...more apparent than her religious settlement, 'Her Majesty', in Francis Bacon's phrase, 'not liking to make windows into men's hearts and secret thoughts'. In reality, however, the historical record is uncertain: the Queen's thoughts are rarely revealed and the kaleidoscope of influences which contributed to the settlement are various and complex. Even the fundamental premise that her underlying objective was a compromise predicated upon tolerance can be questioned.

Popular Belief

One apparent example of Elizabeth's commonsensical approach to her religious settlement was that she was in tune with the nation. A.G. Dickens asserted that the 1559 Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity would be inexplicable without recognition of the fact that protestantism had made significant strides by 1558. True, it was firmly established in London, a fair chunk of the south-east, in parts of East Anglia and specific urban centres such as Bristol and Coventry, even indeed as far afield as the textile villages of Gloucestershire and the Yorkshire towns of Rotherham and Wakefield. Yet the pattern suggested by the last generation of research is an unsymmetrical one. Lancashire and Cornwall remained very conservative in religious outlook. So, more surprisingly, did parts of Sussex and Hampshire. Such findings have led to t the suggestion that English protestantism was less a cause than a consequence of the Elizabethan settlement.

One suspects that the reality for most people was indifference, not to religion per se but to the finer theological points of catholicism and protestantism. Studies of popular belief in more recent pre-industrial societies have concluded that most people conformed either out of fear or social habit. Josias Nichols, who questioned 400 communicants in one Kent parish late in Elizabeth's reign and found that only one per cent expected to be saved through faith (a key tenet of protestantism), was more surprised than we ought to be. What such findings do suggest is that religious conservatism was unlikely to take kindly to rapid or obvious breaks with the past imposed from above. After all, the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace, which touched nine counties, had at least in part been caused by Henry VIIl's break with Rome. Thirteen years later, six different counties had joined in the Western Rebellion whose most celebrated grievance was that the new English service was 'like a Christmas game'. As Elizabeth was warned before her regime embarked upon change, 'Glasses with small necks, if you pour into them any liquor suddenly or violently, will not be so filled, but refuse to receive that same that you would pour into them.' The final settlement contains plenty to suggest that the point was well made.

The International Dimension

However mindful Elizabeth was of the domestic situation in 1558-9, her more pressing concern was the international one. At her accession England was embroiled--through Mary Tudor's marriage to Philip II--in Habsburg Spain's war with Valois France. Entering the war in June 1557, England had, in January 1558, lost Calais. Worse, the Dauphin Francis was married to Mary...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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