L’imposition par le pouvoir politique de la continuité liturgique dans l’Eglise d’Angleterre, 1558-1662

Abstract

The parliamentary settlement of religion of 1559, which in the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity recognised the monarch as the supreme governor of the English church and required the church to worship according to the only slightly modified, indisputably Protestant second Prayer Book of Edward VI, had long lasting political consequences, since it automatically made any questioning of the Prayer Book a potential infringement of royal authority. The Prayer Book had undergone radical changes in the short reign of Edward VI and committed Protestants, who repeatedly questioned whether the liturgy prescribed in the Prayer Book accurately reflected the theology of the national church, assumed that the crown would authorise further revision. The disappointment of their expectations in the century between the accession of Elizabeth and the restoration of Charles II contributed in no small way to the destruction of a comprehensive Protestant church in England in 1662.