Elizabeth I: Religion and Culture

• Recusants: Roughly 1582-1939 known recusants including 1/3 Peers and many gentry
• Church Papists were willing to accept Elizabeth as Supreme Governor but disliked radical change to worship patterns. Included 8,000 lower clergy who agreed to the Oath of Supremacy.
• Seminary Priests: Trained in Douai in France, first seminary school founded by William Allen.

  Arrived first in 1574, 438 returned but 98 executed
• Jesuits: Founded in 1534, arrived after 1580 with aim of destroying heresy and rebutting compromise
• 1567-72: Policy towards Catholics becomes steadily stricter after a number of plots.
• 1580-1603: Catholic Priests executed for treason, by the end of reign estimated 10% of population with catholic sympathies, 2% recusants
• Vestiarian Controversy: Bishops refused to wear vestments. Archbishop Parker and 5 Bishops issued the advertisements instructing them to wear the Surplice and Cope. 37 Clergy refused in London and were sacked.
• Parliament: Several attempts to reform the Church, few had any success. Included Whitgift and Cartwright's pamphlet wars
• Puritan leaders under Browne in 1580s and 90s advocated reform but got nowhere and were exiled/executed - 1593 Act Against Seditious Sectaries
• Leicester, Walsingham and Mildmay's deaths and the Armada's defeat reduced Puritan sentiments. Calvinist beliefs accepted in 1559 book of common prayer.
• Art:

  Miniature Portraits important though no one as good as Holbein

  Elizabeth didn't commission many new buildings but Nobles did

  Emergence of Smythson, first named English architect
• Literature:

  Increased education

  Shakespeare, Kyd and Marlowe made plays more appealing

  Foxe's book of Martyrs widely read amongst Puritans

  Sidney and Spencer most influential authors - Critical of Elizabeth's Court
• Music:

  Elizabeth saved Ecclesiastical music from Protestants

  Thomas Tallis and William Byrd wrote for Church of England - both catholic