|
Event |
Year |
Main records (other than churchwardens’ accounts and lists of clergy) |
|
Break with Rome and Act of Supremacy (1534): the King to have full power over the Church in England; no payments to go from clergy to Rome |
1532-34 |
|
|
Execution of Thomas More ; Miles Coverdale Bible in English |
1535 |
Valor Ecclesiasticus (assessment of clerical wealth) |
|
Articles of faith; dissolution of religious houses worth <£200 p.a.; Pilgrimage of Grace (northern counties) |
1536 |
See VCH II for details regarding the dissolution of all Leicestershire religious houses |
|
Beginning of surrender of greater monasteries |
1537 |
|
|
Injunction requiring removal of lights, and of images if venerated. All churches to have a Bible in English |
1538 |
|
|
Start of forcible dissolution of greater monasteries; Six Articles (traditional in tone) |
1539 |
|
|
Last monastery supressed |
1540 |
Major land transfers from church to laity in this period |
|
One chapter from Bible to be read in church each Sunday and Holy Day |
1543 |
|
|
Introduction of an English Litany |
1544 |
|
|
Suppression of chantries |
1545 |
Chantry certificates |
|
Death of Henry VIII; accession of Edward VI |
1547 |
|
|
Dissolution of chantries, destruction of shrines, removal of images and rood, ban on processions |
1547-48 |
Chantry Certificates |
|
Act of Uniformity; introduction of Book of Common Prayer (revolt in West Country and commotions across East Anglia and midlands); priests permitted to marry |
1549 |
|
|
Stone altars removed |
1550 |
|
|
All church valuables to be given to king |
1551 |
Church inventories |
|
Second prayer book (more reformist, but short lived) |
1552 |
|
|
Death of Edward VI; accession of Mary I; repeal of Edwardian religious legislation |
1553 |
|
|
Papal authority restored; heresy laws renewed |
1554 |
|
|
Bishops Hooper, Latimer & Ridley burned |
1555 |
|
|
Burning of Archbishop Cranmer, replaced by Cardinal Pole |
1556 |
|
|
Death of Mary I; accession of Elizabeth I |
1558 |
|
|
Act of Supremacy; Act of Uniformity (all Marian bishops except one resign); new Prayer Book; penalties for not attending church and for celebrating mass |
1559 |
Fines for recusancy start to appear in parish records |
|
Rood screens removed again |
1561 |
|
|
Introduction of metrical Psalms by Sternhold & Hopkins – became very popular |
1562 |
|
|
39 Articles; publication of Foxe’s Protestant martyrology, Acts and Monuments |
1563 |
Population inquiry |
|
Northern rebellion by Catholic nobles |
1569 |
|
|
Excommunication of Queen Elizabeth I by Pope (now impossible to be a loyal subject and a Catholic) |
1570 |
|
|
1571 |
Visitation | |
|
Continuing concerns about sufficiency of clergy |
1576 |
Visitation |
|
Harsher penalties for not attending church or teaching without a licence |
1581 |
Reusancy cases start to appear in quarter sessions |
|
1583 |
Start of Recusancy Rolls | |
|
Recusancy laws relating to priests and prohibition on sending children abroad for schooling |
1585 |
Liber Cleri |
|
Further penalties for recusants – forfeit 2/3 of land (and unable to sell land from 1587) |
1586 |
|
|
Spanish Armada defeated |
1588 |
|
|
No Catholic to travel more than 5 miles from home without a licence |
1593 |
|
|
Death of Elizabeth I; accession James I/VI; Millenary Petition against prayer book |
1603 |
Archbishop’s inquiry into levels of church attendance and state of clergy |
|
Hampton Court Conference (response by King to Puritan requests); work commences on new translation of the Bible; 4th prayer book; further recusancy laws and penalties |
1604 |
|
|
Gunpowder plot |
1605 |
|
|
1607 |
Archdeacon’s visitation | |
|
Publication of the ‘King James Bible’, a translation which remains in use in many churches today |
1611 |
|
|
Issue of Book of Sports nationally |
1618 |
|
|
Pope appoints Vicar-Apostolic in Britain and Catholic hierarchy created with each county having a Catholic rural dean. |
1623 |
|
|
Death of James I/VI; accession Charles I and his marriage to a Catholic |
1625 |
|
|
William Laud appointed Bishop of London |
1628 |
|
|
Arrest and imprisonment of 9 MPs, dissolution of parliament and start of personal rule by King Charles I; financial penalties on Recusants |
1629 |
|
|
Laud becomes Archbishop of Canterbury and starts to push through reforms through an act of privy concil and a Metropolitan visitation; re-issue of Book of Sports |
1633 |
|
|
1634 |
Metropolitan visitation | |
|
King tries to impose Prayer Book on Scottish Kirk; Scottish bishops expelled by Kirk; National Covenant formed in Scotland to resist religious interference by king |
1638 |
|
|
Laud impeached for treason; ‘Root and Branch’ petition against episcopacy |
1640 |
|
|
Revolt in Ireland; Grand Remonstrance issued listing parliament’s grievances againstthe king |
1641 |
|
|
King attempts to arrest the ‘5 members’; start of first Civil War |
1642 |
People required to pledge loyalty to king (Protestation) |
|
‘Solemn League and Covenant’ accepted by parliament; new oath of abjuration introduced; parliament establishes committees for plundered ministers and for sequestration of livings; ordinance to remove stone altars, altar rails, chancel steps, crosses, images, and make good; Appointment of visitors in some counties to remove images etc. |
1643 |
Records of committees of plundered ministers and sequestration start in 1643 |
|
Ordinance to remove and destroy all representations of angels, all rood-lofts, holy-water stoups, fonts, organs and organ cases |
1644 |
|
|
Laud executed (January); Book of Common Prayer abolished; introduction of new Directory of Worship; siege of Leicester; Battle of Naseby (14 June) – king flees; prohibition on using Prayer Book (August); church courts suspended; basis for establishment of a Presbyterian church in England is set out. |
1645 |
|
|
Charles I surrenders, ending first Civil War; abolition of episcopacy |
1646 |
Informations and articles against clergy |
|
King imprisoned (January), but escapes (November) |
1647 |
|
|
Second Civil War; king recaptured |
1648 |
|
|
Trial and execution (30 January) of Charles I (his son is living in exile) |
1649 |
|
|
Repeal of obligation to attend church |
1650 |
|
|
Central probate court established |
1652 |
|
|
Oliver Cromwell declared Lord Protector; parliamentary ordinances provide religious toleration for all Protestants and election of parish ‘registers’, removing the registration of key events from the church authorities ; ‘Barebones parliament’ permits civil marriage by JP rather than clergyman |
1653 |
|
|
Rule of the Major-Generals (Edward Whalley in East Midlands |
1655-7 |
|
|
Death of Oliver Cromwell; Protectorate passes to his son Richard |
1658 |
|
|
Declaration of Breda (promising liberty to tender consciences), leading to restoration of Charles II |
1660 |
|
|
Church courts restored; Savoy conference to revise BCP |
1661 |
|
|
Act of Uniformity; new Prayer Book introduced; ejection of ministers who will not conform (24 August) |
1662 |
Bishop Sanderson’s visitation (following Act of Uniformity) |
|
Conventicle Act |
1664 |
|
|
Five Mile Act |
1665 |
|
|
Second Conventicle Act |
1669 |
Return of conventicles to Archbishop Shelden |
|
1670 |
Visitation | |
|
Declaration of Indulgence – some freedom of worship in licensed buildings |
1672 |
Licences issued under Declaration |
|
Repeal of declaration of Indulgence; introduction of Test Act – to prevent office holding by non-Anglicans |
1673 |
|
|
1676 |
Compton census of communicants and others | |
|
Popish plot; second Test Act – to prevent office holding by non-Anglicans and excluding Catholics from the House of Lords |
1678 |
|
|
Charles II received into Roman Catholic church on his death-bed; accession of James II (a Catholic); Revocation of 1598 edict of Nantes in France, making it illegal in that country to be a Protestant |
1685 |
|
|
All penal laws against Catholics suspended and religious tests annulled; 1st Declaration of Indulgence by James II |
1687 |
|
|
Pope establishes four vicariates in England; birth of son to king (ensuing a Catholic succession); king forced to flee as William of Orange (Protestant) invited to take throne and reign with his wife Mary (James’s Protestant daughter) |
1688 |
|
|
Act of Toleration (excludes Unitarians and Catholics) – repeals Conventicle and Five-mile acts |
1689 |