In the early seventeenth century, religion played an important role in England. Religion fueled many disputes, such as The English Civil War and the invasion of Scotland and Ireland. Law and customs were usually based on religion. Even the government was divided because of religious opinions. As the supreme religious authority monarchs were often in very difficult positions. They had to balance all the religious needs of their subjects, honor the established church, and take into account their own religious opinions. The resolves reached by monarchs were often flawed and always left some unhappy. Therefore monarchs were left searching for a perfect system that would please everyone, and unite their country.
Scottish monks introduced England to Catholic Christianity in the third century. England became an officially Catholic state as of the sixth century. It remained Catholic until 1536 when England split from the Roman Catholic Church. Henry VIII was king at the time; he founded the Anglican Church, and made it the official Church of England. Henry chose to split from the Church, because it refused to give him a divorce from his wife. Some people were happy with this decision. They resented the high Catholic taxes they had to pay, and many English were beginning to conform to Protestantism. However many people chose to stay catholic, and resented the Anglican Church. Other Protestant groups like the Puritans, believed that the Church of England should remove all of it’s catholic components, like bishops, rituals, and decoration. Another Scottish Protestant group known as the Presbyterians, believed that every individual church should function independently. All these groups had very different opinions, and th...
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...nt crowned Mary and William of Orange. They were both very popular, because they were Anglican and agreed to the terms of parliament. Both the King and the Queen believed in free religion, and in 1689 parliament passed the toleration act which allowed all Protestants and Catholics to practice their religion freely.
Mary and William managed to do what other kings and queens had tried to do for centuries. They had united the people; made them feel welcome, like they were English. Not just Catholic or Protestant. Now the people of England no longer had the drive to fight over petty differences. They still continued to be passionate in their beliefs, but they began to focus on more important matters like the making peace with one another, and developing their knowledge of the world. Out of insanity Mary and William led the English into a peaceful golden age.
Mary Tudor's reign on England was unsuccessful because her goal of returning England to the Roman Catholic church was never completely fulfilled. Mary Tudor's decisions as queen were mostly driven by anger and the want to get revenge. Although Mary Tudor could be very kind and giving to her people at times a fact that is remembered by many is how Queen Mary allowed many brutal executions of people in England to be performed just because of their choice of religion. That can curb people's opinions of her very fast.
There was a short time where all was calm right after the civil war. king charles the second and his father were both dead so Charles brother took over. this is king James the secondf and he was a Catholic sao he appointed many high positions in the government. Most of his sibjects were protestant and did not like the idea of Catholicism being the religion theyd have to abide by. like his father and brother king james the second ignored the peoples wishes and ruled without Parliament and relied on royal power. an English Protestant leader wanted to take the power away from james and give it to his daughter Mary and Her husband William from the Netherlands. William saled out to the south of england with his troops but sent them away soon after they landed
First of all, let us be clear about the fact that the conversion of Britain to Christianity began quite early. The Catholic priest Venerable Bede, born in Bernicia, Northumbria, around 673, states in Bk 1, Ch 4 of his Ecclesiastical History of the English People that while Eleutherius was Bishop of Rome (175-189AD), a king of Britain named Lucius requested of the Pope that the king be baptized a Catholic by papal decree:
These two opposing religions had their differences be known be the other side and would fight for their ideas to be the ones all to follow. Conrad Russel states in his book The Causes of the English Civil War, that England “was a society with several religions, while still remaining a society with a code of values and a political system which were only designed to be workable with one”. Inside the Church of England was essentially two churches, Protestant and Catholic. Both sides were determined that their religion was going to be the one in the church and not the one outside looking in. Both sides wanted to control the authoritative powerhouse of England and would do anything to have the Church of England become the church of their religion. However, religious differences did not just occur between the citizens, it also occurred between King Charles I and Parliament. First off let’s look at King Charles himself. Charles was a very religious monarch who liked his worship to be High Anglican. He also believed the hierarchy of priests and bishops was very important, which alarmed Parliament because they believed that King Charles was leaning towards the idea of Catholicism in England. King Charles’ form of worship was seen by the Puritan faith as a form of popery. This upset them because they wanted a pure worship without icons or bishops. To clarify, popery is the doctrines, practices, and ceremonies associated with the pope or the papal system; Roman Catholicism. Charles also wanted to support William Laud who was the leader of the High Church Anglican Party because they had recently became prominent. Parliament strongly disagreed with the King’s decision because they feared that Laud would promote Roman Catholicism ideas and
Individual free will allows for a variety of different beliefs to be cultivated. Unfortunately, people do not always accept a variety of ideas. One area in the human experience that has long been disputed is religion. Religion is such a controversial topic that it has been the cause of many wars such as the Crusades and the Thirty Years’ War. The people involved in these wars felt a responsibility to uphold and preserve their faith. In England, the Anglican Church and the Puritans in the first half of the 17th century are another example of peoples with religious problems. Although religion did not directly lead to a physical war, religious conflicts caused a good deal of frustration. Under James I, Charles I, and the Anglican Church, Puritans did not have complete religious autonomy because their beliefs often conflicted with those of the Anglican Church. Consequently, the Puritans felt a responsibility to uphold their practices.
With any new monarch’s ascension to the throne, there comes with it changes in the policies of the country. From Elizabeth’s new council, to Henry’s documented polices and even to William the Silent’s inaction in response to threats were all policies that needed to be worked out by the new rulers. This group of rulers all had something in common; they chose to let their people make their religious preference solely on their beliefs but they all differed in their ways of letting this come about. This was monumental for the time period in which they lived, but it was something that needed to be done to progress national unity.
Protestantism and Catholicism were the two most popular religions in Elizabethan England. The ruling monarch would decide on the religion that would be practiced. A well-known religious ruler during this era is Queen Mary I.
In politics, the interest of nations was centered on religion. Monarchs aligned themselves based on religious belief and fought wars against those who worshiped differently. In Spain, King Phillip II waged war against the Islamic Ottoman Empire in an attempt to stop the spread of Islam in Western Europe and further spread Catholicism. Spain, the most powerful nation in Western Europe during the late 16th century also tried to interfere in French royal succession when Henry IV, a protestant, was to ascend to the throne. A fact that underscores the role of religion is that fighting between Spain and France continued even after Henry IV converted to Catholicism. Another example of relationships affected by the difference in religion is the strained relationships, which eventually lead to armed conflict, Spain had with England and the Netherland, two protestant nations. Elizabeth who ruled England, herself experienced discord with her Puritan subjects who felt that the differences between the Protestant Anglican Church and the Catholic Church were not distinct enough. This same fanaticism resulted in Elizabeth ordering the execution of Mary Queen of Scotts in order to extinguish Catholic hopes of rule, which her life and position in line to the throne gave Catholics in England. Religious tolerance was rare. During the late 16th century, the Netherlands were the only nation to have a policy of tolerance. The Dutch benefit from this tolerant policy as it attracts people of various religious backgrounds, creating fertile ground for commerce. During the scientif...
After King of England, Henry VIII (1491 – 1547) separated the Church of England from the authority of the Pope, the Crown took control of the church in the country. As such, after the English Reformation in the 16th century, the Crown ordered...
In late 1600’s, England was in turmoil from events as King Phillip’s War to the Bacon Rebellion. All this chaos caused disorder all throughout England but it reached its height in the 1680’s when King James's policies of religious tolerance was met with an increasing opposition. People were troubled by the king's religion and devotion to Catholicism and his close ties with France and how he was trying to impose Catholicism on everyone, preventing them from worshiping anything else. This made the Protestant unhappy. It was seen that the crisis came to its peak with the birth of the king's son, James Francis Edward Stuart in 1688. In 1688, the struggle for domination of English government between Parliament and the crown reached its peak in the Glorious Revolution. This bloodless revolution occurred in which the English people decided that it’s enough that they tolerated King James and his extreme religious tolerance
The English Civil war was partially a religious conflict, which brought Church and State against Parliament. Under the reign of James I, England saw the rise in Protestants dissenters. Groups like Barrowists, Puritans, Fifth Monarchists, Quakers, and many more demanded for more religious reform. They felt that the Church of England’s liturgy was too Catholic for a Protestant church. James VI and I accepted the more moderated Puritans and other dissenters, and he was able to keep his kingdom in peace. However, his son Charles I did not believe that kings were answerable to Parliament, but to God. In fact, he ruled without Parliament for many years. He trusted the running of the Church of England to William Laud, who believed that the Church had already gone through too many reforms. Laud went wrong when he tried to make church services more about doctrine and sacraments, and sought to make freewill the official doctrine of the Church. He did not stop there. He ordered that alters should be re-sited from the central places in churches to the east end of churches across the country. This essay will discuss Laud’s Arminian doctrines and his misjudgement of England’s religious mood, which led to his downfall and to the civil war.
Mary went on to re-implement the Catholic faith in England, however not the Catholic faith before her father broke with Rome. Mary was attempting to go along with the Counter Reformation happening on the continent. This showed great th...
After the death of Henry in 1547, a 10 year old Edward came to the throne. The English Church became increasingly Protestant in worship and doctrine under the Protestant Lord Somerset. Mary succeeded the throne after Edward’s death in 1553. Mary was a devout Catholic and saw it her mission to restore Catholicism back to England. She used mainly persecution to do this, by burning Protestants for not renouncing their beliefs, these actions turned many English people against Catholicism.
Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I may have been the English Reformation’s greatest benefactors, all because of self interest. Henry VIII was not originally Protestant, but after the pope denied him of his divorce, Henry VIII took things into his own hands. Due to the power kings had in the Middle Ages, Henry VIII was able to control Parliament and force it to do whatever he wanted. So in 1534, Henry VIII forced Parliament to pass a law he made known as the Act of Supremacy. The Act of Supremacy stated that the king ought to be the head of the Church of England. This law gave the king complete power over the Church of England, instead of the pope. However, the type of church and state relationship did not change. Rather all the Act of Supremacy did was take power from the pope and give it to the king. Surprisingly, the Catholics did not retaliate against this strong change. The pope had always been the head of the church, but now the king had taken his position. This serves as an example of nationalism. The Catholics did not think about how removing the pope could harm their religion in any way. However, instead the people blindly followed Henry VIII because he was the leader of the nation and they assumed he was right. Also, by imposing other laws that punished Protestants, Henry VIII did not give the people much of a choice. Fortunately, for Henry VII, nationalis...
precedent to go by for a woman to be in power. So Henry wanted to