Chapter 6 in Diarmaid MacCulloch's The Reformation is of the final attempts at reunion scorned as various turning points occurred in the political and religious landscape of Europe -- including the end of Charles V's reign, short reigns of of Edward VI and Mary in England, political/religious conflict in France, etc. Another main feature of the period from 1547-1570 was militant, popular reform movements.
This particular chapter I read quickly, as a lot of action occurs.
He writes about a "Second Reformation" in the empire as many places shifted from Lutheranism to Reformed theology as the latter gained steam as the real force in Protestantism.
Pope Paul IV, Gian Pietro Carafa, was a real stumblingblock to any attempt at reconciliation. He even went after loyal Roman Catholic monarchs like Philip II and prominent figures like Reginal Pole, who was finally serving as Archbishop of Canterbury under Mary. He promoted the Roman Inquisition, created the index of books, and left a lasting reactionary legacy upon the church.
Cranmer comes off as a hero in the telling of his execution. He had recanted, but at the last moment when Mary put him in public to recant, he withdrew the recantations and won the propoganda moment. It is interesting that MacCulloch seems to admire both Cranmer and Pole, despite them being on opposite sides (except there are multiple, not just two, sides).
Writing of the death of Henri II of France while jousting, MacCulloch says "Thanks to the sporting accident of 1559, France now faced a future in which, for four decades, religion tore the kingdom apart." I like the wit he uses throughout.
Catherine Parr, Henry VIII's final wife, gets strong, positive mention as a reformer, humanist, and educator of Elizabeth.
Another theme prominent in this chapter is the growing international, cosmopolitan nature of the Protestant movement as key figures move from the contient to England, to the Low Countries, back to England, etc. as the winds of change occur in each place. Prominent in this is the role that major printers/publishers played. Many of them had to move to keep their operations going and the reform-minded rulers tried to attract them to their cities.
The Elizabethan reforms, he writes, did not restore the Edwardian Church of England and the country did not become, under Elizabeth, the center of reformation thought and publishing as Edward and Cranmer had hoped.
Once again, as so often the case in this volume, one reads about lots of interesting supporting characters that don't get much attention in the standard church history volumes that rush through the major figures.
Emperor Ferdinand I attempted reforms of the Catholic churches in the empire, including Mass with both kinds offered to the congregation, worship in the vernacular, and married clergy. His attempts were frustrated by other members of the Hapsburg family.
Philip II comes off as creepy. I did not know that his palace, the Escorial, was laid out upon the scheme of the gridiron, an instrument of torture while at the same time trying to be a re-creation of Solomon's temple. He manifested "an atmosphere of paranoia and repression." Sounds like many autocrats who would follow in the modern age. Here's something interesting, "All Spanish books printed outside Spain were banned from the peninsula; moreover a blanket ban was imposed on Spaniards studying abroad, and all teachers or students currently abroad were ordered to return home."
The case of Archbishop Carranza, the primate of Spain, is particularly troubling. This leading Spanish figure, defender of the church, was himself caught up in the repressive climate. He was arrested and convicted by the Inquisition because in his private files were notes on the now banned Protestant books that he had read when he was studying them in order to combat them in previous decades! The last session of the Council of Trent later appointed a commission to create a catechism. They used one that Carranza had written while in England during the reign of Mary. It became an "ultimate expression of the Counter-Reformation." But it was banned in Spain because of its association with Carranza! So this major document of Tridentine Catholicism was not used in the nation considered the most Catholic? This is strong evidence to support MacCulloch's claim in the first chapter that there were many different "reformations."
Even in the mood of Catholic response to Protestantism, the final session of the Council of Trent could not decide in favour of papal primacy. That only came in 1870.
MacCulloch writes about the power of the Psalter in France where most Protestants were underground and hiding from the authorities. Singing the psalms was an act of subversion: "To sing a psalm was a liberation -- to break away from the mediation of priest or minister and to become a king alongside King David, talking directly to his God."