Elizabeth I and the Church
Henry VIII was succeeded by his son, Edward VI, who established Protestantism and introduced reforms including abolishing celibacy for clergy, abolishing the Catholic Mass, and introducing services in English. Edward died at the age of sixteen, and was succeeded by Katherine’s daughter Mary (Bloody Mary), who tried to restore the Catholic church. Under Mary's rule, around 300 Protestants were burned at the stake, inducing an abiding hatred of the Catholic Church.
It wasn’t until the reign of Elizabeth I (September 7, 1533- March 24, 1603) that the church stabilized. Elizabeth returned the church to Protestantism. While the Church of England was nominally Calvinist under Elizabeth, she wanted to unify the country under one religion, and so did not make rigid demands of the believers. While demanding outward conformity to liturgy and practice, the church made the theology ambiguous, leaving correct belief as a matter between the individual and God; Elizabeth would not “make windows into men’s souls.” Dissenters were not permitted to worship publicly, but were allowed to emigrate peacefully to a place where they could worship as they pleased.
Further reforms were instituted, such as that the Holy Communion (or the Lord’s Supper) must not be celebrated privately by priests but only in the presence of communicants. Also, the laity must be given wine as well as bread. While priests were generally called ministers at this time, later on as the church divided into “low church” and “high church,” the term “minister” became associated with low church, and term “priest” was associated with high church, which later became known as the Anglo-Catholic Church.
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For further reading, see:
Roland H.Bainton. The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, enlarged edition. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985).
Also see the following Wikipedia articles:
Edward VI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VI_of_England
Mary Tudor (Bloody Mary): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_I_of_England
Elizabeth I: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I