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Relate in your own words what you have learned about the changing relationship between England and the Catholic Church. Use examples

User Artyom
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Shall we say, a little up and down?

(Unstable or dominated by problems and turmoil)

Henry was excommunicated. Hardly friendly. Under his son, Edward, the country was taken in a hard Protestant direction. Not guaranteed to appease the Bishop ofRome.

When his daughter Mary came to the throne she had a habit of burning people who opposed her reimposing catholicism. That didn’t help much either, as she was succeeded by Protestant Elizabeth who was promptly condemned by the Pope which gave free reign to Catholics to assasinate her and overthrow the Protestant regime. There were hundreds of plots to kill her and a major attempt to invade the country, complete with Papal banner.

For the next 100 years there was absolute paranoia about catholicism which led to heavy persecution of adherents and the fall of the Stuart monarchy -though curiously the Earl Marshall of England, the premier non-royal noble, was always a cathokic. This led to the Glorious Revolution which excluded catholics from the throne and from many positions in the state.

Within a hundred years this paranoia died down and there was even a Jesuit as a member of the Royal Institution. Over the following fifty years the last remaining restrictions on catholic civil rights were removed and even Irish catholics were eventually given the vote.

Now relations arw really quite cuddly, though there are stridently disapproving wings of both the Anglican and Catholic churches.

User Alex Fleischer
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