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...

Review of periodical literature published in 2009

“…(The) English/Scottish/British/European R/reformation(s) continue(s) to spark debate. Marshall's historiographical overview of recent work is handy for early modernists whose main interests lie elsewhere, while Collinson's important argument that politics and religion in Elizabethan England could never fully be separated demands attention. Of a more specifically social bent is Kitson's application of refreshingly hard‐nosed quantification to questions of cultural and religious change.…”

17th century blue enamel on window glass from the cathedral of Christ Church, Oxford: Investigating its deterioration mechanism

“…Most of the Christ Church windows probably portrayed a single scene depicting an event in either the Old or New Testaments, and would have been one of the largest in the country installed at this time [2]. Despite the cost of the scheme, all windows were quickly removed from the Cathedral during the English Civil War after 10 years [5][6][7][8]. They then had a complex history: some were lost and others returned to windows, moving several times before being stored and eventually re-discovered in the coal bunker [4,9].…”

William Herle and the English Secret Service

“…10 Robyn Adams, ‗A Spy on the Payroll? : William Herle and the Mid Elizabethan Polity, ' Historical Research, Vol.83, Issue 220, 2010, pp.1-15;Collinson's model can be found in: Patrick Collinson, ‗Servants and Citizens: Robert Beale and Other Elizabethans,' Historical Research, Vol.79, Issue 206, 2006, pp.496-497. can gain insight into a multitude of aspects of Tudor politics, economics, and society. In order to place Herle in the wider context of the Elizabethan world, the people he corresponded with and the events he was a part of must be discussed.…”

“…Wernham's Before the Armada has provided an excellent overview of the main shifts in Tudor foreign policy for almost fifty years. 11 Wernham's focus on the overall picture often led him to obscure the specific details of each incident he covered, and his reliance on the nineteenth century calendars over manuscript originals left him at the mercy of Victorian tastes and prejudices. 12 Wallace T. MacCaffrey's three volume history of Elizabethan policy provides a far more detailed study than Wernham's overview and benefits from being published over twenty years, allowing MacCaffrey to incorporate a range of other scholars' research that was published in the interim.…”

“…Writing to Cecil in late 1569, Herle described him as ‗the true and undowted Patron of the whole Comune weall,' indicating the breadth of Cecil's pervasive influence. 11 Cecil was undoubtedly Herle's primary patron, a relationship forged in the early years of Elizabeth's reign which continued until Herle's death nearly thirty years later.…”