Beschreibung:
<jats:p>This article explores the ways in which parliament was used to shape the accelerating protestant reformation undertaken by successive governments under <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">E</jats:styled-content>dward <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">VI</jats:styled-content>. It underlines the significance for constitutional history of <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">T</jats:styled-content>homas <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">C</jats:styled-content>romwell's extraordinary promotion of <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">E</jats:styled-content>ngland's parliament to enact the break with Rome and evangelical religious change, and the corresponding use of parliament after <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">C</jats:styled-content>romwell's fall by conservatives to combat evangelical gains, which at first constituted an obstacle to Protector Somerset's plans. There was a steady deliberate erosion of conservative episcopal votes in the Lords through political manœuvres from 1547; nevertheless, up to late 1549, the weight of conservative opposition in the Lords (without much obvious corresponding traditionalist support in the <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">C</jats:styled-content>ommons) dictated crabwise progress in legislation. The convocations of <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">C</jats:styled-content>anterbury and <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">Y</jats:styled-content>ork played a more marginal role in religious change. Somerset's unsuccessful attempt at populist innovation in parliament was, arguably, an important element fuelling the coup against him in autumn 1549. Thereafter, events moved much more rapidly, aided by further compulsory retirements of bishops. Attention is drawn to the frustration felt by some enthusiastic evangelicals at the pace of change dictated by parliament, leading the prominent refugee, <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">J</jats:styled-content>an <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">Ł</jats:styled-content>aski, sarcastically to characterise the <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">E</jats:styled-content>dwardian <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">R</jats:styled-content>eformation in retrospect as ‘parliamentary theology’. From late 1552, divisions between clergy and nobility in the evangelical leadership over plundering of church wealth led to confusion, ill will and the disruption of further progress, even before it was obvious that <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">K</jats:styled-content>ing <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">E</jats:styled-content>dward was rapidly dying.</jats:p>