IV.

Elizabethan Religion

Elizabeth’s accession marked the final change in the nation’s official religion. Her father and half-brother established Protestantism in England, but her half-sister, Mary, attempted forcibly to restore Catholicism. As Henry VIII’s reign had terrorized Catholics, so Mary’s persecuted Protestants. Under Mary, prominent Protestant clergymen were either executed or they fled abroad. The power of the pope was reestablished in England, though even Mary could do nothing to restore the church lands sold off during Henry’s reign.

Elizabeth inherited a highly charged religious situation, which she handled with great skill. Although there was never any doubt she would return England to Protestantism, Elizabeth had to contend with opposition from both Catholics and radical Protestants. Catholic bishops and peers controlled the House of Lords and fought Elizabeth’s first attempts to bring back Protestantism. Protestants exiled under the reign of Mary I returned to England, and many brought with them new and radical Protestant ideas, especially those of John Calvin, a French religious reformer. Calvin stressed the importance of predestination, the belief that salvation was predetermined for some people and not for others. Calvin also wanted the clergy to play a less important role in the state church and to concern themselves with preaching the gospel rather than in becoming bishops.

Under Elizabeth, England again broke with the pope, Catholic services were forbidden, priests were allowed to marry, and relics and decorations were removed from the churches. In attempting to diffuse the religious situation, Elizabeth tried to accommodate Catholic sensibilities in matters she judged less essential. She used Parliament to establish the official doctrine of the new church, which ensured that the voice of Catholic peers would be heard. Under the Act of Supremacy, she assumed the title of Supreme Governor of the Church, rather than the title of Supreme Head, a move to placate critics because Supreme Governor sounded less powerful. She would not allow retaliation against those who had assisted Mary, and she treated with some leniency those who refused to swear an oath to her supremacy.

The English form of Protestantism was defined in part by two measures enacted during Elizabeth’s reign—the Act of Uniformity of 1559 and the Thirty-nine Articles of 1563. The Act of Uniformity established a common prayer book and set the basic ceremonies of the church. The Thirty-nine Articles established religious doctrine that governed the church until the English Revolution in the 1640s. Both acts were compromises that favored the views of more conservative or moderate Protestant groups.

Elizabeth viewed the church as an inseparable part of her monarchy and would not tolerate challenges to it. Such challenges came from both Catholics, who clung to the old faith and plotted to remove the queen, and from Puritans, radical Protestants who wanted to abolish all traces of Catholicism (see Puritanism).

Catholic challenges and plots persisted through much of Elizabeth’s reign, and Elizabeth reacted to them strongly. In 1569 a group of powerful Catholic nobles in northern England rose in rebellion but were savagely repressed. The northern earls were executed, their property and those of their followers was confiscated, and their heirs were deprived of their inheritance. In 1570 the pope excommunicated Elizabeth, sanctioning Catholic efforts to dethrone her. In 1571 an international conspiracy was uncovered to assassinate her in favor of her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. Although Mary was beheaded in 1587 after years of being at the center of Catholic plots against Elizabeth, such plots did not end until England defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Elizabeth’s battles against the Puritans were less conclusive. She suspended Archbishop of Canterbury Edmund Grindal when he would not punish Puritans who refused to kneel or make the sign of the cross. She also imprisoned a member of Parliament in 1576 for introducing a bill to change the prayer book, and she refused to accept the Lambeth Articles of 1595, which contained a Calvinist, and more radical, interpretation of the doctrine of predestination. But Elizabeth’s efforts did not stop the Puritans from criticizing the established church, attacking bishops, and converting others to their views. The significance of the Elizabethan religious settlement is that it was able to hold the vast majority of the people together, despite being a compromise few would have chosen.