Elizabeth s Position at Home

To meet the great danger confronting her, Elizabeth needed the united support of all her people and a full treasury. But in 1558 she possessed neither. When she came to the throne, the revulsion of feeling was so great on account of the outrages of Mary's government that the people were more willing to condone errors and overlook personal weaknesses than they had been in 1553. She did not have their full support, however, and she had great difficulties to face. There was the uncertainty of her own title to the throne and the question of her legitimacy or illegitimacy, a matter of no little importance, for there were pretenders, of whom Mary Stuart was the most dangerous, with claims to the throne of England. Moreover, her treasury was not only empty, but was burdened with a debt of more than L200,000; and her own income, which remained fixed while the wealth of the kingdom was increasing and prices were rising, was insufficient, and caused her to seem, in later times, niggardly and parsimonious. Above all there was the question of her own marriage, a question which her sister Mary had decided so badly that to it may be traced the disasters of her reign. Should Elizabeth follow Mary's example and choose a Spaniard, or should she give her, hand to a foreigner, all hope of a national and independent policy for England would be for the time being lost.

On the religious side, the kingdom was divided by religious differences, and there was constant danger of a religious war such as was destined to break out later in France, the Netherlands, and Germany. Such a conflict, which at this time would have been a terrible catastrophe for England, would surely take place should Elizabeth fanatically support either of the extreme parties, Roman Catholic or Puritan.

In selecting William Cecil as her secretary of state, Elizabeth declared her policy at the very beginning)- and in holding to him as her adviser till his death in 1598, in creating him Lord Burghley in 1571, and lord treasurer of England the next year, she showed her appreciation of and confidence in one of the greatest statesmen that England has ever had. Though Elizabeth was her own minister and Burghley her agent, yet to the latter must be attributed in large measure the successes of her reign; for he advised the queen wisely in religious matters at home and piloted her with extraordinary skill through manifold complications abroad.

The Religious Settlement

Almost the first business of the reign was the settlement of the religious question. Elizabeth at once disclosed her policy, by removing the most bigoted of Mary's bishops and appointing, as archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, known to be Protestant in his sympathies. A committee of which Parker was the chief was appointed to revise the Book of Common Prayer. On January 25, 1559, parliament met, and as the government had recommended to the electors throughout England that Protestants be chosen, it soon became evident that the religious settlement was to take a Protestant form. Before the end of April, parliament had passed two great acts, the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity, and the queen, supported by Cecil, had given the royal assent.

The first of these acts declared that the English church was independent of all connection with Rome; proclaimed the queen "supreme governor of the church," for Elizabeth decided not to take for the present the title of "Supreme Head," assumed by Henry VIII, and demanded that all the clergy and every person holding political office should take an oath acknowledging the queen's supremacy or incur the penalty of losing his office. It threatened with severe punishment all persons writing in defence of the papal authority in England. Thus the first act concerned the government of the church.

The second dealt with the forms of worship. It demanded that all Englishmen, ecclesiastical or lay, should use the Book of Common Prayer as drafted in 1552, with some slight alterations, and provided for heavy penalties in all cases of refusal. It ordered all people to attend church or chapel, and enacted that the ornaments of the church and vestments of the clergy should be those of the reign of Edward VI.

The first of these acts was enforced from the beginning, and the oath of supremacy proved a stumbling-block. Of the bishops appointed by Mary, all but one resigned. The consciences of the lesser clergy were not so tender : only two hundred out of ninety-four hundred parish priests gave up their benefices. The second act was at first very leniently executed. Foreign Catholics and many English Catholics continued to attend privately the old service, and were not punished.

Before settling the third question, that of doctrine, Elizabeth preferred to wait, in order to watch the effect of the measures already taken. She was not a theologian, and beyond a love for ceremony, had no fixed religious preferences. As long as an outward conformity prevailed that would give to the English church a national character, she did not care what the people believed. But at the same time she and Cecil were wholly aware of the importance of moderation, and were unwilling to alienate further Philip of Spain or to stir up trouble at home by exciting debates on dogma and belief. What Elizabeth had done already was a compromise. Her church was a compromise church : for although its prayer book was a selection from ancient sources, and its doctrine and devotion were organically connected with the great ecclesiastical past, yet in rejecting the authority of the pope and in drawing up the Thirty-nine Articles which defined the Anglican faith, it was distinctly Protestant.