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He shall set up a standard to the nations (Isa. 11:12).
...when Christian institutions and morality decline, the main foundation of human society goes together with them. Force alone will remain to preserve public tranquillity and order (Sapientiae Christianae 3)
Christians are, moreover, born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph (Sapientiae Christianae 14).
"I am worried by the Blessed Virgin's messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul. … I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject Her ornaments and make Her feel remorse for Her historical past.
"A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, 'Where have they taken Him?'"
- Roche, Pie XII Devant L'Historie, p. 52-53
LET ALL MORTAL FLESH KEEP SILENCE (audio)
Main Site
THE
PRAYER BOOK
REBELLION
(1549)
For a complete account, see: SOSKERNOW, Friends of Cornwall
Henry VIII, King of England, died in 1547, and was succeded by his son Edward VI. The young kings uncle Edward Seymour became Protector. He was quite incapable of appreciating the complexities that faced him and delicacy with which he would have to tread in pursuit of his aims. His inheritance was a formidable one. The treasury was empty; prices were soaring owing to Henry's debasement of the currency; trade was in confusion, and the acquisition of monastic lands by the gentry had intensified the enclosure movement and consequent unemployment and distress of the peasants. He tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the Scots to join a voluntary union with England , but , was rejected. On 10 Sep the Protector destroyed the chances of a reconciliation by invading Scotland and defeating the Scots at the Battle of Pinkie. In domestic affairs, the protector proceeded with moderation in consolidating the Protestant Reformation in England. He repealed Henry VIII's heresy laws, which had made it treason to attack the kings leadership of the Church.
In Cornwall discontent mounted mainley due to the newfagled religion that the distant London goverment was foisting on them. For the Cornish, particularly the purer Cornish-speaking Celts of the west, were now fanatically attached to the Roman Church as they had bitterly opposed to it a few centuries before. Superstitious and therefore conservative, they feared change and the unknown.
The Church had not yet been relieved of all its superfluous wealth; the Monasteries had gone, but chantries, religious gilds and collegaite churches remained. Much of the biggest of the Cornish collegsite foundations was Glasney. It was not difficult to find witnesses who were ready to swear that the buildings had been neglected, and that the provost and his priests were more given to drinking and the chase than to religion. In spite of the attempt of the local gentry to reatain the place as a fortress, the church was stripped of its lead, bells and plate, the buildings were sold, and soon there was little trace of were the three centuries old college had stood. Crantock and the other collegiate houses were dissolved and their lands seized by the crown, though most of their churches were spared, and St Buryan remained a deanery for another three centuries.
In 1548, orders were issued that festivals were no longer to be celebrated with Popish paraphernalia as candles, ashes and palms, there was to be no making of holy bread and holy water, and all images were to be removed.
William Body, who had leased the archdeaconry of Cornwall from an illegitimate son of Wolsey; was happy destroying the images in Helston church in Apr that year. A mob of possibly up to three thousand men assembled to join a group of parishioners from St Keverne led by Martin Geoffrey, their priest and William John Kilter a yeomen of Constantine. Body took refuge in a house, but was dragged into the street and stabbed to death. The western justices could do nothing, but help soon came from the eastern gentry and the incipient revolt was crushed.
Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity in Jan 1549, enforcing the use of the Book of Common Prayer, a simplified form of service in English instead of the old Latin Mass to which the people had been accustomed for centuries. The Prayer Book was first used on Whitsunday. the people of Stanford Courtney in Devon made their priest put on his vestments and say Mass. The movement spread, and within days the Cornish parishoners were also demanding their Masses.
Bodmin, was a natural centre for resistance, and there the insurgents gathered under the leadership of the mayor, Henry Bray, and two staunch Catholic landowners, Sir Humprey Arundell of Helland and John Winslade of Tregarrick.
Many of the gentry with their families sought protection in the old castles. Some shut themselves in St Michael's Mount where the rebels besieged them, and a bewildering smoke-screen made of burning trusses of hay, combined with a shortage of food and the women's distress, forced them to surrender, fortunately with out casualties. Sir Richard Grenville found refuge in ruinous Trematon. Deserted by many of his followers, the unwieldy old man was enticed outside to parley. He was seized, the castle surprised, the ladies stripped of their finery, and the men including Sir Richard , bundled into Launceston gaol. The the insurgents crossed the Tamar into Devonshire.
Meanwhile Somerset has sent Sir Peter Carew and his brother, Sir Gawen, to treat with the Devonshire rebels assembled at Crediton until Lord Russell could muster a sufficient force to cope with the rising. But the Carews were representatives of the very thing against which the people had risen, gentry who had profited from the spolaition of the Catholic Church with everything to gain by forcing through the Protestant Reformation, and their interference merely inflamed the rebels further. They chased the gentry out of the neighbourhood, imprisoning those whom they caught, and entrenched themselves behind the little river Clyst, four miles east of Exeter.
By the end of Jun the Corishmen arrived, and the combined forces closed in on Exeter in the hope that the City would join them. But although they had many sympathisers within the walls, the mayor and corporation refused to open the gates, and a five weeks siege began. It was now the rebels finally formated the demands they sent to the government. The old Latin service was to be restored with all the ritual to which they were accustomed. The Cornishmen made the statement "and so we Cornishmen, whereof certain of us understand no English, utterly refuse this new English". (The main language of Cornwall was Cornish and apart for that they were used to the Latin Mass). Half the monastic lands that had fallen the lot of the gentry were to be restored.
Probably very few gentry cared a straw whether the church service was in English or Latin and communion in one kind or two, butthey were stirred to the bottom of their purses by the suggestion that they should restore the plundered property of the church, and against those closed protestant ranks the Catholic peasantry stood no chance.
At the beginning of the month of Jul Russell and his son Francis, had arrived at Honiton, only fifteen miles east of Exeter, though he dare not attack until the promised reinforcements of Italian and German troops arrived.The final humiliation of any government, to use foreign mercenaries against its own countrymen.
Exeter could not hold outmuch longer. The seige had lasted nearly a month, and the citizens, reduced to making bread out of bran they normally fed the pigs, were on the verge of surrender. However, the rebels could not afford to wait untill Russell was reinforced, and advanced to Fenny Bridges, within two miles of Honiton, to attack him. Russell was to clever for them, surprising their main body in the marshy meadows, where they were saved only by the arrival of another band of Cornishmen. John Hooker the Exeter historian wrote "The fight for the time was very sharp and cruel"..."For the Cornishmen were very lusty and fresh and fully bent to fight out the matter" They were thrown back, however , though Russell dared not pursue them far with hostlie country behind him. A few days later the mercenaries arrived under Lord Grey and Russell was able to take the offensive.
Russell left Honiton on 3 Aug, stricking along the ridge that runs south-west to Woodbury. The next day, Russell's troups forced a passage of the river at Clyst St Mary, where after an alarm, he gave the order to kill all the prisoners they had taken.
The 5th, the final engagment came, the rebels were outmanoevred and surrounded, and great was the slaughter and cruel was the fight, and such was the valour and stoutness of these men that the Lord Grey reported himself that he never in all the wars that he had been did he know the like. The Devonshire men went north up the valley of the Exe, where they were overtaken and cut to pieces by Sir Gawen Carew, who left the corpses of their leaders, hanging on gibbets from Dunster to Bath.
For ten days Russell remained in Exeter rejoicing at his victory, where encouraged by the liberated gentry, he dealt out justice to the rebel leaders in his hands. One of them was the vicar of St Thomas's, just outside the walls on the west bank of the Exe. He was hung on gallows from the top of his church tower, having a holy-water buchet, asprinkle, a sacring bell, a pair of beads hanged about him.
The came the news that the Cornishmen under Arundell has re-formed and taken position at Sampford Courtenay, the little village some fifteen miles north west of Exeter. Russell advanced with his troups, now reinforced with a strong contingent of Welshmen. After a desperate fight stormed the village on the evening of 17 Aug. The rebels were finally broken, though most of them escaped in the dusk, including Arundell, who fled to Launceston. There he was to be captured and taken to London with Winslade, who was caught at Bodmin.
Winter, Arundell and Winslade with two of their Devonshire comrades were hanged and dismembered at Tyburn.
Sir Gawen Carew got all Arundells estates, and Sir Peter all Winslade's, save Tregarrick and other Cornish manors that he had made over to his wife. She married again, her husband, John Trevanion, made sure that her son William never came into his father's estates. He sold them to the Bullers, Mohuns and Trelawnys, and William Winslade an impoverished Catholic exile, led a walking life with his harp to gentleman's houses. Russell got the Earldom of Bedford and another vast grant of lands, including Boconnoc.
Russell left the agreeable task of finally settling the scores with the Cornish to Sir Anthony Kingston. A number of priests were hunged, including Richard Bennet, vicar of St Veep.
Even Richard Carew, no sympathiser with the rakehells, had to admit that Anthony Kingston "left his name more memorable than commendable amongst the townsmen (of Bodmin), for causing their mayor to erect a gallows before his own door, upon which (after feasting Sir Anthony) himself was hanged. In like sort (say they) he trussed up a miller's man thereby, for that he presented himself in the others stead, saying he could never do his master better service". Nor had the townsman of the far west any better reason to remember Sir Anthony with affection when John Payne, portreeve of St Ives, was strung up by his orders, an event commemorated on a plaque on the wall of the Catholic church four centuries later.
Source: http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Documents/prayer_book_rebellion.htm
The Prayer Book Rebellion, Western Rising or Western Rebellion was a popular rising. In 1549, the Book of Common Prayer, reflecting the theology of the English Reformation but keeping the appearance of the old rites in English was introduced. The change was widely unpopular amongst religious conservatives — particularly in areas of traditionally Roman Catholic religious loyalty, for example, in Cornwall and Devon.
Along with poor economic conditions, the attack on the Church lead to an explosion of anger. In Cornwall, an army gathered under the leadership of the mayor. On instructions from the Lord Protector the Duke of Somerset, an army composed mainly of German and Italian mercenaries was sent to impose a military solution. In June 2007 the Bishop of Truro, Bill Ind, said that the massacre of thousands during the suppression of the Prayerbook rebellion more than 450 years ago was an "enormous mistake" which the Church should be ashamed of.
History
In the 1540s the government of Edward VI introduced a range of legislative measures as an extension of the Reformation in England and Wales, the primary aim being to remove certain practices and change the theology of the Church of England which were perceived as being too Roman Catholic.[citation needed] In 1549 the Book of Common Prayer, reflecting the theology of the English Reformation, but keeping the appearance of the old rites in English, replaced the four old liturgical books in Latin. The change was widely unpopular amongst religious conservatives — particularly in areas of traditionally Roman Catholic religious loyalty, for example, in Devon and Cornwall.
Some commentators believe that the roots of the rebellion can be traced back to the Cornish Rebellion of 1497 and the subsequent destruction of monasteries from 1536 through to 1545 under Henry VIII which brought an end to the formal scholarship that had sustained the Cornish and Devonian cultural identities.[citation needed] The dissolution of Glasney College and Crantock College played a significant part in fermenting opposition to future cultural reforms. Apart from being missed as centres of indigenous culture, these institutions would have been seen by many as being a bridge to the Celtic past and a link to the ancient Celtic Christianity of their forefathers.
When traditional religious processions and pilgrimages were banned, commissioners were sent out to remove all symbols of Roman Catholicism. Within Cornwall, this task was given to William Body, whose perceived desecration of religious shrines led to his murder on April 5, 1548 by William Kylter and Pascoe Trevian at Helston.
Immediate retribution followed with the execution of twenty eight Cornishmen at Launceston Castle. One execution of a perceived "traitor of Cornwall" occurred on Plymouth Hoe — town accounts give details of the cost of timber for both gallows and poles. Martin Geoffrey, the priest of St Keverne, near Helston, was taken to London. After execution his head was impaled on a staff erected upon London Bridge.
Cornish people at this time were not, in the majority, English speaking, and reacted to the introduction of English to the service. Certainly in Cornwall this provided a major reason for the rebellion. The articles of the rebels state at their end: "and we the cornyshe men (whereof certen of vs vnderstande no Englysh) vtterly refuse thys new English".[citation needed] However, the Duke of Somerset's reply asked why the Cornishmen should be offended by holding the service in English rather than Cornish, when they had before held it in Latin and not understood that?
The new prayer book was not uniformly adopted, and in 1549 the Act of Uniformity made it illegal, from Whitsunday 1549, to use the old Latin prayer books. A number of magistrates were given the task of enforcing the change.[citation needed] Following the enforced change on Whitsunday 1549, on Whitmonday the parishioners of Sampford Courtenay in Devon convinced the priest to revert to the old ways, likening the English prayer book to "but a Christmas game". Justices arrived at the next service to enforce the change. An altercation at the service led to a proponent of the change (William Hellyons) being killed (by being run through with a pitchfork) on the steps of the church house.
Following this confrontation a group of parishioners from Sampford Courtenay decided to march to Exeter to protest at the introduction of the new prayer book. As the group of rebels moved through Devon they gained large numbers of Catholic supporters and became a significant force. Marching east to Crediton, the Devon rebels lay siege to Exeter, demanding the withdrawal of all English manuscripts. Although a number of the inhabitants in Exeter sent a message of support to the rebels, the city refused to open its gates. The gates were to stay closed because of the siege for over a month.
Both in Cornwall and Devon, the issue of the Book of Common Prayer seems to have been the straw that broke the camel's back. To decades of oppression were lately added two years of rampant inflation, in which prices had doubled.[citation needed] Along with the rapid enclosure of common lands, the attack on the Church, which was felt to be central to the rural community, lead to an explosion of anger. In Cornwall, an army gathered at Bodmin under the leadership of the mayor, Henry Bray, and two staunch Catholic landowners, Sir Humphrey Arundell of Helland and John Winslade of Tregarrick.
Many of the gentry sought protection in the old castles. Some shut themselves in St Michael's Mount where they were besieged by the rebels, who started a bewildering smoke-screen by burning trusses of hay. This, combined with a shortage of food and the distress of their women, forced them to surrender. Sir Richard Grenville found refuge in ruinous Trematon. Deserted by many of his followers, the ponderous old man was enticed outside to parley. He was seized and the castle ransacked. Sir Richard and his companions were imprisoned in Launceston gaol. The Cornish army then proceeded to march east across the Tamar border into Devon to join with the Devon rebels near Crediton.
The slogan "Kill all the gentleman and we will have the Six Articles up again and ceremonies as they were in King Henry VIII's time" highlights the religious aims of the rebellion. However, it also implies a social cause (a view supported by historians such as Guy and Fletcher). That later demands included limiting the size of households belonging to the gentry — theoretically beneficial in a time of population growth and unemployment — possibly suggests an attack on the prestige of the gentry. Certainly such contemporaries as Thomas Cranmer took this view, condemning the rebels for deliberately inciting a class conflict by their demands: "to diminish their strength and to take away their friends, that you might command gentlemen at your pleasures".
In London, King Edward VI (Henry VIII's son) and his Privy Council became alarmed by this news from the West Country. On instructions from the Lord Protector the Duke of Somerset, one of the Privy Councillors, Sir Gawain Carew, was ordered to pacify the rebels. At the same time Lord John Russell was ordered to take an army, composed mainly of German and Italian mercenaries, and impose a military solution.
The rebels were of many different backgrounds, some farmers, some tin miners, and some fishermen. Many would have been proficiant in Cornish wrestling and hurling, and the Cornish were considered experts in the field of archery.[citation needed] The Cornish also appear to have had a significantly larger militia than other areas of a similar size.
Confronations then took place at Fenny Bridges (where the result of the conflict was inconclusive, and around 300 on each side were reported to have died), and subsequently at Clyst St Mary (where over a 1,000 rebels were reported to have been killed).
On 5 August, the final engagement came; the rebels were outmanoeuvered and surrounded. Lord Grey reported himself that he never in all the wars that he had been did he know the like. A group of Devon men went north up the valley of the Exe, where they were overtaken by Sir Gawen Carew, who left the corpses of their leaders hanging on gibbets from Dunster to Bath.
The Cornishmen under Arundell along with a number of the surviving Devon rebels re-formed and took position back at Sampford Courtenay, the village some fifteen miles north west of Exeter where the rebellion had started. Russell advanced with his troops, now reinforced with a strong contingent of Welshmen. After a desperate fight stormed the village on the evening of 17 August, the rebels were broken; many escaped including Arundell, who fled to Launceston. There he was to be captured and taken to London with Winslade, who was caught at Bodmin.
1,300 died at Sampford Courtenay, 300 at Fenny Bridges, over 1000 were either shot or burned to death in Clyst St. Mary, 900 bound and gagged prisoners had their throats slit (in 10 minutes) on Clyst Heath, 2000 died the next day at the battle of Clyst Heath. In total over 5,500 people lost their lives in the rebellion. Further orders were issued on behalf of the king by the Lord Protector, the Duke of Somerset, and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer for the continuance of the onslaught. Under Sir Anthony Kingston, English and mercenary forces then moved throughout Devon and into Cornwall and executed or killed many people before the bloodshed finally ceased. Proposals to translate the Prayer Book into Cornish were also suppressed.
The loss of life in the prayer book rebellion and subsequent reprisals as well as the introduction of the English prayer book is seen as a turning point in the Cornish language, for which — unlike Welsh — a complete bible translation was not produced. Research has also suggested that prior to the rebellion the Cornish language had strengthened and more concessions had been made to Cornwall as a "nation", and that anti-English sentiment had been growing stronger, providing additional impetus for the rebellion.
In June 2007 the Bishop of Truro, Bill Ind, said that the massacre of thousands during the vicious suppression of the Cornish Prayerbook rebellion more than 450 years ago was an "enormous mistake" which the Church should be ashamed of. Speaking at a ceremony at Pelynt, acknowledging the "brutality and stupidity" of the atrocities on behalf of the Church of England said:
"I am often asked about my attitude to the Prayerbook Rebellion and in my opinion, there is no doubt that the English Government behaved brutally and stupidly and killed many Cornish people. I don't think apologising for something that happened over 500 years ago helps, but I am sorry about what happened and I think it was an enormous mistake"
Three years ago the Celtic League urged the Church to accept its culpability for a period in history which saw one in ten of the indigenous Cornish population massacred.
At the Celtic League AGM in October 2004 at Perranporth, Cornwall delegates from the six Celtic countries unanimously backed a motion on the Church which included a call for the CoE to acknowledge "its part in provoking and suppressing the 1549 Prayer Book Uprising" and "for all it has done since 1549 and continues to do to suppress Cornwall's national identity, political freedom, language and culture".[citation needed]
The Bishop also said: "Everything about Cornwall marks it as a place to be treasured and loved," he said. "It has never been an English shire, it has its own language and it reminds us, by its history, of links to Ireland, Wales, Brittany and a Celtic past."
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