184 Ch. 5 • Rise of the Atlantic Economy: Spain and EnglandReligious Settlement and Conflict under Elizabeth I
Elizabeth was determined to find a means to resolve religious conflict within
England, which might one day threaten her reign. Elizabeth had been raised
a Protestant, but she did not hold particularly strong religious convictions
and rarely attended church. Although she was thought to favor some
Catholic rituals, when she first encountered a procession of monks with can
dles and incense at Westminster Abbey, she cried out, “Away with these
torches, we see very well.” She dismissed many Catholic advisers.
In 1559, Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity and the Act of
Supremacy, which established the lasting foundations of the Church of En
gland, reorganizing it to have Protestant dogma but essentially Catholic
structure. The Uniformity Bill imposed the Book of Common Prayer (1550)
on religious services of the Church of England and required attendance at
public worship and imposed fines for not attending services. The bill barely
passed the House of Lords (which was primarily composed of Catholics),
and probably would not have passed at all had two bishops not been impris
oned in the Tower of London and thus been unable to vote. The Act of
Supremacy required all officials, clergy, and candidates for university
degrees to take an oath acknowledging the queen as “governor” of the En
glish Church. This title replaced that of “head” of the Church and suggested
that the queen would not interfere in matters of doctrine. The Thirty-Nine
Articles, enacted in 1563, provided an institutional framework for subse
quent relations between state and church in England. The landed elite,
strengthening its control of Parliament during Elizabeth s reign, generally
supported the Church of England.
Some English Protestants wanted to carry the reforms farther than Eliza
beth's religious settlement. They sought to eliminate from the Church
of England what some members considered vestiges of elaborate Catholic
ceremonies, such as baptismal crosses, altar rails before which the faithful
knelt while receiving communion, elaborate priestly garb, and stained-glass
windows.
Puritanism, the English version of Calvinism, first emerged in the late
1550s as a dissident force within the Church of England. Puritans were
drawn primarily from the middle and lower classes. They insisted on a sim
plified but more intense religion based on individual conscience, the direct
authority of the Holy Scriptures, and a community of belief in which
preaching played a preeminent role. Although a few Puritans served as bish
ops in the Church of England, others wanted the Church of England to be
separate from the English monarchy. The Tudor monarchy, on the other
hand, wanted to make the Church serve its secular goals of national glory,
prosperity, and public order.
A modest Catholic revival, aided by the arrival of Catholic Jesuit mission
aries from the continent, accentuated religious divisions in England. Royal
religious policies became harsher. Dissident Protestants suffered persecu