Example research essay topic: 16th Century Reformation Of The Church England - 1,207 words

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... hort reign of bloodshed and forcible Catholicism was out-shadowed by that of her half-sister Elizabeth whom became the next queen of England as Elizabeth I. 27 Elizabeth I reign of England started with the death of her half-sister Mary I in 1558. 28 Under Good Queen Bess, England prospered, but not without having many changes made under the new monarchy under a moderate Protestant state. 29 It was a time of great question about which religion would dominate and be put in place and questions among the people where as such. 30 Elizabeth I wanted a church that would be able to deal with both sides of the fence that her brothers reign started with Protestant and her sister with the Catholics. 31 Elizabeth was a great politician for the reason that she was able to change a church staffed by Marys clergy and build a more compromising middle-of-the-road Anglican church much more apt at dealing with the ecclesiastical needs of the many. In 1559 to 1563 she was able to achieve a religious settlement and quiet the two opposing sides, one calling for the radical Protestants of her brothers clergy to be reinstated and the other calling for Catholics to remain in control. 32 The newly installed system of Elizabeth I church required only that everyone attended church on a regular basis, meaning that they went all the time, but the church was very moderate and tried to fill the religious flavor for all of England whether you were a Catholic or a Protestant. 33 This new church also ended the hunting for heretics, stopped the torture and burning of those suspected of being on either side of the religious spectrum and only imposed fines for those who did not attend church services that had been instituted as a mandatory necessity of the church. 34 With the clergy now acting in a manner that suited Elizabeth's liking, the errors of the Roman church were levied upon them in the Thirty-nine Articles of belief that had great tendencies of Lutheran and Calvinist Protestant beliefs. 35 These Thirty-nine Articles of belief laid the foundations for what would become the Anglican Church under Elizabeth. It was, for the most part, only the most fanatical and religiously one-sided individuals that were not able to adapt to this new adaptation to the church policies leaving the rest more open to compromise. 36 Being that England was still basically an agricultural society, along with the limited number of people living on the small Island country, Elizabeth did not have the funds that her contemporaries did in other European nations such as France and Spain. 37 She actually did not even have the funds to raise a standing army, and her control was not as absolute as it would become to her successors down the road a few years. Elizabeth I, like the Tudors who ruled before, all had to work their thrown through the parliament who became increasingly stronger with the House of Commons being the more vocal and aggressive of the two houses in Parliament. 38 Parliament went so far as to tell the queen to get married, but Elizabeth never bowed to Parliament in that arena, enjoying the control she had as the sole monarch. 39 To remain the sole monarch was to remain the sole church leader. If Elizabeth had married, and done so with a staunch Catholic like Phillip II, it would have been very likely to see the church of England once again change roles and likely turn subservient to the papacy in Rome.

With the Church now acting Protestant in nature, trying to assimilate all of England under the singular roof of the Anglican church, Elizabeth I was the only ruler of her day able to tend the burning fires of religion and unrest of the 16 th century. Having this monumental task behind her, she spent the remaining years of her life trying to maintain the feats she was able to accomplish early in her reign. 40 The task of maintaining the church she had built was also a monuments task with the pressures put on her by neighboring counties such as Scotland, France and Spain all of whom were Catholic states, but she managed to do so for the remainder of her reign just into the 17 th century in 1603 when she died and the end of the Tutor reign with it. 41 The question of why the reformation took place in England was not a religious motive, but one of a personal and political nature seeking to insure a male Tudor heir would be able to maintain the norm in England and keep the fighting of inner wars away. 42 This unfortunately did not happen in the way Henry VIII would have hoped being that his only son only stayed on the thrown for such a short time. The changing from Catholic to Protestant several times might have never happened if Henry VIII would have been able to see into the future mess that he had created by the number of marriages he had had with wives from a number of different religious backgrounds. For instance, Spain has traditionally been a Catholic society while under the Spanish, and his first wife Katherine was a Spaniard and hence a Catholic.

Since this marriage only produced a daughter Mary, who would eventually go to the thrown, the society was doomed to have a Catholic ruler if events were to play as they did. 42 The same thing happened with his only son whom took Henry VIII place at his death. Edward VI took over the thrown at such an early age that a regent was needed to rule for him. The regent in this case was his maternal uncle, the Duke of Somerset who was a radical Protestant that changed the English church only to be crushed by Mary I upon her reign. 43 Lastly Elizabeth, the greatest of the Tudors was raised a Catholic but chose to rule opposite of her sisters brothers, and fathers way and found the middle to meet the needs of the people making her also probably the wisest of the English monarchs. 44 The reason for this middle-of-the-road church is due to Elizabeth I promulgating the end the terror, stabilizing England and creating an Anglican Church that everyone could accept and live by. 45 The disruption that Henry sought to avoid by ensuring a male heir to the thrown changed England in more ways than he could ever have known, threw the country into religious unrest for many years, and still the reasons for the English reformation of the church left a woman at the Tudor thrown that was better at dealing with the events of those days than even he himself, the King of England. To editions referred to in the notes BAINTON, ROLAND H. , The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, Beacon Press, Boston, 1985 DUNN, RICHARD S. , The Age of Religious Wars 1559 - 1715 2 nd edition, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1978 RICE, EUGENE F. & GRAFTON, ANTHONY, The Foundations of Early Modern Europe 2 nd edition, 1460 - 1559, W.

W. Norton & Company, New York, 1994 Bibliography:

Research essay sample on 16th Century Reformation Of The Church England