The year 1552 also saw the adoption of 42 Articles of Faith compiled by Cranmer and containing the doctrine of the Church of England.
All in all, the change that occurred in the interior of the English churches and the form of worship within a period of just about 20 years (from the moment when the Church of England was created in 1533 till the end of the reign of Edward VI) was enormous and dramatic, and must have appeared all the more so for the people of the times. At the beginning of Henry VIII’s reign the experience of going to church was as it had been for centuries. The congregation gathered in the nave to hear the Latin mass. The walls and windows of the church were bright with paintings and stained glass depicting the gospel stories and the lives of the saints. There were carved images of the Virgin and saints before which candles were lit. The nave was divided from the chancel by a screen beyond which the laity didn’t pass, and above which was suspended a life-size image of Christ on the cross. Beyond lay the chancel, sacred area, with a stone altar. Sometimes near the altar there would be relics of saints, bones or fragments of clothing. The altar was adorned with rich hangings. The altar was the focus of the entire church, for on it was re-enacted in the mass each day the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The priest wore embroidered vestments, incense was burned, and at solemn moments bells were rung. Above the altar a small piece of consecrated bread, the host, was exhibited within a suspended container called a pyx, covered by a veil.
Half a century later that experience was to be very different. Although the stained glass might still remain, the interior was virtually stripped bare, every painted or sculpted image either painted over, taken away or defaced, the walls whitewashed and adorned only with biblical texts. Over the screen there was the Royal Arms instead of the cross. Within the chancel the stone altar and pyx had gone. Instead there was a wooden table, used only sometimes when Holy Communion, which had come to replace the mass, took place. The priest was no longer attired with vestments, but a surplice. On most Sunday the service would have been one of morning prayer, said in English, and in which the congregation took part. The main focus was no longer the chancel, but the pulpit from which the sermon was delivered. A Christianity which had appealed to the eye had been replaced by one whose prime organ was the ear and whose aim was to hear and receive the word of God.
The short reign of Mary I (1553–1558), nicknamed the Bloody because of her persecution of Protestants, was a reversion to Catholicism. The queen married Philip II of Spain, the leader of the Catholic camp in Europe, a move that alienated most of the members of Parliament and provoked a rebellion in Kent. She had Parliament repeal all the Protestant acts of the previous reign, restoring religion to where it had been in 1547, and England was formally reconciled to Rome. Worse, she revived the heresy laws and brought back allegiance to the pope. As a result, about 300 people were burnt at the stake for their beliefs, including, in 1556, Thomas Cranmer. This had a strong effect on popular imagination and reinforced attitudes which were to dominate the English mind for centuries in which the Protestant faith and independence of a foreign power were firmly linked. Mary further alienated the people by trying, and, tellingly, failing, to change land ownership: the attempt met with huge opposition. The final catastrophe was the unpopular war with France. It was a complete failure and Calais, England’s last outpost on the mainland, fell to the French (1558). Thus, when Mary died a Protestant settlement was seen as the only possibility that could offer security. Her persecution of Protestants and alliance with Spain and Rome helped create the myth of England as the New Jerusalem. The accession of a new queen whose Protestant sympathies were well-known was seen as an act of divine deliverance.