AHQ: At what point did England become predominantly Protestant instead of Catholic?

[KaiserWilhelm]

There are constant discussions on this board regarding when precisely England became mostly Protestant, but I wondered if there was a scholarly consensus on this issue. For the purposes of the thread, throw in the Scottish as well, since Protestantism in both nations was linked at a certain point. It appears apparent that early in Henry VIII’s reign, England was mostly Catholic albeit with a growing Protestant population, and by the time Elizabeth became queen the country was mostly Protestant, again albeit with a Catholic minority that would be somewhat prominent until the latter half of the 17th century, at least based on what I’ve read.

 

[Dancing Fool]

I think relatively quickly. And I think the Church of England was not that different from the Catholic Church in terms of beliefs, services, births, marriages, deaths, etc.

Or . . .

maybe I’m wrong about it not being all that different

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https://mma.pages.tufts.edu/fah188/kpetersen/churchofengland.html

“The Dissolution of the Catholic Monasteries began with little opposition in 1536 and continued throughout 1539, while the year 1538 instituted the beginning of the destruction of relics and shrines.”

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This part seems pretty hard-core!

 

[Kerney]

Sometime during Elizabeth's reign, an exact year is hard to gage, but probably the 1570s or so, though the upper class was majority Protestant much earlier.

 

[Codae]

Wouldn't the median English Christian have simply started counting as Protestant at the moment the established church did?

 

[Gannt the chartist]

Impossible to say, for most people the answer if asked would be 'Christian, of the sort that does not get me arrested Officer.'

But the 12 conclusions of the Lollards were nailed to Westminster Abbey and St Pauls in 1395 and that thought had been present ever since and obviously before that and ofc Wyclif influences Hus influences Luther and Scripture as written differs from Catholic doctrine and practise.

Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Henry's actions generally are well inside Lollard thinking as far as we know it and that thinking prevalent in England. Its noticeable that English Protestantism in almost all shapes differs markedly from Scots even at the Puritan end of things.

Some of the arguments put forward about the lack of oath taking misses keys points like the Oath was taken at Church, which is also the only place you could be served for debt so people delaying taking the Oath until the last minute were also avoiding their creditors as long as possible.

 

[funnyhat]

by the time Elizabeth became queen the country was mostly Protestant

I don't think it was that soon, or else Mary I would have faced more resistance when she completely abolished Protestantism and burned its followers at the stake. Compare her reign with that of Mary of Scots, who was also Catholic but recognized that it was not possible to eliminate Protestantism in Scotland, and adopted a moderate stance.

The Church of England also had a shortage of qualified clergy early in Elizabeth's reign, and consequently was forced to ordain many priests who had little or no religious instruction. But over the course of her reign the quality of the clergy improved.

It also seems that Protestantism initially was practiced mainly in the south-east and gradually spread to the rest of the kingdom, but in some places (like the north) Catholicism remained strong for a long time, into the reign of James.

I would guess that overall, it was at some point in the second half of Elizabeth's reign that a majority of her subjects identified with Protestantism (in whatever form). In the south-east it would have been sooner.

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

I don't think it was that soon, or else Mary I would have faced more resistance when she completely abolished Protestantism and burned its followers at the stake.

The alternative to Mary, at that moment, was Jane, presumed to be a puppet of the hated Duke of Northumberland. Even so, had Mary announced her future course (the Marian persecutions) the outcome could have been different.

However, it is arguable that during her reign, there was a Catholic majority, once the 1534 Act of Supremacy was repealed. That's because for a large proportion of Englishmen, religion was what the law said. So before the repeal, there was a Protestant majority.

The question of when the active preference of a majority or plurality of Englishmen was one way or the other is much harder to answer. Repeal of the AoS1534 was driven more by royal influence than popular sentiment. OTOH, Elizabeth's 1558 AoS seems to have been genuinely popular.

 

[Ogrelord420]

Elizabeth’s reign. During the reign of Henry and Mary I think it was more evenly split but by the time of Elizabeth’s death only 1/5th of the country was still Catholic

 

[Emperor Constantine]

During Elizabeth I's long reign. Before that, the majority of the country was Catholic. However, it should be said that they were "English" Catholic, not "Roman" Catholic. Most of the population seemed to support the ideals of Henry VIII, ie Catholic but in English, without the Pope and no monasteries. It was the extremisms of Edward VI and Mary I combined with Elizabeth's moderate policies that cemented the shift to her ideals of Protestantism.

 

[Gannt the chartist]

I don't think it was that soon, or else Mary I would have faced more resistance when she completely abolished Protestantism and burned its followers at the stake. Compare her reign with that of Mary of Scots, who was also Catholic but recognized that it was not possible to eliminate Protestantism in Scotland, and adopted a moderate stance.

The Church of England also had a shortage of qualified clergy early in Elizabeth's reign, and consequently was forced to ordain many priests who had little or no religious instruction. But over the course of her reign the quality of the clergy improved.

It also seems that Protestantism initially was practiced mainly in the south-east and gradually spread to the rest of the kingdom, but in some places (like the north) Catholicism remained strong for a long time, into the reign of James.

I would guess that overall, it was at some point in the second half of Elizabeth's reign that a majority of her subjects identified with Protestantism (in whatever form). In the south-east it would have been sooner.

The moderate stance being making illegal any Papal office or jurisdiction and doing everything her majority Protestant council tells her to do, or else.
The Kirk btw takes the view that the order of precedence is God, Jesus, The Kirk, everyone else which tends to mean that the everyone else resents the Kirk.

The Quality of clergy is general across England, ( the world probably) one of the many factors in the Pilgrimage of Grace was the perceived threat to the poorly educated Catholic Clergy of the North by the Protestants demanding that they ' look to your Books sir'.

For most Clergy the attitude seems to have been that of the Vicar of Bray

'The vivacious vicar of Bray living under King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, was first a Papist, then a Protestant, then a Papist, then a Protestant again. He had seen some martyrs burnt (two miles off) at Windsor and found this fire too hot for his tender temper.

This vicar, being taxed by one for being a turncoat and an inconstant changeling, said, "Not so, for I always kept my principle, which is this – to live and die the Vicar of Bray.'

The problem is when your main concern is daily survival which is the case for most people the niceties of theology and Papal supremacy, Idolatry and Superstition vs veneration are pretty irrelevant, if the Vicar, Priest or local Magistrate says this is right then folk are fine with it. Its only where you get sufficient funding and leisure time to access books and argue the toss in the local that it might become relevant, which tends to be in cities and seaports, if you are in a seaport even comparatively poor people have access to books and educated men ( who also drink in taverns) and time off as your working day is regulated by tide and wind not sunrise and sunset. As most of the ports and cities are in the south most of the expression of thought is found there. And ofc being closer to Europe means easier access to thought from elsewhere in Europe so the Protestants executed by all the Tudors tend to be from the South East and East Anglia, this says nothing about religious sentiment generally. The Calvinist view is also the view of the Kirk in Scotland so anyone advocating separation of spiritual and temporal power is going to oppose that doctrine.

The whole thing gets extremely complicated at the local level as opposition to a local Protestant or Catholic landowner ( who may be a considered believer) may have nothing to do with their religion but more to do with him enclosing common land.

 

[Rattenfänger von Memphis]

There are constant discussions on this board regarding when precisely England became mostly Protestant, but I wondered if there was a scholarly consensus on this issue. For the purposes of the thread, throw in the Scottish as well, since Protestantism in both nations was linked at a certain point. It appears apparent that early in Henry VIII’s reign, England was mostly Catholic albeit with a growing Protestant population, and by the time Elizabeth became queen the country was mostly Protestant, again albeit with a Catholic minority that would be somewhat prominent until the latter half of the 17th century, at least based on what I’ve read.

I found these statistics on Catholics in England, which might be of interest, from these 4 sources. I will put excerpts in chronological order from 1549 until 1640. From these sources, it would seem the English Catholics were in the majority until at least 1569 but sometime before 1580 became the minority.

(1)“The First Elizabeth” by Carolly Erickson

(2)“The Story of Civilization (Volume) VII :The Age of Reason Begins” by Will and Ariel Durant

(3)“Elizabeth I” by Anne Somerset

(4) Wikipedia Article “Catholic Church in England and Wales”

“Then in the summer of 1549 nearly half of England broke into open revolt. In the west, there was armed resistance to the new prayer book and demands for a return to the mass and for restoration of the old images and symbols.”

“[Elizabeth] was never sure of her crown. Parliament(1553) had reaffirmed the invalidity of her mother’s marriage to her father; state and Church agreed that she was a bastard; and English law, ignoring William the Conqueror, excluded bastards from the throne. The whole Catholic world --- and England was still largely Catholic --- believed that the legal heir to the English scepter was Mary Stuart, great-granddaughter of Henry VII.”

“But within the court, and through the nation, the bitter battle of the Reformation raged, and created a problem that many thought would baffle and destroy the Queen. She was a Protestant; the country was two-thirds, perhaps three-quarters, Catholic. The Protestants were confined to the southern ports and industrial towns; they were predominant in London, where their number was swelled by refugees from oppression on the Continent; but in the northern and western counties --- almost entirely agricultural --- they were a negligible few.”

“Protestants were a tiny minority in England in 1559, but many in that minority were in London, and when they massed in their hundreds to sing psalms in unison the effect was one mighty voice, impassioned and indomitable. By the spring of 1559 the marks of Protestant anger against the Marian church were everywhere : church windows smashed, altars overturned and robbed of their ornaments, crucifixes with their faces cut and scratched, statues of the saints torn from their pedestals and burned or broken to bits.”

“[1566]… “It was now the turn of the Catholics to suffer persecution. Though still in the majority, they were forbidden to hold Catholic services or possess Catholic literature Religious images in the churches were destroyed by government order, and altars were removed… Most Catholics submitted sadly to the new regulations, but a considerable number preferred to pay the fines for nonattendance at the Anglican ritual….Anglican bishops complained to the government that Mass was being said in private homes, that Catholicism was emerging into public worship, and that in some ardent localities it was unsafe to be a Protestant.”

“[1569, after Elizabeth had been on the throne for 10 years]For ten years and more Catholicism had slumbered in England. But the outward acquiescence to the established church was misleading, not only in the north but throughout the country. Hundreds of thousands, conceivably even a majority of the English, were still Catholics. The public devotions of the northerners in 1569 were carried out regularly by their coreligionists elsewhere in secret. Clerics led their congregations in the Protestant services, then retired to say private masses. The faithful said their prsayers and observed the traditional offices in their bedchambers, where they could read Roman devotional books undisturbed.

Some parishioners even took their Catholic primers to church, Protestants preachers complained, “and they prayed upon them all the time when the Lessons to be reading and in the time of the Litany.” Many of the elderly, who had been brought up in the pre-Reformation church, insisted on saying their rosaries during the communion service, and went on saying them under their breath when the clergy took their beads away.”

“For more than fifteen years after Elizabeth’s accession, Catholics had a hard task finding priests who could minister to their needs, although recent research suggests that the shortage was not so chronic as it was once supposed. Not only did many of the priests who had suffered deprivation under the Act of Uniformity continue secretly to receive confessions and administer the sacraments, but in outlying areas especially, parish clergy who had contrived to hang on to their livings conducted services that differed very little from the mass.

Obviously these men did much to keep alive Catholic sentiment, but whatever their contribution, it was assumed that could only temporarily stem Protestantism’s resurgent tide. One by one, the Marian clergy would surely die, and with their passing the Catholic priesthood in England would become extinct. This, at least, was what the government expected, and they were therefore disagreeably surprised that during the mid 1570s, when Catholicism should have entered into irreversible decline, instead it experienced a new resurgence.

“[There was] a sudden resurgence of the Catholic faith in England, as astonishing in its swiftness as in its scope.

In the late 1570s English Catholicism awoke, roused from within in response to the unaccountable rhythms of popular piety and from without by a new generation of fiery young priests schooled for martyrdom in the seminaries of Douai and Rome.

That the immemorial religion of the English should revitalize itself after two generations of dormancy -- with brief irruptions of vitality during Mary’s reign and in the Northern Rebellion of 1569 -- was perhaps to be expected. Among the common people Protestantism was still the “new religion”, though its newness had in fact worn off in the reign of Henry VIII.

A surprisingly large number of elderly priests, some of whom had been quietly, devoutly performing masses without interruption since King Henry’s days, kept alive the memory of the old Catholic realm, while the legal profession, the peerage, even to an extent the royal court were all strongholds of the ancient faith…. Of the sixty peers in 1580, twenty were Catholic.”

“There were many English Catholics who were uncomfortable at the way that the Pope presumed to exercise a secular authority over them. In 1585, a group of prominent Catholic gentlemen, led by Sir Thomas Tresham, addressed a petition to the Queen explaining that though they thought it necessary to their salvation to have access to a priest, they would not hesitate to turn over to the authorities any priest who advocated resistance to her rule.”

“The Counter-Reformation in England can be accounted a failure in that it did not reclaim the nation for the Pope, but the fact that Catholicism was not stamped out altogether demonstrates the essential limitations of the Elizabethan regime. It was true that by the end of the reign, only about one and a half per cent of the population could be accounted true Catholics, but perhaps as much as a quarter of the gentry were Romanists, as well as a smattering of the aristocracy. Life had been made so unpleasant for recusants that many of the more apathetic Catholics had been driven to conform, but a hard core remained whose devotion to their faith was only intensified by repressive measures.”

“…by the end of Elizabeth's reign probably 20% of the population were still Catholic, with 10% dissident "Puritan" Protestants and the remainder more or less reconciled to the Anglican church as "parish Anglicans". By then most English people had largely been de-catholicised but were not Protestant. Religious "uniformity," however, "was a lost cause," given the presence of Dissenting, Nonconformist Protestants, and Catholic minorities.”

“The north was overwhelmingly agricultural and largely Catholic, however clandestinely; London and the south were increasingly industrial and Protestant…. In 1634 the Catholics in England were probably a quarter of the population..”

“Religious historians beg off from stating firm numbers for either camp. If Puritans probably represented 10–20 percent of the national population, most of them still worshiping within the Church of England, Catholics were much harder to count. Open 'recusants' – Catholics who paid fines to avoid attending the Church of England – numbered sixty thousand in 1640. Many more, however, reluctantly attended services on Sunday with scowls or for as short a time as possible. The more identifiable of these were called 'Church Papists'; the less important, ordinary grumblers who merely talked of preferring the older ceremonies were uncountable. In the north and west, at least half the population outside the towns were Catholic to some degree. By this broad definition, Catholics would have numbered 10–15 percent of the total English population. Practising Catholics, however, could not have been more than 2–3 percent. Catholicism survived most strongly among the nobility, of whom 15–20 percent clung to the old faith, including many leading magnates in an arc from Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire south to Derby, Worchestershire, and Hereforshire. However, even solidly Protestant East Anglian counties like Suffolk and Essex each had three, four, or a half-dozen aristocratic families holding to the religion of their forebears. This is perhaps one reason why the populace took Catholic 'plots' so seriously: What they called popery was especially visible among the powerful and influential."

 

[Booster Gold]

Aside from all the foofaraw surrounding Henry VIIIs midlife crisis, when did Anglican Doctrine become distinct from Rome?

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

The question of what makes someone Catholic in the British Isles following the English Reformation is a somewhat tricky one, it would seem; I think the really interesting thing to note here isn't so much how the Anglican Church and those that followed it might have drifted on theological or liturgical matters from the Catholics of Europe, but rather the growing extent to which the "protestants" of the British Isles defined themselves more and more aggressively as being counter to the "papists" found in the rest of the world.

This is worth noting because (aside from a brief period in Germany following unification in the 1870's), no other protestant nations or populations in Europe made "Anti-Catholicism" as such so central to their culture or how they understood their churches, especially after all the horror of the 17th Century -- they just thought of themselves as Lutheran, or Calvinist, or what have you, and largely left it at that. Oh sure, you might have regulations and such to make it clear that such and such a Church has the backing of society and the state, and being Catholic puts one outside of it (in a separate "pillar", as it were); but nothing like the sheer paranoia that England, Scotland, or the wider British Empire could whip itself into just considering the idea of giving civil rights to Catholic fellow countrymen.

That's the real interesting question, for me -- when did England, and subsequently Britain, become so papaphobic that it essentially came to define them?

 

[HortenseMancini]

when did Anglican Doctrine become distinct from Rome?

Personally I think it was archbishop cranmer's reforms during the reign of kind edward vi - and even then clearly there were many catholics left

 

[Gannt the chartist]

The question of what makes someone Catholic in the British Isles following the English Reformation is a somewhat tricky one, it would seem; I think the really interesting thing to note here isn't so much how the Anglican Church and those that followed it might have drifted on theological or liturgical matters from the Catholics of Europe, but rather the growing extent to which the "protestants" of the British Isles defined themselves more and more aggressively as being counter to the "papists" found in the rest of the world.

And this is the key point. the 'catholic rebellions' include any revolt against royal authority, which becomes self defining, All True Englishmen would be loyal to the king and obedient to the law, one of the key points of Protestantism in England ( and elsewhere) is removal of Papist influence from civil society ergo anyone revolting against civil authority must be a Papist, stands to reason. As time goes on that becomes more clearly true, Papist Plots by people who are clearly as a matter of conscience Catholic become a thing but by then Elizabeth is clearly a major backer of the Dutch revolt and in a mostly Cold War with Spain.

The Elizabethan settlement is actually a balancing act driven arguably by Parliament - in particular the Commons between Calvinist doctrines traditionalist practice and foreign policy.

The problem @Rattenfanger von Memphis has with the quotations is the source is at best a secondary and more likely quaternary or more removed source and from an author not dealing with religiosity in England except as a peripheral aspect to, say a Life of Elizabeth I, and, according to the Pope at least is in Communion with the Catholic Church until 1570 even though She has been Supreme Governor of the Church of England since 1558 and the Oath of Supremacy 1562 and ofc there is the 1534 act which from an orthodox Catholic perspective establishes England as a Protestant State and the Church of England as a protestant religion - albeit one that does not share the same doctrines as Lutheranism or Calvinism.

So the statement that half the country was in revolt in 1549 because of catholics is at best misleading at worst just wrong. This is the year when the avowedly protestant and pro reformation Edward VI introduces the Book of Common Prayer ( or more accurately Seymour as Lord Protector does) and there are the Common Prayer revolt in the West Country, the Ox and Bucks Revolt, Ketts rebellion. But Ketts is clearly a reaction to enclosures, Ox and Bucks may have religious overtones but these seem to have very specific to one pissed of Priest, and they certainly also broke enclosures ( and looted the wine and beer cellars) and then really reacted when foreign troops marched from suppressing Ketts rebellion to the West Country.

The Western or Prayer book rebellion produces two sets of demands. The first is repeal of the tax on sheep and cloth so not about religion. The second is a confused set of demands some of which are liturgical, in that they ask that the religion be restored to the state under Henry VIII, with Henry as Supreme governor etc. And no English services cos we are Cornish and don't understand English, Also Gentlemen should have no more than one servant.

And ofc all of this is against the background of Seymour abusing his authority to rule by decree, for which he gets arrested in Autumn then executed in 1552.

After 1570 maybe a little earlier the situation changes the Dutch Revolt, St Bartholomew's day Massacre and subsequent wars of Religion in France and after 1570 the avowed policy of the Papacy is to foment revolt against Elizabeth in order to put Mary on the throne in the rather deluded belief that this time Mary will not be the creature of the largely protestant Parliament and her Heir in any event is the avowedly Protestant James I and VI

The issue of Illegitimacy gets complicated its not bastardy per se its whether they are lawful by this point its lawful if Parliament passes a Law to say it is so. At various times both Mary and Elizabeth and declared illegitimate by Parliament and Legitimate by Parliament, the Pope saying he gets to decide just means Parliament gets more anti Catholic.

The problem with a superficial view of religion as being important is it just ignores everything else.









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