France, England, and Italy in the Reformation - SAT Subject Test in World History

The Ninety-Five Theses was posted in All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire. It is credited for starting the Protestant Reformation.

The Protestant Reformation in England began in earnest in 1535 when King Henry VIII proclaimed himself king and head of the Church of England. The Protestant Reformation in England was motivated less by spiritual concerns and more by the personal desires of Henry and his ministers.

During the Protestant Reformation, France was still a primarily Catholic kingdom ruled by a Catholic king, but the number of French Protestants (called Huguenots) was growing rapidly. In an attempt to encourage secular unity, King Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598 to establish some religious toleration of Protestants in France.

The Edict of Nantes was issued in 1598 by the French King Henry IV. The purpose of the Edict was to bring to an end the French Wars of Religion and provide religious toleration of Protestants in the French kingdom.

The Act for the Submission of the Clergy was passed in England in 1534, shortly after Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church and began the English Reformation. The act was passed to ensure that the clergy understood their new place in Henry's Kingdom—they were unable to pass laws without his assent and were now his subjects, rather than the subjects of the Pope in Rome.

At the time of Henry VII's death, England was a Catholic Kingdom and remained so for the first twenty three years of Henry VIII's reign; however, when Henry VIII met with objections from the Pope in 1532 to divorce the Queen Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, he broke with the Catholic Church and formed the Church of England. Thus began the Protestant Reformation in England. After Henry VIII died, his son, Edward VI, continued the reformation movement. Edward was a sickly king and soon died, however. Mary Tudor took the throne and re-established Catholicism in England. Finally, Elizabeth I took the throne from Mary and permanently established Protestantism and the Church of England as the dominant religion in England.

Utopia was written by Thomas More in the early sixteenth century. It tells the story of a perfect society where everyone is equal, although historians have long disagreed on whether it is meant to be taken literally, satirically, or somewhere in between. More was a longtime friend and advisor to Henry VIII; however, when Henry broke from the Catholic Church, More found that his conscience would not let him follow suit. More chose execution over obedience to the Church of England and is considered a martyr of the Catholic faith.

The Ursulines were a religious order, formed in the early sixteenth century, that was dedicated to providing religious education to young girls. They were particularly prominent in France.

In the middle of the sixteenth century, France was embroiled in a bitter civil war between the aristocratic families of Valois, Bourbon, and Guise. The war ended in victory for the Bourbon family and marked the beginning of the reign of Henry IV. Henry famously converted to Catholicism upon claiming the throne in Paris, in order to appease the majority of Parisians, who were Catholic. His famous quote is "France is worth a mass."