Book Review: Eamon Duffy's "A People's Tragedy: Studies in Reformation"

Note the subtitle: not studies in the English Reformation, but just "Reformation"--Duffy explores the reformation of how historians (and even novelists) have written about the English Reformation in these studies, exploring the revisions to commonly accepted tenets of the Whig version of English history. The Whig version proposes that Henry VIII's break from the Catholic Church and the establishment of Protestantism in England was necessary for progress and liberation. Therefore, any losses, material, spiritual, or personal, may have been regrettably cruel and destructive, but were absolutely necessary for liberty to flourish (even as the State imposed its religion on it subjects, restricting their liberty). 

As I expected, these studies are adapted from lectures and previously published works, for which Duffy provides details in the extensive notes for each essay.

The book is also very well illustrated, with captions referring to points Duffy makes in the essays. The contents of the book:

Introduction

Part One: Studies in Reformation

1. Cathedral Pilgrimages: The Late Middle Ages
2. The Dissolution of Ely Priory
3. 1569: A People's Tragedy?
4. Douai, Rheims and the Counter-Reformation
4. The King James Bible
6. Richard Baxter, Reminiscent

Part Two: Writing the Reformation

7. Luther through Catholic Eyes
8. James Anthony Froude and the Reign of Queen Mary
9. A.G. Dickens and the Medieval Church
10. Walsingham: Reformation and Reconstruction
11. Writing the Reformation: Fiction and Faction

Starting from last chapter, Duffy demonstrates how both Protestants and Catholics used historical fiction to further their interpretations of the English Reformation, highlighting several Catholic revisionist works. He includes several of the novels of Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson (By What Authority; The King's Achievement; Come Rack, Come Rope). He highlights Ford Madox Ford's The Fifth Queen which presents Catherine Howard as a Catholic trying to bring Henry VIII back to the Church. Duffy particularly praises and analyses the achievement of the Anglo-Catholic H.F.M. Prescott in The Man on a Donkey--too bad he did not mention the Anglo-Catholic Catholic convert Sheila Kaye-Smith's Superstition Corner (it is a similarly complex historical novel on a smaller scale)--then he moves on to Hilary Mantel's historical fiction in her Cromwell trilogy. 

He deprecates the influence her novels have had on the historically valid reputation of Saint Thomas More--at one point making an awkward joke about historical errors in a draft of Pope John Paul II's 2000 Apostolic Letter proclaiming Saint Thomas More the patron of statesmen and politicians as proof the Pope couldn't have written it, because he's supposed to be infallible (ha, ha)--but even more deprecates the fact that some historians have accepted Mantel's unproven depiction of More as a torturer while ignoring the documented fact that Cromwell did torture Catholics and other dissenters. 

Trying to set this record straight, Duffy cites the historical record that Cromwell, under Henry VIII's orders, sent more heretics (25 Anabaptists) to be burnt alive at the stake than More (also under Henry VIII's orders), and that he "managed the process" of the Carthusians left to die of dehydration in Newgate prison without trial or sentence. Mantel's secular saint is not as tolerant as she wants him to be, so she ignores these cruelties, and passes off Cromwell's thoughts about the torture he supervises of Pilgrimage of Grace survivors as failures of persuasion--and "chains and heated irons" are his means to "pinch a man with pains". In other words, Cromwell tortures but really hates to do it.

But the dramatic presentation of Mantel's view of the contest between Cromwell and More in the novels, the miniseries, and the stage play probably mean that Duffy's efforts will have just as much impact as those of Richard Rex and others. Those who will read historical articles and appraise the record honestly will be persuaded--but how many of us are there? and how many more captivated by Mantel's manipulative words and images?

Duffy performs similarly revisionist analyses of A.G. Dickens's historical interpretation of the Medieval Catholic Church and of James Anthony Froude's view of the reign of Queen Mary in chapters 8 and 9. What he discloses is that Dickens and Froude's negative views of Catholicism tainted their historical evaluations of the past: when Dickens says that anything in Medieval Catholic culture is "charming" he means that it's deceitful and false; while Froude regrets injustices during the reign of Henry VIII, he thinks they were necessary for progress and freedom, but he condemns injustices during the reign of Mary I as horrific examples of Catholic repression and cruelty.

He surveys Catholic historic and theological views of Martin Luther in chapter 7, culminating with Richard Rex's The Making of Martin Luther. I think it would have been interesting if he had also addressed Brad S. Gregory's Rebel in the Ranks.

To now jump back to the beginning: In chapters 1, 2, and 3 in the first part of the book Duffy explores aspects of the destruction of the religious culture of pre-Reformation England, its monasteries, shrines, traditions, worship, and prayer. He notes that previous historians downplayed these losses and indeed ignored their effect on "the English imagination": the destruction of shrines to historic and holy great men and women, the loss of devotion, the end of community. In the chapter on the 1569 Northern Rebellion he recounts how former Catholic clergy at Durham Cathedral were reconciled to the Church while the Rebellion's leaders held the city, but then reverted to the safety of the Elizabethan Church as the Queen enacted her justice. The only priest-martyr of the Northern Rebellion was Blessed Thomas Plumtree, a chaplain to the Earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland. 

The chapter on Douai and Rheims highlights William Allen's efforts to prepare priests for the mission to England with a specific curriculum focused on knowledge of the Holy Bible and of apologetic arguments--familiar material from Chapter 5 "Founding Father, William, Cardinal Allen" of  Reformation Divided: Catholics, Protestants, and the Conversion of England and his contribution to Memory, Martyrs, and Mission. Duffy has made excellent use of that material, adapted to different purposes and audiences.

The chapter on the King James Bible is as fascinating whirlwind of praise and reappraisal of its influence and achievement. He notes that the prose and style of that English translation is often appreciated most by those who ignore its content and teaching! 

And finally, the chapter on Richard Baxter, of whom I know little. Duffy surveys the Reliquiae Baxterianae, a memoir posthumously collected from his works, demonstrating that the Puritan pastor of Kidderminster provides another great first-person view of the seventeenth century, not as popular as Pepys or Aubrey, but significant for its vivid detail and story-telling skill.

As I noted before, Duffy's insights into the history and the historiography of the English Reformation era are always enlightening and informative. Highly recommended--Eighth Day Books will be getting a copy for the shelf in soon, I think.