The politics of religion and the religion of politics in Elizabethan England

Abstract

Were politics and religion in Elizabethan England two distinct substances? The practice of religion, specifically of the religion defined by the Act of Uniformity and the Book of Common Prayer, was compulsory, and enforced. The structures of church and state were analogous. Yet, politics and religion were prised apart both in the justification offered for the persecution of Catholics and in the Catholic response. There were areas of religion which were private and voluntary, but they were far from apolitical. The politics of religion in Elizabethan England was heightened by the inability of the state to enforce strict religious uniformity.* This article is a revised version of a plenary lecture delivered at the 75th Religion and politics in Elizabethan England 75Elizabeth modelled herself on the biblical figure of Melchizedek, who was both priest and king. She was not an ayatollah. Yet, by her authority, and that of the parliament of which she was the principal member, every one of her subjects was legally bound to be present at the liturgical services of the church, twice on every Sunday and holy day, services which were constructed in minute detail in a Book of Common Prayer which, in the eyes of the law, was no more than an appendix to an act of parliament, the Act of Uniformity of 1559. Absence from church, and any deviation from the forms and rubrics of that book, were statutory offences and attracted the secular penalties of fine and imprisonment, penalties sharply increased by a further act of parliament in 1581. Other religious and ecclesiastical misdemeanours invited excommunication. That was a religious matter, but it had political and social implications. So far was religion from being private or voluntary that you could be put to death by incineration for the simple offence of holding beliefs which were contrary to orthodox Christianity. It did not happen very often, but it still happened, so far as we know, to eight persons between 1575 and 1612. 4 Political interest in religious belief and practice was not, of course, an Elizabethan innovation. Readers of Eamon Duffy's brilliant and hugely influential book The Stripping of the Altars might be forgiven for gathering that the politicization of religion began with Henry VIII. 5 But it was much older than that, and had been ratcheted up by the Lancastrian kings, using the threat of heresy and an act of parliament dealing with heresy to bolster their dubious entitlement to the throne. Henry VIII merely moved the goalposts and changed the rules.Since parliament had made the religious settlement, it could presumably unmake it, or change it (that had happened several times before, since the fifteen-thirties), and many sessions of successive Elizabethan parliaments were dominated by the politics of what Protestant critics of the settlement called 'further reformation'. Parliamentary campaigns to improve the state of the church, by reforming the prayer book, or even changing the very structure of the church, but above all to promote what hot Protestants cal...

Public Worship and Political Participation in Elizabethan England

“…112 This debate has now migrated to studies of the Elizabethan period: Patrick Collinson, Peter Lake, Michael Questier, and Ethan Shagan have all explored how Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Puritans understood the relationship between politics and religion and how they used it rhetorically and polemically. 113 Nicholas Tyacke has also argued that Puritans developed a definite conception of politics, specifically of Christian liberty: a "Puritan paradigm" or "all-embracing Puritan political vision." This was drawn from the Bible and advocated a specific form of governance (the "mixed polity") to guarantee the (godly) commonwealth and prevent the descent into tyranny.…”

Richard Bancroft and Anti‐Puritanism (2012)

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