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Most English people initially saw the Reformation as an unexpected catastrophe, wrenching their religious lives out of shape, and stripping their communities of resources they had naively believed belonged to them.
Medieval England was proudly Catholic and ostentatiously loyal to Rome. But from the late sixteenth century until recent times – and even now – anti-Catholic prejudice has been a cornerstone of English and British identity.
This lecture will survey this ‘black legend’ and ask what made it so enduring – and why some parts of the story, such as the Inquisition’s genocidal campaign against Spanish Jews, received so much less attention than others.