The Trials of Thomas Bylney and the English Reformation

Abstract

If English reform lacked a Luther or a Zwingli at least it had Thomas Bylney. In his capacity as an inflammatory preacher and a leader of men, he took the lead in starting the English Reformation. He often evoked the epithet of ‘Little’ – a reference to his slight stature – but a more fitting description would have been ‘aggressive’ or ‘tough-minded’ Bylney. Although he expressed doubts about the papacy he never openly repudiated the see of Rome: nor did he doubt the traditional doctrine of the real presence in the eucharist. Clearly, he cannot be called a Protestant although he is often portrayed as one. His conversion to evangelical reform came through reading the Novum testamentum of Erasmus, but his subsequent attack on the saints puts him beyond the pale of the milder, conservative Erasmianism. His personal influence at Cambridge was immense since he was responsible for converting key men in the coming Reformation of England: Thomas Arthur, Hugh Latimer, Robert Barnes and John Lambert. The portrait that Foxe paints of him is of saintly hue. Like the apostle Paul he was an insignificant-looking man, temperate in his habits, ascetic in his tastes, and unflagging in his concern for others. He visited ‘lazar cots’ where he comforted the sick, and went to the prisons to reclaim the hopeless. He was something of a Puritan since when his college neighbour, the future Bishop Thirlby, practised his recorder, Bylney would resort to prayer.