The way the author discusses culture strikes me as especially simplistic, because he posits too clear of a break between the pre- and post-Reformation periods. While it's undeniable that the destruction of monasteries in particular caused a lot of England's medieval, Catholic heritage to be lost irretrievably, plenty of other traces of Catholic culture survived. Take the mystery plays, for example. Performances of the mystery plays apparently didn't suddenly stop under Henry or Edward, as was once believed, but continued in some towns (especially in the north) into Elizabethan times. It's entirely possible Shakespeare could have witnessed them as a child, some believe.
European Catholic culture also continued to exert influence in England long after the Reformation. Take Edmund Spenser: he's usually thought of as the consummate Protestant poet of the 16th century, and in many ways he is, but two of his biggest influences were the Italian Catholic poets Ariosto and Tasso. Italian, French, and Spanish literature all went right on crossing the Channel throughout the Reformation. Harrington's translation of Ariosto was popular. So was Florio's translation of Montaigne, and Hoby's translation of Castiglione. Don Quixote was well-known in England, and one of Shakespeare's lost plays was apparently based on it. It's not like the English Protestants erected a quarantine around the country to keep Catholic influences out. Governments in the 16th century couldn't control the flow of information in that way, and generally didn't try. Also, there was such a thing as Protestant humanism, which you'd never guess from this article.
