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New: Article on the Medieval minsters of Beverley, Rippon and York, submitted by Stuart Sharp.
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In the face of this opposition, Elizabeth adopted a much more directly repressive policy towards Catholics. The Treasons Act (1571), the Act to retain the Queen's subjects in their due obedience (1581), the Act against Jesuits, seminary priests and other disobedient persons (1585) The concept of "obedience", a crucial part of the vow taken by Catholic monks, is here being adopted for use in the concept of spiritual and physical obedience to the queen, in her role as the head of the English church.
Elizabeth did not hesitate to put the actions required to ensure her subjects' obedience into practice - executing Mary Queen of Scots, for example, in 1587. In the following year, the Armada was defeated. This was a hugely popular victory and helped to ensure the public's support for the queen.
Elizabeth was now somewhat safer in her position. The Catholics lacked a figurehead with a legitimate claim to the throne. Adherence to Catholicism may have begun to seem distinctly unpatriotic. Persecution of Catholics may have been sufficiently intense that only the most committed Catholics would continue to plot and rarely to agitate openly. The levels of persecution of Catholics began to fall a little.
The official church was now firmly under the control of the monarch, following a broadly Protestant model. However, it was far from Protestant, in the terms that the more radical Protestants would have preferred. Rather it was clearly becoming the established church - one in which church and state were joined in authority.
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