HST247

Question 1

What are the dates of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign?

Answer 1

1558-1603

Question 2

When was the gunpowder plot?

Answer 2

1605- it aimed to depose James I.

Question 3

Give a quote which emphasises the centrality of the Bible in protestantism.

Answer 3

William Chillingworth said that “The Bible is the religion of Protestants”

Question 4

Identify change and continuity between Catholic England and Protestant England

Answer 4

CHANGE:
Church interiors- churches are commanded to “return how they were in Edward’s time” but this is very vague
as Edward’s reign got more conservative as he went along. The Royal Proclamation of 1561 ordered that the Royal Coat of Arms be placed on the rood screen where a cross would once have been placed; Susan Doran and Christopher Durston argue that this was ‘a striking visual symbol of the English Church’s subordination to the Crown
-Shift from the visual to the spoken
Religious art continued, but it shifted from the official church sphere to the domestic sphere- Eg: Bess of Hardwick’s painted cloths showing the life of St Paul
CONTINUITY
Hierarchical structure of Bishops and Priests etc

Question 5

What were St Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians regarding church services?

Answer 5

That they should be “DECENT, ORDERLY and EDIFYING.”

Question 6

What was the Vestiarian controversy?

Answer 6

In 1563, 20 Protestant clergy demand that they should be exempt from wearing vestments like the surplice.

Question 7

How personally Catholic/ Protestant was Queen Elizabeth I?

Answer 7

The fact that she kept a crucifix and candles in the Chapel Royal against the advice of her Bishops is a big indicator.

Question 8

Give a quote from John Calvin on idols.

Answer 8

“the mind is a perpetual factory of idols.”

Question 9

What was so significant about the eye vs the ear during the reformation?

Answer 9

Margaret Aston argues that “the eye was donwngraded to the supremacy of the ear” and that “the innocence of the eye was irretrievably eroded”, showing how the emphasis switched from visual culture like idols to oral culture like the sermon. Indeed, Felicity Heal identifies that some preachers were worried that the deaf would be excluded from salvation.

Question 10

Under which years under Elizabeth I’s reign did anti-Catholicism reach its height?

Answer 10

1586-1892

The turning point was Mary Queen of Scots fleeing Scotland as she became a rallying point for English Catholics

Question 11

What binary did Peter Lake identify?

Answer 11

The negative-positive binary: anti-Catholic language was so incendiary that anything bad said about Rome implied that it’s opposite good attribute could be applied to the English church.

Question 12

Identify two examples of Catholic religious literature being repurposed for protestant purposes.

Answer 12

1. Robert Person’s Catholic devotional ‘The Book of Resolutions’ was adapted for protestant use by Edmund Bunny
2. Antony Milton argued that “the shelves of puritan libraries seemed to have groaned under the weight of Catholic Bible commentaries.”

Question 13

Why did ‘invisible catholics’ worry protestants so much?

Answer 13

• Church popery- particularly when Rome’s stance softened towards recusancy, as demonstrated by a letter from Cardinal William Allen in 1592 which urges Catholics to exercise “wisdom and charity” in wether to conform or not.
• Very real threat from foreign invasions, particularly after the 1570 Papal Bull ‘Regnans in Excelcis’ but also INTERNAL catholics. Every single Roman Catholic is now a threat to the Queen.

Question 14

Joseph Hall wrote in ‘Roma Irreconciliabis’ that the Catholic church, could, in time be reformed to a more protestant way of thinking. -True or false?

Answer 14

False. Joseph Hall wrote in 1610 that ‘Rome shall pass away by destruction, not change.”

Question 15

Name some Catholic plots against Elizabeth

Answer 15

1. Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland get as far as re-instating catholicism in Durham Cathedral before they are stopped in 1569.
2. Ridolfi plot- crucially originated from ABROAD- 1571
3. Throckmorton plot-1583
4. Parry Plot- 1584
5. Babbington Plot- 1586- Mary Queen of Scots is executed for her alleged involvement in this.

Question 16

When was the first Priest hung drawn and quartered? Why was this significant? How many Priests and helpers were executed altogether under Elizabeth’s reign?

Answer 16

1577- Crucially catholicism becomes a matter of TREASON rather than religion.
124 priests are publicly executed along with 59 lay helpers

Question 17

When was the St Bartholemew’s Day Massacre?

Answer 17

1572.

Question 18

Name two Jesuits.

Answer 18

Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons.

Question 19

How were recusants ‘treated like lepers’?

Answer 19

In 1593 they are prohibited from travelling more than 5 miles from home.

Question 20

When was the Anglo-Spanish war?

Answer 20

1588-1604

Question 21

Give a concrete, every day example of anti-Catholicism pervading all levels of society.

Answer 21

Robert Tower stipulated in his will that he would leave his house to his wife and son, but in the event that they both died without heirs that the money should go to Queens College Oxford to fund divinity scholarships…. BUT only on the grounds that “this be rescinded should religion alter and mass be received.”

Question 22

Name two Catholic martyrs.

Answer 22

Margaret Clitherow- 1586

Edmund Campion- 1581

Question 23

How many Catholic bishops did Elizabeth have to expel at the start of her reign?

Answer 23

Just one.

Question 24

On what grounds did the BCP give for excluding communicants?

Answer 24

“Sin, malice and ignorance” which was open to a wide range of interpretations.
Eg: Richard Greenham recommended that a priest in a new parish should suspend communion until he knew all were properly catechised.
- In 1597 Richard Purdy and his wife were excluded from communion in Suffolk for ‘being hard on the poor’ - showing how exclusion from communion could be a tool for priests to enforce morality as being excluded carried public shame
-often very public rows: case in 1590 of a falling out between Maragret Adams and Agnes Long… the curate tried to reassure them both but when Agnes saw Margaret present herself at Easter communion she publicly cried out “this is the woman that offended me!”
- Communicants were very pissed off if they had put their offering on the collection plate but the Priest took it and they didn’t get communion
(Wrongly distributing the eucharist had two consequences:
- profaning of the sacrament
-damnation of unworthy recipients

Question 25

Who were Atheos and Zealotes?

Answer 25

The subject of Puritan Minister George Gifford’s dialogue in 1582

Question 26

How could lay/clerical relations be problematic?

Answer 26

• J.F. Merrit argues there is no ‘universal’ Anglican experience of the parish. Departure from clear lay/clerical relations of the Catholic church. George Gifford’s Atheos and Zealotes is a good example.
• tithes/money- 10%
• agressive ministers- Stephen Denson called out his parishioners sins by name in the pulpit (‘particularising’)
  Samuel Herron in Devon listed the sins of the deceased at funerals!
• admission to communion
  -BUT was the vestry ‘Presbyterianism’ by the back door?
  eg: St Olave’s Jewry vestry paid Mr Tuke £12 to let them appoint a lecturer to preach on Sundays.
  Richard Bancroft’s 1584 satire also showed how he was worried about the power of the laypeople and ministers getting too cosy with non challenging sermons.