History Lesson of the Week

While browsing the web (read: not studying Euclid and Aristotle), I came across this post by Fr. Dwight Longenecker. Fr. Longenecker is a most fascinating person, a former Anglican clergymen who converted to Catholicism in 1995 and was ordained a priest in 2006 (his bio is here).

In the article, Fr. Longenecker tackles those age-old Catholic bogies, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, with an impressive even-handedness that is all-together too rare nowadays.

A brief excerpt:

The Whig version of history--that Henry VIII was a rumbustious Englishman who took England in hand, cleaned up the corrupt English Church and enjoyed the fair wenches in his court is certainly a simplistic and stupid reading of the Tudor period of English history. Similarly, the myth of 'Good Queen Bess' the Virgin Queen, stepping onto cloaks thrown over puddles and flirting with princes while being 'married to England' makes for good patriotic English propaganda, but it too is a sort of Black Adder version of English history.

However, it is also a travesty to take an extremely opposite view: that Henry VIII and Elizabeth were fairy tale wicked monarchs who hated the Catholic Church and did everything they could to bring Protestantism to the land--that Henry was simply a lusty creep who wanted to abandon good Queen Catherine for his pretty paramour, and would do anything to bed Boleyn. Likewise seeing Elizabeth as the wicked witch of the West who likes torturing Jesuits is silly.

In fact, the Tudor revolution in England had fascinating political, economic and religious ramifications...

Go thou and check it out!