In order to enforce the Act of Supremacy, Parliament passed a new Act of Uniformity (S362), which ordered the minister of every congregation in England, whether Catholic or Protestant, to use the services laid down in the recently established Book of Common Prayer, and to use no other.  In fact the law forbade the holding of any other service, even in a room with closed doors.  In case he failed to obey this law he would be severely punished, and for a third offense would be imprisoned for life.  The same act imposed a heavy fine on all persons who failed to attend the Established Church of England on Sundays and holidays.

The reason for these stringent measures was that in that age Church and State were everywhere considered to be inseparable.  No country in Europe—­not even Protestant Germany—­could then conceive the idea of their existing independently of each other.  Whoever refused to support the established form of worship, whatever that might be, was looked upon as a “rebel” against the government.

In order to try such “rebels” Parliament now gave Queen Elizabeth power to organize the High Commission Court.[1] By that Court many Catholics were imprisoned and tortured for refusing to comply with the new Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, and later on about two hundred priests and Jesuits were put to death on charges of treason.  A number of Puritans, also, were executed for publishing books or pamphlets which attacked the government, and others were cast into prison or banished from the realm.

[1] High Commission Court:  so called because originally certain church dignitaries were appointed commissioners to inquire into heresies and kindred matters.  See, too, Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. xiv, S15.

383.  The Thirty-Nine Articles (1563); the Queen’s Religion.

Four years later, the religious belief of the English Church, which had been first formulated under Edward VI (S362), was revised and reduced to the Thirty-Nine Articles which constitute it at the present time.[1] But the real value of the religious revolution which was taking place did not lie in the substitution of one creed for another, but in the new spirit of inquiry, and the new freedom of thought, which that change awakened.

[1] But the Clerical Subscription Act (1866) simply requires the clergy of the Church of England to make a general declaration of assent to the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Prayer Book.

As for Elizabeth herself, she seems to have had no deep and abiding convictions on these matters.  Her political interests practically compelled her to favor Protestantism, but to the end of her life she kept up some Catholic forms.  Though she upheld the service of the Church of England, yet she shocked the Puritans by keeping a crucifix, with lighted candles in front of it, hung in her private chapel, before which she prayed to the Virgin as fervently as her sister Mary had ever done.