did queen elizabeth i establish protestantism in england?
I'm doing a research essay on her and i read somewhere that she established the religion in England. my teacher commented that he thought her father had? but on another website they stated that the religion wasn't established until the mid 1600's. help me!
If I remember correctly, her father Henry VIII had established the protestant church in response to the Catholic church not granting him a divorce from his first wife Queen Kathyrine so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. At that time it wasn't really called protestantism but became known as the Church of England. Mary, Henry VIII's first daughter with Queen Kathyrine, attempted to reinstate the Catholic religion during her temporary reign. When Elizabeth took the throne she reinstated Protestantism and, I think, was known as the Protestant Queen because of her passion for it.
Her father, Henry VIII, established it and people died. Mary turned the clocks back on that, when she became Queen and reintroduced Catholicism after Henry died and many, many more people died. When Elizabeth I became Queen, she in turn reinstated the protestant religion and there was a purge on die hard Catholics and more died. Religion and it's promoters, in all it's manifestations, has a lot to answer for.
Her father Henry VIII first established it. She re-establish it after her sister Mary UN-established it. However the Church continued to develop through her reign and in to James VI & I who introduced a new bible etc.
My dear Jessa, perhaps your teacher needs to go back to school? It was Henry VIII who established Protestantism in England - such a paragon of virtue. You know, one can always find oneself thoroughly rested assured that the Anglican Church was founded by a murdering polygamist gluttonous oaf.
Many keep saying that Henry VIII broke away from the RC church so he could get a divorce. We hear this so often that people believe it, despite it not being true at all. Just check the other answers: most say the same thing, that Henry VIII created Protestantism in England. Not true! He was in fact awarded the title "Defender of the Faith" from the Pope for his efforts at fighting against the Protestant Reformation movement!
The Reformation was in full swing when Henry was on the throne. While he was RC, he did allow some small reforms to the Church in England. He was excommunicated, although this was a common tool used by Popes to keep European kings in line for political, not religious purposes. English kings had always had the right to appoint bishops, something they shared with the Pope. Henry ended the Popes role in this.
Mary was staunchly RC, and she undid any reforms done by her father. She was known as "Bloody Mary" from all the "Protestants" she killed. (Henry had also executed Reformers, but few seem to remember this!). When Elizabeth took over, she restored these limited reforms, but, the resulting Church of England was not exactly Protestant, as it never protested anything. Elizabeth's idea was the "via media," or "middle way" between the RC, and Protestant Reformer's sides. Thus, the CofE is catholic (albeit not Roman Catholic), but also Reformed. It is called Protestant in that it is not RC, but, it is not really Protestant either, but kind of a special case in between the two.
At any rate, she was also ex-communicated. While it seems she privately leaned to the RC side, she was wise enough to balance both sides of her country; one of her great gifts was this balancing of different sides to promote stability. So, the Church of England, now separate from Rome, began in her time. This was not really a new creating though; the "Ecclesia Anglicana" had existed for several hundred years by that name, even under Rome. The Church in England became the Church of England, but very little changed. The RC's did have to set about recreating a church for themselves though.
So, Anglicans existed long before this (Christian roots in Britain go right back to at least the 2ND century, and arguably the first), and for much of this, they were not under Rome at all.
It depends on how you define protestantism - is it about simply being "not catholic", or being the less ceremonial kind of church that we think of as protestant?
Henry VIII declared the English church independent from the Pope so he could get an annulment of his first marriage, being desperate for a son to succeed him and not having a surviving son with Katherine of Aragon. So that certainly established protestantism in the first sense and your teacher's right in that sense. But nothing else changed in his lifetime as he actually did believe in the catholic faith.
What turned the Church of England protestant in the other sense was Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He believed in the protestant ideas coming from Europe but could do nothing about it while Henry was still around. Once Henry died and England was being run by protestant nobles because Edward VI was only a boy, he could and 2 years after Henry died he produced a service book in English. It was a slightly simplified version of the Latin services that were used up to then but with the great innovation that it was in English. And this was made compulsory to use. 3 years later he revised it radically to make it very definitely a protestant book of services. Also during Edward's reign, vestments were banned - priests had to wear only a black cassock and white surplice, candles were not allowed on the communion table, and so much else was made simpler. My own Church of England parish church is one of the old ones that was around then and you can see in some places where the paintings that used to be on the walls were whitewashed over. Edward himself was very much in favor of all this.
But what Cranmer didn't do was change how the church was organized and run, so it remained with bishops, priests and deacons, not ministers as you usually expect in a protestant church. The Church of England remains like that to this day, as do all the other churches related to it around the world.
A year after that second book, Edward died - so the new book was in fact never used - and was succeeded by his sister Mary I, a very catholic woman who wanted to turn the clock back. She is known as Bloody Mary because of the executions of protestants that took place under her, including Archbishop Cranmer, who was burned at the stake in Oxford.
Five years later she died and was succeeded by Elizabeth I. You can well imagine that a priority for her was to try and make peace between the two sides. And it can be said that she established protestantism in England as under her, the Act of Supremacy 1559 reversed the changes that Mary had made and made the Church of England protestant again, with Elizabeth as Supreme Governor (not Supreme Head as Henry had been: it was felt wrong by some people for a woman to be a head of a church). Also in that year, the Book of Common Prayer was revised yet again to put back some catholic practices, like using wafers instead of ordinary bread at the communion service. Not everyone was entirely happy but it was a compromise that worked and has lasted ever since.
What the web site that talks about the mid 1600s possibly is referring to is what happened between 1649 and 1660, when King Charles I was executed and England was a republic for the next 11 years. At that time the Church of England was made Presbyterian (with no bishops), and the Book of Common Prayer was abolished and replaced with a Directory which just gave directions to ministers as to how to lead worship. And Christmas was abolished as being too "Polish" (it is still true today that some extreme Presbyterians in Scotland don't like the celebration of Christmas for exactly the same reason). All this was reversed when the monarchy was restored in 1660, and the opportunity was taken to publish yet another slightly revised Book of Common Prayer in 1662, which the Church of England still uses. Well, in theory... what is mostly used now is Common Worship, published ten years ago in modern English. But Parliament refused to allow the Church of England to abolish the 1662 book completely and it is still often used for weddings (or the slightly different version of 1928 which allows the bride not to have to promise to obey her husband), and the communion service from it is still occasionally used for early morning communion or lunchtime services that you often get in cathedrals. It works better for services like that with a small congregation and no singing, I think - I've been to some and the beauty of Cranmer's English adds a real something to it.
As this is the Royalty section, I wonder which book Prince William and Kate Middleton will choose to use? They're allowed to choose in consultation with the archbishop who will marry them. The Royal Family have always gone for the older service as far as I know. Compare "With this ring I thee wed" with "I give you this ring as a sign of our marriage". No contest!
did queen elizabeth i establish protestantism in england?
