The Whacky English 1500s

For whatever reason, I am fascinated with the 1500s, the century of the Reformation. This brief list does not do it justice. Alas...

The Kings and Queens
I don't know the kings in Europe well, but the monarchs of England in the 1500s are fascinating:

• Henry VIII (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived)
• Edward VI (sickly)
• Bloody Mary (The Catholic strikes back)
• Elisabeth, the "Virgin" Queen
• James starts just into the 1600s

The transitions are interesting. Poor Lady Jane Grey gets beheaded in the transition to Mary, a young girl manipulated into trying to prevent Mary from becoming queen in 1553. Mary kills heroes like Lattimore, Ridley, Cranmer, John Rogers (publisher of Matthew's Bible). Thankfully, she died in 1558 before she could do more damage.

The Bibles
Gutenberg's version of the printing press was invented in 1450, and the Latin Bible was printed that year.

• The Dutch Erasmus raced to get the first Greek NT printed in 1516. The fact that he was first would give him immense influence. 
• Luther would use Erasmus' second edition in 1519 to translate the Bible into German (1522). 
• Tyndale used it to publish the first English translation of the NT based on the original Greek (1526) and was then put to death near Brussels in 1536 for it.
• Henry VIII would allow then Tyndale's Bible to become the basis for the Great Bible, an authorized Bible for the Anglican church in 1539. 
• In 1551, Stephanus produced a revision of the Greek NT, the first with verses.
• In exile from Queen Mary, the Geneva Bible NT was finished in 1557, the whole Bible in 1560. It would become the popular favorite in Puritan circles in England. It had study notes, with some of which, the bishops and rulers were not so pleased.
• Other Bibles--the Bishop's Bible (1568), the Catholic Douay Rheims (1582) were responses.
• The King James Version (1611) would start with the Bishop's Bible and go from there.

The Reformers

• In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 debate points on the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral.
• 1529, the Marburg Colloquy - the failure of Luther and Zwingli to reconcile prophesied the future fate of Protestantism. Without an authority to arbitrate different interpretations of the Bible, Protestantism would inevitably split and split and split and split again.
• In 1533, Henry VIII was excommunicated, effectively beginning the Anglican Church.
• In 1536, Calvin publishes his Institutes on the Christian Religion.
• 1545 Catholic Council of Trent strikes back - Apocrypha declared protocanonical
• 1549 - Book of Common Prayer by Thomas Cranmer

I might also add that in 1588, the English defeat of the Spanish Armada effectively shifted world power from Spain to England.