Queen Elizabeth I’s First Parliament, 1559.

Following her coronation, Queen Elizabeth I and her ministers prepared for her first parliament. The Spanish Ambassador, Count Feria, was well enough informed to have a sense of what would be enacted. His dispatch to the Spanish government is a running history of the events as of March 19, 1558 [O.S.]. His first concern, upon hearing what was planned, was to have an audience with the new Queen.

I found her resolved about what was yesterday passed in Parliament, and which Cecil and Vice Chamberlain Knollys and their followers have managed to bring about for their own ends.[1]

She is young, he implied. Her heart would be in the right place if she wasn’t under the spell of her heretic advisors. Still, he was politic:

at last I said that I did not consider she was heretical and could not believe that she would sanction the things which were being discussed in Parliament, because if she changed the religion she would be ruined,

Having had his say, he had no option but to watch and wait. His narrative makes clear that he expected the worst. Only the details remained to be learned.

To his King, Philip II, he represented a profoundly disappointing loss in diplomatic terms, as well. He spoke of  

the wickedness which is being planned in this Parliament which consists of persons chosen throughout the country as being the most perverse and heretical.

He painted a picture of heresy that could only be accomplished because of historical levels of corruption of the new administration. But now, only a few pages later, the Queen is ruling over a hive of drones all wishing to obey in respect of the personal advantages they expected to receive.

The Queen has entire disposal of the upper Chamber in a way never seen before in previous Parliaments, as in this there are several who have hopes of getting her to marry them, and they are careful to please her in all things and persuade the others to do the same, besides which there are a great number whom she has made barons to strengthen her party, and that accursed cardinal left twelve bishoprics to be filled which will now be given to as many ministers of Lucifer instead of being worthily bestowed.

“All the country,” he moans, “sees the absurdity of what is going on.” And, surely, those who he listened to did see matters so. This could only be understood as the outcome of every ungodliness gloriously breaking free of its shackles.

The first Parliamentary act of the reign is known as the Supremacy Act, Restoring Ancient Jurisdiction (1559), 1 Elizabeth, Cap. 1.[2] Feria could not have been please. Elizabeth had broken free of all restraint.

no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, spiritual or temporal, shall at any time after the last day of this session of Parliament, use, enjoy, or exercise any manner of power, jurisdicdiction, superiority, authority, preeminence or privilege, spiritual or ecclesiastical, within this realm, or within any other your majesty's dominions or countries that now be, or hereafter shall be, but from thenceforth the same shall be clearly abolished out of this realm, and all other your highness's dominions for ever; any statute, ordinance, custom, constitutions, or any other matter or cause whatsoever to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding.

But it was the second act that Feria cried out about to his King. It is known as the 1559 Act of Uniformity, 1 Elizabeth, Cap. 2.[3]

And further be it enacted by the queen's highness, with the assent of the Lords (sic) and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by authority of the same, that all and singular ministers in any cathedral or parish church, or other place within this realm of England, Wales, and the marches of the same, or other the queen's dominions, shall from and after the feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist next coming be bounden to say and use the Matins, Evensong, celebration of the Lord's Supper and administration of each of the sacraments, and all their common and open prayer, in such order and form as is mentioned in the said book [Common Book of Prayer], so authorized by Parliament in the said fifth and sixth years of the reign of King Edward VI, with one alteration or addition of certain lessons to be used on every Sunday in the year, and the form of the Litany altered and corrected, and two sentences only added in the delivery of the sacrament to the communicants, and none other or otherwise.

*

And if any such person once convicted of any offence concerning the premises, shall after his first conviction eftsoons offend, and be thereof, in form aforesaid, lawfully convicted, that then the same person shall for his second offence suffer imprisonment by the space of one whole year, and also shall therefore be deprived, ipso facto, of all his [Page 461] spiritual promotions; and that it shall be lawful to all patrons or donors of all and singular the same spiritual promotions, or of any of them, to present or collate to the same, as though the person and persons so offending were dead.

Religious ritual in the domains of the Queen and all her heirs, in perpetuity, was to be Edward IV’s  Book of Common Prayer.

Feria’s account goes on, hoping against hope.

Your Majesty already knows that what is decided in Parliament is of no effect if it be not confirmed by the Sovereign, and they tell me that the Queen will probably confirm this week the abominable decree they have adopted[4]

Of course, she confirmed the acts. England was officially Protestant once again.

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[1] Count Feria to Philip II, 19 March 1559. Calendar of Spanish Letters I.37.

[2] Hanover Historical Texts Collection. https://history.hanover.edu/texts/engref/er79.html

[3] Hanover Historical Texts Collection. https://history.hanover.edu/texts/engref/er80.html

[4] Count Feria to Philip II, 19 March 1559. Calendar of Spanish Letters I.38.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• The Grand Ceremony of the Baptism of Prince James of Scotland (later James VI). December 15, 2020. “The infant James was also reported, in the English court, as having been gravely ill.”
• Excerpts from Letters about the Origin of the 1563 Plague. January 17, 2021.  “on the progress of the conflict between Queen Elizabeth I’s forces and those of the French Regent, the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici.”
• A Thousand Years of English Terms.  June 2, 2019.  ‘One person did not say to another, “Meet you at three o’clock”.    There was no clock to be o’.  But the church bell rang the hour of Nones and you arranged to meet “upon the Nones bell”.’
• A Most Curious Account of the Funeral of Queen Elizabeth I: April 28, 1603.  April 28, 2019.  “Once it was clear that James I would face no serious challenges, Cecil and the others could begin to give attention to the matter of the Queen’s funeral.”
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
• Check out the English Renaissance Letter Index for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.