elizabethan england- history

• ACT OF UNIFORMITY (1559)

  • Declared all worship must be the same
  • Everyone must attend church weekly
  • Book of common prayer in english
  • Fine paid for any who do not attend
• ACT OF SUPREMACY

  • Declared Elizabeth as supreme govenor of Church of England,head of church and state
  • Following the pope was an act of treason
• ACT OF PERSUASIONS (1581)

  • Raised recusancy fines to £20 per month
  • £200 per year for persistent recusants
  • Fine of £66 for attending mass
  • Fines not paid= imprisonment
  • Trying to convert someone to catholicism was an act of treason
• ACT AGAINST PRIESTS (1585)

  • Death penalty for housing catholic priests
  • Allowed government officials to search houses of those suspected of hiding a priest
• SECOND RECUSANCY ACT (1587)

  • Allowed government to seize up to 2/3 of a recusants land if they refused to pay fines
• ACT AGAINST RECUSANTS (1593)

  • Required catholics to limit travel to less than 5 miles from their homes
  • Forbid them from having large gatherings
• PRIVY COUNCIL

  • Group of queen's most trusted courtiers
  • met everyday to dicuss how to govern country
  • These men helped her more than anyone else
• PRIVY CHAMBER

  • Queen's private chamber
  • surrounded by small group of women
  • only must trusted courtiers were allowed to discuss in chamber
• COURT

  • Gathering of nobles and higher gentry who were favoured by the queen
  • Met wherever the queen stayed
  • People in group could change depending on who queen favoured at the time
• PATRONAGE

  Flattery and relationships led to jobs,money and power
• PARLIAMENT

  • Active for 3 years
  • made up of 3 sections:the monarch, the house of lords and house of commons
  • Forbidden topics in parliament:
  • marriage,the succession,foreign policy
  • Elizabeth expected local lords to select MP's to ensure suitable people were chosen
• PURITANS


  Strict protestants

  Happy that England was not part of the roman catholic church

  Believed all worship of God should be plain

  Bible should be in English
• PURITAN OPPOSITION

  • Elizabeth's most troublesome critics
  • Wanted Elizabeth to marry a protestant
  • Wanted her to change the way the church was organised
  • Insisted that MP's should have complete freedom of speech without fear of arrest or punishment
• JOHN STUBBS

  • Puritan who wrote a pamphlet criticising Elizabeth for considering a marriage with a french catholic
  • Had his right hand chopped off
  • was not imprisoned
• Earl of Essex


  Rebelled against Queen Elizabeth I
• First appeared at Elizabeth's court when he was 18 years old


  1584
• Earl of Essex


  • Became queen's favourite
  • Spent a lot of time talking and playing cards with queen
• 1589


  Angered the Queen by defying her wishes and joining sir Francis Drake's attack on Lisbon, Portugal
• 1590


  Angered her again by marrying without her permission
• Queen forgave him for both offences
• Earl of Essex

  • Won a place on the privy council due to his military skill and knowledge of foreign affairs
• Elizabeth made Robert Cecil her new secretary of state


  Essex was outraged and built an opposition at court
• June 1598


  Essex rudely turned his back to Elizabeth, she punched him in the ear and he was about to draw his sword and stormed out the room
• Essex was banned from court for 2 months
• 1600


  Essex forced himself into queen's bed chamber, banned from court and took away his government jobs - became bankrupt
• • 1601- essex started gathering large groups of supporters
  • Arranged for the production at the globe theatre where a scene is a king forced to give up his throne
  • essex threatned elizabeth
  • he was arrested
  • 25th of feb 1601 - beheaded at the tower of london
  • guilty of treason against the queen and country
• SIR WILLIAM CECIL

  • Secretarty of state, 1558-72 and 1590-98
  • protestant
  • Queen trusted him more than any other advisor
  • Elizabeth once fell out with him as she felt he forced tricked her into executing her sister Mary queen of scots
• SIR FRANCIS WALSINGHAM

  • secretary of state 1572-1590
  • strong puritan beliefs
  • saw english catholics as a threat
  • Queen admired his work ethic and his honesty
  • Queen got angry once at his direct opinions and threw a slipper at him for criticising her
  • Had a secret spy network
• Margaret Clitherow 1586

  • Accused of hiding priests
  • A door was placed on her with weights added until she died from being crushed