#english_history 

Edward VI (1547-1553), [[The Tudors|Henry VIII]]'s son, was only a child when he became king, so the country was ruled by a council. The council consisted of avid Protestant reformers, who had profitted from teh sale of monastery lands. So they sought after to make England truly Protestant.

## Protestant attempts
Most English people still believed in the old Catholic religion, less than half the English were Protestant by belief. In **1552** a new prayer book was introduced to make sure that all churches followed the new Protestant religion. Most people were not very happy with it.

## Reign of Mary

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Mary (1553-1558), the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, became queen after Edward's death. A group of nobles tried to put Lady Jane Grey, a Protestant, on the throne, but the ordinary people supported Mary, who was a Catholic. ^0e112b

She, however, was unwise and unbending in her policy and her beliefs. For political, religious and family reasons, she married King Philip of Spain. The ordinary people disliked the marriage so much that a rebellion in Kent actually reached London in **1554**, before failing (Mary cruelly executed the leader, Wyatt). Parliament then unwillingly agreed to Mary's marriage, and it only accepted Philip as king of England for Mary's lifetime.

Then Mary began burning Protestants, earning her the nickname "Bloody Mary".

## Elizabeth I

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Elizabeth was lucky to become queen when Mary died in **1558**. Although Mary considered killing her, she was wise to stay quiet.  ^1b9cb4

She wanted to end these religious disagremeents, settling with the Catholic religion, although integrating the Church into state.

The "parish", the area served by one church, usually the same size as a village, became the unit of state administration. People had to go to church on Sundays by law. This meant that the parish priest, the "parson" or "vicar", became almost as powerful as the village squire. 
Elizabeth also arranged for a book of sermons to be used in church, which, among other things, taught that rebellion against the Crown was a sin.

The struggle between Catholics and Protestants continued to endanger Elizabeth's position for the next thirty years, with both France and Spain being potential invaders.
The danger, however, was also emanating from inside, from those Catholic nobles who wished to remove Elizabeth and replace her with the queen of Scotland, Mary, "Queen of Scots". She had spent her childhood in France, and when she returned to rule Scotland as queen, Mary soon made enemies of some of her nobles, and to avoid them she finally escaped to the safety of England, where she was kept as a prisoner for almost 20 years -> Many secret Catholic plots were discovered.

France was unlikely to support Mary, but Spain would. So in **1587** Elizabeth finally agreed to Mary's execution, which was enormously popular with the people, because the Catholic plots and the dangers of a foreign Catholic invasion had changed people's feelings: to be a Catholic is to be an enemy of England. ^b4ce5b