The English Reformation began in the 1530's when King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic church in order to divorce his wife, Catharine of Aragon. From that period on, the country was thrust into a state of political and religious turmoil, as leaders and citizens debated over which form of Christianity—Catholicism or Protestantism—was the "true" religion of England.
Poets, playwrights, and political persons contributed extensively to the debates. Protestant poets tended to portray Catholicism as the enemy of the English people, characterizing it as communally rigid and more reliant on showmanship than on spirituality. As Protestantism became the unofficial English religion under Elizabeth I, extensive changes were made in English worship: priests were no longer the spiritual leaders of the community, and an emphasis was placed on individual spirituality rather than communal. Furthermore, Protestants tended to champion the ideology known as "sola scriptura," or "scripture alone," meaning that they favored a religion in which one's relationship with God was cultivated solely by scripture and not the intercessions of the (often corrupt) clergy.
For the literary culture of the Renaissance, the Reformation meant the development of a new interest in performance. Not only was the theatre a booming industry during Elizabethan and Jacobean England, but poets, too, found the notion of performance relevant for religious debate at the time. Catholicism soon became associated with empty shows, full of ritual and performance but containing little spiritual and individual development. Protestants portrayed Catholics as corrupt, greedy, and more interested in materialistic displays of grandeur than in cultivating relationships with God.
This tension between Protestants and Catholics during the period allows us to understand Wroth's poem as a critique, not only of Petrarchan performance, but of the Catholic religion. Wroth's criticism of the "poor fools" and their "outward shows" is similar to many other poets' representations of Catholic extravagance. Moreover, her assertion toward the end of the poem that "true" love resides in the soul reads remarkably like the typical Protestant argument that a relationship with God is forged on an individual basis through scripture rather than through communal practice and priestly intervention. While a single reading of Wroth's poem is difficult to establish, her focus on the relationship between truth and performance may have been interpreted by early modern readers as a critique of King James's increasing Catholic sympathy during his reign.
