| Date | Event | Significance to the Reformation in England |
| 1328 | Birth of John Wycliffe in Yorkshire. | Ordained in September 1351, Master of Balliol College in 1360, Warden of Canterbury College in 1365 and Rector of St Mary's, Lutterworth from 1374, John Wycliffe is earliest known teacher of evangelical ideas in England and a translator of the Bible into the vernacular Middle English. He is popularly known as the morning star or of the English Reformation and both he and his followers were much invoked by later reformers. While Lollard influence on the Henrician Reformation was negligible, nevertheless Wycliffe's writings did influence Jan Hus who in turn influenced Martin Luther. The Lollards are also a key topic of Foxes Book of Martyrs and their story did much to solidify the self understanding of the 16th century reformers. |
| 1348-1350 | The Black Death ravages England. | Considered to have been a major influence on the ideas of both Wycliffe and many other proto-Protestants. |
| 1377 | Wycliffe published De civili dominio | A scathing attack on church property and tithes. Set out Wycliffe's ideas of dominion, the notion that the church should not have any property and that no member of its clergy should exercise political or judicial power. |
| 1377 | Wycliffe is censured by Pope Gregory XI who orders church authorities in Oxford and London to begin an inquisition. | |
| 1377, 19 February | John Wycliffe summonsed by William Courtenay, Bishop of London, for an examination of heresy. In attending he was accompanied and supported by John of Gaunt, Henry Percy, Earl Marshal of England, and four theologians representing the four major mendicant orders. The session ended in aporia over a question of etiquette, as to whether Wycliffe should stand or sit to answer questions. | The event showed how useful Wycliffe's theories might be to the aristocracy who had good political reason to support reformers undermining the power and wealth of the church. The English monarchs also had a strained relationship with the Avignon Papacy and its supporters, the French monarchy, because of the ongoing conflict of the 100 Years War. For these reasons and others, in the early days of Wycliffite Lollardy many of the institutions of secular authority were supportive. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, was a strong supporter of Wycliffe in the early days as too was Joan of Kent. In 1382 the Mayor of Leicester personally attended the sermon of the Lollard William Swinderby. The ideas Wycliffe was under investigation for would return as a major theme of the 16th century reformation when the idea of a secular requisition of church property would again prove popular with authorities. |
| 1378 | Wycliffe published De veritate sacrae scripturae | Suggested that only theological conclusions with direct scriptural backing ought to be accepted. A momentous publication foreshadowing the idea of sola scriptura which would dominate the later reforms of the 16th century. |
| 1379 | Wycliffe published De Eucharistia | An attack on the doctrine of transubstantiation and its lack of scriptural warrant. Wycliffe maintained a firm belief in the real presence but rejected the use of Aristotelian metaphysics to explain it. His convictions were closer to Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, or the modern Church of England after the Oxford Movement than those of the 16th century reformers. |
| 1381, 30 May | Peasants' Revolt begins. | Originating from dissatisfaction with taxes and rigid class hierarchy this rebellion did much to spread Wycliffite and more general Lollard thought among the ordinary population. |
| 1381, 13 June | John Ball preached his famous Blackheath sermon during the Peasants Revolt. | John Ball's career suggests that Wycliffe was merely the first man of rank in the university to express more widespread discontent. |
| 1382, May 21 | Earthquake Synod at Blackfriars, London condemns Wycliffe's teachings | |
| 1382, 17 November | Anti-Wycliffe Synod at Oxford | Wycliffe defiantly reasserts his positions in a famous oration and is exiled to his Rectory at Lutterworth on the Leicestershire, Warwickshire boundary. |
| 1382 | Englands first Heresy Act passed as a result of a request from Pope Martin IV and repealed the following year. | It required mayors and magistrates to burn those found guilty of heresy by a bishop. A highly controversial act it was repealed the following year due the objection of members of the House of Commons showing the widespread opposition to the bill among the burghers |
| 1383 | Philip Repyngdon is deprived of his position at Oxford for defending Wycliffe's teachings. | Repyngdon was later made Abbot of Leicester in 1394 and Bishop of Lincoln in 1404 and was elevated to the rank of Cardinal. This shows that Wycliffe's thought had a wide influence even in the church hierarchy. |
| 1384 | Wycliffe's Bible probably completed around this time. Wycliffe also dies this year on Holy Innocents' Day | Earliest complete translation of the Latin Vulgate into English. |
| 1395 | Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards presented to Parliament and posted on the doors of Westminster Abbey and Old St Paul's | |
| 1399 | Henry IV overthrew Richard II. | This brought an end to the relative tolerance of Lollardy. |
| 1401 | De heretico comburendo is passed by parliament which required forfeiture of all property, both for themselves and for their children, for all those found in position of copies of Wycliffe's Bible or some part of it. | A major blow to the Lollard movement. |
| 1410, 1 March | John Badby burned at the stake Smithfield for denying transubstantiation. | |
| 1414, 9 January | Oldcastle Revolt | Small popular uprising inspired by Lollard ideals. |
| 1414, 30 April | Opening session of the Fire and Faggot Parliament. Symbolically the Parliament was held at the Greyfriars monastery in Leicester, a town which had been stronghold of Lollardy, the seat of John of Gaunt, standing around 15 mile north east of Wycliffe's home and grave at Lutterworth. | The Parliament which passed the Suppression of Heresy Act in response to Lollardy. This act was used to justify the burning of many Lollards and many more radical reformers during the reign of Henry VIII. It was one of the acts restored by Mary I’s Revival of the Heresy Acts. |
| Date | Event | Significance to the Reformation in England | - |
| 1533, 18 March | Thomas Cranmer, Archdeacon of Taunton, appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Henry VII. His decision was formally confirmed by a rubber stamping vote of the monks of Canterbury Cathedral Priory a few days after. | An appointment motivated by the urgent need to secure annulment following Henry's clandestine marriage to Anne Boleyn on 25 January. Cranmer was a Cambridge-educated reformer—student at Jesus, later fellow at Magdalene—he was shaped by the White Horse Group, by his early experience of falling in love and marrying while on the path to priesthood and academia, and by his contact with continental reformers during his travels on diplomatic missions for the Crown. So long as Henry lived, largely maintained conservative theology in accordance with the King’s taste within the Church of England. In this capacity, he solemnised the annulment between Henry and Catherine of Aragon without regard to the earlier papal refusal to try to save the king from possible charges of polygamy following his marriage to Anne. After Henry’s death in 1547 and the accession of his nine-year-old son, Edward VI, he would become the principal force behind, and architect of, the Edwardian Reformation, rapidly implementing a moderate but firmly reformed theology as the orthodoxy of the Church of England by means of the Book of Common Prayer, Book of Homilies and Forty-two Articles. | - |
| 1533, 30 March | Cranmer consecrated bishop in London at either Lambeth Palace Chapel or St Mary Aldermanbury. His enthronement in Canterbury Cathedral followed on April 4. | This was the moment Cranmer took his oath to the papacy as part of the liturgy of episcopal consecration, although neither Clement VII nor any of his successors granted the usual approval of appointments to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. His oath was frequently used against him both as a criticism including during his trial for heresy. | - |
| 1533, March-April | Statute in Restraint of Appeals. Accepted by Parliament in the first week of April, granted Royal Assent on April 15. | This bill formed part of a strategy to establish the legal foundation of Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, enabling the courts of the Church of England to issue an annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon in formal schism with Holy See and the rest of the Latin Church. It removed the right to appeal from all subjects of the crown who wished to dispute the ruling of an English church court in the appellate court of the Roman Curia. This meant no one could either initiate proceedings to challenge the annulment or express public support for any ruling Rome might happen to make on its legitimacy. It was superseded the following year by the Act of Supremacy, which acknowledged full Royal Supremacy over the Church of England. | - |
| 1533, 12 April | Thomas Cromwell made Chancellor of the Exchequer. | Cromwell was gradually becoming Henry VIII's Chief Minister taking up the position of Secretary of State and Master of the Rolls the following year. He would be a principal architect of the legislation that secured monarchical supremacy over the Church of England and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. | - |
| 1533, 23 May | Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, formally annulled Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon during a session of an extraordinary archiepiscopal court sitting at Dunstable Priory in Bedfordshire. | The proceedings of this court were enabled by the Statute in Restraint of Appeals, passed by Parliament a month earlier. It is the ruling which brought about a formal schism between the Church of England and the Holy See. The choice of setting was deliberately near Ampthill Castle, where Catherine of Aragon was living. She refused to recognise its judgement and maintained the legitimacy of her marriage to Henry until her death a few years later, in 1536. The ruling of the ecclesiastical court would be backed up by a ruling of Parliament in March the following year, when the Act of Succession ruled that Princess Mary was a bastard. | - |
| 1533, 4 July | John Frith executed by burning at Smithfield. | | - |
| 1533, 9 July | Pope Clement VII excommunicated Henry VIII and his advisers for the marriage to Anne Boleyn. | The write of excommunication included a caveat that it would be automatically void if the King separated from Anne before September. It was Henry VIII's first formal excommunication by the papacy. | - |
| 1533, 7 September | Princess Elizabeth born at Greenwich Palace. | The future Queen who would restore the Henrician and Edwardian Reformations and establish the Elizabethan Settlement, the foundation of the modern Church of England. | - |
| 1534, March | Act Concerning Ecclesiastical Appointments and Absolute Restraint of Annates. | The bill achieved two ends: firstly, established the monarch's unilateral authority to appoint all bishops and abbots, reducing papal influence on English ecclesiastical offices; secondly, it ended the payment of annates to the Pope, redirecting them to the English Crown. In its first capacity, it legitimised the appointment of Archbishop Cranmer without papal approval and all subsequent royal appointments to English bishoprics. In its second capacity, it strengthened the Act in Conditional Restraint of Annates passed by parliament in 1532. | - |
| 1534, March | Act Concerning Peter's Pence and Dispensations. | Abolished the Kingdom of England's payment of Peter’s Pence and prohibited subjects of the crown from accepting papal dispensations and privileges unless approved by the King. | - |
| 1534, March | First Act of Succession. | The act achieved three key ends. Firstly, it enforced universal recognition of the royal marriage by a universal public Oath of Succession for all clergy, secular officials, and university academics, as well as any subject called upon to take the oath, with dissenters suffering punishment for High Treason. This was a momentous step, the first time the ordinary common men of England were required to take an oath as a whole body. Secondly, the act altered the line of succession following the logic of annulment. An annulment is the formal recognition that a given marriage is illicit, that it never existed, and that therefore all children produced by it are illegitimate. In the case of Henry and Catherine of Aragon it followed that Princess Mary was a bastard, excluded from the royal succession. Her title of Princess was discarded in favour of Lady Mary. Thirdly, it removed all previous legislation implying the dependence of the English succession on the Pope for its legitimacy and forbade the opinion to subjects. | - |
| 1534, 20 April | Execution of Elizabeth Barton together with her confessor Edward Bocking OSB and 6 of her supporters in the churchyard of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London. | One of the key popular voices against Henry’s annulment and marriage to Anne. Her death marked a stark warning against dissent to the King’s policies. | - |
| 1534, November | Acts of Supremacy#First [Act of Supremacy 1534|First Act of Supremacy]. | This act above all others formalised the Church of England's schism from the Holy See and the rest of the Latin Church by clearly acknowledging the principle of Royal Supremacy and the full rejection of Papal Supremacy. Firstly, the act recognised that the English monarch was "of the Church of England in Earth, under Jesus Christ, Supreme Head", allegedly an ancient principle and title revived rather than an entirely new constitutional role. Secondly, it rejected all papal authority over either the Church of England's ecclesiastical courts, strengthening the earlier acts, or its ruling on its religious doctrine, a fundamentally new step. Thirdly, the act required all clergy and secular officials - this time extended to all local borough officers and all school teachers - as well as any subject called upon to take the oath, to swear a new Oath of Supremacy formally affirming their assent to the principle of Royal Supremacy in the Church of England. | - |
| 1534, November | Treason Act. | Essentially the legislative framework for persecuting those who objected to the Act of Supremacy and the principle of the Royal Supremacy as traitors by expanding the definition of treason to include denial of the King’s supremacy over the Church. It made refusal of the Oath of Supremacy or speaking against the King’s religious authority a capital offence. Thus all Roman Catholic's going forward would be punished by either beheading for nobility or hanging, drawing, and quartering as traitors while all radical Protestants would by punished by burning under the old unrevised Heresy Acts passed against the Lollards. | - |
| 1534, November | Act of First Fruits and Tenths. | Required that the remaining clerical levies paid by the English parish clergy to the Holy See should henceforth go to the monarch. The last revenue stream from England to the Roman Catholic Church. | - |
| 1535 | Bishop Gardiner's De Vera Obedientia published | | - |
| 1535 | The Coverdale Bible, compiled by Myles Coverdale published in Antwerp. | The first complete Modern English translation of the Bible, and the first complete printed translation into English. Coverdale's translation of the Psalms was adopted by Cranmer for the 1549 Book of Common Prayer and remained for centuries the translation of the psalter prescribed for liturgical use in the Anglican church. | - |
| 1535 | Cranmer appoints Hugh Latimer, Edward Foxe, Nicholas Shaxton to episcopacy. | | - |
| 1535, May | Humphrey Middlemore, William Exmew, and Sebastian Newdigate, all Carthusian monks of the London Charterhouse, locked up for seventeen days. Ten more starve. | | - |
| 1535, 22 June | John Fisher executed. | | - |
| 1535, 6 July | Thomas More executed. | | - |
| 1535, 31 August | Pope Paul III excommunicates Henry VIII and places the English Church under interdict. | This marked Papal acceptance and formalisation of the Church of Englands succession from communion with the Roman Catholic Church until the death of Anne Boleyn when it looked like England may return to Catholicism. Henry VIII's second excommunication. | - |
| 1536 | John Calvin publishes his Institutio Christianae Religionis. | The most complete work of early Protestant systematic theology, the ideas contained in the Institutes, known as reformed theology or Calvinism, were those generally favoured in the Church of England from Henry's death until the reign of Charles I, even until the 19th century. Most of the central teachings of both the Forty-two and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion and the Eucharistic theology implied by the Book of Common Prayer show clear inspiration from Calvin directly, especially on the question of predestination. | - |
| 1536 | William Tyndale executed for heresy near Vilvoorde on the continent. | | - |
| 1536, January | Anne miscarries again. | | - |
| 1536, 16 April | Royal Assent given to the First Suppression of Religious Houses Act. | This act initiated the first round of the Dissolution of the Monasteries condemning all houses with an income of £200 or less. The act was proposed on the pretext of the corruption of these institutions and suggested that the evicted religious would be joined to the larger houses. In practice these houses were also soon suppressed by a further 1539 Act and the religious life entirely suppressed in the Church of England until the revival of Anglican religious orders in the 19th century. Another pretext of the act was provision for charity. In practice almost all of the proceeds were used for military expenditure. | - |
| 1536, April | 'Reformation parliament' dissolved. | | - |
| 1536, 19 May | Anne Boleyn is executed on Tower Green within the precincts the Tower of London and buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. | | - |
| 1536, 21 May | Genevan Reformation. | The reforms of John Calvin are institutionalised. Will do much to impact the Scottish Reformation and the Westminster Assembly during the later English Civil War. | - |
| 1536, 30 May | Stephen Gardiner marries Henry VIII and Jane Seymour. | Jane will give birth to Prince Edward, Henry's long-awaited son and heir. | - |
| 1536, June | Second Act of Succession | Annulled Henry's marriage to the late Anne Boleyn retrospectively and excluded Princess Elizabeth from the royal succession by declaring her a bastard. Also reasserted Lady Mary's illegitimacy and exclusion. It gave Henry the right to personally grant the right of succession by means of his will. It also made all denials of its claims guilty of High Treason. | - |
| 1536, July | Ten Articles adopted. | This was the first formulation of the doctrine of the Church of England after the separation from Rome. Affirmed Transubstantiation, prayers for the dead, the intercession of the saints, and justification by both faith and works. | - |
| 1536, 18 July | Act Extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome passed. | Reaffirmed the end of Papal Supremacy first expressed by the Act of Supremacy. | - |
| 1536, 1 October | Pilgrimage of Grace begins. | Part of the popular reaction to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. | - |
| 1536, 4 October | Pilgrimage of Grace led by 18 members of the gentry. | Part of the popular reaction to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. | - |
| 1536, 13 October | York taken by 10,000 'pilgrims'. | Part of the popular reaction to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. | - |
| 1536, 8 December | Duke of Norfolk offers pardon to rebels. | | - |
| 1537 | Bishops' Book published. | | - |
| 1537 | John Rogers produces the Matthew Bible. | | - |
| 1537, January | Bigod's Rebellion, a further phase of the Pilgrimage of Grace, led by Sir Francis Bigod. | Part of the popular reaction to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. 216 Catholic rebels and leaders executed. | - |
| 1537, 12 October | Prince Edward born to Jane Seymour at Hampton Court Palace. | Henry VIII's long desired male heir. The boy will come to be known as 'England's Josiah' as a result of the more radically Protestant reforms his ministers undertook in his short reign. | - |
| 1538 | Exeter Conspiracy. | Supposed pro papal plot against Henry VIII. | - |
| 1538, autumn | The much revered holy images of the Rood of Grace, Our Lady of Cardigan, Our Lady of Doncaster, Our Lady of Ipswich, Our Lady of Walsingham, and Our Lady of Willesden were burned by Cromwell at his home in Chelsea. | This was some of the earliest notable iconoclasm in the Church of England. Most art would remain in place in parish churches during Henry's reign and only the most famous of images, those which attracted pilgrimage, were regarded as blasphemous. | - |
| 1538, 22 November | John Lambert burnt to death for heresy. | | - |
| 1538, 17 December | Pope Paul III excommunicates Henry VIII a second time after the sentence had been lifted following Anne Boleyn's execution. The English Church again placed under interdict. | This marked the final Papal acceptance of the Church of England's succession from communion with the Roman Catholic Church until Mary I Catholic restoration. Henry VIII's third and final papal excommunication. | - |
| 1539, 28 June | Six Articles (1539). | Affirmed traditional doctrine. | - |
| 1539, 28 June | Royal Assent given to the Second Suppression of Religious Houses Act. | Leads to the second wave of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. | - |
| 1539 | Taverner's Bible published. | | - |
| 1539 | Publication of the Great Bible compiled by Miles Coverdale. | This is the first English translation of the Bible to be authorised for use in parish churches. | |
| 1540, 6 January | Henry marries Anne of Cleves. | | - |
| 1540, 9 July | Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleves is annulled. | | - |
| 1540, 28 July | Thomas Cromwell is beheaded. | | - |
| 1540, 30 July | Simultaneous execution of evangelicals Robert Barnes, William Jerome and Thomas Gerrard by burning at the stake for heresy against the Six Articles with Thomas Abel, Richard Fetherstone and Edward Powell by hanging, drawing, and quartering for treason against Royal Supremacy at Smithfield. | An execution of three recusant Roman Catholics for treason and the man who had preached the first openly evangelical sermon in Cambridge in 1525 and two evangelical companions for heresy. A summary of Henry's unique via media and the oppressive consequences of his idiosyncratic reformation for both religious progressives and conservatives. | - |
| 1543 | The King's Book is published. | A high point of the resurgence of conservative religious policies rolling back of many of the reformist elements of the Bishops' Book of 1537. Notably the seven sacraments are reasserted. | - |
| 1543 | Prebendaries Plot. Cranmer is arrested on grounds of heresy. | An attack on the chief reforming figure in the English episcopate. | - |
| 1544 | Bishop Gardiner is targeted. | | - |
| 1545 | First Dissolution of Colleges Act. | First wave of the dissolution of chantries. | - |
| 1546, 16 July | Anne Askew burned for heresy. | | - |
| 1546 | 'Creeping to the Cross' added to the list of forbidden practises. | | - |
| 1547, 28 January | Henry VIII dies. | Henry's death and Edward's accession opened the way for a far more radical reformation. He was buried with full catholic ceremonial and had commissioned many Requiem masses to be sung. | - |
| Date | Event | Significance to the Reformation in England |
| 1547, 28 January | Edward VI accedes to the throne aged 9 | Edwards Council of Regency, headed by Edward, Duke of Somerset as Lord Protector, allows Archbishop Thomas Cranmer to undertake a far more radical reformation than had been possible under Henry VIII. Thanks to these reforms the boy will come to be known as 'England's Josiah'. |
| 1547, August | A visitation of parish churches is undertaken and the Royal Injunctions are implemented. | Rosaries are outlawed along with religious processions |
| 1547, December 24 | Second Dissolution of Colleges Act | Second wave of the dissolution of chantries |
| 1547 | The Book of Homilies (1547)|First Book of Homilies] introduced. | Cranmer's attempt to standardise Protestant doctrine across the English church through prescribed parish sermons. |
| 1547 | The Italian reformers and refugees Peter Martyr Vermigli and Bernardino Ochino arrive in England at Cranmer's request to take up academic positions. | Part of a wave of notable continental reformers who sought refuge in Edwardian England and came to influence its universities. Peter Martyr particularly would influence the form of the Book of Common Prayer. |
| 1549, 21 January | The First Book of Common Prayer is introduced by Thomas Cranmer in Convocation and the Act of Uniformity imposed its use in all churches. | This made the Book of Common Prayer the only lawful form of public worship after Whitsunday later in the same year. It was the first of several such acts that would be passed by parliament in the course of the reformation. |
| 1549, 7 April | John Knox licensed to minister in the Church of England and made parish priest of Berwick upon Tweed. | Knox will later go on to take a number of posts and preach frequently in the Chapel Royal. His challenge of Cranmer's compromises with conservatives lead to the composition of the Black Rubric in 1552. In the 1560s he will come to be the principal leader of the Scottish Reformation. |
| 1549, 25 April | Martin Bucer, the German Lutheran reformer arrives in London as a refugee accompanied by the scholar Paul Fagius. Welcomed with honour by Cranmer and Edward VI | Part of a wave of notable continental reformers who sought refuge in Edwardian England and came to influence its universities. |
| 1549, 9 June | Whitsunday 1549 was the first time the new English service from the Book of Common Prayer was read out in parish churches. | A series of popular revolts followed. |
| 1549, June–August | The Prayer Book Rebellion in the West Country against the imposition of the new liturgy, especially amongst Cornish speakers who knew no English. | Part of the popular reaction to the Act of Uniformity and the Putting away of Books & Images Act. Around 5'000 Catholic rebels killed. |
| 1549, June | Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire rising in reaction to the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer and to land enclosures. | Part of the popular reaction to the Act of Uniformity. |
| 1549, July–August | Kett's Rebellion, the Norfolk wave of reactions to land enclosure and liturgical reform. | Part of the popular reaction to the Act of Uniformity. |
| 1550, 1 February | Putting away of Books and Images Act orders the removal of religious books and the destruction of images in churches | Leads to one of the worst waves of iconoclasm in English history. All parish churches see their statues and roods desecrated and their wall paintings overpainted. |
| 1550 | John Ponet consecrated Bishop of Rochester by Thomas Cranmer. Later transferred to Winchester. | One of a number of noted Protestant minded clerics made bishops of the Church of England under Edward VI. |
| 1550, 2 May | Joan Bocher burned at the stake for preaching the Anabaptist heresy. | One of just two radical Protestants executed under Edward. |
| 1550, 24 July | French Protestant Church of London and Dutch Church, Austin Friars established, the later in the church of the dissolved London Austin Priory. | Two of a wave of Stranger churches established for foreign Protestant refugees. |
| 1551 | George van Parris burnt for heresy, a member of the Dutch Stranger Church. | |
| 1551, 8 March | John Hooper consecrated Bishop of Gloucester by Thomas Cranmer. | Refused consecration initially because of vestments controversy. One of the most radical of the Protestants made bishops in the Church of England during the Edwardian Reformation. |
| 1551, 30 August | Myles Coverdale consecrated Bishop of Exeter by Thomas Cranmer. | |
| 1552 | The Second Book of Common Prayer is enforced by the Act of Uniformity 1552. | Heavily revised to emphasise Reformed theology|reformed eucharistic theology]. |
| 1553, 19 June | Cranmer's Forty-two Articles are made normative for all the English clergy by the Privy Council. | This formulation of doctrine, its first thoroughly reformed formulation, survived as the teaching of the Church of England only a few months. |
| 1553, 6 July | Edward VI dies aged 15, leaving the throne to his Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey and excluding both his half-sisters in an attempt to secure the continued reformation of the Church of England. | Edward's death marks the point of most radical reform the Church of England ever experienced until the time of The Interregnum. It resulted in the restoration of full communion with the papacy to the Church under Mary I and the comparatively conservative Elizabethan Settlement when Protestantism was restored under Elizabeth. |
| Date | Event | Significance to the Reformation in England |
| 1559, 15 January | Elizabeth is crowned. Because of her Protestant views, only the low-ranking Owen Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle, is willing to officiate. | The last Catholic coronation of a British monarch. |
| 1558-59 | Elizabethan Religious Settlement, a compromise which secured a return to a Reformed Protestantism but allowed some Catholic traditions such as kneeling for Communion and the sign of the cross to continue. | The Elizabethan Settlement finally established the norms of Anglican doctrine around the principle of the via media which, apart from during The Interregnum, has remained the bedrock of the Church of England's identity ever since. |
| 1559, 31 March | Opening session of the Westminster Conference held in Westminster Hall to determine Elizabeth's religious policy. | |
| 1559, May 8 | Act of Supremacy 1558 confirmed Elizabeth as Head of the Church of England and abolished the authority of the Pope in England. | Final schism between the Church of England with the Roman Papacy. Oath of Supremacy reimposed. |
| 1559, May 8 | Act of Uniformity 1558 | Required attendances at church services and introduced the newly revised Book of Common Prayer (1559). |
| 1559, June-July | Thirteen Marian bishops—Nicholas Heath, Edmund Bonner, Cuthbert Tunstall, Thomas Thirlby, John White, Thomas Watson, Ralph Baynes, John Christopherson, Gilbert Bourne, James Turberville, Thomas Reynolds, and David Pole —are deprived of office for refusing the Oath of Supremacy or to conform to the Book of Common Prayer (1559). | These deprivations enabled a clean sweep of the hierarchy of the Church of England and most were replaced with Protestant refugees returning from exile. |
| 1559, 1 August | Matthew Parker appointed Archbishop of Canterbury | The Second Protestant Primate of All England. The uncertain circumstances of his private consecration gave rise to the Nag's Head Fable popular among recusants. He was the second of Englands Protestant Primates |
| 1559-1560 | Scottish Reformation | Lead by John Knox and the Lords of the Congregation. Will do much to impact the Long Reformation in England once the crowns are united following Elizabeth's death. The Presbyterian polity Knox established in the Church of Scotland would be a significant source of inspiration for the Puritans of the Church of England. |
| 1560 | Geneva Bible published in Switzerland | Published by Sir Rowland Hill. Although never authorised for use in England, it was the first English Bible to be divided into verses and became popular with Dissenters. |
| 1563 | First publication of a revision of Cranmer's Book of Homilies. | An edited reprint of Cranmer's earlier Book of Homilies, this book provided prescribed sermons to ensure doctrinal unity across the Church of England. |
| 1568 | Bishops' Bible published | A compromise between the vigorous but Calvinist Geneva Bible and the Great Bible, which it replaces in parish churches. |
| 1569, 9 November—1570, 21 January | The Rising of the Northern Earls against Elizabeth in an attempt to install Mary, Queen of Scots as monarch of England. | Intensifies anti Catholic reprisals and strengthens Elizabeth's position. |
| 1570, 27 April | Pope Pius V excommunicates Elizabeth I in the bull Regnans in Excelsis declaring her a heretic and threatening those who obeyed her laws with excommunication. | |
| 1571, August | Ridolfi plot to overthrow Elizabeth I and restore state Catholicism. | A plot by the Duke of Norfolk, Roberto di Ridolfo, and several European Catholic dignitaries including the Pope and the King of Spain to replace Elizabeth with Mary, Queen of Scots. |
| 1571 | The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion finalised and accepted as the Church of England's principle doctrinal statement. | The mature theological expression of the Elizabethan Settlement. These articles, a revised edition of Cranmer's Forty-two Articles of Religion, were appended to the Book of Common Prayer. Apart from a period during The Interregnum, this has remained the Church of England's core statement of faith ever since and still plays a fundamental role in Anglican doctrine today. |
| 1571 | First publication of a new Book of Homilies. | Like Cranmer's earlier Book of Homilies, this book provided prescribed sermons to ensure doctrinal unity across the Church of England. It was largely written by Matthew Parker and designed to be supplement the previous editions. |
| 1572, 2 June | Execution of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk for his role in the Ridolfi plot. | |
| 1572, 22 August | Execution of Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland in York for his role in the Rising of the Northern Earls. | One of the Catholic martyrs of the English Reformation, he was subsequently beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 13 May 1895. |
| 1572, 24 August | St Bartholomew's Day Massacre begins in Paris. | Sends shockwaves throughout Protestant Europe and sparks a wave of Huguenots seeking refuge in England from French Catholic persecution. |
| 1574 | Peter Baro, a French Huguenot refugee was appointed Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. | A proto-Arminian, this marked a new departure in English Protestant theology. |
| 1575, 17 May | Matthew Parker dies. | |
| 1575, 29 December | Edmund Grindal enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury. | The third Protestant Primate of All England. A radical Protestant he caused significant controversy during his brief tenure. |
| 1578, January | Elizabeth I tries to have Edmund Grindal deprived of office. | Grindal was pushing for more puritanical reforms in the Church of England in relations to vestments, kneeling, and the use of the sigh of the cross. He resigns in 1583. |
| 1581 | Robert Browne attempted to set up a separatist Puritan congregation in Norwich to avoid the governmental norms of a Church of England parish. He failed and went into exile. | In exile Browne published many works espousing his progressive ecclesiology. These works inspired a radical puritan movement known as the Brownists. A majority of those onboard the Mayflower were Brownists. They are considered an antecedent to the later post Civil War Independents who became the modern Congregationalists. Browne's teachings are still explicitly looked to by the Congregational Federation and would come to be implicitly adopted by modern Non-denominational Christians. |
| 1581, 1 December | Edmund Campion was executed by hanging, drawing, and quartering at Tyburn. | The leader of the early Jesuit mission to English recusants and hidden Catholics, his execution is among the most notable of the many hundreds who died for their Catholic faith. |
| 1583, 14 August | John Whitgift appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. | The fourth Protestant Primate of All England. |
| 1583 | Elizabeth I commissions John Whitgift to reorganise the Court of High Commission. Part of this involved the appointment of the first Ecclesiastical Commission of the Church of England. | Repressed Puritan extremism of the kind typified by Genevan and Scottish Presbyterian minded reformers such as Edmund Grindal and Thomas Cartwright and Separatists such Robert Browne. Initiated many more proceedings against Puritan Church of England priests who conscientiously objected to certain surviving Catholic elements in Anglican liturgy. Principal moment of Elizabethan ecclesiastical authoritarianism in Puritan eyes. |
| 1583, November | The Throckmorton Plot is uncovered. | One of a series of Catholic plots to overthrow Elizabeth I and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. |
| 1586, 25 March | Margaret Clitherow, Catholic housewife, shopkeeper, and schoolmistress, executed by being crushed to death on the banks of the River Ouse in York. | One of the many recusant martyrs of the Elizabethan age. |
| 1586, July | The Babington Plot is uncovered by government spies. | Mary, Queen of Scots is implicated along with a few other Catholic nobles. This plot encourages the already fierce persecution of recusants. |
| 1587, 8 February | Mary, Queen of Scots is executed | |
| 1588, 8 August | The Spanish Armada is defeated by the English fleet, aided by high winds | |
| 1593, 6 April | Henry Barrowe, Separatist preacher, leading reformer, theologian, and friend of Robert Browne hanged with two companions, John Greenwood, and John Penry at Tyburn. | Part of the reprisals against Puritan separatists that characterised the later religious policy of Elizabeth I. |
| 1595, 29 April | William Barret preaches a landmark sermon criticising Calvinist predestination at Great St Mary's in Cambridge. | A key moment in the development of Anglican Arminianism, which will become the dominant theological position of the Church of England in the years of Charles I. |
| 1595 | Lambeth Articles drafted and accepted by bishops. Queen Elizabeth refused to approve them meaning they were never accepted by as teaching in the Church of England. | Expressed an extreme form of Calvinist predestination. |
| 1597 | Irish Rebellion led by Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone | |
| 1601, February 27 | Anne Line executed by hanging and Roger Filcock S.J, and Mark Barkworth O.S.B executed by hanging, drawing, and quartering. | Among the Catholic martyrs of the English Reformation. |
| 1603, March 24 | Elizabeth I died. Succeeded by James VI and I. | |
| Date | Event | Significance to the Reformation in England |
| 1642 | English Civil War breaks out | Arose as a reaction against Charles I's autocracy, the unpopular High Church reforms of William Laud, and the growing discontent with episcopal polity in the Church of England. |
| 1643 | Westminster Assembly of Divines worked to restructure the Church of England. | This might be called the attempted Puritan or Presbyterian Reformation. |
| 1644 | Directory for Public Worship published by the Westminster Assembly | Intended as a replacement to the Book of Common Prayer and the Royalist assumptions and Catholic traditions it's liturgy required parish congregations to assent to. |
| 1644 | Westminster Confession of Faith published by the Westminster Assembly | to replace the Thirty-nine Articles as the Church of England's doctrinal statement, the most progressively Protestant doctrinal statement in its history. It was never formally adopted by parliament in England and was firmly rejected by the reaffirmation of the Thirty-nine articles required by the Act of Uniformity 1662. It remains a fundamental text in Reformed Churches, both Presbyterian and Congregationalist, across the world today. In Britain it remains a central text in the Church of Scotland, the established church north of the border, the United Reformed Church, and the Congregational Federation. |
| 1644, October | First London Baptist Confession published. | The first major confession of faith put forward by English Baptists defining a position against both the Presbyterian Westminster Assembly and continental Anabaptist radicals. |
| 1645, 10 January | Execution of Archbishop William Laud. | Noted high churchman and figure of hatred for puritans. |
| 1645 | The Form of Presbyterial Church Government published by the Westminster Assembly | A comprehensive program for replacing episcopal polity with presbyterian polity in the Church of England. It was modelled on the structure of Dutch and the Swiss Reformed Churches. It was adopted the same year it was published by the Church of Scotland and remains the foundational text of Scottish church government. In England, like the Westminster Confession, parliament failed to pass it as law for the Church of England. Many of its structures were implemented during the interregnum across England but without legal support and with the 1650 repeal of the Act of Uniformity attendance was never a requirement and many local parishes, both royalist ones and those more radical than the Presbyterian Westminster Assembly, rejected it. |
| 1646, October | Parliament passes an ordinance abolishing bishops and archbishops in the Church of England | Temporarily replaces the historically Episcopal polity of the Church of England with a Presbyterian polity. In practice, in more radical areas and areas where Royalist loyalties remained strong, this led to a completely anarchic congregational polity with some parishes choosing more radical liturgical forms and the majority persevering with the Book of Common Prayer. |
| 1648 | John Owen published The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. | A defence of the Calvinist Doctrine of Particular Redemption upheld by the Westminster Confession against Arminianism, Amyraldism, and Universalism. Together with Richard Baxter's Aphorisms of Redemption, which asserted the contrary Doctrine of Universal Atonement, the text would be the foundation of the conservative position in a major rift which still characterises most of the nonconformist churches of Britain to this day. |
| 1648, 6 December | Pride's Purge of the Long Parliament of Presbyterian and Royalist sympathising MP's to the remaining Independents of the Rump Parliament. | This ends the possibility of the Puritan Presbyterian reformation so long hoped for by Calvinists within the Church Of England and planned by the Westminster Assembly. It also leads to a period of comparative leniency shown to Independent congregations and radical forms of Protestantism. |
| 1649, 30 January | Execution of Charles I | The Regicide sent shockwaves through the nations consciousness, emboldened appetites for religious progress, and precipitated a royal martyrs cult among the Royalists. |
| 1649, 9 February | Eikon Basilike published. | Initiation of the cult of King Charles the Martyr among royalists which then spread to the rest of the Church of England following The Restoration. |
| 1649 | Richard Baxter published his Aphorisms of Redemption. | A response to John Owen's Death of Death in the Death of Christ advocating the contrary Doctrine of Universal Atonement. Baxter's and Owen's works came to represent the foundational texts of two distinct camps of thought that still dominate both the nonconformist and Anglican churches to this day. |
| 1650, May | Act of Uniformity 1558 repealed by the Rump Parliament by the Act for the Repeal of several Clauses in Statutes imposing Penalties for not coming to Church | The end of compulsory attendance in the established Church of England. Although a new Act of Uniformity was imposed in 1662 the habit of universal attendance in the parish church was effectively ended by this repeal with Quakers, Baptists, Congregationalists, and, after the Restoration, the Presbyterians too, often refusing to observe the 1662 legislation. |
| 1652, 13 June | George Fox preaches on Firbank Fell to a group of over a thousand spiritual seekers. | This sermon is considered one of the foundational events of the History of Quakerism. The Quakers represent the most radical surviving nonconformist church to emerge from the Civil War and the religious liberty of the Interregnum. Fox's message was founded on a teaching that God dwells in each person and so is immediately accessible to all without any need for either clergy, sacraments, or even necessarily scripture. |
| 1655, 15 January | John Biddle's Unitarian Twofold Catechism condemned by the First Protectorate Parliament and blasphemy prosecution is considered. | The question of the blasphemy of other sects was raised by this measure and many came to Biddle's defence, not in support of his anti Trinitarianism or his Arianism, but because his prosecution would have left all dissenters vulnerable to prosecution. |
| 1656, 24 October | James Nayler entered the town of Bristol in the manner of the Christs triumphal entry. | The event caused outrage, Naylor was imprisoned, and the Quaker movement was severely shaken and disgraced. It initiated a cooling in Quaker radicalism which enabled it to survive the restoration. |
| 1658, 3 September | Death of Oliver Cromwell. | Leads to an immediate constitutional crisis which continues for the following year and ends with the Stuart Restoration and the reestablishment of the episcopate of the Church of England as it had existed prior to the Civil War. |
| 1658, 12 October | Opening session of the Savoy Assembly. It met for 11 or 12 days. | Drafted the Savoy Declaration, the foundational doctrinal statement of Congregationalism and their formal schism from the other Presbyterian Puritans. The Congregationalists would become one of England's leading nonconformist groups. |