Elizabeth I: The Elizabethan Religious Settlement, 1559 (AQA A Level History: Component 1: Breadth study): Revision Note

Summary

• The Act of Supremacy (May 1559) re-established royal supremacy over the Church

  • Elizabeth took the title "Supreme Governor", not Supreme Head

• The Act of Uniformity (May 1559) set rules for worship and introduced a new Prayer Book (a fusion of the 1549 and 1552 Edwardian books)

• The Thirty-Nine Articles (1563) defined Anglican doctrine for the first time

  • It was reportedly passed by a very narrow margin in Convocation

• Catholic reaction was broadly muted

  • Around 400 (out of roughly 8,000) clergy refused the settlement

  • Almost all Marian bishops were dismissed

• Puritan dissatisfaction was immediate

  • The settlement was too Catholic for reformers

    • Vestments, bishops and ambiguous Eucharist wording all caused friction

• The settlement was a political compromise, not a theological vision

  • It kept the peace in most parishes but satisfied nobody completely

The Act of Supremacy, 1559: Elizabeth as Supreme Governor

• The Act of Supremacy was passed in May 1559, as part of Elizabeth's first Parliament

  • It re-established royal supremacy over the Church, reversing Mary I's restoration of papal authority

Supreme Governor

• Elizabeth chose the title of "Supreme Governor" rather than "Supreme Head" (used by Henry VIII and Edward VI)

• This was a deliberate and politically intelligent decision, made for three reasons:

  • The female monarchy problem

    • Some argued that a woman could not be the "head" of anything

    • "Governor" sidestepped the objection without reducing her practical authority

  • Catholic opinion

    • Those who still respected the Pope could accept a monarch who "governed" the Church's temporal affairs rather than claiming to be its spiritual head

  • Practical authority unchanged

    • In practice, her control over the Church remained extensive and largely unchanged from Henry VIII's and Edward VI's

    • The title change was cosmetic

Enforcement

• All churchmen were required to swear an oath of loyalty to the Supreme Governor

• Commissioners were sent to parishes to check compliance

• The Court of High Commission was was established to enforce religious conformity

Church structure

• The national organisation of the Church was largely unchanged

  • England kept its two archbishops (Canterbury and York) and its bishops

  • This was distinctly un-Protestant

    • Protestant churches in Europe had abolished bishops

  • Keeping bishops gave Elizabeth direct control over church appointments

    • It was a political decision as much as a religious one

The Act of Uniformity, 1559 & the New Prayer Book

• The Act of Uniformity was passed in May 1559 alongside the Act of Supremacy

  • It set out rules for the appearance of churches and the conduct of worship

Key features of the Act

• Practices that had existed in 1549 (the first Edwardian Prayer Book) could still be followed

  • This set a conservative baseline

• Altars were replaced by communion tables

  • Protestant in principle

• Catholic artefacts such as crosses and candles could remain on communion tables

  • Catholic in appearance

• Vestments (priestly clothing) were retained

  • Protestants objected to this strongly, as it felt Catholic

• Church attendance was compulsory

  • Fines for non-attendance were small and rarely enforced

• Attendance at Catholic Mass was a serious offence with a heavy fine

  • Saying Mass was illegal and punishable by fines or imprisonment (with harsher penalties introduced later in the reign)

The 1559 Prayer Book

• The new Prayer Book was a fusion of the two Edwardian Prayer Books

  • It combined the moderate language of the 1549 book with the more openly Protestant wording of the 1552 book

• The key compromise was on the Eucharist (the central theological dispute between Catholics and Protestants)

  • The differences between the three Prayer Books with regards to the Eucharist are below

The Royal Injunctions, July 1559

• Parliament could not cover everything in two Acts

  • Further instructions, the Royal Injunctions, were issued in July 1559

• There were 57 injunctions, key ones included:

  • Preachers had to be licensed by a bishop before they could preach

  • Every church had to display an English Bible

  • Pilgrimages were outlawed

  • Further destruction of church furnishings was to be controlled rather than encouraged

  • Preachers had to deliver at least one sermon a month

The 39 Articles, 1563: Defining the Elizabethan Church

• The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity established how the Church was organised and how services looked

  • However, they did not set out what Anglicans believed; this required a separate document (The 39 Articles)

What were the 39 Articles?

• They were drawn up by Convocation (the Church's own parliament) in 1563

  • Confirmed by an Act of Parliament in 1571

• They produced a definitive statement of Anglican doctrine

  • They remain the essential statement of belief in the Church of England today

• They revised and replaced Cranmer's 42 Articles of 1553

Key doctrines

The significance of the vote

• The 39 Articles reportedly passed by a very narrow margin in Convocation

  • Puritan clergy nearly succeeded in forcing a more thoroughly Protestant statement of doctrine

• The narrow margin shows how contested the settlement remained even among the clergy themselves

Catholic & Puritan Reactions to the Settlement

• This covers the initial reactions to the settlement up to 1563

  • The longer-term Catholic and Puritan challenges, including the papal excommunication of 1570, the Northern Rebellion of 1569 and the Vestiarian Controversy of 1566, are all covered later

Catholic reactions (broadly muted)

• The initial Catholic reaction was less severe than might be expected

• Around 400 clergy lost or resigned their positions because they would not accept the settlement

• Virtually all Catholic bishops appointed by Mary refused the oath of supremacy and were dismissed

  • This gave Elizabeth the opportunity to appoint an entirely new episcopal leadership who were enthusiastic about her reforms

• Compared to the c.800 Protestants who had fled abroad during Mary's reign, the scale of refusal was relatively smaller

• In many parishes, some priests simply ignored the new Prayer Book and continued Catholic practice

  • A survey of Justices of the Peace in 1564 found that only about half could be actively relied on to support the settlement

• Regional variation

  • Catholic practice persisted longest in the north and west, where traditional loyalties were strongest

The Act of Exchange, 1559

• Elizabeth followed Henry VIII in treating the Church as a financial resource

• The Act of Exchange allowed her to take over property belonging to bishops and force them to rent land to her

• In practice, it was often used as leverage to discipline or pressure bishops

• It was unpopular but it reinforced Elizabeth's control over the episcopate

Puritan reactions (immediate dissatisfaction)

• "Puritan" in 1559 describes those who felt the Reformation had not gone far enough to advance Protestantism

  • It was not yet a defined movement

• Puritan dissatisfaction was immediate

  • The settlement's compromises felt like half-hearted reform to them

Key Puritan grievances

Three strands of Puritan thought

• Moderate Puritans

  • Accepted the Church's structure

  • But pressed for reform of beliefs and practices along continental Protestant lines

• Presbyterians

  • Wanted to abolish bishops and reform the Church's structure on the Calvinist model

    • As in Scotland

• Separatists

  • Broke away from the national church entirely to pursue their own radical Reformation at parish level

• The 39 Articles (1563) were nearly derailed by Puritan pressure (passed by a very narrow margin)

Foreign reactions

• Philip II initially hoped to persuade Elizabeth to change the settlement

  • He did not break with England immediately

• The Council of Trent, concluding in 1563,reinforced hardline Catholic doctrines that made peaceful compromise with Protestantism impossible

• The Pope did not excommunicate Elizabeth immediately

  • That came in 1570

How Successful Was the Elizabethan Religious Settlement?

• Use the evidence below to build your own argument

• The question asks how successful the settlement was, not whether it was popular or whether it was theologically consistent

  • Did it achieve what it set out to achieve?

What did the settlement set out to achieve?

• It set out to create a workable national Church acceptable to the majority of English people

• It hoped to avoid the religious warfare seen in France and the German states

• It aimed to give Elizabeth full control over the Church as a political institution

Evidence that the settlement was successful

• It avoided civil war

  • England did not descend into the religious violence seen in France

  • By that standard alone, it was a remarkable achievement

• The broad middle majority accepted it

  • Reaction was muted compared to the upheaval of Mary's reign

• Elizabeth gained full control of the Church

  • Appointments, doctrine and organisation were all under royal authority

• The new episcopal leadership was enthusiastic

  • Dismissing the Marian bishops allowed Elizabeth to build a Church sympathetic to her settlement

• The visual conservatism worked

  • By keeping vestments, crosses and familiar ceremonies, the settlement was acceptable to most ordinary people who cared more about familiarity than theology

• It proved durable

  • The Church of England still rests on these foundations more than 450 years later

Evidence that the settlement had significant weaknesses

• Around 400 clergy refused to accept

  • This was a significant minority

• Around half of Justices of the Peace (JPs) in 1564 were considered reliably supportive

  • Local enforcement was patchy

• The Puritan challenge was immediate

  • The 39 Articles passed with a very narrow margin

  • Puritan dissatisfaction did not go away

• Catholic practice persisted

  • Especially in the north and the west

  • The settlement was not uniformly accepted

• The deliberate ambiguity satisfied nobody completely

  • It was a political compromise

  • Both sides knew it

• It depended on enforcement

  • Where enforcement was weak, which was in many areas, compliance was patchy