The second fact that helps to explain the sudden change of attitude toward the Bible is this: the people of England were never willingly ruled from without, religiously or politically.There has recently been a considerable controversy over the history of the Established Church of England, whether it has always been an independent church or was at one time officially a part of the Roman Church.That is a matter for ecclesiastical history to determine.The foundation fact, however, is as I worded it a moment ago: the people of England were never willingly ruled from without, religiously or politically.They were sometimes ruled from without; but they were either indifferent to it at the time or rebellious against it.Those who did think claimed the right to think for themselves.The Scotch of the north were peculiarly so, but the English of the southclaimed the same right.There has always been an immense contrast between the two sides of the British Channel.The French people during all those years were deeply loyal to a foreign religious government.The English people were never so, not in the days of the fullest Roman supremacy.They always demanded at least a form of home government.That made England a congenial home for the Protestant spirit, which claimed the right to independent study of the sources of religion and independent judgment regarding them.It was only a continuance of the spirit of Wiclif and the Lollards.The spirit in a nation lives long, especially when it is passed down by tradition.Those were not the days of newspapers.They were instead the days of great meetings, more important still of small family gatherings, where the memory of the older men was called into use, and where boys and girls drank in eagerly the traditions of their own country as expressed in the great events of their history.Newspapers never can fully take the place of those gatherings, for they do not bring men together to feel the thrill of the story that is told.It must be remembered that the entire population of England at that time was only about three millions.And that old spirit of independence was strongly at work in the middle-class villages and among the merchants, and they were a ruling and dominant class.That was second, that in those ten years there asserted itself the age-long unwillingness of the English people to be ruled from without.
The third fact which must be taken into account to explain this remarkable change of front of the public English life is Henry VIII.himself.There is much about him that no country would willingly claim.He was the most habitual bridegroom in English history; he had an almost confirmed habit of beheading his wives or otherwise ridding himself of them.Yet many traits made him a typical outstanding Englishman.He had the characteristic spirit of independence, the resentment of foreign control, satisfaction with his own land, the feeling that of course it is the best land.There are no people in the world so well satisfied with their own country as the people of England or the British Isles.They are critical of many things in their own government until they begin to compare it with other countries; they must make their changes on their own lines.The pamphletof Henry VIII., which won him the title of Defender of the Faith, praised the pope; and, though Sir Thomas More urged him to change his expressions lest he should live to regret them, he would not change them.But that was while the pope was serving his wishes and what he felt was England's good.
There arose presently the question, or the several questions, about his marriage.It sheds no glory on Henry VIII.that they arose as they did; but his treatment of them must not be mistaken.He was concerned to have his marriage to Anne Boleyn confirmed, and there are some who think he was honest in believing it ought to be confirmed, though we need not believe that.What happened was that for the first time Henry VIII.found that as sovereign of England he must take commands from a foreign power, a power exercising temporal sovereignty exactly as he did, but adding to it a claim to spiritual power, a claim to determine his conduct for him and to absolve his people from loyalty to him if he was not obedient.It arose over the question of his divorce, but it might have arisen over anything else.It was limitation on his sovereignty in England.And he let it be seen that all questions that pertain to England were to be settled in England, and not in another land.He would rather have a matter settled wrong in England than settled right elsewhere.That is how he claimed to be head of the English Church.The people back of him had always held to the belief that they were governed from within, though they were linked to religion from without.He executed their theory.That assertion of English sovereignty came during the eventful years of which we are speaking.
Here, then, are our great facts.First, thoughtful opinion wanted the Bible made available, and at a convention of bishops and university men the King was requested to secure the issuance of a proper translation.Secondly, the people wanted it, the more because it would gratify their English instinct of independent judgment in matters of religion.Thirdly, the King granted it without yielding his personal religious position, in assertion of his human sovereignty within his own realm.
