From the Arrival of Christianity to the Glorious Revolution

Christianity arrived in Roman Britain during the first centuries CE and Celtic Christian communities, largely cut off from mainland Catholicism, flourished around the Irish Sea following the collapse of the Empire. Catholic missionaries succeeded in converting the Anglo-Saxon rulers of England to Christianity by the 7th century CE, and Catholicism remained the dominant religion of the country until the Reformation in the 16th century. Conflict over the relative authorities of the Monarch and the Pope led King Henry VIII to declare himself head of the English clergy in 1531, depriving the Roman Catholic Pontiff of any formal authority in England. The period that followed, known as the English Reformation, was marked by escalating conflict between Catholics and Protestants, which lasted until the rule of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603). Attempts to introduce new liturgical services to Scotland in 1637 resulted in the Bishops’ Wars (1639-1640), a rebellion that ended with Scottish religious independence and an officially Presbyterian Scotland. Royally endorsed persecution led Puritans to emigrate to the New World in large numbers and to become an important Parliamentarian contingent in the English Civil War (1642-1651). Oliver Cromwell’s re-conquest of Ireland (1649-1653) was fought largely along religious lines, and its heavy-handed tactics along with the subsequent marginalization of the majority-Catholic population kindled the longstanding anti-English sentiment among the Irish. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 replaced Catholic King James II with Protestant monarchs William III and Mary II, securing Protestant predominance and marking the end of the long period of religious-political turmoil in England.