When Elizabeth I succeeded to the throne in November 1558, perhaps the most difficult and sensitive problem that she had to address was the question of England’s religion.  In the 1530s, Elizabeth’s father Henry VIII had broken with Rome and repudiated the Pope’s jurisdiction within England, but at his death in 1547 much of religious life in English parishes remained quite traditional, albeit without the monasteries and without the Pope. Then Henry’s son Edward VI steered England firmly in a Protestant direction and sought to remove as many traces of Catholicism as possible. However, Edward reigned for only six years (1547-53) and his premature death led to the accession of his devoutly Catholic half-sister Mary I who immediately sought to reintroduce Catholicism. By the time of her death in 1558, Mary had been responsible for the burning of nearly three hundred Protestants as “heretics.”

Current research suggests that in their very different ways both Edward and Mary probably met with enough support to enable their respective religious preferences to settle down if only they had lived long enough. However, tuberculosis claimed Edward at the age of fifteen and cancer claimed Mary at the age of 42, leaving their half-sister Elizabeth to inherit a divided and confused nation. By 1558, there were in England committed minorities of Catholics and Protestants and many in between who were uncertain or who tended to conform to the prevailing policies of whoever happened to occupy the throne.