The elizabethan settlement

1563 – THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT

This presentation centers on a significant historical period, particularly on Henry VIII decisions and Elizabeth’s choice to institute a protestant religious settlement which provoked important changes in England.

The King of England Henry VIII (1491 - 1547) wants to repudiate his wife Catherine of Aragon who has not given him a son. He asks the Pope to cancel his marriage. Torn between England and Spain, Pope Clement VII makes the matter last. Exasperated, Henry VIII had his marriage annulled by an ecclesiastical court.

To the Pope's excommunication, Henry VIII responded by having the English parliament vote in 1534 "The Act of Supremacy" which proclaimed the king, the only supreme head of the Church of England. Not recognizing this, was punishable by death under “The Treasons Act”: made treason, punishable by death, to disavow the Act of Supremacy. For Instance, Sir Thomas More was executed under this Act.

Then, Henry VIII took some innovative measures:

• He suppresses the monasteries whose goods are secularized. This measure raised little opposition because people were scandalized by the possessions of the Church which correspond to a third of the kingdom.
• After that, each parish, according to the will of the king, must have an English Bible.
• Other laws strengthened royal power over the Church including The Suffragan Bishops Act of 1534 which required the clergy to elect bishops appointed by the sovereign.
• Likewise, all the subjects of the kingdom had to accept by oath the invalidity of the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon; those who refused could be imprisoned for life.

THE STATUTE OF SIX ARTICLES, passed in 1539, enumerated precisely and clearly six points of mediaeval doctrine and practice which the Protestants had begun to assail, and imposed severe penalties on all who would not accept them.  The Six Articles Act aimed at establishing the supremacy of the Anglican religion in England.

• (1) expressed the doctrine of transubstantiation. Those denying this risked to be burnt., the confiscation of property, or execution = “the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of the whole substance of wine into the substance of the Blood of Christ”
• (2) that communion in both kinds was unnecessary
• (3) that priests ought not to marry
• (4) that the vows of chastity have to be observed in both sexes
• (5) that private masses were allowable
• (6) that auricular confession was necessary (the obligation by divine law of confessing one's grave sins, committed after baptism, to a qualified priest) The obligation by divine law of confessing one's grave sins, committed after baptism, to a qualified priest.

This sanguinary Act, called by the Protestants, "the whip (fouet) with six strings," continued in force for the rest of Henry's reign.

After his death in 1547, the spiritual advisers of his young son, Edward VI, attempted to make England a fully Protestant country. Edward died after reigning only six years 🡪 1553, and the nation returned to Catholicism during the brief and bloody reign of Mary I Tudor, Elizabeth’s half-sister 🡪 1558 

When Elizabeth I inherited the throne on November 17, 1558 England was bitterly divided between Catholics and Protestants following various religious changes initiated by Henry VIII and Mary Tudor. Indeed, the country was at war with France, which proved to be a heavy burden on the royal coffers.

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