This Week in YouTube May 25
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Did you know that foreign investors are quietly funding lawsuits in American courts through a practice called third-party litigation funding? Shadowy overseas funders are paying to sue American companies in our courts, and they don't pay a dime in U.S. taxes if there is an award or settlement. They profit tax-free from our legal system, while U.S. companies are tied up in court and American families pay the price, to the tune of $5,000 a year. But

But there is a solution. A new proposal before Congress would close this loophole and ensure these foreign investors pay taxes, just like the actual plaintiffs have to.

It's a common sense move that discourages frivolous and abusive lawsuits and redirects resources back into American jobs, innovation, and growth. Only President Trump and congressional Republicans can deliver this win for America and hold these foreign investors accountable. Contact your lawmakers today and demand they take a stand to end foreign-funded litigation abuse.

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Hey friends, welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast. This is the weekly highlight reel of videos that I have put out on YouTube. So in case you don't know, you can go over to YouTube and watch all my videos. The channel is History and Coffee, and you can just search for my name as well, Heather Tesco, History and Coffee, and you will get it. And you can subscribe there. Thank you to the many people who already subscribe. And then what I've started doing is

weekly highlight reels of some of the videos that have gone out on YouTube that would be of interest to the podcast listeners as well. So thanks for listening. And you can also, like I said, go over and join me on YouTube history and coffee and search for Heather. And there I am. So let's get right into it.

It is Monday, so it is another Wolf Hall video. So Wolf Hall is on in the US now on PBS. Back in October, November, when it was on in the UK, I did another series of these videos. So you can check them out here.

I realized in the video for episode three, which was on last night in the U.S., when I did that in the autumn, I did it on Jane Seymour sticking up for the rebels and if she really had done that. So we had a little discussion about Jane Seymour because this is the episode in which the pilgrimage of grace happens and Jane sticks up for them and she shows a lot of sympathy for them. And so I did a breakdown of that, which you can check out here, here, somewhere.

If you want to dig in deeper. But for this video, I'm going to talk specifically about the Pilgrimage of Grace, what it was, who started it, who was involved and how Cromwell was involved and how it ended. So let's get into that.

So one thing, of course, the Pilgrimage of Grace was massive. I've done multiple episodes on the Pilgrimage of Grace. This is not going to be the complete Pilgrimage of Grace. There's books, there's documentaries, there's tons of stuff out there on the Pilgrimage of Grace. And I will link to some in the description below. But this is just an introduction. For those of you who saw it on Wolf Hall, want to know what was actually going on, let's talk about it. So in 1536, Northern England erupted in rebellion.

furious at the sweeping changes brought by Henry's break with Rome. It was known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. It was one of the largest popular uprisings of the Tudor period. At the heart of the anger was the dissolution of the monasteries. This was the reform spearheaded by the king's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell.

As the monasteries were torn apart and religious traditions were dismantled, the people of the North reached a breaking point. So let's talk about why the North was so outraged.

The heart of it all, the root of it all was the disillusion. This policy was masterminded by Cromwell as part of Henry's sweeping religious changes. There were kind of two parts to the break with Rome. The first was the church part, and Cranmer was handling that, the kind of doctrine of it all. And then Cromwell was handling the temporal part. So there was the spiritual and the temporal, the earthly and the church related.

Cromwell was handling the earthly part. He actually, he was the vice regent of all things related to spirituality for Henry, which gave him the authority to do this. But he dealt not so much with the doctrine side. Like I said, that was Cranmer. So there were a couple of reasons behind the disillusion. And again, this is a much longer discussion, but just the short story is Henry was running out of money. The wars in France that he'd been doing were expensive.

He had depleted his father's treasury that was left to him. He needed some money. Also, he wanted to make sure there weren't people still loyal to the Pope, so he needed to make some changes to the clergy. Monasteries at this time weren't just places of worship. They were the heart of communities. They offered charity, education, health care. They supported the poor. And when Cromwell shut them down, it left entire towns destroyed.

schools, the hospitals, places where people to stay on their way to pilgrimages like hotels, support for travelers, all this kind of thing. Economic hardship followed. Many who had worked on monastery lands, farmers, people who ran the lands, they depended on their charity. They were suddenly left without any income or support. The bunks themselves were often given pensions. They were small pensions, but they were given pensions. And we talked about that a

last week talking about Woolsey's daughter and what had happened to her, Dorothea, after the dissolution. But for the people who depended on the monasteries, they weren't suddenly given pensions. And the land was bought up at really cheap prices by nobles who wanted to increase their own holdings. And they didn't suddenly step in and say, OK, well, we're going to provide for the poor and provide health care and schooling and all of that.

So there was a big gap left with the disillusion. Religious life, too, was disrupted. These sacred spaces were stripped and sold off. Whatever you think about relics and the truth behind them, for a lot of people, this was very, very real. There was a joke at the time that Cromwell had made that if you took all of the pieces of the true cross, the monasteries who said they had a piece of the true cross, the cross that Jesus was crucified on, it would be like a pile that was as big as a house, right? So

There obviously was a lot of lying and people making things up about these relics. Whatever you believe of that, it doesn't change the fact that for many, many people, these were holy. These were very important to them. And so stripping them of these sacred spaces, of these sacred relics, that wasn't good. The North was also much more traditionally Catholic. If you think about how these ideas spread, they started in Germany with the Reformation, with Martin Luther. And

They reached southern England, but it still takes a while for them to reach northern England. This isn't like the internet where we all get news at the same time. It takes a while to travel. It takes a while for these ideas to disseminate. So the north was much more traditionally Catholic and less in tune with the reforms coming from London. So they were particularly resistant. Beyond the economic blow, there was this deep sense of betrayal. The king that they had supported was now seen as a tyrant.

tearing down centuries of tradition. And the person they blamed the most was Thomas Cromwell, the king's right-hand man and the figure behind these radical changes.

Into this chaos steps Robert Aske, a charismatic lawyer who saw the movement as a sacred cause. Aske framed the rebellion not as a violent revolt but as a pilgrimage, a moral and spiritual journey to restore Catholic traditions and protect the community from Cromwell's meddling. Under his leadership, the movement grew rapidly, fueled by a mixture of piety,

loyalty to the old ways and frustrations with the crown's harsh policies the pilgrimage of grace was a massive popular movement men and women from all walks of life marching together under the banner of the five wombs of christ a powerful symbol of their devotion

Their goal wasn't just to protest. It was to restore what they saw as the proper order of faith and governance. The rebels made significant progress. They captured the city of York with little resistance. Leadership was crucial. He managed to maintain discipline among the rebels. He emphasized their cause as one of moral righteousness rather than rebellion for rebellion's sake.

as they took over pontefract castle the movement gathered even more support even some local gentry who were uneasy about cromwell's changes but cautious about outright rebellion joined in they drew up a list of demands including the restoration of the monasteries the removal of cromwell and his circle from power and the protection of traditional catholic practices

They frame this as loyalty to the king, saying that their issue was with Cromwell's influence. This is the way people would rebel. You wouldn't say you were against the king directly because that would be super treasonous. You would say that the king was being told things by evil advisors. And so you weren't against the king, you were against the king's advisors.

Henry's initial response was to send a royal army to suppress the uprising, but the scale of the movement forced him to reconsider. He knew that the usual approach of crushing a rebellion by force might provoke even more resistance. Instead, he took a different path, negotiation. And there was a line in Wolf Hall that said something like,

We have winter coming. They have the numbers, but we have winter. So if you can stall them long enough by lying to them, saying that there's going to be a general pardon, that you will consider the grievances, persuading them to disperse, you can buy some time. And over winter, they will probably lose some of that impetus, some of the momentum that was driving them.

Ask, who wanted to believe in the king's good faith, urged his followers to lay down their arms. Bad move. When word of the pilgrimage of grace reached Cromwell, he was very concerned. This wasn't just a small uprising like we said. This was a massive organized movement that threatened not just the Reformation, but also his own position as Henry's chief minister.

As more reports came in of towns falling to rebels and local gentry joining the cause, he recognized that this wasn't something that could be easily crushed. Cromwell's initial reaction was cautious. He knew that using brute force against a movement this large would provoke even more unrest. So instead, he advised Henry to play the long game, appear conciliatory, promise to address the grievances, like we said, and buy time.

Henry took this advice. He issued pardons and vague assurances. And during this lull, Cromwell got to work. While the rebels believed that they had won a victory and began to disband, he was gathering intelligence. He wanted names. Who were the ringleaders? Who had provided support? And how deeply did the discontent run? He knew that the rebellion couldn't go unanswered, but he wanted to strike surgically rather than recklessly.

Once the rebellion seemed to be subsiding, he persuaded Henry to renege on his earlier promises. Mercy, he argued, would only encourage more defiance. Instead, they needed to make a brutal example of the leaders and reassert their royal authority. Cromwell coordinated the arrests and one by one key figures were taken into custody. Robert Aske, the man who had so passionately believed in the king's word, was arrested and sentenced to death.

His execution, hung in chains at York, served as a gruesome warning. Around 200 or so other rebels met similar fates either hanged or beheaded.

Cromwell's response to the rebellion was ruthless but effective. He saw it as a test of loyalty to the king and an affront to the religious reforms that he had fought so hard to establish. Brutal crackdown on the Pilgrimage of Grace ensured that no such rebellion like this would threaten Henry's rule ever again. Like we said, 200 rebels were executed.

And the failure of the uprising solidified Henry's power and allowed Cromwell to continue dismantling the monastic system. For Cromwell, the aftermath was mixed. On one hand, his ruthless efficiency reinforced his standing with the king, but on the other, it made him even more feared and hated by those who saw him as the architect of England's upheaval.

Despite their rebellion's failure, it did mark a significant moment of resistance to Cromwell's reforms, a sign that not everybody was accepting the religious transformation without a fight.

Did you know that foreign investors are quietly funding lawsuits in American courts through a practice called third-party litigation funding? Shadowy overseas funders are paying to sue American companies in our courts, and they don't pay a dime in U.S. taxes if there is an award or settlement. They profit tax-free from our legal system, while U.S. companies are tied up in court and American families pay the price to the tune of $5,000 a year. But

But there is a solution. A new proposal before Congress would close this loophole and ensure these foreign investors pay taxes, just like the actual plaintiffs have to. It's a common sense move that discourages frivolous and abusive lawsuits and redirects resources back into American jobs in

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We are going to do another Wolf Hall reaction video. Of course, Wolf Hall, the second series is on in the US now. It was on in the UK in the autumn. I have a whole playlist of all the reaction videos that I did when it was on in the UK. You can check that out here. And I'm also doing some more. Now, this go-around, because you can never have too much Wolf Hall. So last night was episode four. There was a whole lot happening. Cromwell has a daughter. Ah.

There's Jane Seymour Dies. I did a whole talk about that, a whole video about that as well, and talk some more about that in another video later this week. But today I want to talk about the debate that Henry VIII did with John Lambert.

This is an interesting period in the Reformation. The English Reformation was never clean. It was very messy because Henry VIII was never really a Catholic, right? He just didn't want the Pope telling him he could or couldn't get divorced. So Henry VIII...

never denied transubstantiation, which is the miracle of the mass, that the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ. That was something Henry hung on to his whole life, and he would execute people for heresy for denying that. But he also didn't like the straight-up Catholics. There was one week, 1544-45, I think, where he executed Catholics

for being too popish, obviously. And in the same week, he executed Protestants for heresy. So you really couldn't win with Henry, like a lot of things. And we start to see that. And he waffled back and forth. At one point, you know, he released the English Bible, which was a monumental event. Every church was supposed to have a Bible in English so that people could have the word of the Lord available to them. Did a lot to increase literacy, for example.

But then, you know, he also would execute people for denying transubstantiation. And it all kind of depended on who was talking to him. He saw people like Gardner would rise in favor and fall based on what was happening. And so, yeah, so Henry kind of went back and forth. And this is...

evidence of that, I suppose. So it's one of the most astonishing scenes that we have where Henry isn't just observing, but he actually steps forward to argue theology with John Lambert, a condemned man. This wasn't a private discussion in a back chamber. This was a public theatrical showdown, a monarch versus a heretic.

And while it makes for riveting drama, it is actually drawn directly from history because this was a spectacle and this was more than a debate. It really happened. And for John Lambert, it was in fact his death sentence. So we're going to get into that today.

Henry VIII really fancied himself a theologian. If you think back to the earlier years before the Reformation, he actually wrote this pamphlet against Martin Luther. That's what earned him the title Defender of the Faith. He really studied this stuff and thought that he was really well-informed and could debate with the best theologians around. So when he had this opportunity, he took it. So let's talk about who John Lambert was to start with. He was a Cambridge-educated Protestant.

And he was an articulate critic of Catholic doctrine, particularly transubstantiation. And like we said, that's the idea that during the mass, the bread and the wine literally become the body and blood of Christ.

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For Lambert, this teaching was unscriptural, and he wasn't shy about saying so. He'd already been in trouble once before. Charges were brought against him in 1531, but the case fizzled out when Archbishop Wareham died. This was William Wareham, who was the archbishop before Cranmer. And that reprieve gave Lambert a few more years of freedom, but by 1538, his luck and his hope that Henry VIII might hear him out had run out.

the timing of this trial wasn't an accident by fifteen thirty eight henry had broken with rome had declared himself the supreme head of the church of england and had started dissolving dozens of monasteries but he didn't start embracing every protestant idea that was coming out of germany or geneva he wanted to draw a very clear line

Did you know that foreign investors are quietly funding lawsuits in American courts through a practice called third-party litigation funding? Shadowy overseas funders are paying to sue American companies in our courts, and they don't pay a dime in U.S. taxes if there is an award or settlement. They profit tax-free from our legal system, while U.S. companies are tied up in court and American families pay the price to the tune of $5,000 a year. But

But there is a solution. A new proposal before Congress would close this loophole and ensure these foreign investors pay taxes, just like the actual plaintiffs have to.

It's a common sense move that discourages frivolous and abusive lawsuits and redirects resources back into American jobs, innovation, and growth. Only President Trump and congressional Republicans can deliver this win for America and hold these foreign investors accountable. Contact your lawmakers today and demand they take a stand to end foreign-funded litigation abuse.

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between what was acceptable reform and what was dangerous heresy. Lambert, with his outspoken denial of transubstantiation, was the perfect example of what Henry would not tolerate. Executing him wasn't just about theology, it was about optics. Henry needed Europe. He needed his own bishops to see that he hadn't gone soft.

Henry decided not to delegate this one. He took center stage. A group of ten bishops stood as enforcers of orthodoxy, forming what looked less like a court and more like an inquisition. Lambert, perhaps naively, thought that he might reason with the king, thought that he could appeal to scripture, logic, and conscience. You know, a lot of times...

I think Henry enjoyed catching people off because the reformers surely thought, well, look, Henry broke from Rome. He's doing all of this stuff. He's putting the Bible in English, all this stuff that's really reform minded. Surely we can appeal to that. But Lambert quickly realized that the outcome had already been decided. The bishops heckled, the crowd jeered, and Henry, dressed as a king in his regal splendor, grilled him personally.

what say you to this he demanded again and again and finally when lambert refused to recant the king pronounced his judgment you are a heretic and you shall burn

This was theatrical. This was a demonstration of Henry's authority, and it was designed to send a message, a chilling message to other would-be Protestants out there. Henry was interested potentially in reform, but only up to a limit. You cross that limit, and you're going to be burned as a heretic. So what was Cromwell's role in all of this? Cromwell and John Lambert weren't strangers to each other. They both studied at Cambridge. They may have crossed paths during their early reformist years.

by their fifteen thirty eight cromwell was in a very different position he was the architect of the legal side of the english reformation yes but he was also walking a political tightrope did he try to help

Probably not in any meaningful way. The risks were just too high for Cromwell. Woolpaw actually shows Cromwell having this moment of quiet anguish, hinting at potential regret. One account of dubious origin claims that Cromwell stood at the execution and wept. There's no strong evidence for that, but it's easy to see why Hilary Mantel would have imagined this period of anguish for Cromwell when it came to John Lambert's execution.

lambert's death sentence was by burning henry wanted it done slowly as a warning eyewitness accounts say that it was especially brutal as the flames rose lambert is said to have repeated a single phrase over and over none but christ

He didn't curse his accusers or plead for mercy. He just clung to his faith. That image of John Lambert would live on, and Lambert became one of the first Protestant martyrs in England. His name appears in later works like Fox's Book of Martyrs, remembered not for his rebellion or for treason, but for standing firm on his theology in a world where theology could kill you.

One interesting note about why heretics were burned then was actually seen as a merciful punishment. It was designed to give you a taste of the flames of hell while you were still alive and could recant. So that is where the punishment for heresy as burning comes from, which is a little macabre. But if you think about it, they were thinking about your immortal soul, which is a bigger idea than heresy.

Just the temporary pains of the flesh, I suppose. So who knows? In Wapol, the Lambert trial is about the shifting ground beneath Cromwell's feet. The more radical the Reformation becomes, the more dangerous Cromwell's position is, the more Henry goes back to Gardner. Henry uses the trial to reassert his control, reminding everybody that he, Henry, defines the orthodoxy, not Rome, not the reformers, certainly not Cromwell.

And the debate kind of dramatizes the kingdom at war with itself. This would last throughout Henry's reign if we think another seven years, eight years into the future with Catherine Parr. Gardner's star, Gardner was a conservative. He was Catholic. His star was on the rise and he thought he could bring down Catherine Parr for heresy. And there's that whole story that he actually had an arrest warrant drawn up.

but Catherine got word of it and got to Henry first and pled her case of saying she was just an ignorant woman who needed him to educate her, and it all fell apart for Gardiner. He also tried to do the same thing to Cranmer, had an arrest warrant drawn up and everything, and tried to have Cranmer executed for heresy, but of course it didn't work out for him with either of those. He might have overreached a bit.

But this is really, we see this back and forth with Henry of going towards the reformer side. But then they would get too much power and he would go back towards the conservative side and just playing each side kind of back and forth against the other. For Cromwell, the ice is cracking beneath him and things are starting to really spin out of control for him. So a king debating heretic and then ordering his execution by fire.

What would you have done? Would you have spoken up for him or would you have stayed silent? I would like to know. Tell me in the comments what you think about this debate. Thanks so much for listening to this week's YouTube highlights. Remember, you can go over and subscribe. History and Coffee, Heather Tesco, you will find me there. And we'll be back again next week with more highlights from what went out on YouTube throughout the week. Thanks so much. Have a great week.

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