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Elizabeth became Queen in November 1558
and was crowned on 15 January 1559. Over the previous 25 years England had been through enormous religious changes. In 1533, as you may remember, Henry VIII had
got rid of the Catholic Church and called himself Head of the English Church and began a form of Protestantism. His son, Edward VI, and his advisors had moved
toward an even more protestant religion while the next Monarch, Queen Mary, had moved everything back to Catholicism.
Can you imagine how confused and frightened ordinary people were? Religion was very, very important in those days and so people were either having to
change their beliefs or hide what they believed in and then do the opposite.
Elizabeth’s first important act as Queen was to introduce something called the Act of Supremacy. This restored the Protestant religion and made
everyone in public life swear an oath agreeing that Elizabeth was the Head of the Church in England. There were three levels of penalties for refusal to take
the Oath of Supremacy. A first refusal resulted in loss of all movable goods; that is your household possessions. A second offence could mean life in prison and
a loss of all real estate possessions; that is your land and home. A third offence would result in a charge of High Treason and death; that is the end.
Elizabeth knew what it was like to suffer for your religion as she had been imprisoned in the Tower of London for over a year when Mary was Queen.
However, although she was more tolerant of other believers than her sister had been, she was still always looking out for possible plots and rebellions against
her for religious reasons.
Eventually, to move on a bit, in 1570, Elizabeth was excommunicated from the Catholic Church by the Pope, just like her father, Henry VIII, had been
in 1533.
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