The Puritan Threat

Question 1

What were puritans?

Answer 1

Radical Protestants

Question 2

What did puritans want?

Answer 2

To rid the church of all catholic associations and follow a simpler or ‘purer’ form of worship.

Question 3

How were puritans treated during Mary’s reign?

Answer 3

They had been forced to flee abroad to escape persecution. Many went to Geneva, Zurich, Frankfurt and Strasbourg where they came into contact with the beliefs of the Swiss preacher John Calvin.

Question 4

What did puritans do when Elizabeth became queen?

Answer 4

Many returned to England which called for her religious settlement to be more radical.

Question 5

What did puritans oppose?

Answer 5

The role of bishops, believing them to be an invention by the pope to maintain his power over church. They claimed that there was no mentioned of bishops in the bible.

Question 6

What did bishops think of puritans?

Answer 6

Many of the bishops of the new Elizabethan church regarded Puritan ideas with suspicion and cane to see them as a direct threat to the crown and unity of the country.

Question 7

Which bishops were sympathetic to Puritan beliefs and hoped to form the church from within?

Answer 7

• John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury
• Edwin Sandys, Bishop of Worcester
• Edmund Grindal, Bishop of London
• Richard Cox, Bishop of Ely

Question 8

What sort of practices were puritans against?

Answer 8

Puritans not referenced in the bible. They opposed:

• Kneeling to receive communion
• Using a ring to formalise marriage
• Sign of cross during baptism
• Celebration of saints days
• Playing organ music during church services
• Display of ornaments, paintings and stained glass in churches.

Question 9

What did Puritans strongly believe about Sunday’s?

Answer 9

That Sunday was the lord’s day and should be devoted to religious study.

Question 10

What sort of clothes did puritans wear?

Answer 10

Plain clothes (black and white)

Question 11

What did Puritans avoid in everyday life?

Answer 11

• Forms of entertainment on a Sundays
• All forms of gambling
• The theatre
• Frequenting the ale house
• Drunkenness
• Swearing
• Dancing on village green

Question 12

What are the three different types of Protestant?

Answer 12

Moderate puritans, Presbyterians and separatists

Question 13

What were moderate protestants?

Answer 13

Reluctantly accepted the religious settlement of 1559 but continued to call for further reforms to purify the church.

Question 14

What were Presbyterians?

Answer 14

Wanted further reforms of the church and called for simpler services, the abolition of bishops and for each church to be run by a committee of presbyters (teachers and elders) elected by people who attended church services.

Question 15

What were separatists?

Answer 15

Formed the most radical group- wanted to break from the national church and for each church to be independent and run its on affairs on a parish-by-parish basis through local committees.

Question 16

What was the vestements controversy of 1556?

Answer 16

Puritans did not like clothes of priests as they saw their clothes to be too catholic.

Question 17

How did the government respond to the vestment controversy?

Answer 17

37 Puritan priests were dismissed from their positions because they refused to wear vestments.

Question 18

What were proposals by Thomas Cartwright (1570)?

Answer 18

Lecturer at Cambridge university who proposed a Presbyterian system of church government- this system weakened the power of the queen.

Question 19

How did the government respond to the proposals by Thomas Cartwright?

Answer 19

Proposals were rejected by Queen and her privy council, he was forced to leave England for Geneva.

Question 20

What were the Marprelate tracts 1588-1589?

Answer 20

An anonymous series of pamphlets produced called the Marprelate Tracts which bitterly attacked the church and its bishops- these lost Puritan support because they contained offensive language- authors were never identified.

Question 21

How did people respond to the Marprelate tracts?

Answer 21

Some Protestants wrote pamphlets against Puritan views e.g. Richard Hooker published his laws of Ecclesiastical policy.

Question 22

What was the French marriage pamphlet if John Stubbs (1579)?

Answer 22

John Stubbs, a Puritan and political commentator wrote a pamphlet criticising the queen for marriage talks with the French Duke of Ajou.

Question 23

What was the government response to the French marriage pamphlet of John Stubbs?

Answer 23

Stubbs arrested and put on trial- sentenced to his right hand cut off and imprisoned for 18 months- accused of ‘seditious writing’.

Question 24

How did Walter Strickland oppose parliament and the privy council in 1571?

Answer 24

Puritan MP for Yorkshire, who proposed a bill in parliament for the introduction of a new book of common prayer, banning of vestments, use of a ring in marriage and kneeling to receive communion.

Question 25

How did the government respond to Walter Strickland?

Answer 25

He was prevented from attending the House of Commons and Elizabeth closed parliament before his ideas could be discussed.

Question 26

How did John Feild and Thomas Wilcox oppose parliament and the privy council in 1572?

Answer 26

Published books where they said that the Presbyterian church structure was the one laid down in the Bible. They were also critical of the book of common prayer.

Question 27

How did the government John Feild and Thomas Wilcox?

Answer 27

Both men arrested and imprisoned for a year having been accused of breaking the Act of Uniformity. Puritan printing presses were ordered to be destroyed and bishops instructed to enforce uniformity.

Question 28

How did Peter Wentworth oppose parliament and the privy council in 1576?

Answer 28

Puritan MP for Barnstable, complained House of Commons was not letting MPs discuss anything they wanted.

Question 29

How did the government respond to Peter Wentworth?

Answer 29

Imprisoned at the Tower of London. Issued instructions that parliament was not allowed to debate religious matters.

Question 30

How did Peter Turner oppose parliament and the privy council in 1584?

Answer 30

Puritan MP for Bridport proposed a bill to change the government of the church to copy Calvin’s system at Geneva.

Question 31

How did the government respond to Peter Turner?

Answer 31

Bill failed and he was attacked by Christopher Hatton.

Question 32

How did Anthony Cope oppose parliament and the privy council in 1586-1587?

Answer 32

Puritan MP for Branbury introduced a bill to parliament with Presbyterian ideas.

Question 33

How did the government respond to Anthony Cope?

Answer 33

Criticised by Hatton and confined in Tower of London.

Question 34

During the 1570s, what did the government become increasingly alarmed about?

Answer 34

The spread of meeting help by puritans called prophesyings, during which prayers and sermons were said, they became to be seen as dangerous by the queen and privy council as it was thought that they served to encourage unrest and a rebellion.

Question 35

What did the queen order Edmund Grindal (her now Archbishop of Canterbury) to do in 1576?

Answer 35

To ban prophesyings.

Question 36

How did Edmund react to Elizabeth’s request?

Answer 36

She was sympathetic to puritan ideas and refused to follow the queen’s instructions.

Question 37

How did Elizabeth react to Edmund Grindal?

Answer 37

By confining him to his house in Lambeth palace and suspending him from his duties and Elizabeth issues her own ban on prophesyings.

Question 38

Who did Elizabeth replace Grindal with when he died in 1583?

Answer 38

Elizabeth replaced him as Archbishop of Canterbury by John Whitgift, who had little sympathy for Puritan beliefs.

Question 39

His did John Whitgift purge the church of all Presbyterian elements?

Answer 39

He issued 3 articles in 1583, which laid down regulations to demand uniformity from the clergy by forcing them to swear the acceptance of:

• Bishops
• All contained in the common book of prayer
• The 39 articles

Question 40

How many ministers refused to swear acceptance to John Whitgift’s terms and were removed from office?

Answer 40

300-400

Question 41

What did Whitgift continue to do with his time in office?

Answer 41

He continued to impose strict controls over his clergy to end all prophesyings and to suppress any other developments if Presbyterian practices.

Question 42

How did Whitgift’s efforts cause the separatist movement?

Answer 42

Whitgift’s efforts caused strict puritans to operate underground some, known as separatists, decided to leave the established church and set up their own church. One of their leaders, Robert Browne and his followers became known as Brownists.

Question 43

What did Robert Browne set up?

Answer 43

A separatist congregation in Norwich, believing that the Protestant church lacked in moral discipline. He was imprisoned and on release emigrated to Holland.

Question 44

What was the Act against seditious secretaries 1593?

Answer 44

Gave the authority to those in power to execute those suspected of being separatists other penalties of imprisonment and banishment were given out to those who held unauthorised meetings/ refused to go to Anglican Church services. The arrests and executions that followed ended the separist movement