G. W. Bernard has always had a distinctive historical methodology. In a series of articles and short books over the past twenty years, he argued that historians of Tudor politics had foolishly read conflict, faction, and conspiracy into sources that contain references to no such things. The secret to Tudor history, then, is not to try to be too clever but rather to pay closer attention to what the documents actually say. And by studying what the documents actually say, Bernard has offered the field a series of bold revisions of conventional wisdom. For instance, in a 1986 book Bernard argued that the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk were not political enemies of Cardinal Wolsey in the 1520s but rather had good relations with him. His evidence was unimpeachable: they said so in all their letters. Later, in a 1991 article, Bernard argued that Anne Boleyn was not the victim of a conspiracy in 1536 but rather really was a multiple adulteress. His evidence again was striking: a French poem said she was guilty, as did much of the evidence presented against her at trial. In The King's Reformation, then, Bernard brings this methodology to the study of the English Reformation. Synthesizing two decades of research, and determined not to repeat the mistakes of earlier historians by being too clever, Bernard argues that there were no religious factions or interest groups pushing the king toward traditionalist or Reformed religious settlements. English religious policy did not change throughout the 1530s, with different ideas ascendant at different times. Nor did the political nation, the clergy, or the people significantly alter the course of the Reformation. Instead, Henry VIII had a consistent vision of the Church from the 1520s onward, every new doctrinal statement or policy initiative promulgated by the government was a consistent statement of that vision, and hence the English Reformation as a whole may justly be described as the “king's Reformation.”

Bernard's evidence for the king's personal shepherding of the Reformation is overwhelming. It turns out that every element of English policy produced in the whole of Henry VIII's reign was in fact issued in the king's name. The commissioners who implemented government policy were royal commissioners, for instance, while the Lords and Commons in Parliament could pass legislation only with the king's approval; all of their actions were thus in an important sense the king's actions. The bench of bishops, whom previous historians have wrongly seen as pursuing their own beliefs and agendas, in fact claimed only to be “servants of the crown” and repeatedly disavowed politics. Likewise, magistrates claimed no political voice independent of the king but rather ruled the nation on the king's behalf; their letters throughout the 1530s say so explicitly. Indeed, if the sources are to be believed—and why should we not believe them?—the entire governance of England was merely an extension of the royal will. Hence, if we respect what the sources actually say—rather than asserting other forms of political activity that sixteenth-century subjects never explicitly acknowledged—then we can finally see Henry VIII's remarkable control over his kingdom.

Some specific examples can demonstrate the force of Bernard's argument. It turns out, for instance, that Thomas Cranmer did not try to influence the king in a more Protestant direction, despite all that Diarmaid MacCulloch has written to the contrary. How do we know? Well, he said so. Cranmer repeatedly praised the king's policies throughout the 1530s, for instance, referring to the Church of England in 1536 as “reformed” and consistently praising the king's “favour to the gospel.” Even when Cranmer disagreed with the king on minor matters (for instance, on justification by faith alone) he explicitly submitted his opinions “to his grace's most exact judgment.” Cranmer, then, was no “ecclesiastical politician” and never “intended manipulation” of the king (506–12). Likewise, the fall of Thomas Cromwell in 1540 was entirely the king's doing and involved no efforts by others to dislodge him. Historians have inexplicably invented Cromwell's supposed enmity with his colleagues on the Privy Council: “Despite their alleged rivalry, the duke of Norfolk's relationship with Cromwell appears in the sources to have been remarkably warm,” while there is not “any clear evidence that Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, was an active enemy of Cromwell” (557–58).

Perhaps most striking is chapter 2 of The King's Reformation, titled “Opposition,” devoted to proving that there was none. Over 152 pages and using 888 footnotes, Bernard shows that before 1536 none of the ostensible enmity shown to the king's policies—whether from Catherine of Aragon, Thomas More, John Fisher, the Maid of Kent, nobility, parliament, or people—amounted to “political opposition.” Catherine of Aragon, for instance, made “merely personal statements” against the divorce rather than political ones. “Probably Catherine did not want the use of force” against her husband, and “in one letter Catherine explicitly denied any bellicosity: ‘I do not ask his Holiness to go to war, because that is a thing I would rather die than provoke.’” Catherine's actions were thus not “political opposition” (73–87). For another example, the Maid of Kent's prophecies against Henry VIII were not “political opposition” because she and her followers sincerely believed her to be a prophetess: “If Elizabeth Barton was widely and sincerely regarded as a holy maid, specially privileged by God, then the criticisms she would voice of Henry VIII not only carry weight but, relevantly here, need not be read in terms of political maneuvering” (87–101). Prophets, as we all know, are not political because they are religious. For yet another example, John Fisher was not a “principled opponent of the king” because he tried “to talk his way out of trouble by a mealy-mouthed self-justification, rather than trying to make a stand.” When he later reluctantly did make a stand, it still fell “well short of an organised campaign”: “What distinguishes him from the dissidents of Eastern Europe in the 1980s is that if he obeyed the call of his own conscience, he did not issue a general clarion call for the rights of anyone to follow his conscience.” Thus his actions were not “political opposition” either (101–25). All it takes to understand all of this is to pay closer attention to what the sources actually say.

If political history is for Bernard most properly a study of surfaces rather than depths, the same is even more true of religious history. Here the touchstone is Henry VIII's “middle way between Rome and Wittenburg, between Rome and Zurich” (475) in which the king so thoroughly and sincerely believed that no further explanation for royal policy was necessary. The king first expressed his desire for Erasmian but not Protestant reform in “one revealing letter of 1527/28 … which deserves to be taken at something approaching face value” (236). The king was still voicing his support for this same middle way at the end of his reign, hence we may believe that “Henry, in his ambitions for reform of the Church, was entirely sincere … and that he pursued them consistently throughout his reign. Henry knew his own mind and knew what he wanted: it would be a mistake to suppose that he was open to influence” (596). A similar argument that the religious sincerity of historical actors invalidates all further explanation for their behavior also structures Bernard's discussion of the Pilgrimage of Grace, against the claims of previous historians who have wrongly seen politics lurking in the rebels’ actions. As Bernard trenchantly notes, even rebels who demanded tax reform expressed their grievances through religious language; clearly, then, any emphasis on the rebels’ social grievances “misses the point. There was indeed a perennial undertow of social resentment, but such a constant cannot explain the outbreak of the particular risings of 1536 and 1537, nor can it account for the form they took.” Once again, historians have tried to be too clever, asserting complexity where there was none: “There is a pervasive tendency in recent historiography to assume that revolts must have had many causes and to dismiss any historian insisting that a revolt had a dominant cause (such as religion in this case) as naively monocausal in approach” (372).

In sum, then, The King's Reformation marks a massive break from all previous historiography. Its interpretation of the Reformation departs as radically from the views of Eamon Duffy as from the views of Diarmaid MacCulloch, and its interpretation of Tudor politics departs as radically from the views of Geoffrey Elton as from my own views. And since what all these “previous approaches lack is a clear understanding of the position of Henry VIII” (51), Bernard is generous in pointing out the errors of all earlier historians who imagined other actors in Tudor England besides Henry VIII to have been more than mere apolitical and nonideological servants to the king.

Most important, since Bernard does not believe that his sources use rhetoric, irony, flattery, or misdirection—and since he does not believe that a prior history of disagreement between two individuals can be used as evidence of later conflict—he will presumably take this review to mean exactly what it actually says.