The Style and Logic of James Brooks’s 1553 ‘Reconciliation Sermon’
In 1561, the querulous controversialist John Bale said that Queen Mary Tudor's bishop of Gloucester, James Brooks, 'had bene detected and proued a Sodomyte in Oxforde'. Bale's antagonistic caricature is unsurprising given his longstanding disdain for members of the Catholic clergy, whom he vilified extensively in his Acts of English Votaries (1546) and other works. England formally reconciled with the Church of Rome in 1554, a year after James Brooks delivered his Paul's Cross sermon. With his appeal for reconciliation, Brooks uses the story of Jairus's daughter to describe England's apostasy. The style and language of Brooks's argument concerning the authority of the church and especially the relative importance of literal versus figurative reading of the Bible echo similar claims made by Thomas More, William Tyndale, and other reformation polemicists. Keywords: Catholic clergy; James Brooks; John Bale; Paul's Cross sermon; Queen Mary; William Tyndale