Elizabeth I

Henry VIII

Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII, had changed little in the Church of England. However, when his son Edward VI (1537-1553) became king in 1547, real change and genuine Protestant doctrine was introduced in the Church.

Edward was the last in the male line of the house of Tudor. He was the only son of Henry VIII and his third wife Jane Seymour. Edward was only nine when he succeeded to the throne in 1547, and so his maternal uncle, Edward Seymour, was named Lord Protector. Both Edward and the Protector strongly favored the Reformation and worked to establish Protestantism in England. They introduced the Book of Common Prayer, which strongly opposed the Roman Catholic liturgy. Although it stirred some uprisings, it came into general use in the Anglican Church.

Six years later Edward died and Mary I (1516-1558), a devout Roman Catholic, began her reign by abolishing the religious

Mary I

innovations of her father and brother. She restored the Mass and reestablished the authority of the pope. She also executed over 300 Protestants, earning the name “Bloody Mary.”

The three most famous prelates burned by Mary were Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer, burned together at Oxford in 1555, and the former archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, burned in 1556. Cranmer was pressured to sign recantations of his Protestant views under great physical and mental duress. But as he was being led to the pyre, he disavowed his recantations saying, “As my hand offended in writing (signing the recantations) contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall be punished; for when I come to the fire it shall be first burned.” True to his word, as the fire began to rise, he placed his right hand in it until it was entirely consumed. His final act of bravery made a very deep impact on the Protestant resistance to Mary.

Elizabeth I

When Mary died in 1558, Elizabeth I became queen and restored Protestantism.

Elizabeth had been educated under the supervision of Cranmer and was a Protestant at heart. During her reign, the Pope's authority over the Church of England was rejected and further changes were made to doctrine and worship. But the Church of England was still a compromise between elements of Catholicism and Protestantism. The liturgy, the prayer book, and the church government were largely Catholic; while the theology, the preaching, and the service in the vernacular were more Protestant.

Thus, many people remained dissatisfied and wished to see the Church purified more thoroughly. These members of the Church of England were called Puritans. The Puritans objected strongly to the government, rites, and ceremonies of the Church of England, but were also strongly opposed to separation from that Church. They wanted to reform the Church from within, molding it after the pattern of Calvin’s church in Geneva. Thus, the Church of England now consisted of two strong parties—the Anglicans and the Puritans—and for the next hundred years, they contended fiercely with one another.