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The English Reformation refers to the series of events in sixteenth-century England by which the church in England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church . These events were part of a wider process, the European and the rise of Nationalism , the rise of the Common Law , the invention of the Printing Press , the transmission of new knowledge and ideas not only amongst scholars but amongst merchants and artisans also; but the story of why and how the different states of Europe adhered to different forms of Protestantism, or remained faithful to Rome or allowed different regions within states to come to different conclusions (as they did) is specific to each state and the causes are not agreed. The English Reformation began as another chapter in the long running dispute with the head of the English church by " Royal Supremacy ", thereby establishing the Church Of England , but the structure and theology of that church was a matter of fierce dispute for generations. It led eventually to civil war, from which the emergent church polity at the end was that of an established church and a number of non-conformist churches whose members at first suffered various civil disabilities, which were removed only over time. Catholicism emerged from its underground existence only in the nineteenth century. Different opinions have been advanced as to why England adopted a Reformed faith, unlike France, for instance. Some have advanced the view that there was an inevitability about the triumph of the forces of new knowledge and a new sense of autonomy set over-against superstition and corruption;A.G.Dickens, ''The English Reformation'' (1964) others that it was a matter of chance: Henry VIII died at the wrong time; Mary had no child;Christopher Haig ''English Reformations'' p.14 (Oxford 1994) reform did not inevitably mean leaving the Roman Communion Susan Brigden ''New Worlds, Lost Worlds'' (Allen Lane 2000) for others it was about the power of ideas which required only moderate assistance for people to see old certainties as uncertain;D. MacCulloch ''Reformation'' (Allen Lane 2003) Introduction p. xxiii; others have written that it was about the power of the state over vibrant, flourishing popular religion;Eamon Duffy,''The Stripping of the Altars'' p.1 (Yale 1992) it was a 'cultural revolution'.Graham-Dixon,''A History of British Art'' (BBC 1996) p.16 Some, on the contrary, have argued that, for most ordinary people there was a continuity across the divide, which was as significant as any changes.Christopher Marsh ''Popular Religion in Sixteenth Century England'' (McMillan 1998) p.214ff The recent revival of scholarly interest may indicate that the argument is not yet over. BACKGROUND Henry VIII ascended the English throne in 1509 at the age of 17. He made a dynastic marriage with from Martin Luther 's accusations of Heresy in a book he wrote, probably with considerable help from Thomas More , entitled '' The Defence Of The Seven Sacraments '', for which he was awarded the title "Defender of the Faith" ('' Fidei Defensor '') by Pope Leo X . However, Wolsey's enemies at court included those who had been influenced by Lutheran ideas Brigden (ibid) p. 111 among whom was the attractive Anne Boleyn . Anne arrived at court in 1522, from years in Europe, as maid-of-honour to . She had not produced a male heir who survived into adulthood and Henry wanted a son to secure the Tudor Dynasty . Before Henry's father Henry VII ascended the throne, England had been beset by Civil Warfare over rival claims to the English crown and Henry wanted to avoid a similar uncertainty over the succession.Robert Lacey, ''The Life and Times of Henry VIII'', (Book Club Associates, 1972), p70 Catherine's only surviving child was Princess Mary . Henry claimed that this lack of a male heir was because his marriage was "blighted in the eyes of God".Roderick Phillips, ''Untying the Knot: A Short History of Divorce'' (Cambridge University Press, 1991), p20 Catherine had been his had been needed to allow the wedding in the first place.Robert Lacey, ''The Life and Times of Henry VIII'', (Book Club Associates, 1972), p17 Henry argued that this had been wrong and that his marriage had never been valid. In 1527 Henry asked Pope Clement VII to Annul the marriage, but the Pope refused. According to Canon Law the Pope cannot annul a marriage on the basis of a Canonical Impediment previously Dispensed . Clement also feared the wrath of Catherine's nephew, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V , whose troops earlier that year had sacked Rome and briefly taken the Pope prisoner.T.A.Morris, ''Europe and England in the Sixteenth Century'', (Routledge 1998), p166 THE BREAK WITH ROME The combination of his 'scruple of conscience' and his captivation by Anne Boleyn made his desire to rid himself of his Queen compelling.Brigden (Ibid) p. 114 The indictment of his chancellor Cromwell was a lawyer and a Member of Parliament,an evangelical who saw how Parliament could be used to advance the Royal Supremacy, which Henry wanted, and to further evangelical beliefs and practices which both he and his friends wanted.MacCulloch (ibid.) p.200 One of his closest friends was Thomas Cranmer , soon to be Archbishop. In the matter of the annulment, no progress seemed possible: the Pope seemed more afraid of Emperor Charles V than of Henry. Anne and Cromwell and their allies wished simply to ignore the Pope; but in October 1530 a meeting of clergy and lawyers advised that Parliament could not empower the archbishop to act against the Pope's prohibition. Henry thus resolved to bully the priests. Haig (ibid) p. 106) Having brought down Cardinal Wolsey, his Chancellor, he finally resolved to charge the whole English clergy with praemunire in order the secure their agreement to his annulment. Praemunire, which forbade obedience to the authority of foreign rulers had been around since the 1392 Statute of Praemunire, and had been used against individuals in the ordinary course of court proceedings. Now Henry, having first charged the Queen's supporters, Bishop s John Fisher , John Clerk , Nicholas West and Henry Standish and Archdeacon of Exeter Adam Travers , then decided to proceed against the whole clergy.T.A. Morris, ''Europe and England in the Sixteenth century'', (Routledge, 1998), pg 172. Henry claimed £100,000 from the Convocation of Canterbury of the Church Of England for their pardon, which was granted by the Convocation on 24 January 1531 . The clergy wanted the payment to be spread over five years; Henry refused. The Convocation responded by withdrawing their payment altogether and demanded Henry fulfil certain guarantees before they agreed to give him the money. Henry refused these conditions and agreed only to the five-year period of payment and then added five articles to the payment which Henry wanted the Convocation to accept. These were:
In Parliament, bishop 1531 . That same year Parliament passed the Act Of Pardon . The breaking of the power of Rome proceeded little by little. In 1532, Cromwell brought before Parliament the Supplication Against The Ordinaries which listed nine grievances against the Church, including abuses of power and Convocation's independent legislative power. Finally on 10 May the King demanded of Convocation that the Church should renounce all authority to make laws, and on 15 May the Submission Of The Clergy was subscribed, which recognised Royal Supremacy over the church so that it could no longer make Canon Law without royal licence, i.e. without the permission of the King; thus completely emasculating it as a law-making body. (This would subsequently be passed by the Parliament in 1534 and again in 1536.) The day after this More resigned as Chancellor, leaving Cromwell as Henry's chief minister. (Cromwell never became Chancellor; his power came - and was lost - through his informal relations with Henry.) Thereafter there followed a series of Acts of Parliament. The Act in Conditional Restraint of Annates which proposed that the clergy should pay no more than 5% of their first year's revenue (annates) to Rome proved at first controversial, and required Henry's presence in the House of Lords three times and the browbeating of the Commons. After prolonged debate in Commons, it was clear that unanimity could not be reached over the Bill, so Henry ordered a division and commanded those who were in favour of his success and the welfare of the realm to one side of the House and those who opposed him and the Bill to the other. A majority was thus obtained. The has called this Act an "essential ingredient" of the "Tudor revolution" in that it expounded a theory of National Sovereignty .G. R. Elton, ''England Under the Tudors'' (Routledge, 1991), p. 160. The Act In Absolute Restraint Of Annates outlawed all annates to Rome, and also ordered that if Cathedral s refused the King's nomination for bishop, they would be liable to punishment by praemunire. Finally in 1534 the Act Of Supremacy made Henry "supreme head in earth of the Church of England" and disregarded any "usage, Custom , foreign laws, foreign authority {Link without Title} prescription".Elton, ''Tudor Constitution'', pp. 364-5 (1489–1556), Henry VIII's Archbishop of Canterbury and editor and part-author of the first and second Books Of Common Prayer .]] Meanwhile, having taken Anne to France on a pre-nuptial honeymoon, Henry was married to her in Westminster Abbey in January 1533. This was made easier by the death of Archbishop Warham, a stalwart opponent of an annulment, after which Henry appointed Thomas Cranmer as his successor as Archbishop Of Canterbury ; Cranmer was prepared to grant the annulmentCranmer, in a letter, describes it as a ''divorce'', but it was clearly not a dissolution of a marriage in the modern sense but the annulment of a marriage which was said to be defective on the grounds of affinity - Catherine was his deceased brother's widow of the marriage to Catherine as Henry required. Anne gave birth to a daughter, Princess Elizabeth , three months after the marriage. The Pope responded to the marriage by Excommunicating both Henry and Cranmer from the Roman Catholic Church. Consequently in the same year the Act of First Fruits and Tenths transferred the taxes on ecclesiastical income from the Pope to the Crown. The Peter's Pence Act outlawed the annual payment by landowners of One Penny to the Pope. This Act also reiterated that England had "no superior under God, but only your Grace " and that Henry's "imperial crown" had been diminished by "the unreasonable and uncharitable usurpations and exactions" of the Pope.Stanford E. Lehmberg, The Reformation Parliament, 1529-1536 (Cambridge University Press, 1970) In case any of this should be resisted Parliament passed the Treasons Act 1534 which made it High Treason Punishable By Death to deny Royal Supremacy. Finally in 1536 Parliament passed the Act Against The Pope's Authority which removed the last part of papal authority still legal; this was Rome's power in England to decide disputes concerning Scripture . Theological radicalism The break with Rome was not, by itself a Reformation. That was to come from the dissemination of ideas. The views of and which were known to Cromwell but also by conciliarists such as Thomas More and, initially, Cranmer. Other Catholic Reformists, like John Colet , Dean of St. Paul's, warned that heretics were not nearly so great a danger to the faith as the wicked and indolent lives of the clergy. The impact of Luther's thinking was of a different order. The main plank of his thinking, 'justification by faith' alone rather than by good works, threatened the whole basis of the Catholic penitential system with its endowed masses and prayers for the dead as well as its doctrine of . Martin Bucer of Strassburg was to be one of Cranmer's great mentors in the production of the second prayer book and Simon Grynaeus of Basel, his introduction to Swiss Calvinistic thought: ''Cranmer'' (ibid.) p. 60f Cromwell's programme, assisted by Anne Boleyn's influence over episcopal appointments,was not merely against the clergy and the power of Rome. He persuaded Henry that safety from political alliances that Rome might attempt to bring together lay in negotiations with the German Lutheran princes.Henry was no innocent: he sought influence in European affairs and, in pursuance of it,his relationship with the French was ambivalent and essentially treacherous: Brigden (ibid) p.107 There also seemed to be a possibility that Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor might act to avenge his rejected aunt (Queen Catherine) and enforce the Pope's excommunication. It never came to anything but it brought to England Lutheran ideas: three sacraments only - baptism, eucharist and penance - which Henry was prepared to countenance in order to keep open the possibility of an alliance. More noticeable, and objectionable to many, were the Injunctions, first of 1536 and then 1538. The programme began with the abolition of many feastdays, 'the occasion of vice and idleness', which, particularly at harvest time had an immediate effect on village life. Haigh (ibid) p.129 The offerings to images were discouraged, as were pilgrimages - these injunctions took place while monasteries were being dissolved. In some places images were burned on the grounds that they were objects of superstitious devotion, candles lit before images were prohibited, Bibles in both English and Latin were to be bought. This requirement was quietly ignored by bishops for a year or more Haigh (ibid). Thus did the Reformation begin to affect the towns and villages of England and, in many places, they did not like it.Eamon Duffy, ''The Stripping of the Altars''(ibid.) p.491; see also the story of Roger Martyn in Christopher Haig ''English Reformations''(Ibid) Prologue Dissolution of the Monasteries See Also: Dissolution of the Monasteries In 1534, Cromwell initiated a Visitation Of The Monasteries ostensibly to examine their character, in fact, to value their assets with a view to expropriation. Suppression of monasteries in order to raise funds was not unknown previously. Cromwell had done the same thing on the instructions of Cardinal Wolsey to raise funds for two proposed colleges at Ipswich and Oxford years before. Now the Visitation allowed for an inventory of what the monasteries possessed and the visiting commissioners claimed to have uncovered sexual immorality and financial impropriety amongst the Monks and Nuns which became the ostensible justification for their suppression. The Church owned between one-fifth and one-third of the land in all England; Cromwell realised that he could bind the gentry and nobility to Royal Supremacy by selling to them the huge amount of Church lands, and that any reversion back to pre-Royal Supremacy would entail upsetting many of the powerful people in the realm.Elton, ''England under the Tudors'', Third Edition (Routledge, 1991 p.142 For these various reasons the Dissolution Of The Monasteries was begun in 1536 with the smaller houses, those valued at less than £200 a year; the revenue was used by Henry to help build coastal defences (''see Device Forts '') against expected invasion, and all their land was given to the Crown or sold to the aristocracy. Whereas the royal supremacy had raised few eyebrows, the attack on abbeys and priories affected lay people.Haig (ibid) p143f Mobs attacked those sent to break up monastic buildings; the suppression commissioners were attacked by local people in a number of places. In the North Of England there were a series of uprisings by Catholics against the dissolutions in late 1536 and early 1537. In the autumn of 1536 there was a great muster, reckoned to be up to 40,000 in number, at Horncastle in Lincolnshire which was, with difficulty, dispersed by the nervous gentry. They had attempted without success to negotiate with the king by petition. The Pilgrimage Of Grace was a more serious matter. Revolt spread through Yorkshire and the rebels gathered at York. Robert Aske, their leader, negotiated the restoration of sixteen of the twenty six northern monasteries, which had actually been dissolved. However, the promises made to them, by the Duke of Norfolk, were ignored on the king's orders; Norfolk was instructed to put the rebellion down. Forty seven of the Lincolnshire rebels were executed and 132 from the northern pilgrimage.Haig (ibid.) p. 148 Further rebellions took place in Cornwall in early 1537 and in Walsingham in Norfolk which received like treatment. It took Cromwell four years to complete the process; in 1539 he moved to the dissolution of the larger monasteries which had escaped earlier. Many houses gave up voluntarily, though some sought exemption by payment. When their houses were closed down some monks sought transfer to larger houses; those who were persuaded to leave their orders became, many of them, secular priests. A few, including eighteen Carthusian s, refused and were killed to the last man. Reformation reversed The abolition of papal authority made way not for orderly change but for dissension and violence; reckless acts of , his fourth wife. Many other arrests under the Act followed. Cranmer, it is said, lay low.Brigden (ibid.) p. 135 In the same year Henry began his attack upon the free availability of the Bible. Previously,in 1536 Cromwell had instructed each parish to acquire 'one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume in English' by Easter 1539. This instruction has been largely ignored so a new version the Great Bible largely William Tyndale 's English translation of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures was authorised in August 1537. But by 1539 Henry announced his desire to have it 'corrected' (which Cranmer referred to the universities to undertake). Many parishes were, in any case, reluctant to set up English bibles; now the mood of conservatism, which expressed itself in the fear that Bible reading led to heresy, allowed those which had been put in place to be removed. Haigh(ibid) p.157f By the Act For The Advancement Of True Religion 1543, Henry restricted the reading of Bible to men and women of noble birth. He expressed his fears to Parliament in 1545 that 'the Word of God, is disputed, rhymed, sung and jangled in every ale-house and tavern, contrary to the true meaning and doctrine of the same'. (It has nevertheless been claimed that no European people was more profoundly influenced by the vernacular Scriptures than the English.) Dickens, A.G. ''Reformation and Society'' (Thames and Hudson 1966) p.103 By 1546 the conservatives, the Duke of Norfolk, Wriothesly, Gardiner and Tunstall were in the ascendency and were, by the king's will, to be members of the regency council, on his death. But by the time he died in 1547, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, brother of Jane Seymour , Henry's third wife, (and therefore uncle to the future Edward VI) managed, by a number of alliances with influential Protestants such as Lisle , to gain control over the Privy Council and persuaded Henry to change his will and to replace them as his executors by his supporters. McCulloch argues that it was the king ('this monstrous egoist') who changed his mind, heavily influenced by his chaplain, the Archbishop; Cranmer certainly believed that had Henry lived he would have pursued a radical iconoclastic policy- ''Cranmer'' (ibid.) p. 356-7; on the other hand, the same will which removed the conservatives Gardiner, Norfolk and Surrey from the Regency Council,sought intercession from Mary and the saints and insisted on the reality of Christ's presence in the Eucharist - Haig (ibid.) p. 167 EDWARD'S REFORMATION When Henry died in 1547, his nine year old son, in English. In 1550, stone altars were exchanged for wooden communion tables, a very public break with the past, as it changed the look and focus of church interiors.Duffy (ibid) p.472 Less visible, but still influential, was the new ordinal which provided for Protestant pastors rather than Catholic priests, an admittedly conservative adaptation of Bucer's draft;''Cranmer'' (ibid.)p. 461; Bucer had provided for only one service for all three orders. its Preface explicitly mentions the historic succession but, it has been described as 'another case of Cranmer's opportunist adoption of mediaeval forms for new purposes'.(ibid) In 1551, the episcopate was remodelled by the appointment of Protestants to the bench. This removed the obstacle to change which was the refusal of some bishops to enforce the regulations. Henceforth, the Reformation proceeded apace. In 1552 the prayer book, which the conservative Bishop Stephen Gardiner had approved from his prison cell as being "patient of a Catholic interpretation", was replaced by a second much more radical prayer book which altered the shape of the service, so as to remove any sense of sacrifice. Edward's Parliament also repealed his father's Six Articles. The enforcement of the new liturgy did not always take place without a fight. Conformity was the order of the day, but in East Anglia and in Devon there were rebellions.Cf. ''The Voices from Morebath'' Eamon Duffy (Yale 2001) p.127ff. The vicar of Morebath in Devon recorded the doings of the parish during the whole period, noting the compliant destruction of items previously paid for by sacrificial fundraising, and the singular resistance over the new prayer book.The parish paid for five men to join the rebellion as St. David's Down outside Exeter as also in Cornwall, to which many parishes sent their young men; they were brutally put down. In other places the causes of the rebellions were less easy to pin down Susan Bridgden cites economic causes relating to enclosure legislation ''New Worlds, Lost Worlds'' ibid.) p. 185; McCulloch calls the risings 'baffling'. but by July throughout southern England, there was 'quavering quiet' which burst out into 'stirs' in many places, the worst of which was the so-called Kett's Rebellion in Norwich. And apart from these more spectacular pieces of resistance, in some places chantry priests continued to say prayers and landowners to pay them to do so; opposition to the removal of images was widespread. (So much so that when during the Commonwealth, William Dowsing (1596-1679) was commissioned to the task of image breaking in Suffolk, his task, as he records it, was enormous.)Graham-Dixon, Andrew (ibid) p.38 In Kent and the south east, compliance was mostly willing and for many, the sale of vestments and plate was an opportunity to make money (but it was also true that in London and Kent Reformation ideas had permeated more deeply into popular thinking). The effect of the resistance was to topple Somerset, as Lord Protector so that in 1549 it was feared by some that the Reformation would cease. The prayer book was the tipping point. But Lisle, now made Earl of Warwick, was made Lord President of the Privy Council and, ever the opportunist (he was to die a public Catholic), saw the further implementation of the reforming policy as a means of defeating his rivals.Haig (ibid) p.176 Outwardly, the destruction and removals for sale had changed the church forever. In fact, many churches had concealed their vestments and their silver,Some of them were simply reclaimed by the gentry who had, in fact, lent them to the church; at Long Melford, Sir John Clopton, a patron of the church, bought up many of the images, probably to preserve them: Duffy (ibid) p. 490 and had buried their stone altars and there were many disputes between the government and parishes over church property. Thus, when Edward died in July 1553 and the Duke of Northumberland attempted to have the Protestant Lady Jane Grey made Queen, the unpopularity of the confiscations gave Mary the opportunity to have herself proclaimed Queen, first in Suffolk, and then in London to the acclamation of the crowds. CATHOLIC RESTORATION From 1553, under the reign of Henry's Roman Catholic daughter, Mary I , the Reformation legislation was repealed and Mary sought to achieve the reunion with Rome. Her first Act of Parliament was to Retroactive ly validate Henry's marriage to her mother and so legitimise her claim to the throne. Achieving her objective was however, not straightforward. The Pope was only prepared to accept reunion when church property disputes had been settled, which, in practice, meant allowing those who had bought former church property to keep it. 'Only when English landowners had secured their claims did Julius III's representative arrive in November 1554 to reconcile the realm'. MacCulloch 'Reformation''(ibid.) p281 Thus did Cardinal Pole arrive to become Archbishop of Canterbury in Cranmer's place. Mary could have had Cranmer, imprisoned as he was, tried and executed for treason - he had supported the claims of Lady Jane Grey - but she had resolved to have him tried for heresy. His recantations of his Protestantism would have been a major coup for her. Unhappily for her, he unexpectedly withdrew his recantations at the last minute as he was to be burned at the stake, thus ruining her government's propaganda victory. If Mary was to secure England for Catholicism, she needed an heir. On the advice of the Holy Roman Emperor she married his son, Phillip II Of Spain ; she needed to prevent her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth from inheriting the Crown and thus returning England to Protestantism. There was opposition, and even a rebellion in Kent (led by Sir Thomas Wyatt ); even though it was provided that he would never inherit the kingdom if there was no heir, received no estates and had no coronation. McCulloch ''Reformation'' (ibid.) p. 281 He was there to provide an heir. But she never became pregnant; her apparent pregnancy was, in fact, the beginnings of stomach cancer. Ironically, another blow fell. Pope Julius died and his successor, Paul IV declared war on Philip and recalled Pole to Rome to have him tried as a heretic. Mary refused to let him go. The support which she might have expected from a grateful Pope was thus denied her. After 1555, the initial reconciling tone of the regime began to harden. The medieval heresy laws were restored. The so-called Marian Persecutions of Protestants ensued and 283 Protestants were burnt at the stake for Heresy . This resulted in the Queen becoming known as ' Bloody Mary ', due to the influence of John Foxe , one of the Protestants Who Fled Marian England. Foxe's '' Book Of Martyrs '' recorded the executions in such detail that it became Mary's epitaph; Convocation subsequently ordered that Foxe's book should be placed in every cathedral in the land. In fact, while those who were executed after the revolts of 1536, and the St. David's Down rebellion of 1549, and the unknown number of monks who died for refusing to submit, may not have been tried for heresy, they certainly exceeded that number by some amount. Even so, the heroism of some of the martyrs was an example to those who witnessed them, so that in some places it was the burnings that set people against the regime.'The Birth of a Protestant Town: the Process of Reformation in Tudor Colchester 1530-80', Mark Byford in ''The Reformation in English Towns 1500-1640'' ed. Collinson and Craig (Macmillan 1998) There was a slow consolidation in Catholic strength in her latter years. The reconciled Catholic, Edmund Bonner , Bishop of London, produced a catechism and a collection of homilies; the printing press was widely put into use in the production of Primer s and other devotional materials; recruitment to the English clergy began to rise after almost a decade; repairs to churches long neglected were put in hand. In the parishes 'restoration and repair continued, new bells were bought, and churches' ales produced their bucolic profits'.Haigh (ibid) p.234 Commissioners visited to ensure that altars were restored, roods rebuilt and vestments and plate purchased. Moreover, Pole was determined to do more than remake the past. His insistence was on scripture, teaching and education and on improving the moral standards of the clergy. It is difficult to determine how far Catholic devotion, with its belief in the saints and in purgatory, had even been broken; certainties, especially those which drew upon men's purses, had been shaken - benefactions to the church did not return significantly; trust in clergy who had been prepared to change their minds and were now willing to leave their new wives - as they were required to do - was bound to have weakened. Few monasteries were reinstated; nor were chantries and gilds in any number. It has been said that parish religion was marked by 'religious and cultural sterility,Dickens A.G. ''The English Reformation'' (1989 ed.) p.309ff though some have observed enthusiasm, marred only by the poor harvests which produced poverty and want. Haigh (ibid) p.214 What was needed was time. Thus, such was the mood that Protestants secretly ministering to underground congregations, such as Thomas Bentham , were planning for a long haul, a ministry of survival.Haigh (ibid) p.235 Mary's death in December 1558, childless and without her having made provision for a Catholic to succeed her, undid that consolidation. THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT When Mary died childless in 1558, Elizabeth I inherited the throne. She was a Protestant, though an undogmatic one. She thus proceeded slowly (and with some difficulty) in the re-establishment of her half-brother's inheritance. Parliament passed an Act Of Supremacy 1559 which validated ten Acts that Mary had repealed and conferred on Elizabeth the title Supreme Governor Of The Church Of England without difficulty. However, the Act Of Uniformity 1559 which forced people to attend Sunday service in an Anglican church, at which a slightly revised version of the 1552 Book Of Common Prayer was to be used, was passed by only three votes.Haigh (ibid.) p.237-241. No bishops voted in favour, two were prevented from voting at all, and two other ecclesiastics were absent. The majority were all laymen : J Guy''Tudor England''(OUP1988) p. 262 On the question of images, her initial reaction was to allow crucifixes and candlesticks and the restoration of roods, but the new Protestant bishops whom she had nominated were horrified. In 1560 s, Vestments , stone altars, dooms, statues and other ornaments, but what succeeded more than anything else was the sheer length of Elizabeth's reign; while Mary had been able to impose her programme for a mere five years, Elizabeth had more than forty. Those who delayed, 'looking for a new day' when restoration would again be commanded, were defeated by the passing of years.Haigh (ibid) p.245 Not that it was a process of mere consolidation. On the one hand her reign saw the emergence of Puritan ism. Elizabethan Puritanism encompassed those Protestants who, whilst they agreed that there should be one national church, felt that the church had been but partially reformed. Puritanism ranged from hostility to the content of the Prayer Book and "popish" ceremony to a desire for Church Governance to be radically reformed. Grindal was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1575 and chose to oppose even the Queen in his desire to forward the Puritans' agenda. 'Bear with me, I beseech you Madam, if I choose rather to offend your earthly majesty than to offend the heavenly majesty of God', he ended a 6,000 word reproach to her.MacCulloch ''Reformation''(ibid) p.384 He was placed under house arrest for his trouble and though he was not deprived, his death, blind and in bad health in 1583 put an end to the hopes of his supporters. His successor, Archbishop Whitgift more reflected the Queen's determination to discipline those who were unprepared to accept her settlement. A conformist, he imposed a degree of obedience on the clergy which apparently alarmed even the Queen's ministers, such as Lord Burghley. The Puritan cause was not helped even by its friends. The pseudonymous ' Martin Marprelate ' tracts, which attacked conformist clergy with in a libellous humorous tone,'John Cant' (Whitgift) was accused of sodomitical relations with the Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge: MacCulloch ''Reformation''(ibid.) p.387 outraged senior Puritan clergy and set the government on an unsuccessful attempt to run the writer to earth. Incidentally, the defeat of the Armada in 1588 made it more difficult for Puritans to resist the conclusion that since God 'blew with his wind and they were scattered' he could not be too offended by the religious establishment in the land.MacCulloch (ibid) p.384ff On the other side there were of course, still huge numbers of Catholics, some of whom conformed, bending with the times, hoping that there would be a fresh reverse; vestments were still hidden, golden candlesticks bequeathed, chalices kept. The Mass was still celebrated in some placesHaigh (ibid) p.253 alongside the new Communion service. It was, of course more difficult than hitherto. Elizabeth's changes were more wholesale than those of her half-brother and all but one of the bishops lost their posts, a hundred fellows of Oxford colleges were deprived; many dignitaries resigned rather than take the oath. Others, both priests and laity, lived a double life, apparently conforming, but avoiding taking the oath of conformity. It was only as time passed that recusancy, refusal to attend Protestant services, became more common. The Jesuits and seminary priests, trained in Douai and Rome to make good the losses of English priests, encouraged this. By the 1570s an underground church was growing fast, as the Church of England became more Protestant and less bearable for Catholics. Catholics were still a sizeable minority.Haigh (ibid) p.267 Only one public attempt to restore the old religion took place, the revolt of the northern earls, the from her imprisonment in Tutbury, whose presence might have rallied support.Haigh (ibid) p.256; Haigh argues that the initial impetus for the rebellion was scarcely religious at all, but political; what swelled support, however, was a rejection of the Prayer Book and a desire to restore the Mass. The Catholic Church's refusal to countenance occasional attendance at Protestant Services and the excommunication of Elizabeth by Pope Pius V in 1570, presented the choice to Catholics more starkly, and the arrival of the seminary priests, while it was a lifeline to many Catholics, brought further trouble. Elizabeth's ministers took steps to stem the tide: fines for refusal to attend church were raised from 12d. per service to £20 a month, fifty times an artisan's wage; it was now treason to be absolved from schism and reconciled to Rome; the execution of priests began - the first in 1577, four in 1581, eleven in 1582, two in 1583, six in 1584: fifty three by 1590; (seventy more between 1601 and 1680).Haigh (ibid) p.262f; '...England judicially murdered more Roman Catholics than any other country in Europe: MacCulloch (ibid.) p.392 It became treasonable for a Catholic priest ordained abroad to enter the country. The choice lay between treason and damnation. There is, of course always some distance between legislation and its enforcement. The governmental attacks on recusancy were mostly upon the gentry. Few recusants were actually fined, often at reduced rates; the persecution eased; priests came to recognise that they should not refuse communion to occasional conformists.Haigh (ibid) p.264 The persecutions did not extinguish the faith, but they tested it sorely. The huge number of Catholics in East Anglia and the north in the 1560s disappeared into the general population in part because recusant priests largely served the great Catholic houses, who alone could hide them. Haigh (ibid) p.265 Without the mass and pastoral care, yeomen, artisans and husbandmen fell into conformism. Catholicism, supported by foreign priests, came to be seen as un-English. LEGACY See Also: English Civil War By the time of Elizabeth's death, there had also emerged a third party, 'perfectly hostile' to Puritans, but not adherent to Rome. It preferred the revised Book Of Common Prayer of 1559, from which had been removed some of the matters offensive to Catholics.Proctor F. and Frere W.H., ''A New History of the Book of Common Prayer'' (Macmillan 1965) p.91ff. The recusants had been removed from the centre of the stage. A new dispute was between the Puritans, who wished to see an end of the prayer book and episcopacy and this third party, the considerable body of people who looked kindly on the Elizabethan Settlement, who rejected 'prophesyings', whose spirituality had been nourished by the Prayer Book and who preferred the governance of bishops.Judith Maltby, ''Prayer book and People in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England'' (Cambridge 1998) It was between these two groups that, after Elizabeth's death in 1603, a new, more savage episode of the Reformation was in the process of gestation. During the reigns of the Stuart kings, James I and Charles I , the battle lines were to become more defined, leading ultimately to the English Civil War , the first on English soil to engulf parts of the civilian population. The war was only partly about religion, but the abolition of prayer book and episcopacy by a Puritan Parliament was an element in the causes of the conflict. As Diarmaid MacCulloch has noted, the legacy of these tumultuous events can be recognised, throughout the Commonwealth (1649-1660) and The Restoration which followed it and beyond. This third party was to become the core of the restored Church of England, but at the price for further division. At the Restoration in 1660 Anglicans, as they came to be called,Maltby (ibid)p.235 were to be but part of the religious scene, which was to include various kinds of Non-Conformity, among which would eventually be numbered Roman Catholicism. NOTES REFERENCES
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