Boleyn said

Thank you Sharon.
I think I understand the reason to why confession was so important now. If you take the sacrement and you haven’t confessed you are in short making a mockery of what the sacrement stands for. Is that right?
Recieving the sacrement after confession means that God has excepted that you have sinned but are truly penitent, your sins are forgiven and basically you are to go with God and allow him to guide you to a better life?

Boleyn,
You got it. When I was a kid it was called the Sacrament of Penance. Today it is referred to as Reconcilliation. After confession was made the priest would give a penance. It was prayers like, three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys or the Rosary, etc. These prayers were to be said after the confession was over and again after Holy Communion.
Times they are a changin’ in the Church. At least the people are changing. As in France, many Catholics in America no longer believe in confession.

There have been martyrs from the Catholic religion and martyrs from the Reformation. They left their families, they defied their kings, they suffered and they were killed. Anne Askew was a martyr for the Reform. She left her husband and her children to preach from the pulpit. Gardiner ordered her back to her family. She defied him and returned to the pulpit. She believed she had to preach her reformist beliefs and damn the consequences.
Anne with her reformists beliefs, and Thomas with his Catholic beliefs, felt called upon by God to do what they did. That was their belief. They were spreading the word of God by doing what they did. It was important to them to stand up for their faith in God. As for their families, Thomas and Anne would have felt God would take care of them.
Aw Bill. I know you don’t believe the way The Tudors portrayed those people was the absolute truth. I think today we would all put our families first. I don’t know what God would have preferred. Obviously, Thomas believed God wanted him to do what he did. The Tudors made him look arrogant and selfish, but I think the decisions he made, to leave a wife, to leave his family fatherless, and to defy his friend and king, were agonizing decisions for him to make.

BTW, was Anne Askew being selfish?

Was Anne being selfish? Hmm good question, I don’t know a lot about Anne, but if there was an immediate family involved (ie she had her own kids) then yes I would judge her the same I have judged Thomas. If it was just her and a husband, I don’t know, I think it would depend on what her husband was like I think. If she was a single woman, I say go ahead and do whatever the bloody hell you wanted. Just like I would say it to a single man. And then I would sell tickets to their burning. LOL

And don’t worry Sharom, i haven’t based my judgement of Thomas solely on hsi Tudors representation LOL