary importance. Though other aspects of an image such as dimensions and colour concerned the Protestants, none seem to be valued as highly as location. As the homily bluntly stated, 'Images in Temples and Churches be in dede none othere but Idols.'[14] No other physical aspect of an image received as much absolutist language as that of place. It was the setting up of these images in the churches and other places that supposed reverence, transforming these images into idols.

However, the Protestant theology of images cannot be completely summarized in terms of place. Each image had a history and a context that must be individually understood.[15] In this, we must also take into account the several exceptions made by Elizabeth for certain ecclesiastical images. In 1561, Elizabeth issued a royal order to protect the funeral memorials and gravestones because they were 'set up for the only memory of them to their posterity in common churches and not for any religious honour.' In the same decree, the Queen objected to the destruction of church windows 'without consent of the ordinary.'[16] As Aston has shown, the issue in such instances was not merely the difference between image and idol but also between destruction and conservation. Alongside her injunctions to eliminate idols, Elizabeth placed a strong emphasis on limiting 'parochial iconoclasm, and also.declaring there were forms of ecclesiastical art which were not to be seen as superstitious.'[17] The Queen wanted to protect the integrity of the church building and certain images that were either pragmatic or memorial in use, while curbing any potentially riotous behaviour. Funeral memorials were not considered to be superstitious. Windows were possibly more dangerous, but were also necessary aspects of the church building. Every church should first assess whether it could afford the material and reparation costs of destroying the windows.

These exceptions were something more than allowing for religious images in books and private decoration. The preservation of windows and funeral memorials, as well as the introduction of clerical vestments in the mid and late 1560s, were perceived by some Protestants as the reanimation of popery within the church. The Laudian cleric Peter Heylin reported that during the Elizabethan period, 'Many unadvised zealots...employed themselves as busily in the demolishing of altars and defacing of images, as if they had been licensed and commanded to it by some legal warrant.'[18] Certain Protestants were willing to destroy outside the official sanctions, even in opposition of the monarch. As the Elizabethan reforms took shape, several divides formed between various groups as to the degree of iconoclasm that was needed. Amongst these disputes, the early Elizabethan bishops were not satisfied with the Queen's level of iconoclasm. Even into the 1570s and 1580s, as the Puritan movement began to separate itself from the Church of England, the definition of what was idolatrous (or popish) remained a prominent and contentious topic.[19] While the monarch issued the religious articles, to which everyone was expected to adhere, there was always a degree of variation in what images were acceptable. Regardless, the iconoclasm of the sixteenth century should not be understood simply as the elimination of a belief system. The early modern visual culture is something more complex than the distinction between Catholic and Protestant. Many aspects of traditional imagery survived, and some were even reused by Protestants. Others were sanctioned by the monarch and yet destroyed by the people in defiance of the official policy. The ambiguous nature of the image requires closer and more specific examination of the survival and destruction of visual images.

3. Certain images were at the centre of religious and political dispute amongst Protestants. The dissatisfaction of many former exiles and younger reformers to the slower, more moderate expressions from the monarchy are most aptly seen in the image of the cross. For centuries, the cross enjoyed universal acceptance. By the second century, Christians were making the sign of the cross, and it appears in the written record in the fourth century.[20] Thomas Aquinas writes, 'the cross is adored with the same adoration as Christ, that is, with the adoration of latria.'[21] By 1500, the cross was employed as a symbol for memorials, headstones, landmarks and a means to ward off evil spirits.[22] As a sign of its strong Catholic roots, the cross was the first image restored to the Chapel Royal after Mary ascended the throne.[23]

For Protestants, because of such gestures and Catholic piety, the cross also came to be seen as an idol. Preacher William Fulke expressed the iconoclastic mindset saying, 'Though they were ancient and goodly monuments, it is to the great honour of God that they should be despised, defaced, burned.'[24] Even if some good could be found in what was destroyed, those who used crosses polluted them by their idolatrous actions and beliefs. John Jewel expresses the contrasting Protestant sentiments, saying, 'The Crosse, I graunt, emonge the [early] Christians was had in great regarde.' However, because of its symbolic importance in Catholicism, 'the best remedie and most agreeable with God's Worde is utterly to abolish' the image.[25] Believing it necessary to destroy crosses, Jewel felt that the connection between the cross and Catholicism was too pervading in English culture to allow the cross to stand, particularly inside the church.

In the minds of English iconoclasts, there were several problems associated with the cross. First, as has been shown, most crosses were already imbued with some Catholic significance, whether they were the site of some miracle, the focus of regular devotion in a church, or a memorial to a saint. Such images were, again, not necessarily dangerous as an object but a sign to the Catholic things they signified.[26] But crosses were also images of God, and those images, particularly of God the Father, were not to be allowed inside the churches. John Calvin had declared that 'wheresoever a Crucifix stands mopping and mowing in the Church, it is all one as if the Divell had defaced the sonne of God.' While many theologians disputed whether it was possible to depict the body of Christ without his divinity, Elizabeth's homilies decided to err on the side of caution. The popular work condemned images of Christ because 'no true Image can be made of Christes body, for it is unknowen now.[it] is a lye made of hym.'[27] In this, as Joseph Koerner has argued, to deface crosses was not necessarily attacking the subject of the image.[28] The cross represented Christ; but in a place of worship, it became an idol that deformed the true worship of God. Furthermore, the cross was often portrayed in a three-dimensional form, usually located in a place of reverence such as on the rood or in the marketplace. This tangible representation in places of secular and spiritual honour made the cross an easier temptation for worship.[29]

One of the earliest crosses to fall was the Highway Cross of Coggeshall in 1533.[30] By 1559 the destruction of crosses was still popular, when during the Rogationtide celebration near St. Paul's, an apprentice disrupted the ceremony and smashed the processional cross.[31] Though Queen Elizabeth condemned unauthorized iconoclasm, the smashing of these crosses seems to have particularly vexed her. For in at least two other incidences, Elizabeth not only protected crosses, as she did windows and gravestones, but she also punished the iconoclasts.

The first of these was the cross in the Chapel Royal, which had been erected by Elizabeth in late 1558. From early on, this cross vexed the bishops, even to the point of almost resigning their posts.[32] Jewel was the first to mention it, when he wrote to Pietro Vermigli in 1559, 'Wretched me! This thing will soon be drawn into a precedent.it is now a hopeless case.'[33] The bishops feared that like many Old Testament kings who allowed pagan idols into the temple, Elizabeth's cross could open a proverbial door to a Catholic resurgence. The cross was a symbol of the failure of reform as much as it was an idolatrous threat. One ballad jests:

Though most the images be pulled down

And none be thought remain in Town,

I am sure there be in London yet,

Seven images such, in such a place,

As few or none I think will hit.[34] 

While Aston is probably correct that this refers to the images at Guildhall and not the Chapel cross, either way the verse pokes fun at the reformers who cannot reform their capital city or their Lady Queen.

But one iconoclast went beyond words, invading the chapel and breaking the cross during a service in 1562.[35] This was not only a brazen defiance of the Queen's authority, but it also made a spectacle of iconoclasm against the will of the Queen. While unsanctioned destruction was not completely uncommon, this act reveals the strength of the iconoclastic urge. It was possible for even the monarch, who instituted iconoclasm on a vast scale, to need her own chapel cleansed. Coming on the heels of the Treaty of Edinburgh (1560), England's compromise with Catholic Scotland and France, it seems that the Chapel cross both stood and fell both as a symbol and an idol. For, the iconoclasm was not condemned by the bishops but rather praised and bolstered as a heroic act. Even though the bishops defended royal supremacy against Catholicism, they were prepared to applaud this radical destruction saying, 'A good riddance of such a cross as that.'[36] The Chapel Royal was not only a religious house but a standard for cultural and religious ceremony across the country. Since crosses were ordered destroyed by the Elizabethan injunctions, it would not suffice for the Queen to usurp her own rules. While the bishops rejoiced in this victory over popery, the message sent by the destruction was a political one: the Queen will be made to obey the laws of her kingdom.

The Chapel cross was not the most inflammatory destruction in Elizabethan England. On Midsummer night in 1581, an unidentified group attacked the famous Cheapside Cross, which had stood in London since 1290. John Stowe reports, 'such destruction shows the unquenchable pertinacity of these nasty people,' for they seemed forever dissatisfied with the destruction.[37] In many respects, the attack on Cheapside was a rather unique incident. First, not only did Cheapside enjoy the Queen's approval, but it also, as Joel Budd explains, was as much a centrepiece of Protestant religious and political ceremony as it had been of Catholicism.[38] The use of Cheapside amongst Protestants can be seen as early as 1554. On April 8, almost a year after Mary's reign began, in rebellion against Catholicism, someone performed the mock hanging of a cat dressed as a monk from the gallows near the Cheapside Cross. Cheapside was more than a public religious symbol, it was a centre of communal activity as well as a place for religious and cultural expression. Some of the larger events include being a focal point of Elizabeth's coronation, and a decade later, Protestants gathered at the cross to burn Catholic books.[39] Much the same way that Paul's Cross had become the place for oration and sermons, Cheapside, among other things, was a place to display one's beliefs. Secondly, the cross seems to have been a victim of its own popularity. Though Cheapside was not necessarily a place of worship, its ambiguous place, being used by both Protestants and Catholics, made it a target for the most strident reformers. Even though Protestants could make use of Catholic images in new ways, there was always the concern that these images could grow too popular, threatening to become an idol. It was this process of a popular image in the public view leading to idolatry that many reformers harped on in their sermons and writings. As the Puritan theologian William Perkins warned in 1597, that in the early Christian church, 'men used privately to keep the pictures of their friends departed: and this practise after crept into the open congregation, and at last superstition getting head, images began to be worshipped.'[40]

Also, the political environment of the early 1580s may have accelerated the destruction. The survival of such a popular cross could easily be associated with the growing influence of Catholic insurgence into England, exemplified by certain Catholic scholars in the universities.[41] Scholars like Jasper Heywood, Richard Verstegan and Cardinal William Allen had been recruiting students for the Catholic seminary at Rheims. The Catholic Duke of Anjou was endangering the Protestant monopoly on the throne by making marriage overtures to Elizabeth. It is likely then, as Catholic influence appeared to be ominously increasing, Cheapside was seen as a Jonah figure, a means to avoid God's judgement for failing to completely eradicate Catholicism.[42] Built and adorned by Catholics, the cross served, in a period saturated with Providence, as an excellent scapegoat or sacrifice to be cast into the proverbial sea. Also, by attacking the image, the iconoclasts were symbolically acting out their belief that even if the Queen and country were falling into heresy, they remained true to God.

But the Cheapside and the Chapel iconoclasm should not be considered too similar. While both were radical expressions of dissatisfaction with the current religious climate, the uncertainty of the English religion in the 1560s did not exist in 1581. Elizabeth's authority had already been well established. So, there is little doubt that those involved in Cheapside were aware of the Queen's disdain for unofficial iconoclasm. This is the reason why the iconoclasts acted anonymously during the night, like the Lollard iconoclasts of the fifteenth century.[43] Also, along with this challenge to royal authority, the event contains a degree of cultural radicalism, which the attack on the Chapel did not. For the iconoclasts were certainly aware of the popularity of the Cheapside Cross, which found approval among Catholics and Protestants. This was not merely a difference of opinion as to what was an idol. Cheapside was evidence of Catholic continuation and its corruption of Protestant reforms. It was specifically chosen for this attack because, aside from all other crosses, Cheapside had won a place in the political and religious life of Protestant England and yet was also a vestige of Catholicism.

Even in this, it seems that something about Cheapside beyond what has been discussed stirred these radical iconoclasts. For, why were equally well known crosses left untouched? Paul's Cross, a centrepiece of late medieval London, was built by Catholics, and was seemingly a part of that 'remnant' of Catholicism that must not, as one ballad stated, 'be suffered to contenue, because such remnants were always hurtfull to the Church.'[44] But many crosses built by Catholics continued to play a role in the religious and cultural life. Not only were they printed in books, but other market crosses like those in Grantham and Market Rasen were the gathering points to burn popish books and items in the early 1560s.[45] What distanced such crosses from Cheapside and the Chapel Royal? Certainly, the location of the latter two images, as places of great popularity and honour, was powerfully significant. Moreover, both of the destroyed crosses were directly related to the Queen and her monarchy. To attack them would send a message far different from that of a market cross or a cross in a Catholic book.  As one early Stuart canon explained, 'Things of themselves.do in some sort alter their natures when they are commanded or forbidden by a lawful magistrate.'[46] It is altogether likely that the Queen's approval of these particular crosses and her adamant defence of them was what set them apart, and so set them up, to be destroyed.

4. One of the least addressed questions of the iconoclastic fury during the sixteenth century is how could Catholics destroy religious images and objects. At face value, Catholic iconoclasm seems almost inconceivable, since Catholics placed a great deal of emphasis and spiritual significance upon sacred objects. But Catholic iconoclasm is not a completely unstudied phenomenon. Natalie Zemon Davis has discussed the possible motivations and ritualistic underpinnings of Catholic iconoclasm in France in the 1550s and 1560s. Also, the defacement and destruction of Protestant books and Bibles in England is beginning to receive attention, as acts not wholly dissimilar to Protestant iconoclasm.[47] Nevertheless, the fact that Catholics burned, crushed, and mutilated religious items at various times in sixteenth century England and Europe can be difficult to explain. For, it undermines many oversimplified explanations of the differences and changing meanings of the terms of Protestant and Catholic.

Perhaps, this is because the traditional understanding of iconoclasm often supposes the destruction of some sort of religious picture or statue. But such a limited understanding overlooks one of the most obvious forms of Catholic destruction. The Catholic burning and destruction of words and the printed word often carried as much iconoclastic significance as the Protestant destruction of saints' statues. In 1554, the precedent was established with Queen Mary's injunctions against 'unlawful books, ballads, and other pernicious and hurtful devices engendering hatred among the people and discord among the same' by 'setting forth any evil or corrupt doctrine.' A year later, Mary utterly condemned anyone, 'to write, print, utter, sell, read, or keep, or cause to be.' the common book of prayer and books written by most of the reformers.[48] Though censorship and book burning were not solely a Catholic activity, the Marian Catholics do seem specifically intent upon eradicating any semblance of Protestant words.

What must be understood in discussing words as a possible object of iconoclasm is how Catholics perceived the visual word as an object and how they understood the Protestant use of these visualisations. For in many ways, the modern distinction between word and image, that is between printing and the various forms of engraving and painting, was not as defined in the sixteenth century.[49] Since the Lollards had attacked idols in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Catholics had defended images with the idea of laymen's books, a means for the illiterate to read.[50] Conversely, it seems that words could be understood as images. For during Edward VI's reign, the evangelical Catholic Bishop Stephen Gardiner warned Nicholas Ridley, 'it would be a problem, seeing if graving were taken away we could have no printing. And therefore they that press so much the words of Non facies tibi sculptile, ever, me thinketh, they condemn printed books.'[51] Many early Protestants shared in this ambiguity. Martin Luther argued with Andreas Kaarlstadt over wall paintings that, 'Pictures contained in these books we would paint on walls for the sake of remembrance and better understanding, since they do no more harm on walls than in books.'[52] This was a blurred distinction between what was found in books and what was on church walls, stressing the similarity between the two media. It is no wonder that, as Joseph Koerner has shown, in Reformation Germany, scriptural text adorned much of the Lutheran church décor. Words replaced the more Catholic images in Lutheran churches, materializing the Bible 'for display' as 'objects of ritual.'[53] English Protestants were also apt to visualise scripture in this manner. Both Tessa Watt and David McKitterick have shown how the pages from Bibles and other scriptural based texts were transferred 'onto walls, or onto pieces of furniture or other household objects.'[54] In 1552, at the end of Edward's reign, the Archbishop of York Robert Holgate gave permission that once the monuments and images were removed from the church 'namely over the place called the High Altar,' then 'sentences of Holy Scripture' may be 'painted' on the altar.[55] It would have been natural to adorn one's house and material objects with them, but this injunction went beyond private decoration. Such painted (or carved) scriptures were located in the common place of devotion, and moreover had replaced the older forms of visual devotion and worship. Of course, it is well known that the concept of sola scriptura and the technology of print were beloved by most Protestants. John Foxe expresses the idealised Protestant sentiment that because of words, and especially the printed word, 'ignourance is utterly banished, and the truth is manifested and declared.'[56] Protestants had adopted the word as their symbol of truth and means of devotion. As such, while Catholics were not necessarily hostile to printing or even vernacular print, the word remained something that Protestants stressed as their own divine gift.[57]

In London, the writing on church walls seems to have been a common practice of Protestants. When the Catholics regained control of the English throne, these scriptures were among the first things purged from the churches. Wriothesley reported that, by Easter of 1554, 'the Scriptures written on Rood-lofts and about the churches in London were washed out for the most part in all the parish churches of London.'[58] It should be noted that this was amongst the first changes the Marian religion brought: the reclamation of sacred space through the destruction of these scriptural images. In his first articles to the London churches, Bishop Bonner inquired:

Whether there be any Scriptures or pictures painted or set forth upon the walls of the church, or otherwise within the church, and yet remaining, which chiefly and principally do tend to the maintenance of carnal liberty, especially in eating and drinking upon all days-fasting or others-all manner meats and drinks, as for the defence of the marriage of priests, and incontinent life with defacing of virtuous and godly living, or to express derogation and slander of the Blessed Sacrament of the altar?'[59]

As Protestants attacked certain images that were classified as idols, Bonner's article addressed certain types of verses dealing with Protestant polemics against Catholic doctrine. As some images were acceptable, not all verses were dangerous. But because of the subsequent destruction, it is impossible to know how extensive these dangerous verses were. While the words in Protestant books become an increasing problem for the Marian clergy, this is the only destruction of church objects that Bonner prescribes.[60] It seems that Wriothesley's assessment is correct, that the first round of Catholic destruction erased any remnant of this Protestant imagery.

Another type of ceremonial destruction that was popular amongst Catholics was the execution of heretics. While the burning of living heretics was the traditional and statutory punishment, the burning and dishonouring of the bones of heretics has much more a hint of the iconoclastic spirit. Perhaps the most ritualistic of this destruction was in 1557, when a ceremony was held in Cambridge to burn the exhumed remains of the reformers Paulus Phagius and Martin Bucer along with several of their books. While the corpses of other heretics as early as John Wycliffe along with more recent ones had been burned, this occasion received a great deal more spectacle and ceremony than usual.[61]

Bucer, in particular, was among the most influential scholars in Cambridge during the Reformation, and it is possible that the Catholics feared his lasting memory to be similar to that of a saint. While Protestants condemned the Catholic cult of saints, by the late 1550s, the number of martyrs and the miraculous stories surrounding their deaths were growing evermore popular, commemorated in books, miracle tales, and sermons. Margaret Aston has shown that portraits of theologians and reformers arose to almost saintly status during the mid and late sixteenth century.[62] In 1603, the Catholic priest Richard Chambers remarked on what he viewed as Protestant hypocrisy, because, 'The images of Wiclif, Luther, Hus, Melancthon, Calvin, and such Apostata, condemned companions may be painted, sold, and hanged up in every ones hows.without any peril of Idolatrie, or breache of Gods commaundements.'[63] While it is yet unclear how esteemed these reformers were to the devoted Protestant, there was sufficient reason for Catholics to consider the memory of them as both a hindrance to the renewal of Catholicism and a growing symbol of the Protestant religion.

During his visit to Cambridge, Cardinal Reginald Pole ritualised the destruction of Bucer's memory and the Protestant heresy that Bucer had taught. The Protestant Arthur Golding reported several years later that the act was more an inversion of Bucer's funeral, so that, 'the memoriall of him be utterly condemned to oblivion for ever.' As the bishops reportedly stated, 'Nowe forasmuche as he was buryed with great pompe & solemnitye, we thinke it necessarye, that his burninge be executed with no lesse solemnitie and furniture.'[64] Not only did Bucer receive a lavish funeral, but his popularity led to commemorative verses and scriptures like those destroyed by Bonner in London being etched into Cambridge church walls. As such, Pole felt it was necessary to respond in kind with a similar destruction of Bucer and the symbols of Bucer's influence. The day of the Feast of the Presentation was chosen, so that large crowds would be in Cambridge to witness the spectacle. Following the procession of the sacramental host through the town, Pole arranged that the corpses of Bucer and Phagius be shackled and carted through the town centre, displaying them on the way to their fiery demise.[65] The Catholics use of ritual destruction by fire reflected the more common Protestant iconoclasm. Its meaning echoes Aston's comment that, 'Burning was the most effective method of cauterizing the poisoned limb, and society-the corporate body whose health was at risk-had to participate in the healing process.'[66] While for both Protestants and Catholics, church cleansing was often the chore of deacons and clergy, there was also a place for public symbolic destruction, wherein the crowd partook. French Protestants had performed similar rituals upon the bones and remains of Catholic saints to disprove any claims that they were 'sacred objects'.[67] These were not idols as Protestants understood Catholic relics to be. They were rather the symbols of Protestant heresy, as icons were the symbols of Catholic idolatry and corruption. The memories and words of the reformers posed as much of a threat to Catholicism as the statues and rood lofts had been to the Protestants.

In a final example of Catholic iconoclasm which encompasses several aspects of destruction, we turn to the Northern Rebellion of 1569. After months of murmurs and growing animosity toward Elizabeth, the Catholic Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland led an army into Durham and seized the cathedral. This was as much a strategic strike, as it was an iconoclastic assault, as the rebels overturned the communion table, destroyed the English Bible as well as other Protestant books, and reinstituted the mass.[68] In the following months, before the rebellion was crushed, this ritual of destruction and Catholic renewal was reproduced in smaller settings across the North.[69] The ballad writer William Elderton condemned the rebels:

'For thoughe ye spoile Churches and burne up the Bible,

And worshippe gaie Crosses in every towne.

Your Idolles you asses are never possible,

To save ye that will not be trew to the Crowne.'[70]

The papers of Sir George Bowes, the Protestant nobleman who led the defence of Barnard Castle against the rebellion, are some of the most extant records surviving these events. In part, these papers consist of an outline of events and a summary of the legal proceedings following the iconoclasm in northern villages. What these papers provide are insights into both the particular events of iconoclasm and the subsequent restoration of Catholic images, depicting to some degree a war of symbols between Protestants and Catholics. In Sedgefield, for example, people like Richard Hixon burned Protestant books taunting them, 'lowe where the homilies flee to the devyll.' Soon after the Catholic symbols like the holy water stone were returned to the church, having been hidden from Protestant visitations in places like William Clarke's dunghill. John Lilbourn and William Cooke crushed the communion tables and burned the Protestant books in Auckland, as others like William Rawling of Elvet re-established the altar and high cross.[71] Since Protestants had posited the power of the word, in their books, against that of the mass, Catholics were responding in kind by destroying the power of the Protestants and restoring the symbols of Catholicism.

In this, it is important to keep in mind a few points. First, this was not a riotous mob of peasants. Like the destruction of wall writings and the burning of Bucer, these attacks were led by persons of authority, the nobility and town officials. But in this what is unique about the rebellion's destruction is that it lacked any clerical oversight. It is perhaps one of the only forms of organized and public destruction, which was not sanctioned by some member of the English church since before 1534. Though the rebellion had religious overtones, Anthony Fletcher is correct to argue that this was primarily a political movement.[72] Religion was not the source of the violence but overthrowing Protestantism was a key factor in re-establishing the traditional order. Following this, though the event was a rebellion, the destruction was not aimed at the social hierarchy. Authority and order were maintained, particularly because destruction was not the intended ends but merely a means to another end. What can be said is that such destruction was intent upon upsetting the Protestant social order so to establish the traditional form of order, which was generally more familiar and probably more welcome in the North.

Finally, this iconoclasm celebrated Catholicism not Protestantism, singling out books that symbolised Protestantism. The mass acts as the culmination of the ritual, as the people 'caused some crosses, and some banners of certain saints.to be carried in procession,' celebrating the victory over Protestantism.[73] This is a key difference between Catholic and Protestant destruction.[74] Destruction was a means for Protestants to purge the church of idols. For Catholics, it was a means to make way for their images. The poet George Gascoigne announced the Catholic sentiments:

Despysed things may live, although they pine in payne:

And things ofte trodden under foote, may once yet rise againe.

The stone that lieth full lowe, may clime at last full hye:

And stand a loft on stately towr's, in sight of every eye.[75]

The symbolic resurrection of Catholicism with its material objects became characteristic of the rebellion. The immediacy of this symbolic restoration is something foreign to much of Protestant iconoclasm, which often seems content with a blank spot on a wall or a broken image. The Catholic reinstitution of the images became a part of the destructive process. As Aston explains, the Catholic images became a 'dogmatic response to the iconomachs' belief in the sufficiency of the word.'[76] This crescendo of Catholic iconoclasm, the re-establishing of traditional imagery, along with the leadership of the nobility and the spread of Catholic iconoclasm set it apart from the Protestant radicals. Radical Protestants struck at random and in secret, more reminiscent of the late medieval Lollards. The Catholic destruction, on the other hand, moved with the political rebellion outward from Durham, focusing on particular images and restoring the holy icons so popular in Mary's reign.

5. Like the terms image and idol, the categories of sanctioned and radical were relative to the changing political and religious environment of early modern England. While iconoclasm was an often understood imperative, people disagreed about what needed destroying and how to distinguish an idol from an image. As we have seen here, even the most obvious iconoclasm held subtle complexities that may never be fully understood. For historians, Nietzsche's warning must be taken to heart so as not to categorize iconoclasm or the images being destroyed under a single name or reputation. The manner in which an image was perceived by the people who saw it on a regular basis gave identity to the image, which in turn helps to explain its survival or destruction. Because English iconoclasm was in many ways a systematic process carried out by royal authority, it is easy to group the destruction into a few basic categories. However, iconoclasm was used by many groups and for many reasons, oftentimes contradicting one another.

Images like Paul's Cross and the Dominican house in Cambridge, which was converted into Emmanuel College, survived the reforms because Protestants found practical uses for them. The Catholics too, while they burned English Bibles in 1569, had their own New Testament translation printed in 1582. Things open to destruction in one context were made acceptable and even significant in another. The Elizabethan preacher William Fulke expresses this seeming contradiction by praising the destruction of idolatry in London. First, he commends those who reportedly were 'pissing upon the foule Idoll of the altar.' But in the next instance, he condemns the Catholic burning of books, saying, 'If any Library was destroied by them, with the bibles, doctors works, and maps of countries, it was very euil & barbarously done of them.'[77] Like many Protestants, Fulke believed images in books were for learning, but in churches, they were for worshipping. However, the Catholics, who destroyed the books that Fulke mourned, believed they were destroying the images and tools of Protestant heresy.

Images could be altar clothes and human bones; they were engraved in Bibles and carved on roods and church walls. What gave an image its identity was its practical and symbolic importance. Because of this, both Catholic and Protestant found themselves defending and destroying religious images, at times almost simultaneously. But, as Eamon Duffy states, 'Whether done under official pressure or not,' the destruction of such images, 'were ritual acts of deep significance.'[78] Here, our focus has been upon radical iconoclasm. What sets these radicals apart is that they were not submissively obeying the iconoclastic officials of the government but rather intentionally contradicting the monarch's will. Though there are distinct differences in the objects destroyed and the ways of destruction, both Catholic and Protestant groups held to the idea that ritualistic and symbolic destruction was at times a necessary extension of the social order and of religious devotion. While Catholics destroyed symbols of heresy and radical Protestants destroyed idols, both even in defiance of the monarch found images they could not abide.

Notes

[1] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Joyful Wisdom, or The Gay Science, trans. Thomas Common, London: T.N. Foulis, 1910, p.96.

[2] Margaret Aston, England’s Iconoclasts: Laws Against Images , Oxford: Clarendon, 1989 and Faith and fire: popular and unpopular religion, 1350-1600, London: Hambledon Press, 1993; Sergiusz Michalski, The Reformation and the visual arts : the Protestant image question in Western and Eastern Europe, London: Routledge, 1993; Lee Palmer Wandel, Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel, Cambridge 1995. For more on English iconoclasm, works preceding Aston’s include:  John Philips, The Reformation of Images: Destruction of Art in England 1535-1660, London, 1973; Patrick Collinson, The Birthpangs of Protestant England; Carlos Eire, War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin, Cambridge, 1986. Works afterward: Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992; Joel Budd, ‘Rethinking Iconoclasm in Early Modern England: The Case of the Cheapside Cross,’ Journal of Early Modern History, IV (3-4), pp.371-404.

[3] Patrick Collinson, The Birthpangs of Protestant England: Religious and cultural change in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 1988, p. 99.

[4] Some of the key works in this growing study, include: Tessa Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550-1640, Cambridge, 1991; Ruth Luborsky, ‘The Pictorial Image of the Jew in Elizabethan Secular Books,’ Shakespeare Quarterly, 46(4), 1995, pp.449-453; Margaret Aston, ‘Gods, Saints, and Reformers: Portraiture and Protestant England,’ in Albion's Classicism, (ed.) Lucy Ghent, London: Yale University Press, 1995, pp. 181-220; David McKitterick, Print, Manuscript, and the Search for Order, 1450-1830, Cambridge, 2003; Martha Driver, The Image in Print: Book Illustration in Late Medieval England and Its Sources, London: The British Library, 2004.

[5] Joel Budd, ‘Rethinking Iconoclasm in Early Modern England,’ p. 383.

[6] John Walter, ‘“Abolishing Superstition with Sedition”? The Politics of Popular Iconoclasm in England, 1640-1642,’ Past & Present, 183 (2004), pp. 79-124.

[7] The major works on this Protestant visual culture include: Robert Scribner, For the Sake of the Simple Folk: popular propaganda for the German Reformation, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994; Ruth Luborsky and Elizabeth Ingram, A guide to English illustrated books, 1536-1603, Tempe, Ariz. : Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1998; Anthony Wells-Cole, Art of decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England : the influence of continental prints, 1558-1625, London : Yale University Press, 1997; Ulinka Rublack, Reformation Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp.173-180.

[8] Susan Hardmann Moore, ‘For the mind’s eye only: puritans, images and ‘the golden mines of Scripture’,’ Scottish Journal of Theology, 59 (3), p. 281.

[9] Keith Thomas, ‘Art and iconoclasm in Early Modern England,’ in Religious Politics in Post-Reformation England: Essays in Honour of Nicholas Tyacke, (eds.) Kenneth Fincham and Peter Lake, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2006, p.18.

[10] Ann Eljenholm Nichols, ‘Books-for-Laymen: The Demise of a Commonplace,’ Church History, 56(4), 1987, pp. 457-473; Alec Ryrie, ‘The Strange Death of Lutheran England,’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 53, 1 (January, 2002), pp. 64-92.

[11] Jean Calvin, The Sermons of M. John Calvin upon the fifth book of Moses called Deuteronomy, trans. Arthur Golding, London, 1583 (facsimile 1987), p. 138; also, John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998, I, xi, pt. 12, p.100; Hugh Latimer, The works of Hugh Latimer…, martyr, 1555, vol.2, (Parker Society), ed. George Elwes Corrie, Cambridge, 1845, p. 353; William Perkins, A Warning Against Idolatry (1^st in 1601; The works of that famous and worthie minister of Christ, in the universitie of Cambridge vol. 1, Cambridge, 1608, p. 687.

[12] Martin Bucer, A treatise declaring and showing that images are not to be suffered in churches, London, 1535, A6v, C4.

[13] Thomas Cranmer, Catechismus, that is to say, a shorte instruction into Christian religion for the synguler commoditie and profyte of childre[n] and yong people, London, 1548, ()7r-v.

[14] Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Period of the Reformation, ed. W.H. Frere and W.M. Kennedy, London: Longman, Green, and Co., 1910, vol. II, p. 105; Anon., The second tome of homelyes of such matters as were promised and intituled in the former part of homelyes set out by the aucthoritie of the Quenes Maiestie, and to be read in euery paryshe churche agreablye, London, 1563, fols. 12v, 21v.

[15] Martha Driver, The Image in Print, ch. 6.

[16] ‘Prohibiting the Destruction of Church Monuments,’ Tudor Royal Proclamations, vol.2, The later Tudors (1553-1587), (eds.) Paul L. Hughes and James F. Larkin, London: Yale University Press, 1969, pp. 147-148.

[17] Aston, England’s Iconoclasts, p.316.

[18] Peter Heylin, Ecclesia Restaurata, or The History of the Reformation of the Church of England, vol. II, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1849, p.270.

[19] Aston, England’s Iconoclasts, pp. 300-335. For a chronology of works printed toward the various disputes, see: Peter Milyard, Religious Controversies of the Jacobean Age: A Survey of Printed Sources, London: Scolar Press, 1978. On the theological rift between Puritans and the Church of England, see, John S. Coolidge, The Pauline Renaissance in England: Puritanism and the Bible, London: Clarendon Press, 1970

[20] Tim Healey, ‘The Symbol of the Cross in Sacred and Secular Art,’ Leonardo, 10(4), 1977, p. 289.

[21] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, [Latin texts and English Translations], eds. Thomas Gilby and T.C. O’Brien, Lodnon: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1958, Pt. 3, Q. 25, art. 4, pp. 198-9.[Crux utroque modo adoratur eadem adoratione cum Christo, scilicet Adoratione latriae.]

[22] See, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, pp.70-72; Susan Brigden, New Worlds, Lost Worlds, NY: Penguin, 2000, p. 199. The use of crosses in counter magic however was condemned by late 16^th century demonology texts as a remnant of pagan ritual: pp. 34, 56; William Perkins, A Discourse on the Damned Art of Witchcraft, London, 1610, p.152.

[23] Tim Healey, ‘The Symbol of the Cross,’ p.289.

[24] William Fulke, A Defense of the sincere true Translations of the holie Scriptures, ed. C.H. Hartshorne, Cambridge: Parker Society, 1843, p.191.

[25] John Jewel, A replie vnto M. Hardinges ansvveare by perusinge whereof the discrete, and diligent reader may easily see, the weake, and vnstable groundes of the Romaine religion, whiche of late hath beene accompted Catholique, London: In Fleetestreate, at the signe of the Blacke Oliphante, by Henry VVykes, 1565, pp. 500, 501, 517. See also, Guiseppe Scavizzi, The Controversy on images from Calvin to Baronius, NY: P. Lang, 1992, ch. 5. Here, Scavizzi makes the argument that Calvin believed the cross to not only be an object of idolatry but the source of such superstitious beliefs, p. 206.

[26] See, John Dillenberger, Images and Relics: theological perceptions and visual images in sixteenth century Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp.14-16.

[27] John Calvin, Sermons…Deuteronomy, p. 138; Anon., The second tome of homelyes, 44v.

[28] Joseph Koerner, The Reformation of the Image, pp. 83-93, 105-115.

[29] Jean Calvin, Institutes, I, xi, part 2, p.92;

[30] Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p.385.

[31] Duffy, Ibid., p. 566; H.N. Birt, The Elizabethan Religious Settlement, 1907, pp. 504-5.

[32] ‘Jewel to Martyr, Feb. 4, 1560,’ Zurich Letters: comprising the correspondence of several English bishops and others, ed. Hastings Robinson, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1842, p.68.

[33] ‘Jewel to Martyr, Nov. 16, 1559,’ The Zurich Letters, p. 55.

[34] William Elderton, may have been the magistrate of Guildhall in 1562; the ballad is quoted in Aston, England’s Iconoclasts, p.326; John Stow, Survey of London, vol. 1, Boston: Adamant Media Corporation (reprint 2001), p.272.

[35] Aston, England’s Iconoclasts, pp. 310-313.

[36]J. H. Primus, The Vestments Controversy, J.H. Kok N. V. Kampen, 1960; Edward Dering, A sermon preached before the Queenes Majesties reigne, the 25 day of February, Anno, 1569, London, 1570; J.B., Fortress of the Fathers, London, 1566. quote from Aston, England’s Iconoclasts, p.313.

[37] John Stow, Annals, p. 1180; Paul Johnson, Elizabeth I: A Biography, Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974, p.345.

[38] Joel Budd, ‘Rethinking Iconoclasm in Early Modern England: The Case of the Cheapside Cross,’ Journal of Early Modern History, IV (3-4), pp.371-404.

[39] John Strype, Ecclesiastical memorials : relating chiefly to religion, and the Reformation of it, and the emergencies of the Church of England, under King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, and Queen Mary I, vol. 3, pt. 1, p. 187; Alexandra Walsham, ‘“Domme Preachers?” Post-Reformation English Catholicism and the Culture of Print,’ Past & Present, no. 168 (August 2000), p. 88.

[40] William Perkins, A reformed catholike: or, A declaration shewing how neere we may come to the present Church of Rome in sundrie points of religion , 1597, STC 19735.8, pp. 170-171. Also, Anon., The second tome of homelyes, f.25v.

[41] For a detailed analysis see Budd, ‘Rethinking Iconoclasm,’ pp. 394-5.

[42] For the growth of Catholic print culture, see: Alex Walsham, ‘‘Domme Preachers,’?’ pp. 72-123. See also, Peter Holmes, Resistance and Compromise: The Political Thought of the Elizabethan Catholics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982, pp.129-35; John Bossy, ‘The Character of Elizabethan Catholicism,’ Past & Present, no. 21 (April 1962), pp. 39-59.

[43] W.R. Jones, ‘Lollards and Images: the Defense of Religious Art in Later Medieval England,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, 34(1), 1973, pp.27-50; Margaret Aston, Lollards and Reformers: images and literacy in late medieval religion, London: Hambeldon, 1984.

[44] Anon., Of publique reformation of a church, London, 1589, [broadside].

[45] Margaret Aston, Faith and fire, p. 310.

[46] Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical, (ed.) J.V. Bullard, [1^st edition 1604], London, 1934, p. 264.

[47]  Natalie Zemon Davis, ‘The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France,’ Past & Present, No. 59 (May 1573), pp. 51-91; Walsham, ‘Unclasping the Book?’, p. 141; Pauline Croft, ‘Libels, Popular Literacy and Public Opinion in Early Modern England,’ Historical Research 68 (1995), p. 281.

[48] Tudor Royal Proclamations, vol. II, The Later Tudors (1553-1587), eds. Paul L. Hughes and James F. Larkin, London: Yale University Press, 1969, pp. 36, 59.

[49] See, Adam Fox, Oral and literate culture in England, 1500-1700, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000; McKitterick, Print, Manuscipt and the search for Order, ch.1.

[50] Ann Eljenholm Nichols, ‘Books-for-Laymen: The Demise of a Commonplace,’ Church History, 56(4), 1987, pp. 457-473.

[51] Nicholas Ridley, The works of Nicholas Ridley, D.D..., martyr, 1555, ed. Henry Christmas, Cambridge: Parker Society, 1841, p. 499.

[52] Martin Luther, ‘Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and Sacraments,’ Church and Ministry II, in Luther’s Works, vol. XL, (ed.) Contrad Bergundoff, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966 (1^st 1958), pp.99-100.

[53] Koerner, The Reformation of the Image, p.289.

[54] McKitterick, Print, Manuscipt and the search for Order, p.61.

[55] VAI, II, p.320.

[56] John Foxe, Actes and monuments of these latter and perillous dayes touching matters of the Church,  London, 1563, book 3, p. 362.

[57] Jennifer Loach, ‘The Marian Establishment and the Printing Press,’ The English Historical Review, vol. 101, no. 398 (Jan. 1986), pp. 135-148; Alexandra Walsham, ‘Unclasping the Book? Post-Reformation English Catholicism and the Vernacular Bible,’ Journal of British Studies, 42 (August 2003): 141-166

[58] Charles Wriothesley, A chronicle of England during the reigns of the Tudors, (ed.) William Douglas Hamilton [Camden New Series, vol. 20], London: Camden Society, 1875, p.113; Aston makes mention of this destruction but has little analysis or commentary on these actions, in England’s Iconoclasts, pp. 292-293.

[59] ‘Bonner’s Articles for the London Diocese,’ VAI, vol. II, p.354.

[60] For work on censorship, see: Frederick Seaton Siebert, Freedom of the press in England 1476-1776 : the rise and decline of government control, Urbana: University of Illinois, 1965; Annabel Patterson, Censorship and interpretation : the conditions of writing and reading in early modern England, London: University of Wisconsin, 1984

[61] Arthur Golding, A briefe treatise concerning the burnynge of Bucer and Phagius, at Cambrydge, in the tyme of Quene Mary with theyr restitution in the time of our moste gracious souerayne lady that nowe is, London, 1562, on others corpse burnings, p. L4v; Also, John Foxe, Actes and monuments of these latter and perillous dayes touching matters of the Church,, London, 1563, Book 11, p. 1142.

[62] Margaret Aston, ‘Gods, Saints, and Reformers: Portraiture and Protestant England,’ in Albion’s Classicism: the visual arts in Britain, 1550-1660, ed. Lucy Gheny, London: Yale University Press, 1995, p. 191. See also, Thomas Freeman, ‘Fate, Faction, Fiction in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs,’ The Historical Journal 43, 3 (2000), pp. 601-623.

[63] Robert Chambers, ‘Translator to the Reader,’ in  Philippe Numan, Miracles lately vvrought by the intercession of the glorious Virgin Marie, at Mont-aigu, nere vnto Siché in Brabant Gathered out of the publik instruments, and informations taken thereof, Antwerp, 1606, D6v. In this, Chambers also condemns the hypocrisy of Protestants who wilfully destroy images of God and Christ but condemned William Hackett for attacking a portrait of Elizabeth, D5v.

[64] Golding, A briefe treatise concerning the burnynge of Bucer, D8r.

[65] Ibid., H1r-H3v.

[66] Aston, England’s Iconoclasts, p. 300.

[67] Zemon Davis, ‘Rites of Violence,’ p. 82.

[68] J.A. Froude, History of England, vol. IX, London: Longman, 1866-1870, p.521.

[69] Philip Hughes, The Reformation in England, 3 vols, London: Burns & Oates, 1963, vol. III, p.269.

[70] W.E., A ballat intituled Northumberland newes / Wherein you maye see what rebelles do use, London, 1570, [broadside].

[71] The Rising of the North, the 1569 Rebellion, reprint of The Memorials of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, ed. Cuthbert Sharp, Shotton, 1975, pp. 256-72.

[72] Anthony Fletcher, Tudor Rebellions, London: Longman, 1968, pp. 105-106.

[73] ‘Letter from Richard Hilles to Henry Bullinger, 6 February 1570,’ Zurich Letters, p. 215.

[74] Thomas Cranmer, A Catechism set forth by Thomas Cranmer, ed. D.G. Selwyn, London: Appleford, 1978, p.23.

[75] George Gascoigne, ‘This Question being propounded by a Dame unto the Author,’ in Flowers, The Complete Works of George Gascoigne, vol. II The Poesies, ed. John W. Cunliffe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1907, p.89.

[76] Aston, England’s Iconoclasts, p. 294.

[77] William Fulke, D. Heskins, D. Sanders, and M. Rastel, accounted (among their faction) three pillers and archpatriarches of the popish synagogue (vtter enemies to the truth of Christes Gospell, and all that syncerely professe the same) ouerthrowne, and detected of their seuerall blasphemous heresies, London, 1579, pp. 574-575.

[78] Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 494.

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