John Longland

Bishop of Lincoln and confessor to Henry VIII · 1473–1547 · England

John Longland was an Oxford theologian who became Henry VIII’s confessor and, in 1521, Bishop of Lincoln, then the largest diocese in England. It included the Chiltern country of Buckinghamshire, where communities of Lollards, the spiritual heirs of John Wycliffe, still read the Scriptures in English in secret.

Longland obtained royal letters commanding all officers to assist him against heretics and launched the most thorough English persecution of the generation before the Reformation. Hundreds were examined around Amersham in 1521; husbands, wives, and children were made to testify against one another; many were forced to abjure and wear a faggot badge, and several were burned.1 He pressed both the king and Cardinal Wolsey to go further:

His majesty, … shows in this holy dispute as much goodness as zeal … yet, be pleased to urge him to overthrow God’s enemies.2 John Longlandletter to Cardinal Wolsey, as reported by Merle d’Aubigné

Longland was also among the first to raise doubts about the king’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon in 1526–1527, and later supported the royal supremacy. He remained a determined opponent of evangelical doctrine until his death in 1547.

Catholic Opponents

Sources

  1. J. H. Merle d’Aubigné, History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, trans. H. White, vol. 5, bk. 17, ch. 7, on the persecution in Lincolnshire and Buckinghamshire. ↩
  2. J. H. Merle d’Aubigné, History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, trans. H. White, vol. 5, bk. 17, ch. 8, with the quotation. ↩
  3. J. H. Merle d’Aubigné, History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, trans. H. White, vol. 5, bk. 19, ch. 5, on the divorce.