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1 " Added to all this was the emergence of a new set of social values—call it the Protestant ethic—that encouraged the prosperous to equate wealth with virtue and to regard the destitute as responsible for (even predestined to) their predicament. "
― G.J. Meyer , The Tudors: The Complete Story of England's Most Notorious Dynasty
2 " It matters also that both Henry and his daughter Elizabeth were not just rulers but consummate performers, masters of political propaganda and political theater. They "
3 " Ordinaries, that church law was above the reach of the secular authorities. He was now an outsider, still officially secretary "
4 " The deletion of an apostrophe and a single letter turned “Jane’s” into “Jane,” and the words “and her” were inserted immediately thereafter. Now the crown was to pass not to the male heirs of Jane Grey but to “the Lady Jane and her heirs masles.” (Edward was of course highly literate, but spelling was a kind of free-form creative art in the sixteenth century "
5 " Salt was expensive, however, and so was used only with varieties of fish and meat that had demonstrated a capacity for surviving the preservation process in a reasonably appetizing state and were therefore regarded as “worth their salt. "
6 " from 1550 to 1650, a century that encompassed the careers of Shakespeare and other writers of gigantic stature, Calvin was England’s most published author. "
7 " Europe’s leading humanist and scriptural scholar, Erasmus of Rotterdam "
8 " Hence one of the defining characteristics of Calvinism (and the Puritanism to which it gave rise in England): a zealous commitment to making the world a fully realized part of Christ’s kingdom. Curiously, people who believed they could do nothing to alter their eternal destinies nevertheless dedicated themselves to making everyone in the world conduct themselves in a holy manner as Calvin defined holiness. This was a matter of duty, and its aim was not to save souls but to protect the elect from the doomed. "
9 " Erasmus argued that the father of the Reformation was wrong—that man does have free will. "
10 " Angrily, even tearfully, he complained of the divisions within the clergy, where “some be too stiff in their old Mumpsimus, others be too busy and curious in their new Sumpsimus. "
11 " In fact, however, Calvin regarded predestination as logically inescapable but otherwise beyond human understanding and in practical terms not of great importance. "
12 " responsibilities but to securing the "