ABSTRACT
As shown in Chapter 2, Elizabeth’s government intended to introduce a religious settlement in 1559 which would enforce a Protestant form of service through an Act of Uniformity. It also planned to introduce an Act of Supremacy which would legitimize this royal reformation of the Church. Opposition to the legislative programme, however, was mounted by Catholic activists, led by the bishops in the House of Lords, whose resistance was so vigorous that the supremacy and uniformity bills nearly foundered. They were eventually passed only because the queen effectively applied a mixture of compromise and coercion, by making some concessions to appease the consciences of the laity and by weakening episcopal solidarity through arrests and intimidation. As a result of the bishops’ refusal to accept the supremacy even after it became law, Elizabeth had to rely on the Marian exiles and other zealous Protestants to fill vacant positions in the Church and enforce the new religious settlement. The new leadership of the English Church was therefore more committed to Protestant reform than Elizabeth would ideally have wished.
