The Elizabethan Religious Settlement was Elizabeth I’s response to the religious divisions created over the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I. Henry VIII (28 June 1491 &ndash 28 January 1547 was King of England and Lord of Ireland, later King of Ireland and claimant to the Kingdom of Edward VI (12 October 1537 &ndash 6 July 1553 became King of England and Ireland on 28 January 1547 and was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine Mary I (18 February 1516 &ndash 17 November 1558 was Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from 19 July 1553 until her death This response, described as "The Revolution of 1559",^[1] was set out in two Acts of the Parliament of England. The Parliament of England was the Legislature of the Kingdom of England. The Act of Supremacy of 1559 re-established the Church of England’s independence from Rome, with Parliament conferring on Elizabeth the title Supreme Governor of the Church of England, while the Act of Uniformity of 1559 set out the form the English church would now take, including establishing the Book of Common Prayer. The Act of Supremacy 1559 (1 Eliz c 1 was an Act of the Parliament of England, passed under the auspices of Queen Elizabeth I of England. The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican The Supreme Governor of the Church of England is a title held by the British Monarchs which signifies their titular leadership over the Church of England. The Act of Uniformity in 1559 set the order of Prayer to be used in the English Book of Common Prayer. The Book of Common Prayer is the common title of a number of prayer books of the Church of England and used throughout the Anglican Communion.

Elizabeth's Religous Reign

When Mary died in 1558, Elizabeth inherited the throne. One of the most important concerns during Elizabeth’s early reign was religion. Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings Communion with the Roman Catholic Church had been reinstated under Mary using the instrument of Royal Supremacy, but was again severed by Elizabeth. She relied primarily on her chief advisors, Sir William Cecil, as her Secretary of State, and Sir Nicholas Bacon, as the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, for direction on the matter. Secretary of State is a commonly used title for a Government Official. Nicholas Bacon may refer to Nicholas Bacon (courtier, (1510 – 1579 English politician during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I Lord Keeper of the Great Seal The Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, and later of Great Britain, was formerly an officer of the English Crown charged with physical custody of the Great

Parliament was summoned in 1559 to consider the Reformation Bill and to again create an independent Church of England. The Parliament of England was the Legislature of the Kingdom of England. The Reformation Bill defined the Communion as a consubstantial celebration as opposed to a transubstantial celebration, included abuse of the pope in the litany, and ordered that ministers should not wear the surplice or other Catholic vestments. The Mass is the Eucharistic celebration in the Latin liturgical rites of the Roman Catholic Church. Homoousian (from the Greek όμοιοs meaning same and ουσία meaning essence or being is a technical theological term used in discussion of the See also Eucharist (Catholic Church On the related belief that Christ is present in the Eucharist in body blood soul and divinity see Real Presence. History See also History of the Papacy Catholics recognize the Pope as a successor to Saint Peter, who Jesus named as the "shepherd" and A litany, in Christian worship, is a form of Prayer used in Church services and Processions and consisting of a number of petitions Priest or seminarian with censorjpg|thumb|Seminarian vested in a pleated Roman-style surplice with lace inserts holding a Thurible. It allowed ministers to marry, banned images from churches, and confirmed Elizabeth as Supreme Head of the Church of England. The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican The Bill met heavy resistance in the House of Lords, as Roman Catholic bishops as well as the lay peers voted against it. The House of Lords is the second house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is also commonly referred to as "the Lords" A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight They reworked much of the Bill, changed the liturgy to allow for belief in transubstantiation in the Communion and refused to grant Elizabeth the title of Supreme Head of the Church. Parliament was prorogued over Easter, and when it resumed, the government entered two new bills into the Houses — the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity. A parliamentary session is a period of time where the Legislature in a Parliamentary government is sitting The Act of Supremacy 1559 (1 Eliz c 1 was an Act of the Parliament of England, passed under the auspices of Queen Elizabeth I of England. The Act of Uniformity in 1559 set the order of Prayer to be used in the English Book of Common Prayer.

Act of Supremacy

The Act of Supremacy validated ten Acts of Henry VIII that Mary had repealed and confirmed Elizabeth as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Use of the term Supreme Governor as opposed to Supreme Head pacified many who were concerned about a female leader of the Church of England. Elizabeth's changes were more wholesale than those of her half-brother, Edward VI. Edward VI (12 October 1537 &ndash 6 July 1553 became King of England and Ireland on 28 January 1547 and was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine 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. Anthony Kitchin (died 31 October 1566) also known as Anthony Dunstone was a mid-16th century Abbot of Eynsham Abbey and The bishops who were removed from the ecclesiastical bench were replaced by appointees who would agree to the reforms.

On the question of images, her initial reaction was to allow crucifixes and candlesticks and the restoration of roods, but some of the new bishops whom she had elevated protested. Iconoclasm, Greek for "image-breaking" is the deliberate destruction within a culture of the culture's own religious Icons and other symbols or monuments In 1560 Edmund Grindal, one of the Marian exiles now made Bishop of London, was allowed to enforce the demolition of rood lofts in London and in 1561 the Queen herself ordered the demolition of all lofts. Edmund Grindal (c 1519 &ndash 6 July, 1583) was an English church leader who successively held the posts of Bishop of London, Archbishop The Bishop of London is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury. ^[2] Thereafter, the determination to prevent any further restoration was evidenced by the more thoroughgoing destruction of roods, vestments, stone altars, dooms, statues and other ornaments. ROOD jong in de SP ( Dutch for RED young in the SP) is a Dutch youth wing linked to the Socialist Party. Vestments are liturgical garments and articles associated primarily with the Christian religions especially the Latin Rite and other Roman Catholics The queen also appointed a new Privy Council, removing many Roman Catholic counsellors by doing so. A privy council is a body that advises the Head of state of a nation on how to exercise their executive authority, typically but not always in the context of a Under Elizabeth, factionalism in the Council and conflicts at court greatly diminished. The Act of Supremacy had passed without difficulty.

Queen Elizabeth I of England reached a moderate religious settlement which became controversial after her death.

Act of Uniformity

The Act of Uniformity 1559, which forced people to attend Sunday service in an Anglican church, at which a new version of the Book of Common Prayer was to be used, passed by only three votes. The Act of Uniformity in 1559 set the order of Prayer to be used in the English Book of Common Prayer. The Book of Common Prayer is the common title of a number of prayer books of the Church of England and used throughout the Anglican Communion. ^[3] The Bill of Uniformity was more cautious than the initial Reformation Bill. It revoked the harsh laws proposed against Roman Catholics, it removed the abuse of the pope from the litany and kept the wording that allowed for both a subjective and objective belief in the Real Presence in the Communion.

After Parliament was dismissed, Elizabeth, along with Cecil, drafted what are known as the Royal Injunctions. These were additions to the settlement and largely stressed some continuity with the Catholic past — ministers were ordered to wear the surplice. Wafers, as opposed to ordinary baker's bread, were to be used as the bread at Communion. There had been opposition to the settlement in the shires, which for the most part were largely Roman Catholic, so the changes are often said to have been made in order to allow for acceptance of the Settlement, although MacCulloch sees it as "absurd to see these concessions as intended to mollify Catholic- minded clergy and laity" and only of help in conciliating possible Lutherans. Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the teachings of the sixteenth-century German reformer Martin Luther Catholics had lost so much that these minor changes meant nothing to them. ^[4] 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. ^[5]

Legacy

The settlement is often seen as a terminal point for the English Reformation and in the long run the foundation of a "via media" and the concept of Anglicanism. The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th century England by which the Church of England first broke away from the authority of the Pope Anglicanism is a tradition of Christian faith Churches in this tradition either have historical connections to the Church of England or have similar beliefs At the time it was believed to have established a Protestant Church. ^[6] Although Elizabeth "cannot be credited with a prophetic latitudinarian policy which foresaw the rich diversity of Anglicanism", her preferences made it possible. ^[7] To some it can be said to represent a compromise in wording and practice between the first Prayer Book of Edward VI (1549) and the Second Prayer Book (1552). For example, when Thomas Cranmer first wrote the Book of Common Prayer, which came into operation in 1549, it contained the words "The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. The Book of Common Prayer is the common title of a number of prayer books of the Church of England and used throughout the Anglican Communion. " The 1552 edition, which was never in force, replaces these words with "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving. " However, some liturgical scholars such as Gregory Dix, Ratcliff, and Couratin would say that both prayer books taught the same eucharistic doctrine, albeit more cautiously in the first book. ^[8] The Act which authorised the second book spoke of it as explaining and making 'fully perfect' the first book. ^[9] Finally, the 1559 book, published under Matthew Parker during the reign of Elizabeth, includes both phrases. Matthew Parker ( 6 August 1504 &ndash 17 May 1575) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1559 until his death in 1575 ^[10]

By the time of Elizabeth's death, there had emerged a new party, "perfectly hostile" to Puritans, but not adherent to Rome. The Anglicans, as they came to be called later in the century,^[11] preferred the revised Book of Common Prayer of 1559, from which had been removed some of the matters offensive to Catholics. The Book of Common Prayer is the common title of a number of prayer books of the Church of England and used throughout the Anglican Communion. ^[12] A new dispute was between the Puritans, who wished to see an end of the prayer book and episcopacy and the Anglicans, 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. ^[13] It was between these two groups that, after Elizabeth's death in 1603, a new, more savage episode of the English Reformation was in the process of gestation.

Road to the Civil War

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. James VI and I (19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625 was King of Scotland as James VI, and King of England and King of Ireland as James Charles I, (19 November 1600 &ndash 30 January 1649 was King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution. The English Civil War (1642-1651 was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists. 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. Diarmaid Ninian John MacCulloch (born 31 October 1951, in Kent, England) is Professor of the History of the Church in the University of The Commonwealth of England was the Republican government which ruled first England (including Wales) and then Ireland and Scotland The English Restoration, or simply The Restoration began in 1660 when the English monarchy, Scottish monarchy and Irish monarchy were restored Anglicans were to become the core of the restored Church of England, but at the price of further division. At the Restoration in 1660 Anglicans were to be but part of the religious scene, which was to include various kinds of non-conformity.

See also

• Oath of Supremacy
• English Reformation
• Regnans in Excelsis
• Religion in the United Kingdom
• Vestments controversy

References

External links

• The Legacy of the Reformation: A New Approach
• Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), Elizabethan Religious Settlement
• Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity (1559)
• Documents Illustrative of English Church History