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[German Version] part of the royal style of the kings and queens of England and subsequently of Great Britain. The title was originally a papal honor. Henry VIII petitioned the popes Julius II and Leo X for a special title in 1512 and 1515–1516. In May 1521 Henry's minister, Cardinal Wolsey, reopened negotiations for a title, as Henry was preparing his Assertio Septem Sacramentorum, written against the sacramental theology of Martin Luther. A papal consistory sent Henry a list of possible titles in 1521. In October Henry submitted his Assertio, and Pope Leo approved Henry's choice o…

[German Version] (c. 1497, Bury St. Edmunds – Nov 12, 1555, Whitehall Palace, London), was an influential prelate at the royal court through three Tudor reigns. Gardiner studied at Cambridge and became Master of Trinity Hall in 1525. A secretary and diplomat, he was first employed in the service of T. Wolsey. After Wolsey's deposition Gardiner became high secretary to the king and to the bishop of Winchester (1531). In 1533 and 1534 he opposed statutes, which limited the authority of the church, and he lost the king's favor. Nevertheless he published Oratio de vera oboedientia to support …

[German Version] (c. 1503, Westerham, Kent – Jul 4, 1533, London), English Reformer, was educated at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge. In 1525, he entered Cardinal College in Oxford. In 1528, he left the country and worked on the English Bible of W. Tyndale. In 1529, he published “An Epistle to the Christian Reader” as part of a work with the title The Revelation of Antichrist, which also contained works by Luther and Melanchthon. In the same year, he also published a new edition of P. Hamilton's Loci Communes. Frith wrote his A Disputation of Purgatory (1531) in response to Thom…

[German Version] (b. c. 1504 – executed St. Andrews, Feb 29, 1528) was an early Scottish reformer, who studied in Paris, then Louvain, and, in 1523, in St. Andrews. In St. Andrews he already showed sympathy with the ideas of Luther. In 1527 he visited first Wittenberg, then Marburg. There he wrote his Loci Communes, in which he developed the principal points of Luther's theology of justification. They embody the contrast between law and gospel, an understanding of faith as fiducia or trust in Christ as savior, and the doctrine that good works flow from faith. J. Frith revised the Loci as treat…

[German Version] (Jun 23, 1491, Greenwich – Jan 28, 1547, Westminster). The second son of Henry VII (1485–1509), Henry VIII became king of England on Apr 4, 1509. Throughout his life he lost neither his predilection for ceremonies nor his abhorrence of heresy. The pope awarded him the title of Defensor Fidei in 1521 as a reward for his tractate against Luther. Until 1527, when Clement VII refused to annul his first marriage, Henry entertained friendly relations with the Holy See, which granted a lifetime appointment as legatus a latere to his minister T. Wolsey. From 1529 onward, th…

[German Version] (c. 1495, Somerset – Feb 9, 1555, Gloucester). Hooper graduated with a B.A. from Merton College, Oxford, in 1519. In the 1530s he worked at Oxford, and then as steward to Sir Thomas Arundel. Hooper married in Strasbourg and later lodged with H. Bullinger in Zürich. Early in 1549 he lectured on the Zürich theology in London, arousing a controversy which led to the imprisonment of Edmund Bonner. Named bishop of Gloucester in 1550, Hooper quarreled with the Privy Council over the ves…

[German Version] At the turn of the 6th to the 7th century, Kentigern (Mungo) founded a monastery on the Clyde, where Glasgow Cathedral now stands. From the 12th century Glasgow was a bishopric; in 1492 it became an archbishopric, and since 1451 it has been a university. In 1560 the Reformation was introduced. The Presbyterian theologian A. Melville reformed the university and worked definitively on the expansion of the Church of Scotland. In 1660 the city supported the restoration of Charles II. …

[German Version] of England (Oct 12, 1537, Hampton Court – Jul 6, 1553, Greenwich), Henry VIII's only legitimate son by Jane Seymour. Edward VI was educated by such Renaissance scholars as John Cheke (1514–1557), Richard Coxe (1500–1581) and Roger Ascham (1515–1568) who inclined towards Protestantism, and until 1549 was dominated by his uncle Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector. Somerset began to introduce the Reformation in England. He enhanced state control over the church, introduced Thomas Cranmer's Protestant Book of Homilies (1547), oversaw the first …