---
title: Tudor England
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/tudor-england/
description: The Tudor crown (1485 to 1603) ran an organised campaign of statute, injunction, sermon, print, portrait and pageant to defend a disputed dynasty and…
section: FRAME
---

![Illustration: a pre-1914 imperial intelligence-dossier collage of colonial telegraph logs, sepia field photography and empire maps.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-pre1914.jpg)

[Regimes](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/)

# Tudor England

At a glance

The Tudor monarchy of England from Henry VII's victory at Bosworth on 22 August 1485 to the death of Elizabeth I on 24 March 1603, covering the break with Rome, the Edwardian and Marian reversals and the Elizabethan settlement, each enforced by statute and by an organised flow of printed and spoken official messages.

- **Period:** 1485 to 1603
- **Country:** England
- **Leader:** [Henry VIII](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/tudor-england/#henry-viii)
- **People listed:** 10
- **Techniques:** [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/) [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/) [Scapegoating](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/scapegoating/)

[View all 5 propaganda objects from this regime](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=tudor-england&leader=henry-vii,henry-viii,edward-vi,mary-i,elizabeth-i)

On this page

- [The leader and the people under the leader](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/tudor-england/#the-leader-and-the-people-under-the-leader)
- [Background and rise to power](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/tudor-england/#background-and-rise-to-power)
- [How power was organized](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/tudor-england/#how-power-was-organized)
- [The propaganda apparatus](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/tudor-england/#the-propaganda-apparatus)
- [Timeline](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/tudor-england/#timeline)
- [How it ended](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/tudor-england/#how-it-ended)
- [Same-standard note](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/tudor-england/#same-standard-note)
- [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/tudor-england/#sources)
- [In the archive](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/tudor-england/#in-the-archive)

**In one line:** The Tudor crown (1485 to 1603) ran an organised campaign of statute, injunction, sermon, print, portrait and pageant to defend a disputed dynasty and, from 1534, a changing state religion, which Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I each enforced with legal penalties that included execution.

## The leader and the people under the leader

- ![Engraved portrait of Henry VIII in a plumed hat and fur-trimmed gown, with the legend HENRICVS DEI GRA REX ANGLIE](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/tudor-england/henry-viii.jpg) — [Photo](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/662833): Cornelis Massys, Public domain (The Met Open Access, CC0) — Henry VIII — King of England · 1509 to 1547 — Henry VIII: Read more — Took the title Supreme Head of the Church of England by statute in 1534, issued royal injunctions through his vicegerent, and commissioned the Whitehall mural and the Great Bible title page that carried his image. — In their words — > “this realm of England is an empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and king” > > Act in Restraint of Appeals, 24 Henry VIII c. 12 (1533), preamble, in Gee and Hardy, eds., Documents Illustrative of English Church History (Macmillan, 1896; 1910 reprint), No. L, p. 187 (spelling modernised by the editors) [source](https://archive.org/details/documentsillustr00hard) — > “Albeit the king's majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be the supreme head of the Church of England, and so is recognized by the clergy of this realm in their Convocations” > > Act of Supremacy, 26 Henry VIII c. 1 (1534), in Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History, No. LV, p. 243 (spelling modernised by the editors) [source](https://archive.org/details/documentsillustr00hard)

### Crown

- ![Silver groat of Henry VII with a crowned, full-faced bust](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/tudor-england/henry-vii.jpg) — [Photo](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/210869): Royal mint under Henry VII, Public domain (The Met Open Access, CC0) — Henry VII — King of England · 1485 to 1509 — Henry VII: Read more — Won the crown at Bosworth on 22 August 1485, married Elizabeth of York in January 1486 and brought the humanist historian Polydore Vergil into the work of writing the new dynasty's history.
- ![Profile portrait of the boy Edward VI in a plumed cap and ermine-trimmed gown, with the inscription AETATIS SVAE VI](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/tudor-england/edward-vi.jpg) — [Photo](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436670): Hans Holbein the Younger (attributed by the Met), Public domain (The Met Open Access, CC0) — Edward VI — King of England · 1547 to 1553 — Edward VI: Read more — Succeeded at nine; the first and second Acts of Uniformity (1549, 1552) and the two Books of Common Prayer were issued in his name under the regency councils.
- ![Cast portrait medal of Mary I in profile, with the legend MARIA I REG ANGL FRANC ET HIB FIDEI DEFENSATRIX](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/tudor-england/mary-i.jpg) — [Photo](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/197774): Jacopo Nizolla da Trezzo (attributed by the Met), Public domain (The Met Open Access, CC0) — Mary I — Queen of England · 1553 to 1558 — Mary I: Read more — Restored papal authority in 1554 and 1555, revived the heresy laws, and presided over the burning of roughly 280 to 290 people for their religion between February 1555 and November 1558. — In their words — > “her majesty being presently by the only goodness of God settled in her just possession of the imperial crown of this realm, and other dominions thereunto belonging, cannot now hide that religion, which God and the world know she has ever professed from her infancy hitherto” > > Queen Mary's First Proclamation about Religion, 18 August 1553, in Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History, No. LXXII, p. 373 (spelling modernised by the editors; from Bonner's Register) [source](https://archive.org/details/documentsillustr00hard) — > “her highness mindeth not to compel any her said subjects thereunto, unto such time as further order, by common assent, may be taken therein” > > Queen Mary's First Proclamation about Religion, 18 August 1553, in Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History, No. LXXII, p. 374 [source](https://archive.org/details/documentsillustr00hard) — > “do likewise travail for the condemning and repressing of corrupt and naughty opinions, unlawful books, ballads, and other pernicious and hurtful devices, engendering hatred among the people, and discord among the same” > > The Injunctions of Queen Mary (4 March 1554), item 6, in Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History, No. LXXIV, p. 381 (spelling modernised by the editors) [source](https://archive.org/details/documentsillustr00hard)
- ![Engraved full-length portrait of Elizabeth I holding a sceptre and orb, with a Latin verse beneath](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/tudor-england/elizabeth-i.jpg) — [Photo](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/364401): Crispijn de Passe the Elder, Public domain (The Met Open Access, CC0) — Elizabeth I — Queen of England · 1558 to 1603 — Elizabeth I: Read more — Restored the royal supremacy as Supreme Governor in 1559, enforced the Prayer Book by statute and injunction, and became the subject of the Armada and Ditchley portraits and the Accession Day celebrations. — In their words — > “that they do forbear to preach, or teach, or to give audience to any manner of doctrine or preaching other than to the Gospels and Epistles [...] without exposition or addition of any manner, sense, or meaning to be applied and added” > > Queen Elizabeth's Proclamation to forbid Preaching, 27 December 1558, in Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History, No. LXXVII, p. 416 (spelling modernised by the editors; the omitted words name the Gospel and Epistle of the day and the Ten Commandments) [source](https://archive.org/details/documentsillustr00hard) — > “no manner of person shall print any manner of book or paper, of what sort, nature, or in what language soever it be, except the same be first licensed by her majesty by express words in writing, or by six of her privy council” > > The Injunctions of Elizabeth (1559), injunction LI, in Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History, No. LXXVIII, p. 436 (spelling modernised by the editors) [source](https://archive.org/details/documentsillustr00hard) — > “I know I have the body but of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too” > > Speech to the troops at Tilbury, 9 August 1588 (Old Style), in the version of Leonel Sharp's letter to the Duke of Buckingham, in Elizabeth I: Collected Works, ed. Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Beth Rose (University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 325-326 (the page range is that commonly cited and was not checked against the book)

### Ministers and secretaries

- ![Thomas Cromwell in a dark gown and cap, holding a paper, seated at a table](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/tudor-england/thomas-cromwell.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hans_Holbein_d._J._-_Portrait_of_Thomas_Cromwell_-_WGA11548.jpg): Hans Holbein the Younger, Public domain (PD-Art; painting of 1532 to 1533, Frick Collection, New York) — Thomas Cromwell — Principal Secretary and Vicegerent in spirituals · 1534 to 1540 — Thomas Cromwell: Read more — Principal Secretary from April 1534 and the king's vicegerent for ecclesiastical jurisdiction, in whose name the injunctions of 1536 and 1538 were issued; executed on 28 July 1540. — In their words — > “that the Bishop of Rome's usurped power and jurisdiction, having no establishment nor ground by the law of God, was of most just causes taken away and abolished; and therefore they owe unto him no manner of obedience or subjection” > > The First Royal Injunctions of Henry VIII (1536), issued by Thomas Crumwell as vicegerent, item 1, in Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History, No. LXII, pp. 270-271 (spelling modernised by the editors) [source](https://archive.org/details/documentsillustr00hard) — > “that you shall provide on this side the feast of Easter next coming, one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume, in English, and the same set up in some convenient place within the said church that you have cure of, whereas your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same, and read it” > > The Second Royal Injunctions of Henry VIII (1538), issued in Cromwell's name, item 2, in Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History, No. LXIII, p. 275 (spelling modernised by the editors) [source](https://archive.org/details/documentsillustr00hard)
- Commons holds an NPG 362 portrait file ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Unknown_artist_-_William_Cecil,_1st_Baron_Burghley_-_NPG_362_-_National_Portrait_Gallery.jpg)) tagged public domain, but the Commons download was rate-limited during the build and the file was not hosted. — William Cecil, Lord Burghley — Secretary of State, then Lord Treasurer · 1558 to 1598 — William Cecil, Lord Burghley: Read more — Elizabeth's chief minister: Secretary from her accession and Lord Treasurer from 1572 until his death in 1598.
- Commons holds a de Critz (attributed) portrait file ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Francis_Walsingham_by_John_De_Critz_the_Elder.jpg)) tagged public domain; the download was rate-limited during the build and the file was not hosted. — Sir Francis Walsingham — Principal Secretary · 1573 to 1590 — Sir Francis Walsingham: Read more — Principal Secretary from 1573 until his death in 1590, with the oversight of the intelligence about Catholic plots that led to the Babington trial of 1586.

### Church

- ![Thomas Cranmer in a black gown and cap, bearded, seated, in a half-length portrait](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/tudor-england/thomas-cranmer.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Cranmer_by_Gerlach_Flicke.jpg): Gerlach Flicke, Public domain (PD-Art; painting of 1545 to 1546, National Portrait Gallery, London) — Thomas Cranmer — Archbishop of Canterbury · 1533 to 1556 — Thomas Cranmer: Read more — Archbishop from 1533; wrote the preface to the 1540 Great Bible and the Book of Common Prayer's liturgy; burned at Oxford on 21 March 1556 under Mary I. — In their words — > “The reading of scriptures is a great and strong bulwark or fortress against sin; the ignorance of the same is the greater ruin and destruction of them that will not know it.” > > Cranmer, Preface to the Bible (the Great Bible, 1540), in Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer, ed. J. E. Cox (Parker Society, Cambridge, 1846), p. 121 (a passage Cranmer takes from John Chrysostom) [source](https://archive.org/details/miscellaneouswri0016park) — > “Take the books into thine hands, read the whole story, and that thou understandest keep it well in memory; that thou understandest not, read it again and again” > > Cranmer, Preface to the Bible (the Great Bible, 1540), in Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer, ed. J. E. Cox (Parker Society, Cambridge, 1846), pp. 120-121 [source](https://archive.org/details/miscellaneouswri0016park)
- Commons holds a Sebastiano del Piombo portrait of Pole ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sebastiano_del_Piombo_-_Portrait_of_Cardinal_Reginald_Pole_-_WGA21121.jpg)) tagged public domain; the download was rate-limited during the build and the file was not hosted. — Reginald Pole — Cardinal Legate and Archbishop of Canterbury · 1554 to 1558 — Reginald Pole: Read more — Papal legate who reconciled England with Rome in November 1554 and Archbishop of Canterbury from March 1556 until he died on 17 November 1558, the day Mary I died.

## Background and rise to power

Henry Tudor took the crown by winning the Battle of Bosworth on 22 August 1485 and married Elizabeth of York in January 1486. His claim by descent was thin, and the new regime had to explain why Richard III's reign was an interruption rather than a legitimate one. Richard's own government had made the same kind of argument in reverse: the statute *Titulus Regius* (1484) declared Edward IV's marriage invalid and his sons illegitimate. Henry VIII succeeded on 22 April 1509. In 1533 and 1534 he broke with the papacy to secure the annulment of his first marriage and took the title of supreme head of the Church of England. His son Edward VI (1547 to 1553) moved the church toward Protestant doctrine, Mary I (1553 to 1558) reversed that and restored papal authority, and Elizabeth I (1558 to 1603) restored the royal supremacy and a Protestant settlement. The line ended with Elizabeth's death on 24 March 1603.

[![Portrait medal of Mary I, legend MARIA I REG ANGL FRANC ET HIB FIDEI DEFENSATRIX](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/mary-i-portrait-medal-da-trezzo-1555.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/mary-i-portrait-medal-da-trezzo-1555/)

[Portrait medal of Mary I, legend MARIA I REG ANGL FRANC ET HIB FIDEI DEFENSATRIX](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/mary-i-portrait-medal-da-trezzo-1555/), 1555. From the collection. A portrait medal of the queen who reversed the Henrician and Edwardian settlements, with her titles in Latin.

## How power was organized

Authority rested on the crown acting through the Privy Council, the principal secretaries and Parliament. The great Henrician statutes were acts of Parliament: the Act in Restraint of Appeals (1533) declared "this realm of England is an empire" with a single supreme head, and the Act of Supremacy (1534) declared the king "the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England". Thomas Cromwell was Principal Secretary from April 1534 and the king's vicegerent for ecclesiastical jurisdiction; the injunctions of 1536 and 1538 were issued in his name. G. R. Elton argued in *The Tudor Revolution in Government* (1953) that Cromwell's secretaryship built a modern bureaucratic state; later historians, among them Penry Williams and G. L. Harriss, argued for more continuity with the fifteenth century, and the dispute is not settled. Enforcement ran through the church courts, the justices of the peace and the Star Chamber, and under each ruler after 1533 religious dissent from the settlement then in force could be a capital offence.

[![Silver testoon of Henry VIII, third coinage: crowned bust and HENRIC VIII, reverse crowned Tudor rose and POSVI DEVM ADIVTOREM MEVM](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/testoon-henry-viii-third-coinage-1544.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/testoon-henry-viii-third-coinage-1544/)

[Silver testoon of Henry VIII, third coinage: crowned bust and HENRIC VIII, reverse crowned Tudor rose and POSVI DEVM ADIVTOREM MEVM](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/testoon-henry-viii-third-coinage-1544/), 1544. From the collection. A silver coin of the third coinage, carrying the royal bust, the Tudor rose and a Latin motto, struck in the debased silver of 1544 to 1551.

![Chart with Henry VIII at the centre, flanked by Henry VII and the legal basis, above five columns: Privy Council and secretaries, Parliament and courts, the church, printing and licensing, and court image-making.](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/diagrams/tudor-england-power-structure.png)

How the Tudor crown acted through council, Parliament, church, press and court image-making, simplified from the sources cited on this page. Source: FRAME diagram. Portraits, cropped to thumbnails: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Assunta Sommella Peluso, Ada Peluso, and Romano I. Peluso, in memory of Ignazio Peluso, 2001 (2001.432.8), Open Access; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Rogers Fund, 1922 (22.42.6), Open Access; National Portrait Gallery, London, via Wikimedia Commons; Frick Collection, New York, via Web Gallery of Art and Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (FRAME archive content); portraits are public domain or CC0: Public domain (PD-Art; painting of 1532 to 1533, Frick Collection, New York); Public domain (PD-Art; painting of 1545 to 1546, National Portrait Gallery, London); Public domain (The Met Open Access, CC0).

![Illustration: a rotary printing press with bundles of printed leaflets and proof sheets.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/graphics/printing-press.jpg)

Illustration, not an archive object

## The propaganda apparatus

**Where the word applies.** "Propaganda" is a modern term, and historians use it of the Tudors by analogy. Elton's *Policy and Police* (1972) used it of Cromwell's work in the 1530s. Sydney Anglo's *Spectacle, Pageantry, and Early Tudor Policy* (1969) and Roy Strong's *The Cult of Elizabeth* (1977) and *Gloriana* (1987) treat court ritual and portraiture as political messaging. J. P. D. Cooper's *Propaganda and the Tudor State* (2003) is a regional study of how far royal messages reached the West Country and how they were received there. Scholars dispute how far these works were directed from the centre, how large the audience was, and how much a given printed text or portrait was commissioned by the crown or produced by courtiers and printers for their own reasons. This page uses the same definition for every ruler: a message issued, ordered or licensed by the crown to shape belief or behaviour.

![A painted copy of Holbein's Whitehall mural: Henry VIII standing in the foreground with legs apart, his father Henry VII behind him, and the two queens, Elizabeth of York and Jane Seymour, on either side of a tablet.](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/tudor-england/fig-whitehall-mural-copy.jpg)

Remigius van Leemput's 1667 copy of Holbein's lost Whitehall mural of 1537 (Royal Collection); the original was destroyed by fire in 1698. [Source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Remigius_van_Leemput_-_Whitehall_Mural.jpg): Remigius van Leemput, after Hans Holbein the Younger, Whitehall Mural, 1667, oil on canvas, Royal Collection (RCIN 405750), via Wikimedia Commons. The Royal Collection page returned an access error when checked, so the holding record is cited from the Commons description., Public domain (PD-Art; oil painting of 1667 after Hans Holbein the Younger; Commons file page).

[![Woodcut 'A table describing the burning of Bishop Ridley and Father Latimer at Oxford', in John Foxe, Actes and Monuments (1563)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/foxe-latimer-ridley-burning-1563.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/foxe-latimer-ridley-burning-1563/)

[Woodcut 'A table describing the burning of Bishop Ridley and Father Latimer at Oxford', in John Foxe, Actes and Monuments (1563)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/foxe-latimer-ridley-burning-1563/), 1563. From the collection. A woodcut from the 1563 edition of Foxe's Actes and Monuments showing the burning of Latimer and Ridley at Oxford in 1555.

**Content note:** Shows the burning of two Protestant bishops at the stake at Oxford in 1555, in a woodcut printed in 1563 by an English Protestant author; it is shown as printed, with the historical context on the regime page. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

**The Tudor myth.** Henry VII commissioned the humanist Polydore Vergil to write the history of England, and his *Anglica Historia* was printed in 1534. Edward Hall's *Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families* (1548) and Raphael Holinshed's *Chronicles* (1577; second edition 1587) carried the Tudor account into English, and Thomas More's *History of King Richard III* and Shakespeare's play fixed Richard's image as a deformed usurper. E. M. W. Tillyard's *Shakespeare's History Plays* (1944) described a "Tudor myth" of providential order that the plays endorsed; critics, including H. A. Kelly in 1970, argued that the plays and chronicles were more varied and that Tillyard had made one reading into a system. Richard III's defenders say the black legend was partly a Tudor product; Richard's own regime also made partisan claims.

**The Henrician campaign.** After 1534 the government used the pulpit, the king's printer Thomas Berthelet, the injunctions and a small circle of writers. Richard Morison and Thomas Starkey wrote for the crown, as in Morison's *Remedy for Sedition* (1536) and Starkey's *Exhortation to Unitie and Obedience* (also 1536, the year of the Pilgrimage of Grace), and Christopher St German's treatises argued for the crown's jurisdiction over the clergy. The 1536 injunctions ordered the clergy to preach each Sunday for a quarter of a year, and then twice a quarter, that the bishop of Rome's power was "usurped"; the 1538 injunctions ordered a Bible in English in every parish church. The Pilgrimage of Grace (October 1536 to February 1537) was the largest rising against these measures, carried under a banner of the Five Wounds of Christ. Historians including Rex, Walker, Redworth and Duffy differ on how coherent the programme was, how far conservative writers such as Stephen Gardiner shaped it, and how much of the population accepted it; Eamon Duffy's *The Stripping of the Altars* (1992) stresses the strength of the resistance.

**Image of the king.** Holbein's Whitehall mural of Henry VIII and Henry VII (1537) was destroyed by fire in 1698 and is known from copies such as Remigius van Leemput's of 1667. The Great Bible of 1539 had a title page showing Henry enthroned and handing the Word of God to Cranmer and Cromwell for distribution to the clergy and the people. Strong's *Tudor and Jacobean Portraits* (1969) and Karen Hearn's catalogue *Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530 to 1630* (1995) treat the portraits as a language of dress, pose and emblem, while noting that the surviving evidence of who commissioned a given portrait is thin.

**Edward and Mary.** Edward's government ordered the Books of Common Prayer of 1549 and 1552 by statute and enforced them. Mary's first proclamation on religion (18 August 1553) said she would not compel her subjects "until such time as further order, by common assent, may be taken". Her injunctions of 1554 told the bishops to suppress "unlawful books, ballads, and other pernicious and hurtful devices", and the heresy laws were revived. Between February 1555 and November 1558 roughly 280 to 290 people were burned, with Cardinal Pole as legate and then archbishop; the burnings were state policy, enforced by the crown and the church courts, and Eamon Duffy's *Fires of Faith* (2009) argues that the Marian restoration was a more energetic programme of preaching and printing than older histories allowed.

**Elizabeth and Foxe.** Elizabeth's injunctions of 1559 required that books be licensed; a proclamation of 27 December 1558 had already ordered all preaching other than the Gospel and Epistle of the day to stop. The Act of Uniformity (1559) enforced the Prayer Book, and the Homilies were ordered read in churches; a homily against disobedience and wilful rebellion, answering the Northern Rising of 1569, was issued in 1570 and printed in 1571. The papal bull *Regnans in Excelsis* (25 February 1570) declared Elizabeth excommunicated and released her subjects from allegiance, and the government answered with statutes making some acts of obedience to Rome treason, and with printed replies such as *The Execution of Justice in England* (1583), published anonymously and usually attributed to Burghley's circle, to which the Catholic William Allen replied in 1584. The Stationers' Company received its charter in 1557 under Mary, and a Star Chamber decree of 1586 restricted printing to London, Oxford and Cambridge.

John Foxe's *Actes and Monuments* (the "Book of Martyrs", first English edition 1563, printed by John Day) recorded the Marian burnings with over sixty woodcuts. The Convocation of Canterbury in 1571 ordered a copy placed in every cathedral church. William Haller's *Foxe's Book of Martyrs and the Elect Nation* (1963) read it as the founding text of an English Protestant national story; Thomas Freeman and Elizabeth Evenden argue in *Religion and the Book* (2011) that it was a private publishing venture whose relationship to the state was looser than Haller allowed; David Loades's edited volume (1997) collects the arguments over its accuracy, which Catholic contemporaries such as Nicholas Harpsfield also disputed. The cult of Gloriana (the Accession Day tilts on 17 November, the summer progresses, the Armada and Ditchley portraits, the Tilbury speech of 9 August 1588) is studied by Strong, Susan Doran and Helen Hackett, who differ on how far it was a crown policy and how far a courtiers' creation. Catholic counter-literature (printed on secret presses, and from the 1580s tied to the Jesuit mission) was an organised effort in the other direction. For the continental parallel see the Reformation print war.

## Timeline

- 22 August 1485: Henry Tudor wins at Bosworth and takes the crown as Henry VII.
- 22 April 1509: Henry VIII succeeds.
- 1533: Act in Restraint of Appeals declares England an "empire".
- November 1534: Act of Supremacy makes the king supreme head of the Church of England.
- October 1536 to February 1537: Pilgrimage of Grace.
- 1538: Cromwell's second royal injunctions order an English Bible in every parish.
- 1539: Great Bible published; Six Articles Act.
- 28 July 1540: Cromwell executed.
- 28 January 1547: Henry VIII dies; Edward VI succeeds.
- 1549 and 1552: Books of Common Prayer under Acts of Uniformity.
- 6 July 1553: Edward VI dies; Mary I proclaimed queen on 19 July.
- 18 August 1553: Mary's first proclamation about religion.
- November 1554: England reconciled to Rome under Cardinal Pole.
- February 1555 to November 1558: Marian burnings; Cranmer burned 21 March 1556.
- 17 November 1558: Mary and Pole die; Elizabeth I succeeds.
- 1559: Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity; royal injunctions.
- 1563: Foxe's *Actes and Monuments* first English edition.
- 25 February 1570: *Regnans in Excelsis*.
- 1571: Convocation orders Foxe placed in cathedrals.
- 1586: Star Chamber decree on printing; Babington plot.
- 1588: Armada and the Tilbury speech on 9 August.
- 24 March 1603: Elizabeth I dies.

[![The Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I (Royal Museums Greenwich version), oil on panel](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/armada-portrait-elizabeth-i-greenwich-1588.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/armada-portrait-elizabeth-i-greenwich-1588/)

[The Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I (Royal Museums Greenwich version), oil on panel](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/armada-portrait-elizabeth-i-greenwich-1588/), 1588. From the collection. The Armada Portrait, read by scholars as a picture of the queen's command of the sea after 1588.

[![Medal of Elizabeth I: portrait in a ruff, reverse an ark on stormy waves with SAEVAS TRANQVILLA PER VNDAS (18th-century aftercast of a 1588 model)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/elizabeth-i-ark-medal-aftercast-1588.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/elizabeth-i-ark-medal-aftercast-1588/)

[Medal of Elizabeth I: portrait in a ruff, reverse an ark on stormy waves with SAEVAS TRANQVILLA PER VNDAS (18th-century aftercast of a 1588 model)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/elizabeth-i-ark-medal-aftercast-1588/), 1588. From the collection. An 18th-century aftercast of a medal model of 1588 with the ark and the motto calm through the raging waves.

![Timeline of eleven dated steps from the Act of Supremacy in 1534 to the death of Elizabeth I in 1603.](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/diagrams/tudor-england-timeline.png)

Eleven dated steps in Tudor statute, enforcement and print, 1534 to 1603, simplified from the sources cited on this page. Source: FRAME diagram, drawn from the sources listed on this page, CC BY 4.0 (FRAME archive content).

## How it ended

Elizabeth I died childless at Richmond on 24 March 1603, and her council proclaimed James VI of Scotland, a great-great-grandson of Henry VII, as James I the same day, bringing the Tudor line to its end (Patrick Collinson, "Elizabeth I", *Oxford Dictionary of National Biography*, 2004).

## Same-standard note

This page applies the archive's usual definitions to every ruler: a message ordered, licensed or issued by the crown. All four post-1534 rulers enforced a state church with capital penalties: Edward VI's government burned two men for heresy, Joan Bocher in 1550 and George van Parris in 1551; Henry VIII executed Catholic opponents of the supremacy (such as Thomas More and John Fisher in 1535) and burned Protestants under the Six Articles; Mary burned roughly 280 to 290 Protestants; Elizabeth executed Catholic priests and laity under the treason statutes, a smaller annual number but a long period. Scale, legal basis and stated intent differ and are given in the sources, and the page does not rank the reigns. Foxe's book is an English Protestant source and the Catholic accounts are partisan too; neither is treated as neutral. The bias panel reviewed the page's prose, not the quotations.

## Sources

- Gee, Henry, and William John Hardy, eds. *Documents Illustrative of English Church History* (Macmillan, 1896; 1910 reprint), Nos. XLVIII to LXXIX: https://archive.org/details/documentsillustr00hard
- Elton, G. R. *The Tudor Revolution in Government* (Cambridge University Press, 1953) and *Policy and Police* (1972).
- Williams, Penry, and G. L. Harriss. "A Revolution in Tudor History?" *Past and Present* 25 (1963).
- Anglo, Sydney. *Spectacle, Pageantry, and Early Tudor Policy* (Oxford, 1969).
- Cooper, J. P. D. *Propaganda and the Tudor State* (Oxford University Press, 2003).
- Rex, Richard. *Henry VIII and the English Reformation* (Palgrave, 1993). Walker, Greg. *Persuasive Fictions* (Scolar, 1996). Redworth, Glyn. *In Defence of the Church Catholic* (Blackwell, 1990).
- Duffy, Eamon. *The Stripping of the Altars* (Yale, 1992) and *Fires of Faith* (Yale, 2009).
- Tillyard, E. M. W. *Shakespeare's History Plays* (Chatto and Windus, 1944); Kelly, H. A. *Divine Providence in the England of Shakespeare's Histories* (Harvard, 1970).
- Haller, William. *Foxe's Book of Martyrs and the Elect Nation* (Cape, 1963); Evenden, Elizabeth, and Thomas Freeman. *Religion and the Book in Early Modern England* (Cambridge, 2011); Loades, David, ed. *John Foxe and the English Reformation* (Scolar, 1997).
- Strong, Roy. *Tudor and Jacobean Portraits* (HMSO, 1969); Hearn, Karen, ed. *Dynasties* (Tate, 1995); *The Cult of Elizabeth* (Thames and Hudson, 1977); *Gloriana* (Thames and Hudson, 1987). Doran, Susan. *Monarchy and Matrimony* (Routledge, 1996). Hackett, Helen. *Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen* (Macmillan, 1995).
- Cranmer, Thomas. *Miscellaneous Writings and Letters*, ed. J. E. Cox (Parker Society, 1846): https://archive.org/details/miscellaneouswri0016park
- Challis, C. E. *The Tudor Coinage* (Manchester University Press, 1978).
- Marcus, Leah, Janel Mueller and Mary Beth Rose, eds. *Elizabeth I: Collected Works* (University of Chicago Press, 2000).
- Royal Museums Greenwich, the Armada Portrait; Royal Collection, Whitehall mural copy (RCIN 405750); The Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access records for the objects shown.

## In the archive

### Collection objects (5)

- [Silver testoon of Henry VIII, third coinage: crowned bust and HENRIC VIII, reverse crowned Tudor rose and POSVI DEVM ADIVTOREM MEVM](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/testoon-henry-viii-third-coinage-1544/) (England · 1544 · Transfer)
- [Portrait medal of Mary I, legend MARIA I REG ANGL FRANC ET HIB FIDEI DEFENSATRIX](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/mary-i-portrait-medal-da-trezzo-1555/) (England · 1555 · Transfer)
- [Woodcut 'A table describing the burning of Bishop Ridley and Father Latimer at Oxford', in John Foxe, Actes and Monuments (1563)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/foxe-latimer-ridley-burning-1563/) (England · 1563 · Transfer, Card stacking). Content note: Shows the burning of two Protestant bishops at the stake at Oxford in 1555, in a woodcut printed in 1563 by an English Protestant author; it is shown as printed, with the historical context on the regime page.
- [The Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I (Royal Museums Greenwich version), oil on panel](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/armada-portrait-elizabeth-i-greenwich-1588/) (England · 1588 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [Medal of Elizabeth I: portrait in a ruff, reverse an ark on stormy waves with SAEVAS TRANQVILLA PER VNDAS (18th-century aftercast of a 1588 model)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/elizabeth-i-ark-medal-aftercast-1588/) (England · 1588 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)