Religion under Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I

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“In the period 1559-1611, England undoubtedly became a Protestant nation.” How convincing is this claim?

The period 1559 to 1611 covers the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. Both monarchs held Protestant beliefs, but had the more Catholic legacy of Mary I to overcome in order to develop a Protestant faith within their subjects. For England to undoubtedly become a Protestant nation, all traces of the Catholic faith and the power and influence of the Pope need to be destroyed. In order to judge to what extent England became a Protestant nation under James I or Elizabeth I, factors such as doctrine and popular support for any changes need to be judged. There is little difference to a country if its monarch makes changes to its religious policy, but the monarch’s subjects do not support these changes.

As a devout Catholic, Mary I left her half-sister an unsatisfactory Catholic Church. The hierarchy within the Church was entirely Catholic and the most influential Protestant clergy had been exiled to other countries. As Elizabeth was aiming for supremacy and uniformity rather than a distinct religion, it should not necessarily be seen as a failure on her part if England does not become entirely Protestant even if her own religious views are Protestant.

Jane Parr brought Elizabeth to court having educated her within the Protestant faith. In keeping with the opposition to Catholic images and elaborate decoration, Elizabeth’s own religious books were plain and unadorned. However, her own personal chapel showed a little decoration to celebrate the beauty of worship.

There was no ordered move towards the Calvinist Church under Elizabeth’s reign. This religion centred a great deal around preaching. Elizabeth saw danger in gatherings such as these and would not bring them to the country out of choice. For another more political reason, Calvinism was never pursued as the religion of England. Supremacy was vital to Elizabeth I for a number of reasons and the hierarchy of a Calvinist church would not allow this. The Calvinist hierarchy could be represented as a circle, where the monarch holds equal power among many. It was important for Elizabeth to have supremacy and so needed a more triangular hierarchy within her church, where she could sit at the pinnacle of power.

The Bill of Supremacy was one of the first three bills proposed for the Religious Settlement. Although it faced opposition, Elizabeth was able to take the title of the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, showing that despite a lack of total support for Protestantism, the monarch was able to have her own way.

The definition of Protestantism here is a moderated Protestantism, not the more radical view of the Puritans held by a section of the country during Elizabeth’s reign. The Religious Settlement issued by the monarch in 1559 did not satisfy the demands of the Puritans yet moved away from Catholic traditions. Use of the English language Book of Common Prayer was resumed and papal authority was abolished. However, the Prayer Book introduced in 1559 was neither strongly Protestant nor strongly Catholic. Catholics and Protestant in the congregation were able to choose their own reading of the Eucharist. However, the Injunctions of 1559 were more strongly in favour of the Protestant religion. They forbade Catholic pilgrimages, processions and monuments. The only major restrictions against a more Protestant nature of religion were bans against preaching. However, there was more of a personal motivation behind this as Elizabeth saw the danger of popular movements such as rebellions within large crowds. Thus, with the enforcement of a more Protestant nature of worship such as kneeling at prayer and bowing at the name of Jesus. Elizabeth allowed a more Protestant religion to be the religion of England although she did not allow a basic part of the religion, preaching, without a licence.

Although Elizabeth made many positive moves towards turning the faith of her country to Protestantism, there were sometimes problems in immediately achieving the conformity she wished for. In an extreme case such as that of the parish of Masham in North Yorkshire, it took over thirty years to successfully implement the Book of Common Prayer and the Injunctions of 1559. The physical changes to the churches often took some time and by 1560, only half the churches had removed their Catholic images.

Conformity, including that of priests, could sometimes only be superficial, with Catholicism being offered as a side-line by some priests. For the parishioners themselves, although they showed outward conformity, they found the services tedious and showed them little regard. By this time at least, for the majority of parishioners, the effect of Protestantism was only superficial. This took into account the idea of ‘Adiophora’. This was the concept of Edmund Grindal who encourage parishioners to save themselves from punishment by accepting the monarch’s role as it would not affect doctrine and if they simply waited for a proper Catholic to come to the throne, they would still go to Heaven.

The Neale Thesis of the 1960s believed that Puritans within the House of Commons forced Elizabeth I to sway her reforms more towards the Puritans than she would have liked. In addition to this, the Puritans and the returned Protestants exiles saw Elizabeth’s reforms in the Religious Settlement as only the beginning to her reforms, expecting them to become more radical. The exiles had been near to Geneva and were consequently affected by the Calvinist ideas that were so appalling to Elizabeth.

As well as fines on the laity for any attempts to sway the priests from the order and doctrine of the Book of Common Prayer, the gentry were also under the threat of fines. These were sufficiently harsh for attempting to create a system of worship outside the Church of England, as the Separatists threatened to do, that the gentry at least outwardly conformed.

By the end of Elizabeth I’s reign, Catholicism was losing its hold on both the gentry and lower classes. Although Catholic Missionary Priests were present in England, they were not concerned with converting en masse, rather intensifying faith. They were therefore of a limited impact on the religion of the country. Susan Doran believes that by the end of Elizabeth’s reign only one to two percent of the population still held the Catholic faith. During Elizabeth’s reign, England had undoubtedly become a Protestant nation.

When James I came to the throne in 1603, he had been left a legacy of Protestantism and a church that was still episcopal. He was a devout Protestant having called the extreme Puritans “brainsick and heady preachers” in the “Basilikon Doron”, written to guide his son.

Like his predecessor, James had room for some moderation of policy and belief, but he was not to be questioned. The Millenary Petition issued by Puritans was considered at Hampton Court and some of their demands were met. The importation of Popish books was prevented and furthering a Protestant style of religion, preachers were to be introduced into Ireland, Wales and the Scottish borderlands. There was, however, to be no change to the ceremonies unless it could be proved that they were unnecessary. As with the changes made by Elizabeth, radicals only saw James’ changes to be the beginning of more radical changes, although this was about as far as he was prepared to go.

By the end of James’ reign, preaching was established with learned priests preaching on various days. This was a more Puritan form of Protestantism than Elizabeth I would have allowed. Some problems such as absenteeism and pluralism were unavoidable, undermining the strength of the religion somewhat.

The Elizabethan Religious Settlement was the main turning point from Catholicism to Protestantism as it claimed Supremacy for Elizabeth I as the head of the church. Despite opposition from the Catholics within the country and influence from the Marian exiles, Elizabeth managed to keep England on a fairly moderate religious course, although support of Catholicism was firmly repressed. Through James I’s reign, Catholicism was further restrained and the demands of Puritans, more radical Protestants, were considered and agreed to in some cases. By 1611, England was undoubtedly a Protestant nation as only a very few were non-conformists and dared not question the monarch’s authority by openly embracing Catholicism.

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