Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History

by Bucholz, Robert

  The first area of disagreement came over the seemingly innocuous matter of what the clergyman should wear at Sunday services. Puritans associated richly decorated vestments with Catholic practice, in part because they suggested distance between the ordained priesthood and the congregation. Therefore, they insisted upon plain black dress. In 1563, Convocation considered a petition to abolish the compulsory wearing of the surplice, as well as the use of the organ in church services, the sign of the cross, and the remaining holy days. In 1565, the queen, provocatively and perhaps unwisely, issued an unequivocal defense of ornate vestments and demanded that the bishops enforce their use by suspending clergy who refused. This created a new target for Puritan reformers. In 1570 Thomas Cartwright (1534/5–1603), a Cambridge divinity professor, presented a series of lectures criticizing the Church of England and, especially, the bishops’ role in it. Cartwright was removed from his professorship and a pamphlet war ensued. Some of Cartwright’s defenders argued that the Church should not be organized hierarchically; rather, congregations should be directed by local “presbyteries” of teaching elders (ministers) and ruling elders (laymen). Superior guidance for these congregations would be supplied by representative councils or synods (at the lowest level, a regional presbytery, at the highest level, a general assembly). This was, in fact, the model of Church government being gradually adopted in parts of Scotland from the 1560s. It was also a logical extension of Protestant theology. If the Bible is the only reliable source of the Word of God, and if that Word “shines clear in its own light” (i.e., is unequivocal in meaning and accessible to all), who needs bishops? Who needs a hierarchical structure to tell Christians what to think and do?

  The answer was clear to religious and political conservatives: the queen, that’s who! After all, if the Supreme Governor of the Church of England were to concede that individual congregations or synods were free to determine their own religious beliefs and practices, would not religious disunity and chaos ensue? Worse, if she conceded such religious freedom as governor, would she not have to concede similar political freedom as sovereign? If the people can make up their minds about Scripture without supervision, why could they not make up their minds about the Magna Charta and all of the other proclamations and laws which governed the secular world? In fact, most Puritans were not political or social radicals. But the queen and many others could not help but be alarmed at their attempts to reform religion through Parliament, their apparent reluctance to obey royal religious injunctions, and by their outright claim to Scriptural authority. Their defiance seemed to attack the very hierarchical principle which lay at the heart of the English polity – the Great Chain of Being.

  In 1576 Queen Elizabeth ordered her archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Grindal (ca. 1516–83), to suppress “prophesyings,” meetings of clergymen, usually in big market towns, to hear and discuss sermons on a specific Biblical text. But Grindal was himself a Marian exile and had some sympathy with these meetings. Therefore he refused to enforce the queen’s order. Elizabeth reacted by suspending him from his clerical duties. Archbishops of Canterbury served for life, however, so the queen and the Church remained deadlocked on this issue until Grindal’s death in 1583. Elizabeth then wasted no time in replacing him with one of Cartwright’s enemies, the anti-Puritan John Whitgift (ca. 1530–1604). Using a royal tribunal called the court of High Commission, Archbishop Whitgift ejected from their livings some three to four hundred clergy who refused to conform to the practices of the Church of England.

  Whitgift’s persecutions worked: they maintained the integrity of the settlement of 1559–63, and most people conformed to it. But they also drove some Puritans out of the Church. By 1580 a clergyman named Robert Browne (1550?–1633) had established an independent congregation in Norwich. The following year he and his separatist community fled to the Netherlands. In 1593 the government executed three prominent separatists, leading more Puritans to follow the Brownists overseas. In the early seventeenth century, some would leave for America. But most Puritans stayed in the Church. Those who sat in Parliament agitated for Church reform and complained unceasingly about the supposed influence of the other religious minority in England: Roman Catholics.

  The Catholic Threat

  One further reason for Queen Elizabeth to reject the Puritan program was that she wanted to establish a Church which would heal religious divisions and provide some religious stability. Such a settlement had to be acceptable to religious conservatives, including moderate Roman Catholics. It was imperative that she and her government find ways to please, or at least not offend, Catholics. This was true at home, so that they would not rebel; and abroad, so that the Spanish and French would not attack England on their behalf. In fact, she succeeded, at least partially, on both fronts, for over a decade. Most Catholics did conform in some way to the Church of England. The pope probably facilitated this process inadvertently when, in 1566, he decreed that good Catholics could not attend public Church of England services at the parish church to satisfy the Act of Uniformity and then attend private Roman Catholic services in their homes to satisfy their consciences. In effect, he forced Catholics to make a choice. Most chose the Church of England and, therefore, ceased to be Catholics in the eyes of Rome. Still, many never quite gave up on the habits and rituals of Catholicism: sometimes a husband would conform, allowing the wife to remain Catholic and teach her children in the ways of the Old Faith. Moreover, a small and declining minority, probably less than 5 percent of England’s population (but a higher proportion of the landed aristocracy), avoided the established Church entirely. Ministered to by the dying generation of Marian priests, meaning those ordained in England before 1558, they remained practicing, but secret, Roman Catholics. These die-hards sought to live quietly amongst their Protestant neighbors, hoping that neither the pope nor Parliament would ever force them to choose between their English loyalty to the queen and their Catholic loyalty to the pope.

  Their desire to be left alone was naive. The papacy was not about to simply concede England to Protestantism. In 1559 the pope refused to sign the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, which made peace among England, Spain, and France and recognized Elizabeth as queen. Still, he hoped that, in time, she might see the light and return England to (in his view) the One True Faith. Should this hope be dashed, should she overtly repudiate or even persecute Catholicism, he held out the threat that he might depose her by declaring her a heretic, absolve her Catholic subjects of their allegiance to her, encourage them to rise up, and persuade Catholic France and Spain to attack. This was the most compelling reason for the queen to abhor Puritan reform: too vigorous a pursuit of Protestantism might arouse the anger of Rome and the Catholic powers. It also explains her appearance of interest in a Catholic diplomatic marriage. Since, for most of the first half of the reign, Elizabeth’s navy was in decay, her army nonexistent, and her finances a mess, she needed to buy time. She had no choice but to continue to walk the tightrope of religious moderation, suppress Puritan reform, and keep the lines of communication open to Spain, France, and her Catholic subjects. As long as she could hold out even the remote possibility of a return to Rome, the pope and the Catholic powers would stay their hand – and she could prepare hers.

  England and Scotland

  Unfortunately for Elizabeth and her fellow high-wire artists, the stormy international situation would eventually blow them over to one side or the other. The problems began at England’s northern doorstep. England’s relationship with Scotland had long been difficult, but recent English policy had made it much worse: after the Tudors’ failed attempt to force a dynastic marriage between Edward VI and Mary Queen of Scots, the latter had fled to France and married Francis II, its eventual king (1544–60; reigned 1559–60). This united England’s nearest enemy (Scotland) with its bitterest and wealthiest enemy (France). But in 1560 Francis II died, leaving Mary free to return to her native land in the following year. What was the disposition of her people in 1561?

  In the mid
dle of the sixteenth century, Scotland had a population of just 700,000, comprising mostly small tenant farmers. This was less than one-third the population of England spread over about two-thirds the land mass. Scotland had long been poorer, less centralized, and less stable than England. As a corollary to this, the Scottish monarchy was relatively weak, its aristocracy wielding great power in the localities. Given the weakness of the central government, it was in no position to suppress Protestant preachers, like the fiery John Knox, when they began to filter into the country at mid-century. Many Scottish lairds (large landowners) who controlled key Lowland regions embraced the new faith as much for nationalistic motives as for religious ones: they feared that Mary’s regent, her mother, Mary of Guise (1515–60) was turning Scotland into a French satellite. They especially resented her appointment of Frenchmen to government posts which they viewed as theirs by right. Her religious policy was, at first, to tolerate the reformers, but this stiffened in the late 1550s. In 1557 a group of powerful Scottish aristocrats led by Archibald Campbell, earl of Argyll (1498–1558) retaliated by making a pact or covenant to establish a Protestant “Congregation of God.” The signers of this pact, the Lords of the Congregation, did so for a variety of reasons: some feared for their religion, some hoped to benefit by claiming Church wealth, some desired to keep their political autonomy, and all resented French interference. In the spring of 1559 they rebelled against their absent queen and her regent, secured much of the central part of the country, seized Church lands, abolished papal authority and the mass, and established a very rudimentary Presbyterian form of Church government. The French, fearing the loss of their “Auld Alliance” with Scotland, retaliated by sending troops and establishing a garrison near Edinburgh. The Lords of the Congregation, their backs against the wall, turned to Elizabeth as a fellow Protestant, begging her to send an English army to rescue them.

  This request posed an obvious dilemma to Elizabeth. On the one hand, to support the Scottish Protestants would be to encourage rebellion against a fellow monarch – and therefore against the Great Chain of Being. It would also signal to the pope and the rulers of Spain and France that her religious sympathies were truly Protestant. And, if such support failed, the Scots and their French allies might retaliate by invading England. On the other hand, committed Protestants in the Privy Council and Marian exiles in Parliament argued that rebel success would drive the French from Scotland and reduce tensions between the two nations. They reminded Elizabeth that failure to act would not only weaken international Protestantism, it might also leave a strengthened Catholic regime tied to France on England’s northern border. Worse, so long as Elizabeth lacked an heir, her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, was next in line for the English throne (see genealogy 2, p. 430). Under these circumstances, the last thing Elizabeth wanted was to strengthen Mary’s position.

  After weighing all the options, the queen decided to aid the Protestant rebels. She sent, first, money and, later, what few troops and ships she had available. This support sustained the rebels until the death of Mary of Guise in June 1560 weakened the Catholic side. The result, signed in July, was the Treaty of Edinburgh. Mary Queen of Scots recognized Elizabeth’s title to the English throne; Scotland enacted religious toleration and was to be governed by a council, evenly divided between Calvinist Protestants and Catholics. In practice, Mary’s government was to be more or less run by James Stewart, earl of Moray (ca. 1531–70), the queen’s illegitimate Protestant half-brother. This was all good news for England. In driving out the French, Elizabeth and her advisers had worked a diplomatic revolution, finally neutralizing their northern neighbor. Scotland abandoned the Auld Alliance and the border raids that had plagued Anglo-Scottish relations for centuries ceased. What was the news like for the Scots? Since Protestants now controlled the wealthier parts of Scotland, the Reformation proceeded apace. Still, it would take until 1578 to establish a true Scottish Presbyterian Church, or Kirk, and the Highlands remained largely Catholic. In the meantime, Scotland remained difficult to rule, filled with warring clans led by powerful nobles, many of them Calvinist and antimonarchical. What sort of woman inherited this situation in 1561?

  Hollywood and historical romances have struggled mightily to turn Mary Queen of Scots into a dashing and heroic figure, a Catholic counterpart to her cousin, Elizabeth. Certainly, her contemporaries found her beautiful, courtly, and clever. Both women were capable of intrigue and duplicity. But where Elizabeth was cautious, Mary was impulsive. Where Elizabeth was shrewd, Mary was easily misled. Where Elizabeth identified with her subjects’ hopes, anxieties, and prejudices, Mary resisted her people’s increasingly Protestant sympathies. And, finally, where Elizabeth overcame contemporary prejudice about her gender by acting like a man without ever submitting herself to one, Mary repeatedly placed herself in the hands of men who were, in the end, unworthy of her. Unlike Elizabeth, she mishandled her marriage options, with disastrous effect for herself, her kingdom, and her cause.

  In 1565 Mary ended her widowhood by marrying a Scottish nobleman, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley (1545/6–67). Because Darnley was descended from Henry VI1’s daughter, Margaret, the marriage strengthened Mary’s claim to succeed Elizabeth – a fact which did not recommend the match to the English queen. Nor did it prove happy for Mary. Darnley turned out to be a vain, self-centered, and hot-headed youth. In 1566, just one year after their marriage, he accused Mary of having an affair with her Italian secretary, David Riccio (b. ca. 1533). In fact the unlikely charge had been planted in Darnley’s susceptible mind by anti-Catholic nobles who despaired of losing access to the queen by the upstart secretary. In March, Darnley, accompanied by several of these nobles, stormed the queen’s chamber at Holyrood Palace, seized Riccio, and murdered him on the spot. The plotters, having committed treason by drawing weapons in the royal presence, fled the country while Darnley and Mary, pregnant with his child, pretended to reconcile.

  The soap opera of Mary’s reign soon turned even more bizarre. On June 19, 1566 she gave birth to Prince James (1566–1625), and, in December, had him baptized with full Catholic rites. Darnley, ever more erratic, finally turned up dead on the morning of February 10, 1567 after an explosion obliterated the house where he was staying. Rumors, placards, even someone wandering the streets of Edinburgh dressed as a ghost, pointed to Mary and a ruffian Scottish nobleman, James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell (ca. 1535–78) as the murderers. Admittedly, the only evidence of Mary’s involvement was the highly suspect “Casket Letters,” which Moray and the Scottish Protestant faction produced months later. In the meantime, Bothwell panicked, kidnapping the queen on April 24. She then astounded everyone (Elizabeth included) by marrying her abductor on May 15. Appalled at this behavior, her Calvinist subjects rebelled and deposed her in favor of her infant son. Mary and Bothwell met the rebel forces at Carberry Hill, southeast of Edinburgh, on June 15. But while the two sides parleyed, her army deserted. The next month she abdicated in favor of her son, who thus became King James VI of Scotland (reigned 1567–1625). In May 1568 Mary made one final bid to regain her throne, but her army was soundly defeated on the 13th at the battle of Langside. Abandoned and discredited, the former Queen of Scots had no choice but to flee south and beg asylum from her enemy, Elizabeth.

  Once again, a demand from Scotland posed a dilemma for the English queen. On the one hand, Mary was a kinswoman and a fellow monarch, unjustly deposed by her subjects. On the other hand, she was an accused murderess, a Roman Catholic, and, because of her Tudor blood and Elizabeth’s childlessness, the next heir to the English throne. Elizabeth remembered full well the destabilizing role that she, as princess and heir, had played under Mary Tudor. As she said, “I know the inconstancy of the people of England, how they ever mislike the present government and have their eyes fixed upon that person that is next to succeed.”10 It was inevitable that Mary Queen of Scots would play the same role under Queen Elizabeth – with two added twists. First, if the religious and diplomatic situation of England deteriorat
ed, plots in her favor might well receive the support of the pope and the Catholic powers. Second, Mary might not be as discreet as Elizabeth had been: given her impulsive nature, there was every reason to believe that she, too, would give active support to any scheme to put her on the English throne. In the end, one of these two women would have to go. The catalyst for that choice would come from Spain.

  England and Spain

  The situation of the great Catholic powers was more complicated, with regard to England, than might at first appear. For most of the sixteenth century, France had been England’s most consistent and dangerous enemy. Just as English kings had tried to use their base at Calais to aggrandize French territory, so the French had used their Scottish allies to threaten English sovereignty. But by 1568 Scotland was more or less under the control of a Protestant government at peace with England; while France was about to enter a long period of religious and political instability. First, a series of sickly boy-kings of the Valois family ascended the throne, to be controlled, fitfully, by their mother, the Catholic queen regent Catherine de’ Medici (1518–89). As the Valois line dwindled to a weak conclusion under Henry III (1551–89; reigned 1574–89), two other families emerged to challenge for power in France, the Catholic Guises and the Protestant Bourbons. Although France remained a Catholic country, there was an important Huguenot (Calvinist-Protestant) minority, especially in the south and among the noble and merchant classes. Catholics and Protestants fought not only over who should succeed to the French throne after Henry III, but also over whether Huguenot Protestantism should be tolerated at all. That struggle took a dramatic and violent turn on August 24, 1572, St. Bartholomew’s Day, when Catholics launched a surprise massacre of Protestants in Paris. This event affected England in two ways. First, it left France even more bitterly divided than before on the questions of the succession and religious toleration. The ensuing civil conflicts, called the Wars of Religion, eliminated the French threat to England for a generation. Second, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre provided yet more evidence, in English eyes, of Catholic treachery and cruelty.