Creating
Elizabeth’s Via Media : R.
E. Foster reconsiders the origins of the Church Settlement of 1559.
According
to the BBC’s millennium poll, Elizabeth I was our greatest monarch. Putting
the case for Elizabeth, Michael Portillo made clear why her appeal endures: she
sought unity and urged tolerance – in sharp contrast to her father and
siblings. In no aspect of her rule was this seemingly more apparent than in 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 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
VIII’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
It
was at least Elizabeth’s relative good fortune that the loss of Calais could
be blamed on Mary Tudor and that, devoid of finances, all sides sought an end to
hostilities. Talks had opened in September 1558 before Mary died. Restarted in
February 1559, the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis was finally signed on 2 April. By
its terms Elizabeth confirmed the loss of Calais, few if any clinging to the
clause that France would either return it after eight years or pay an indemnity
of 500,000 crowns. France also undertook to pacify the Scottish border.
How
did this impact upon the religious question? Edmund Grindal, Bishop of London in
1559, believed that the search for peace had delayed the religious settlement.
Certainly there was little point in antagonising either catholic ally or foe
with a protestant settlement during negotiations. The corollary indeed was that
religion would best serve diplomacy by England’s adopting a catholic
settlement, since a protestant one ran the risk of provoking Philip II into
making common cause with France against heretic England. A catholic settlement
would also remove the risk of excommunication, the reality of which might spark
a catholic uprising in England.
Such
considerations, however, were not decisive since Elizabeth had already decided
upon some form of protestant settlement. England’s ambassador to the papacy
was recalled as early as 1 February 1559. At the same time, envoys were
despatched to the Lutheran German princes who might be attracted by the prospect
of alliance with a moderately protestant England. Yet calculation of Philip
II’s response was critical. England gauged rightly that Philip would stomach
the unease which a protestant settlement engendered because the alternative was
worse. Installing Mary Stuart on the English throne was unacceptable to him
because it would become all too easy for the French to cut off the Spanish
Netherlands by sea. Moreover, he still harboured some hopes that he might
restore Spanish influence in England by marrying Elizabeth. Far from inclining
England to caution therefore, the timing of Cateau-Cambrésis perhaps made it
possible to move more quickly and further in a protestant direction than might
otherwise have been the case.
Elizabeth’s
Religion
If
diplomatic concerns were to some extent tangential, Elizabeth’s own religious
preferences – and how far they prevailed in 1559 – have long been recognised
as central to the debate on the religious settlement. Such ‘clues’ as she
offered to her own beliefs were invariably calculated. In March 1559 she told
Feria, the Spanish ambassador, that she ‘resolved to restore religion as her
father left it’, but this was at a time when she wished to reassure his royal
master. Less than two months previously the same correspondent had been
sufficiently anxious as to write that ‘the Catholics are very fearful of the
measures to be taken in this parliament’. Doubtless he had heard of what had
happened on Christmas Day 1558 when Elizabeth had stormed out of her chapel
following Bishop Oglethorpe’s elevation of the Host (the consecrated communion
wafer), contrary to her instructions.
Assessments
of the Queen’s religion have ranged from her being a crypto-catholic on the
one hand to a convinced protestant on the other. Any claims to a definitive
verdict err beyond the evidence, which points to an idiosyncratic personal
faith. As the product of the Henrician Supremacy she was virtually bound to
reject papal authority, but beyond that her predilections are ambiguous and even
contradictory. The teenage Elizabeth had been tutored by those sympathetic to
the new learning, yet she felt able to take mass in Mary’s reign. Insofar as
she was protestant, it was of the Lutheran variety which believed in some sort
of real presence at communion, but which fell short of the catholic doctrine of
transubstantiation. By 1559 this made her conservative by mainstream Calvinist
standards.
On
some points her protestant orthodoxy was more suspect still: she kept a cross in
the royal chapel until at least 1586 and retained the services of Thomas Tallis
as a chapel organist although he was a known catholic. She was convinced neither
by the rectitude of clerical marriage nor the merits of too many sermons. When
all is said and done, however, it was a settlement of a fundamentally protestant
nature which emerged in her reign. It is inconceivable that Elizabeth would have
sanctioned anything to which she was fundamentally opposed, even if she was
prepared to surrender over what she considered to be peripheral detail.
Counsel
and Councillors
One
way in which Elizabeth could not but reveal something of her religious hand
early on was in royal appointments. Those 50 or so physically closest to the
Queen in the Chamber were characterised chiefly for having served Edward VI
rather than Mary. It is the Privy Council, however, that demands greatest
attention as effectively the ruling board of Tudor England.
Elizabeth
reconstituted Mary’s unwieldy body of 39 Privy Councillors into a more
manageable 19. Of these, half had served Mary. Although staunch catholics were
omitted, men such as the earls of Arundel, Shrewsbury and Derby, who had
welcomed Mary’s restoration of the mass, owned too many acres to risk
alienation. Others, like Lord Treasurer Winchester and Sir William Petre,
offered administrative acumen which it was impolitic to dispense with.
Yet
it is the promotions which surely tell us most. The Earl of Bedford, a firm
protestant, was a Marian exile. So too was Sir Francis Knollys who had served
Edward VI. At least two others, Sir Edward Rogers and William Parr, had been
implicated in Wyatt’s rebellion of 1554. Above all in terms of importance was
Sir William Cecil, a more moderate protestant, whom Elizabeth had appointed
surveyor of her estates in 1550. He resumed the office of Secretary which he had
enjoyed under Northumberland.
Though
this was not a council constructed for religious purposes, it unquestionably had
a protestant hue and was a clear move away from the previous reign.
That
said, we are left with the question of what role the council played in
formulating the religious settlement. The problem, once again, is rendered
intractable through lack of evidence. We do not know how often it met to discuss
the issue, neither who attended, nor how its members divided. We do know that it
did not speak with one voice, for both Winchester and Shrewsbury were to vote
with the minority on the Act of Uniformity in April 1559. We do know, though,
that Cecil was the key figure, ‘the man who does everything’, according to
Feria in December 1558, and that his closest associate was his brother-in-law,
Sir Nicholas Bacon. We also know that Elizabeth quickly came to regard him as
indispensable since, late in 1559, she gave way when he threatened resignation
unless she agreed to his plans for a more forward policy in Scotland. For all
her guile and intelligence it must also be recognised that Elizabeth was
inexperienced in government. It is reasonable to conclude that she must have
sometimes deferred to those who were not. John Jewel certainly believed so,
writing on 20 March that the failure to produce a fully protestant settlement
could be ascribed ‘partly to her own friends, by whose advice everything is
carried on’. The key unknowns in the story of the settlement can in all
probability be explained in the unrecoverable deliberations of the Privy
Council.
Parliament
One
general fact admitting of no dispute is that the settlement was enacted through
parliament. Parliament had been Henry VIII’s chosen ally over the break with
Rome; it had enacted the Edwardian Reformation and overturned it under Mary. It
had only baulked when it came to restoring monastic land, since many members had
acquired some. On this point even Mary had had to be pragmatic and climb down.
But since Elizabeth was as keen to exploit church revenues as anybody there was
no reason to suppose that parliament would not comply in principle with whatever
she and her government proposed.
Yet
parliament was not immutable. The Commons was a substantial body of 400 MPs, far
more than the crown could directly control. A certain degree of autonomy was
inevitable; Sir John Neale argued that it was critical.
Neale
believed that Elizabeth simply sought to restore the royal supremacy in 1559.
Instead, MPs seized the initiative, in particular returned protestant exiles Sir
Francis Knollys and Sir Anthony Cooke, and successfully introduced a Bill
providing for a protestant prayer book too. This is ingenious but untenable.
Only a dozen members were returned exiles and the number of known protestant
members (25-30) was more or less cancelled out by the number of known religious
conservatives. Far more, just over 100 MPs, had sat in Mary’s last parliament.
The mood may have been more protestant in 1559 than it had been in 1558 but
there are no grounds for seeing a grand conversion. As for Knollys, he was a
privy councillor whilst Cooke was Cecil’s and Bacon’s father-in-law! It is
difficult to see how they can have been initiating anything other than a
government line. Lord Keeper Bacon’s speech at the opening of parliament that
MPs had gathered for the ‘making of laws for the ... uniting of the people of
this realm into a uniform order of religion’, seems also to imply that it was
clearly the Queen’s intention to go beyond a mere restoration of the
supremacy. The Commons might contribute to, but it could not control, the
debate.
On
the face of it, the Lords would be even more amenable to government control.
They were a much smaller body, nominally comprising about 77 members, though
only 40-45 regularly attended. The majority were the 50 or so lay members, who,
led by the councillors in their midst, could reasonably be expected to follow
royal policy. Elizabeth had already added five loyalists to their number before
parliament opened. Less malleable were the 28 Marian bishops who could hardly be
presumed upon to endorse a second break from Rome. Fortunately for Elizabeth,
death, illness and absence meant that only 13 were able to take their seats at
the opening of parliament. It would not appear, therefore, that the government
anticipated any insurmountable opposition to its plans from their lordships. Yet
in the event, a combination of bishops and conservative lay peers in the upper
House were to influence the story of the settlement far more than had been
presumed.
Making
the Settlement
Though
the 1559 settlement was subsequently to be hailed by many as cautious and
incomplete, what was more striking at the time was its speed and extent.
Elizabeth’s three predecessors had effected their reformations piecemeal over
time; hers was complete within four months.
Parliament
opened on 25 January. A Bill restoring the royal supremacy was laid before the
Commons on 9 February. On 16 February a second Bill appeared which effectively
proposed restoring the 1552 Prayer Book. By 21 February the two Bills were
subsumed into one, which passed the House two days later and was sent to the
Lords. All this smacks of smooth royal parliamentary management. If so, it was a
lull before the storm. Led by the bishops, the Lords emasculated the proposals:
references to the order of service were deleted and though they conceded that
Elizabeth might take the Supremacy they refused to bestow it. Thus amended the
measure returned to the Commons on 18 March. They passed it on 22 March: only
the royal assent was needed to make it law.
Historians
have seen the next few days as something of a mini-crisis. The government had
surely presumed that its own proposals would be enacted into statute at this
point and that parliament would be dissolved, probably on 22 March. Elizabeth
instead had to choose: parliament could be dissolved with or without giving her
consent to the emasculated proposals; or, it could be prorogued. She decided on
the prorogation over Easter, the decision being announced on 24 March. We cannot
say for certain if she reached this judgement alone or whether she was
persuaded, perhaps by Cecil. Still less can we be sure of the reasoning behind
it. News that agreement had been reached at Cateau-Cambrésis, however, arrived
in England on 19 March. The safer international outlook which this presaged may
well have stiffened royal resolve.
The
real answer, though, may lie in high politics. Cecil and other councillors had
clearly miscalculated the response of the Lords, but the loss of the March
battle did not mean the end of the war. Most aces still lay in the
government’s hand. The Lords could be packed by new lay creations; absentees
might be coerced into attending. Elizabeth could assume the Supremacy and fill
the empty bishoprics. But there was no necessity for any of these legitimate,
albeit radical, courses. Parliaments, given the inconvenience and expense to
Members, did not like sitting long; and a judicious mix of coercion and
concession should suffice. That Elizabeth and her government decided to cut a
deal, and why, is suggested in a letter written by John Jewel on 14 April:
This
woman, excellent as she is ... notwithstanding she desires a thorough change as
early as possible, cannot however be induced to effect such change without the
sanction of law; lest the matter should seem to have been accomplished, not so
much by the judgement of discreet men, as in compliance with the impulse of a
furious multitude.
Over
Easter two of the leading opponents of change, the bishops of Winchester and
Lincoln, were imprisoned for disobedience following a public disputation in
Westminster Abbey. When parliament reassembled on 3 April new and revised Bills
of Supremacy and Uniformity were presented. The former proposed designating
Elizabeth ‘Supreme Governor’, placating protestants as well as catholics who
doubted that a woman could be head of Christ’s church. The latter revived the
1552 Prayer Book but incorporated conservative elements from that of 1549.
Clerical dress and church ornaments were to be those in use in 1548 (Archbishop
Parker was to recollect that Elizabeth had personally insisted upon this), and
offensive references to the pope were omitted, as was the Black Rubric which
contained an explicit denial of the real presence. Indeed, by amalgamating the
communion formulary of 1549 with that of 1552, it became possible for
conservatives to maintain that one was implied.
The
Commons passed the two Bills unchanged. In the Lords the Supremacy Bill passed
comfortably on 26 April and the all-important division on the Bill of Uniformity
was carried by 21-18 on 28 April. The closeness of the vote suggests that this
time the government had got its sums right. The bishops were allowed to salve
their consciences but the Queen got her settlement. All bar one were
subsequently deprived. On 8 May the two Bills received the royal assent and
parliament was dissolved.
Conclusion
‘It
requireth great cunning and circumspection’, Armagil Waad had warned, ‘both
to reform religion and to make unity between the subjects.’ By May 1559 the
first at least had been achieved. There was, as it turned out, remarkably little
to add except for a series of 57 royal injunctions issued in the summer of 1559
and a statement of doctrine, the 39 Articles, agreed by Convocation in 1563. On
the latter point, however, there could be no quick fix. A return in 1564 of
magistrates – the all-important officials of law enforcement – revealed that
although 431 backed the settlement, 264 were neutral and 157 hostile. It would
take a generation to protestantise the commissions of the peace. Amongst the
clergy too, there was a shortage, both qualitative and quantitative, which
Elizabeth seemed in no hurry to make good.
This
may suggest that toleration after all was what Elizabeth sought. Not so. As
Cecil so appositely put it, ‘the state could never be in safety, where there
was toleration of two religions’. Elizabeth’s genius lay in recognising that
a broader church than Edward and Mary had allowed was essential, providing it
was one to which the nation must be loyal. At the close of the momentous 1559
parliament Lord Keeper Bacon issued a warning, doubtless at his Queen’s
behest, to anybody who might doubt that fact: ‘Amongst those I mean to
comprehend as well those that be too swift, as those that be too slow; those, I
say that go before the laws, as those that will not follow; for good government
cannot be where obedience faileth’. These were not idle words. Those rebels
who joined the northern earls in 1569-70 were visited with a retribution
comparable to anything dispensed by any Tudor.
Further
Reading
Patrick
Collinson, Elizabethans (Hambledon & London, 2003)
A.
G. Dickens, The English Reformation (Batsford, second edition, 1989)
Susan
Doran, Elizabeth I and Religion 1558-1603 (Routledge, 1994)
Christopher
Haigh, English Reformations (Clarendon Press, 1993)
Christopher
Haigh (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I (Longman, 1984)
Wallace
T. MacCaffrey, Elizabeth I (Edward Arnold, 1993)
J.
E. Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments 1559-1581 (Jonathan Cape, 1953)
John
Warren, Elizabeth I: Religion and Foreign Affairs (Hodder and Stoughton, 1993)
Issues
to Debate
o What
was the religion of the English people in 1558?
o How
important was it to Elizabeth that her views prevailed in the 1559 religious
settlement?
o How
did the relative importance of factors influencing the religious settlement
change as it took shape in 1558-9?