page_title: Gilbert Burnet
section_title: History of the Reformation
hierarchical_section_title: Gilbert Burnet / History of the Reformation
caption_attribution_description: Engraved Titlepage of Volume 1 of Burnet's History of the Reformation of the Church of England, 1679.
context_page_description: Gilbert Burnet was a Scottish philosopher and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury. He was fluent in Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Burnet was highly respected as a cleric, a preacher, an academic, a writer and a historian. He was always closely associated with the Whig party, and was one of the few close friends in whom King William III confided.
context_section_description: In the mid-1670s, a French translation of Nicholas Sanders' De origine et progressu schismatis Anglicani libri tres (1585) appeared. Sanders attacked the English Reformation as a political act carried on by a corrupt king. Several of Burnet's friends wished him to publish a rebuttal of the work, so in 1679 his first volume of The History of the Reformation of the Church of England was published. This covered the reign of Henry VIII; the second volume (1681) covered the reign of Elizabeth and the Elizabethan Religious Settlement; the third volume (1715) consisted of corrections and additional material. His literary reputation was greatly enhanced by this publication. The Parliament of England voted thanks for Burnet after the publication of the first volume, and in 1680 the University of Oxford awarded Burnet the degree of Doctor of Divinity on the advice of William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury. For over a century this was the standard reference work in the field, although Catholics disputed some of its content.
  Initial publication of the three volumes of the History of the Reformation
  These early editions of Gilbert Burnet's The History of the Reformation of the Church of England were all published in London:
  1679 : first edition of Volume 1, that is, The First Part, of the Progress made in it during the Reign of K. Henry the VIII. London: Richard Chiswell.
  1681 : second edition of Volume 1. London: Richard Chiswell.
  1681 : first edition of Volume 2, that is, The Second Part, of the Progress made in it till the Settlement of it in the beginning of Q. Elizabeths Reign. London: Richard Chiswell.
  1683 : second edition of Volume 2. London: Richard Chiswell.
  1714 : An Introduction to the Third Volume of The History of the Reformation of the Church of England. London: John Churchill. 72 pages. The text of this Introduction was reprinted the following year in Volume 3.
  1715 : first edition of Volume 3, that is, The Third Part. Being Supplement to the Two Volumes formerly publish'd. London: John Churchill.
  1715 : fourth edition of Volume 1. London: Daniel Midwinter; and Benjamin Cowse.
  1715 : fourth edition of Volume 2. London: Daniel Midwinter; and Benjamin Cowse.
  Although a "fourth" edition was published in 1715 by Midwinter and by Cowse, a third edition of these volumes was neither prepared nor published by Burnet.
caption: Engraved Title page of the first volume of The History of the Reformation of the Church of England.
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