Parish reaction and the Prayer Book Rebellion
The Reformation in the Parish
The English Reformation was not a single event but a process experienced differently across thousands of parish communities. For most ordinary people, the Reformation arrived not as theology but as practical change: a service suddenly conducted in a language they could understand, familiar saints’ images removed from their church walls, the Latin mass replaced by an English prayer book. Some welcomed this; many were deeply unsettled.
Royal Visitations and Enforcement
From 1547 the Edwardian government sent royal visitors to enforce the new religious policies. They ordered clergy to use the new English service, remove images and saints’ statues, whitewash wall paintings, and provide the English Bible. They also required clergy to preach from a set of approved homilies (model sermons) rather than their own compositions — a way of controlling what parishioners heard.
Compliance was uneven. In London and the south-east, reform moved quickly. In the west and north, change was resisted or quietly ignored. Outward conformity was common: a church would display the required English Bible while the priest continued to pray quietly in Latin. Royal visitors could not be everywhere at once.
Royal visitations from 1547 required parishes to adopt the English service, remove images and provide the English Bible. Compliance was fastest in London and the south-east; resistance was strongest in Devon, Cornwall, Yorkshire and Lancashire, where traditional religion had deeper roots.
The Prayer Book Rebellion 1549 (Western Rising)
When the first Book of Common Prayer was imposed in June 1549, parishes in Devon and Cornwall openly refused it. The rebellion began at Sampford Courtenay when a congregation demanded their priest continue the old Latin mass. The rising spread rapidly across the two counties.
The rebels’ Articles articulated their objections clearly. They called the new Prayer Book ‘a Christmas game’ and demanded the restoration of the Latin mass, communion in one kind, reservation of the sacrament, and the revival of the Six Articles. One famous demand asked for the restoration of the old mass because, they said, they were ‘Cornish men, whereof certain of us understand no English.’
Humphrey Arundell emerged as the military leader of the rebels, who besieged Exeter for several weeks. The city held out. The government sent Lord Russell with a mercenary force (including German and Italian soldiers) to suppress the rising. The rebels were defeated at the Battle of Sampford Courtenay in August 1549. Arundell was captured and executed in London in January 1550. It is estimated that up to 4,000 rebels died during the campaign.
Kett’s Rebellion 1549
Almost simultaneously with the Western Rising, Kett’s Rebellion broke out in Norfolk in the summer of 1549, also during the crisis of Somerset’s government. Robert Kett’s rising had different primary motivations — enclosure of common land rather than religion — but it coincided with widespread popular discontent across England and contributed to the political pressure that brought down Protector Somerset in October 1549.
Prayer Book Rebellion began at Sampford Courtenay, Devon, June 1549. Rebels called the new Prayer Book ‘a Christmas game.’ Led by Humphrey Arundell. Government force under Lord Russell crushed the rebellion at Sampford Courtenay, August 1549. Up to 4,000 rebels may have died. Arundell was executed in 1550.
Responses to the Reformation were not simply ‘acceptance’ or ‘rejection.’ Most parishioners fell somewhere between enthusiastic adoption and armed rebellion. Churchwardens’ accounts (the financial records of parish communities) show churches steadily removing images, selling off vestments and acquiring English Bibles — but at different speeds.
Some groups genuinely welcomed reform. Protestant-leaning merchants and craftsmen in towns like London, Bristol and Norwich had followed evangelical ideas for decades. In these communities, the Prayer Book was embraced, not resisted. The historian Diarmaid MacCulloch emphasised the genuine Protestant conviction of Cranmer and the Edwardian reformers — this was not only top-down imposition but a response to real evangelical demand.
Enforcing Reform: Homilies and Injunctions
The Edwardian government used a series of Royal Injunctions to drive reform into every parish. The 1547 Injunctions required clergy to preach from a set of twelve officially approved homilies — model sermons written by Cranmer and others — rather than composing their own. This was a direct attempt to control theological content from the centre. Parishes were also required to obtain the Paraphrases of Erasmus (a reforming humanist scholar’s commentary on the New Testament) in English, which had to be placed alongside the Bible in every church.
The pace of image removal accelerated sharply in 1547–1548. Stained glass depicting saints, statues in niches, paintings of the Virgin Mary and side chapels dedicated to specific saints were all targeted. Some parishes stripped their churches eagerly; others dragged their feet or hid valuable items. Archaeology has revealed that some parishes buried their stone sculptures or sank their church bells in ponds, hoping for a restoration that never came.
The contrast between London and Devon is instructive. In London, Protestant preachers had been active since the 1520s; many parishes welcomed the removal of what they called ‘idols.’ In Devon and Cornwall, the removal of beloved imagery felt like desecration. The 1549 Prayer Book Rebellion was in this sense not just a protest about language but a defence of a whole material culture of religion that was being destroyed. The rebels’ demand to ‘have the mass in Latin as it was before’ was a demand to restore not just a language but a world.