When Elizabeth Tudor became Queen of England, one of her first big problems was what to do about the state religion. Her father, Henry VIII, had split the church of England from Rome in order to get a divorce so he could marry her mother, Ann Boleyn. Henry’s church was Catholic in ceremony, but English in governance. Edward VI made the church more protestant, changing the liturgy to English and issuing the Book of Common Prayer in 1549.
When Mary came to the throne in 1553, she tried to restore everything to the old ways. The people of England did not like her sudden return to the catholic church any more than they liked her foreign marriage.
Elizabeth had to make the Church of England protestant, and she wanted to control the church to increase her political control of the country. However, Elizabeth did not have any strong protestant ideology. She “did not desire a window into men’s souls, but that they should obey the law”.
So the question was not to be catholic or protestant, but how protestant to be. Should she restore Edward’s Book of Common Prayer? If so, which version? Should she follow her Puritan advisors? The decisions she made secured her throne, and set the foundation for the Anglican, Episcopal, and Methodist churches of today.