Hello everybody and welcome to the History of England episode 290, the religious settlement.

It has also, by the way, come to my attention that there are listeners here who belong to the

Church of Wittertaiment.

So for those of you who know what I'm talking about, can I just recognise that there is

now a chapter of said church for the history of England listeners by simply saying hello

to Jason Isaacs and a fairport convention.

All this talk of churches is of course most appropriate, given that we're about to talk

about the Elizabethan religious settlement.

Now every famous person has quotes wrongly applied to them.

One of these in Elizabeth's world is the much used, I will not make windows into men's

souls.

Of course, Elizabeth did not say this.

It was Francis Bacon, famous son of Nicholas Bacon, Elizabeth's Lord Keeper, who said it

of her religious policy.

And it is a phrase which has been furiously kicked against one comment I saw recently

said costically that she made windows into men's entrails instead.

So was Elizabeth really anxious to bring religious peace to her people?

Because it's just the latest swing of the pendulum from persecution of Protestants to

persecution of Catholics.

There has been plenty of speculation about Elizabeth's own religious beliefs.

It has been noted that she had largely conformed during Mary's reign with a bit of kicking

and screaming, huffing and on occasion puffing.

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