Editing Edward VI (section)

==Protestant legacy==
[[File:Hugh Latimer Preaching to Edward VI.png|thumb|300px|A contemporary woodcut of [[Hugh Latimer]] preaching to King Edward and his courtiers from a pulpit at the [[Palace of Whitehall]]. Published in [[John Foxe]]'s ''[[Acts and Monuments]]'' in 1563.{{Sfn|MacCulloch|2002|pp=21–25, 107}}]]

Although Edward reigned for only six years and died at 15, his reign made a lasting contribution to the English Reformation and the structure of the Church of England.{{Sfn|MacCulloch|2002|p=12}} The last decade of Henry VIII's reign had seen a partial stalling of the Reformation, a drifting back to Catholic values.{{Sfn|Scarisbrick|1971|pp=545–547}} By contrast, Edward's reign saw radical progress in the Reformation, with the Church transferring from an essentially Catholic liturgy and structure to one usually identified as Protestant.{{efn|name=MacPr|The article follows the majority of historians in using the term "Protestant" for the Church of England as it stood by the end of Edward's reign. However, a minority prefer the terms "evangelical" or "new". In this view, as expressed by [[Diarmaid MacCulloch]], it is "premature to use the label 'Protestant' for the English movement of reform in the reigns of Henry and Edward, even though its priorities were intimately related to what was happening in central Europe. A description more true to the period would be 'evangelical', a word which was indeed used at the time in various cognates".{{Sfn|MacCulloch|2002|p=2}}}} In particular, the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal of 1550 and Cranmer's Forty-two Articles formed the basis for English Church practices that continue to this day.<ref>{{Harvnb|Elton|1962|p=212}}; {{Harvnb|Skidmore|2007|pp=8–9}}.</ref> Edward himself fully approved these changes, and though they were the work of reformers such as Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer and [[Nicholas Ridley (martyr)|Nicholas Ridley]], backed by Edward's determinedly evangelical council, the fact of the king's religion was a catalyst in the acceleration of the Reformation during his reign.{{Sfn|MacCulloch|2002|p=8}}

Queen Mary's attempts to undo the reforming work of her brother's reign faced major obstacles. Despite her belief in papal supremacy, she ruled constitutionally as the Supreme Head of the English Church, a contradiction under which she bridled.{{Sfn|Elton|1977|pp=378, 383}} She found herself entirely unable to restore the vast number of ecclesiastical properties handed over or sold to private landowners.{{Sfn|Elton|1962|pp=216–219}} She burned a number of leading Protestant churchmen, but many reformers either went into exile or remained subversively active in England during her reign, producing a torrent of reforming propaganda she was unable to stem.<ref>{{Harvnb|Haigh|1993|p=223}}; {{Harvnb|Elton|1977|pp=382–383}}.</ref> Still, Protestantism was not yet "printed in the stomachs" of the English people,<ref>{{Harvnb|Loach|1999|p=182}}; {{Harvnb|Haigh|1993|p=175}}.</ref> and had Mary lived longer, her Catholic reconstruction might have succeeded, making Edward's reign, rather than hers, a historical aberration.{{Sfn|Haigh|1993|p=235}}

On Mary's death in 1558, the English Reformation resumed its course, and most of the reforms instituted during Edward's reign were reinstated in the [[Elizabethan Religious Settlement]]. Queen Elizabeth replaced Mary's councillors and bishops with ex-Edwardians, such as William Cecil, Northumberland's former secretary, and Richard Cox, Edward's old tutor, who preached an anti-Catholic sermon at the opening of Parliament in 1559.{{Sfn|Haigh|1993|p=238}} Parliament passed an [[Act of Uniformity 1558|Act of Uniformity]] the following spring that restored, with modifications, Cranmer's prayer book of 1552;{{Sfn|Somerset|1997|p=101}} and the [[Thirty-nine Articles]] of 1563 were largely based on Cranmer's Forty-two Articles. The theological developments of Edward's reign provided a vital source of reference for Elizabeth's religious policies, though the internationalism of the Edwardian Reformation was never revived.<ref>{{Harvnb|Loach|1999|p=182}}; {{Harvnb|MacCulloch|2002|p=79}}.</ref>