Essay

Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the arguments in these three extracts are in relation to the impact of the Elizabethan religious settlement

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Module
Tudors

Institution
AQA

30 mark source based essay question for the breadth study of the Tudors for AQA history A Level on the Religious Settlement. Level 5/A* response.

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Uploaded on June 22, 2024
Number of pages 4
Written in 2023/2024
Type Essay
Professor(s) Unknown
Grade A+

elizabeth
religion
religious settlement
puritans
presbytarians
catholics
1559
aqa
breadth study
a level
source question
source essay
30 marker
a star
level 5

Study Level A/AS Level
Examinator AQA
Subject History
Unit Tudors

Using your understanding of the historical context, assess how convincing the arguments in
these three extracts are in relation to the impact of the Elizabethan religious settlement. (30)

Extract 1 argues that Elizabeth’s reversal of Mary’s attempted counter-reformation in England
was not highly successful and led to local level aggression against catholics and passive
resistance among the catholic clergy. Firstly, the interpretation highlights the presence of local
level zealous protestants using Elizabeth’s religious settlement to punish catholics. This is
perhaps a less convincing line of argument in the extract. This implication that Elizabeth’s
settlement was in some way designed to permit or even to incite religious violence is simply
untrue. Under the Royal Injunctions of 1559, many of the old catholic vestments were to be
worn during services, and the communion table to stand where the altar had. The Book of
Common Prayer omitted the Black Rubric of 1552, which denied the real presence of Christ
during the communion service. These are all examples of concessions made to Catholics. That
is not to say that on a local level there was no any anti-catholic violence, but rather that in
relation to Elizabeth’s settlement, there was clearly an intention to achieve some kind of balance
between the more radical aspects of her brother’s Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.
Therefore this was not an intentional impact of her settlement. Nevertheless, the argument in
the extract that there was significant conservative resistance to Elizabeth’s settlement is
certainly convincing. After 125 commissioners had been sent to visit churches throughout
England to enforce the Royal Injunctions, 400 Marian clergy resigned. By the summer of 1559
all but one of Mary’s bishops had refused to take the oath to Elizabeth as Supreme Governor of
the Church of England and had been deprived of their office. This level of resistance
demonstrates a failure on Elizabeth’s part to successfully retain enough educated and qualified
clergymen. New bishops were often compelled to accept poorly trained clerics. Elizabeth’s
settlement may not have sparked all out rebellion but did lead to a serious decline in the
standard of the clergy. The significant catholic loss from the 2,500 clergy also indicates that the
religious settlement failed to appease higher level catholics, perhaps an impossible task for a
protestant monarch, but nevertheless having a potentially destabilising impact. Moreover, the
extract’s description of the impact of the failures of the religious settlement on Elizabeth herself
is convincing. It emphasises the Monarch’s economic exploitation of the Church. She seems to
have increasingly followed a punitive economic policy in this regard. After all but one Marian
bishop had refused to take an oath to Elizabth as Supreme Governor of the Church of England,
Elizabeth delayed the consecration of the new Protestant bishops so she could transfer more
Church property to the crown. The crown had restored control of Church wealth to itself, taking
control of first fruits and tenths, appropriating the remaining religious foundations and allowing
vacancies to occur before confirming new appointments in order to profit directly from the
positions’ revenues during this period. Although we should not speculate about the Queen’s
motivations, at the very least it can be said that she undermined her own religious settlement by
pursuing these ruthless financial policies thus limiting the impact which the settlement could
have had. Refusing to appoint Bishops particularly did not give the impression of a functioning
replacement for the Marian and pre-reformation English Roman Catholic Church. Overall, the
extract is convincing in underlining the negative impacts of the religious settlement. However, it
does fail to recognise the successes Elizabeth did have particularly in relation to her
predecessors and to recognise the limitations to the extent to which she could enact congruous

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