How Fair Was the Elizabethan Religious Settlement?

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How fair was the Elizabethan Religious Settlement? In order to answer the question effectively, it is important to look at the problems Elizabeth faced when she came to the throne, and how successfully she dealt with them. To assess how fair the settlement was it is important to examine how each religion would have reacted. In her religious settlement Queen Elizabeth I tried to balance the religions out. When Elizabeth came to the throne in 1553 she faced a number of problems, but no one problem was of greater concern than religion. This was because arguments were braking out and there was conflict all over England. There was no peace and so many changes were being made that it meant no one could decide on one religion to all follow. Elizabeth had to work out a way of pleasing both religions and cutting corners. She would make a new prayer book to please the catholic and then change it to English to please the Protestants. During Mary’s reign, persecuted Protestants looked on Elizabeth as their saviour. Many Protestants thought that Elizabeth would turn the country firmly back towards the Protestant religion. In my analysis of Elizabeth’s religious settlement it is clear to see that this is not totally the case. Out of the eight main points of the settlement, I found that Elizabeth had rules that would please both Protestants and Catholic’s. For example one of her new laws was too be in charge of the church (pleasing Protestants), but not called ‘Head’ and was supported by bishops (pleasing Catholics). Another example of a Catholic based law was some church courts would remain. This is seen as pro-catholic because Protestants were against any form of church courts. Yet, the settlement was clearly not entirely favourable to Catholics. In my analysis, I found that there should be no mass which all Protestants wanted. The Catholics on the other
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