A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland
Item Number: 4
WRITTEN between 1824and 1827 by an English Protestant, A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland has been reprinted many times by Catholic publishers because it gives the true and usually untold story of the Protestant Revolt in England during the 16th century, revealing its disastrous consequences in the lives of the people.
William Cobbett, the author of this book, is unabashedly pro-Catholic in this writing, showing that England was far better off before the Protestant "Reformation" of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I than she was afterwards. For example, during Catholic times there was greater prosperity, no penury, no poor laws, almost no crime, no income tax, and a greater national military strength. Whereas, with the "Reformation" came the destruction of the monasteries, the driving of countless thousands of tenant farmers from the lands they had formerly rented (virtually in perpetuity and at cheap rents) from the Catholic monasteries, the creation of a vast number of homeless poor, the subsequent poor laws, income tax, a diminished military capacity, and despotism on the part of the monarchs-all this, followed by the Puritan Revolt, the dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell, the "Glorious Revolution" in 1688 (that brought William and Mary to power and overthrew the legitimate king because he was Catholic), an increase of taxation, the rise of the national debt, and finally the American Revolution.
The author shows how all these dire results flowed directly from England's casting off the ancient Catholic Faith, brought to the Island by St. Augustine of Canterbury in the 6th century and adhered to faithfully by the great majority of Englishmen for a thousand years. Cobbett shows how the revolutionaries were not only successful in eradicating the True Faith from their land, but he spells out the woeful consequences that befell the country as a result.
Picking up, as he does, the history of England with the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547), he carries through the reigns of the Protestant Edward VI (1547-1553), the Catholic Mary Tudor (1553-1558), the Protestant Elizabeth I (1558-1603), the Protestant James I (1603-1625), the Protestant Charles I (1625-1649), the Puritan Oliver Cromwell (1653-1658), the tacit Catholic Charles 11 (1660-1685), the Catholic James 11(1685-1688), and the Protestants William and Mary (1689-1702), all the way to George III (1760-1820).
In the process, the author not only relates many fascinating and important facts, he also gives an enlightening running commentary on the meaning and significance of the events of this period of history. For example, he describes and explains the cruel and tragic imprisonment and execution under Elizabeth I of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth's cousin-who was the rightful heir to the English throne, rather than Elizabeth. He tells of the famous Gunpowder Plot (1604-05) and what provoked it, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572) in France and what provoked that. And he finishes by giving a detailed financial comparison between the relative incomes of the people before and after the Reformation in England.
In all, Cobbett's History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland will be an eye-opening education for the person accustomed to the bland, factless, Churchless, accepted "history" found in so many books today. It is a tragic depiction of the loss of millions upon millions of souls to the Catholic Faith, but it is eminently worth reading for its setting the entire story straight-and all by a Protestant writer!
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