The Church that Henry VIII left Edward VI on his death in 1547
was very different to the Church he had inherited from Henry VII
in 1509. In 1509, Henry’s Church was subservient to the Pope. By
his death, the Pope had little, if any, authority over a Church
that had in 1534 seen Henry place himself at the head of it as
temporal head. The king appointed the spiritual head of the
Church – so his grip on the Church was very great. The most
telling issue from 1534 to 1547 – other than the dissolution of
the monasteries – was doctrine. On the one hand Cranmer wanted
moderate Lutheran ideas introduced into England while opposed to
this were the conservative Catholics, such as Stephen Gardiner,
who favoured just minimal changes to Catholic doctrine. Henry
swayed between the two. In 1536 the Act of the Ten Articles was
passed, which introduced a number of moderate Lutheran based
doctrinal changes. In 1539 the Act of the Six Articles was
passed, which all but removed these reforms. What this meant in
reality was that b