Four years later, the religious belief of the English Church, which
had been first formulated under Edward VI (S362), was revised and
reduced to the Thirty-Nine Articles which constitute it at the present
time.[1] But the real value of the religious revolution which was
taking place did not lie in the substitution of one creed for another,
but in the new spirit of inquiry, and the new freedom of thought,
which that change awakened.
[1] But the Clerical Subscription Act (1866) simply requires the
clergy of the Church of England to make a general declaration of
assent to the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Prayer Book.
As for Elizabeth herself, she seems to have had no deep and abiding
convictions on these matters. Her political interests practically
compelled her to favor Protestantism, but to the end of her life she
kept up some Catholic forms. Though she upheld the service of the
Church of England, yet she shocked the Puritans by keeping a crucifix,
with lighted candles in front of it, hung in her private chapel,
before which she prayed to the Virgin as fervently as her sister Mary
had ever done.