Religious Matters

Question 1

What was the religion like building up to Elizabeth?

Answer 1

1. The reformation of Henry VIII’s reign had officially made the country protestant, but in reality little had changed.
2. Most Catholic practices were still followed, and it was during Edward VI’s reign that England became much more of a protestant country.
3. As Edward was only 9 when he became king, the country was governed by groups of men, known as regency councils.
4. During Edwards short reign there were drastic changes, including the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer which firmly established a more Protestant approach.

Question 2

How did Mary I create a problem?

Answer 2

1. Edward’s death in 1553 brought his sister Mary to the throne. She spent the following 5 years returning the country to the Catholic faith.
2. She made the pope the head of the church again, brought back the Latin Catholic mass, and punished those who refused to return to the old religion.
3. Almost 300 protestants were martyred by being burned alive on her orders.
4. Mary was desperate to have a child who would succeed her and keep England catholic, but this did not happen.
5. When Mary died in 1558 she left a scarred and religiously divided country to her younger sister, Elizabeth.

Question 3

What was Elizabeth’s religious settlement?

Answer 3

1. Elizabeth was protestant, but she was also practical. She set about a compromise to bring aspects of both faiths together in a ‘religious settlement’
2. Elizabeth allowed priests to marry, services were held in English and she brought back the Book of Common Prayer.
3. However, she declared herself ‘governor’ instead of ‘head’ of the church.
4. Importantly, Elizabeth allowed Catholics to worship in their own way in private.
5. Church services were designed to allow people of either faith to take part and understand in their own way.
6. Elizabeth appointed a moderate Protestant, Matthew Parker, as Archbishop of Canterbury to oversee the English church.

Question 4

When did Elizabeth make the religious settlement?

Answer 4

1559

Question 5

What was life like for Catholics under Elizabeth?

Answer 5

1. When Elizabeth came to the throne, many Catholics feared protestant retribution for the burnings and persecutions of Mary I’s reign.
2. Instead, they found that Elizabeth wanted to bring the country together.
3. Elizabeths religious settlement combined some Catholic practices with Protestant ones.
4. England was protestant but Catholics could attend church and saee many of the traditions of their faith.
5. The services were written to avoid anything that would cause direct conflict for Catholics.
6. Recusancy fines for Catholics who did not attend protestant services were low.
7. Catholics kept their own belief in private, and in return the government would not seek out disobedience.

Question 6

When was the papal bull, and what was it?

Answer 6

1. 27th April 1570
2. Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth from the catholic church and called upon Catholics to end her rule.

Question 7

What did the papal bull do for Catholics?

Answer 7

1. English Catholics were faced with a dilemma: be loyal to the Queen, or be loyal to the Pope.
2. Many chose to ignore the papal bull, but some saw it as their duty to rise up against Elizabeth, whom Pius had called the “pretended Queen of England”.

Question 8

What was the point of the papal bull?

Answer 8

1. The excommunication was designed by the Pope to catalyse rebellions.
2. It was originally planned to coincide with the Northern Rebellion of 1569, but was issued late.
3. However, it did inspire other rebellions.

Question 9

What happened in the Northern Rebellion?

Answer 9

1. Elizabeth refused to allow the Duke of Norfolk to marry Mary, Queen of Scots
2. This resulted in two catholic nobles, Westmorland and Northumberland rebelling.
3. They took over Durham Cathedral and held an illegal catholic mass.
4. They began to march south with 4,600 men.
5. The Earl of Sussex raised an army and the rebels disbanded. N was captured and executed, Norfolk was imprisoned and W escaped to France.

Question 10

What happened in the Ridolfi Plot?

Answer 10

1. After being released from the Tower of London, Norfolk quickly became involved in another plot.
2. This new plot was led by Italian banker Roberto Ridolfi. After seeing the failure of the Northern Rebellion he believed foreign aid was needed.
3. In 1570 the pope had commanded Catholics not to obey Elizabeth, and as a banker, Ridolfi could move freely across Europe building support.
4. The plan was for the Netherlands to invade England at the same time as another northern rebellion. Elizabeth would be killed, and Mary would be placed on the throne.
5. Elizabeth’s network of spies proved to be too much for the plotters. Norfolk confessed to his involvement and was executed on 2 June 1572.

Question 11

What happened in the Throckmorton plot?

Answer 11

1. This plot was led by Sir Francis Throckmorton.
2. The plot was that Elizabeth would be executed and Mary placed on the throne.
3. There would then be an invasion by the French Catholic, Henry, Duke of Guise, and an uprising of English Catholics.
4. The Spanish ambassador was also involved.
5. When the plot was discovered, Throckmorton was executed and Mary was placed under even closer watch.

Question 12

What was Elizabeth’s reaction to plots after the papal bull?

Answer 12

1. Plots after the papal bull showed Elizabeth that she could no loger rely on the loyalty of all her catholic subjects.
2. A new approach was needed to ensure that Catholics did not rebel, and that trouble makers were caught.
3. New laws were introduced to try to disrupt Catholic activites and show that challenges to the Queens rule were not tolerated.
4. Having allowed private Catholicism for the first 23 years of her reign, a law was passed in 1581 making it treason to attend a Catholic mass.

Question 13

Which anti-Catholic law was introduced in 1571?

Answer 13

1. Recusancy fines for Catholics who did not take part in Protestant services. They could be fined or have property taken from them.
2. However, the rich could afford to pay, and Elizabeth did not enforce the law too harshly; when parliament tried to increase the fines Elizabeth resisted.
3. It became illegal to own any Catholic items such as rosary beads.

Question 14

Which anti-Catholic law was introduced in 1581?

Answer 14

1. Recusancy fines were increased to £20 - more than most could afford; this law was strictly enforced.
2. It became high treason to convert to Catholicism.

Question 15

Which anti-Catholic law was introduced in 1585?

Answer 15

1. Any Catholic priest who had been ordained after 1559 was considered a traitor and both he and anyone protecting him faced death.
2. It became legal to kill anyone trying to assassinate the queen.

Question 16

Which anti-Catholic law was introduced in 1593?

Answer 16

1. The ‘statue of confinement’ - Catholics could not travel more than 5 miles from their home without permission from the authorities.

Question 17

What happened at the college at Douai?

Answer 17

1. in 1568, an English Catholic cardinal, William Allen, established a seminary at Douai in the Spanish Netherlands to train priests.
2. Allen, who had the full backing of the Pope, aimed to educate priests who would then travel to England as missionaries to convert the English back to the Catholic faith.
3. The first priests arrived in 1574, just as Elizabeth’s fear of Catholic rebellion was growing.

Question 18

Who were the Jesuits?

Answer 18

1. The Society of Jesus was established in 1540. It was part of what is known as the Counter-Reformation and hoped to bring people back to the Catholic faith.
2. The Jesuits, as its members were known, first arrived in England in 1580. Their aim was to convert the protestant population to the Catholic faith.

Question 19

How were the Jesuits treated?

Answer 19

1. Jesuit priests were seen by Elizabeth as a threat to her rule and those who were caught were treated harshly.
2. The 1585 Act against Jesuits and Seminary Priests called for all Jesuits to be driven out of England and many were executed.
3. Those who sheltered them could be arrested.

Question 20

Catholic powers in europe?

Answer 20

1. Although the protestant faith was now widespread across Europe, the two most powerful countries remained firmly Catholic.
2. Taking their lead from the pope, the kings of France and Spain began to support challenges to Elizabeth’s rule.
3. Although war was avoided, France and Spain supported the Jesuit missionaries and gave financial support to those who wanted to get rid of the Queen.
4. Phillip II even helped set up the seminary at Douai in the Spanish Netherlands.

Question 21

Why did Elizabeth’s policy change?

Answer 21

1. In the 1580s, tolerance of Catholics declined sharply. Elizabeth and her government felt increasingly under threat at home and abroad.
2. In England, there were a number of Catholic families who still held a lot of power, particularly in the north.
3. With the Catholic church in Europe determined for England to return to Catholicism, Elizabeth felt vulnerable and under threat.

Question 22

What was Campion’s mission?

Answer 22

1. The Jesuits had spent the years since 1540 sending missionaries all over Europe, often at risk to their lives, spreading their religious message.
2. In 1580 they began a mission to England.
3. The men chose to lead the mission were two exiled Englishmen: Robert Parsons and Edmund Campion.
4. On arrival in England on the 24th of June, Campion, disguised as a jewel merchant, began preaching to the ordinary English people. He travelled the country spreading his message.
5. News of his presence reached the authorities and Campion became a wanted man.
6. Parsons kept a much lower profile, and the authorities were certain that Campion’s aim was to encourage a rebellion.

Question 23

What happened when Campion was caught?

Answer 23

1. Campion was arrested on the 14th of July in Berkshire and taken to the tower of London.
2. Under questioning by three members of Elizabeth’s privy council, Campion maintained that he had no wish to overthrow the queen.
3. He was held for four months and tortured several times on the rack.
4. He was found guilty of treason on the 20th of November 1581. On the first of December, he was dragged through London before being hanged, drawn and quartered. Robert Parsons escaped from England, never to return.

Question 24

Who were the Puritans?

Answer 24

1. The Puritans were protestants who were unwilling to compromise in how their faith was practised.
2. They argued for the removal of all Catholic elements from the English Church.
3. Elizabeth’s religious settlement was a huge disappointment to them.

Question 25

Who were the Presbyterians?

Answer 25

1. By 1568, most Puritans accepted Elizabeth’s changes and reluctantly conformed.
2. A small, dedicated group called the Presbyterians refused to give in, and continued to argue against what they saw as a popish church.

Question 26

How much of a threat were puritans?

Answer 26

1. In the 1570s, meetings known as prophesyings became popular. Prophesyings involved members of the clergy meeting for prayer and discussion, which would often include strong criticism of Elizabeth’s church.
2. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Grindal, encouraged these meetings but the queen saw them as very dangerous.
3. Grindal was suspended as Archbishop by the Queen when he refused to ban prophesyings. More and more Puritans separated themselves from the mainstream church, and there were a number of attempts to establish new churches.
4. In 1580 a new separist church was established in Norwich. It’s leader, Robert browne, was arrested but later released.
5. In 1592, a second new church was set up in London, and again the leaders, Henry Barrow and John Greenwood were arrested. However, unlike Browne, they were hanged.

Question 27

How did Elizabeth and her government deal with puritans?

Answer 27

1. With the deaths of Dudley and Walsingham in 1588 and 1590, Puritanism lost powerful supporters at court, and Elizabeth took a harsher approach toward Puritans.
2. Their refusal to put up with the religious settlement was seen as a challenge to her authority, and something she was not going to allow.
3. In 1583, with the queens support, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift, had introduced rules to crack down on Puritanism.
4. Among other things, the rules banned unlicensed preaching and enforced attendance at church by introducing recusancy fines.
5. A new High Comission was given the power to fine and imprison Puritans who did not conform. Hundreds were dismissed or imprisoned.
6. Purtitans were producing increasingly extreme publications calling for the reorginisation of the Church, and the persecution of those they saw as having Catholic sympathies.
7. Elizabeth had Puritan printers punished, such as John Stubbs who had is right hand chopped off for criticising official marriage talks with a French Catholic prince.
8. Whitgifts camapaign broke the organisation of the Puritans,