Getting better

I have been reading Dairmaid Dermot Diarmaud Diarmaid MacCulloch’s rather wonderful Reformation; this clears up a lot of confusion about the roots of the Church of England and its model of authority. In modern political terms, all Henry VIII did was to fork the papacy. But of course some of the people on the project wanted to rewrite it completely.

The book, in case you didn’t know, is a magnificent achievement, all the more impressive because it was written in the interstices of teaching, and—I imagine—spending more time than almost anyone else in the world spelling out his name down telephone lines.