London
The capital of England. Parliament at Westminster passed the Acts that separated the English church from Rome, and John Fisher and Thomas More were beheaded on Tower Hill in 1535.
London stands on the Thames, with the royal palace and the meeting place of Parliament at Westminster a short way upstream. The Parliament that passed the Act of Supremacy sat at Westminster from 3 November 1534 (Statutes of the Realm, 26 Hen. VIII, heading and c. 1); see England Breaks with Rome. John Fisher and Thomas More were tried at Westminster and beheaded on Tower Hill, and their heads were set on London Bridge (Wriothesley, Chronicle vol. 1, pp. 28–29). A London chronicler records that the choir of St Paul’s began to use the English prayer book in Lent 1549 and the revised book on 1 November 1552 (Wriothesley, Chronicle vol. 2, pp. 9, 78); see the Book of Common Prayer.
What happened here
- about 1382, estimated dateWycliffe and the First English Bible
The teaching of the Oxford theologian John Wycliffe is condemned at London in 1382. A hostile chronicler says that he put the Gospel into English; the whole Bible is translated in those decades, and a constitution of 1409 forbids such versions without a bishop’s approval.
- 1534, firm dateEngland Breaks with Rome
Parliament forbids appeals to Rome and in 1534 declares Henry VIII the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England. John Fisher and Thomas More, who deny the title, are beheaded in 1535.
- 1549 to 1552, firm dateThe Book of Common Prayer
Parliament orders one English service book, drawn up under the archbishop of Canterbury, to be used in every church in England from Pentecost 1549. A revised book, which no longer calls the communion the Mass, follows in 1552.
- 1555 to 1558, firm dateThe Burning of Protestants under Mary I
Under Mary I, Parliament returns England to obedience to Rome and revives the medieval heresy laws. From 1555 to 1558 Protestants who will not recant are burned, among them the bishops Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer. John Foxe’s book records them as martyrs.
- 1559, firm dateThe Elizabethan Settlement
Elizabeth I’s first Parliament ends the pope’s jurisdiction in England, makes the queen supreme governor of the church and restores the Prayer Book. In 1570 the pope excommunicates her, and new laws make Catholic priests and those reconciled to Rome traitors.
- 25 February 1570, firm dateRegnans in Excelsis and the Execution of Catholic Priests under Elizabeth I
In 1570 Pope Pius V declares Elizabeth I deposed. Parliament makes reconciliation with Rome treason, and priests such as the Jesuit Edmund Campion are executed: as traitors, says the government; for their religion, say Catholic writers.
- 1609, estimated dateThe First Baptist Congregations
English Separatists in Amsterdam, led by John Smyth, reject infant baptism and found their church anew by baptizing believers on confession of faith. Thomas Helwys leads part of the group back to London and argues that no king has power over conscience.
- 1611, firm dateThe King James Bible
A new English translation of the Bible, asked for at the Hampton Court conference of 1604 and made by companies of scholars at Westminster, Oxford and Cambridge, is published in London in 1611 by command of James I and appointed to be read in churches.
- 1643 to 1649, firm dateThe Westminster Confession
An assembly of divines called by the English Parliament in 1643, joined by commissioners from Scotland, draws up a confession of faith and catechisms. The Church of Scotland approves the Confession in 1647, and the Scottish Parliament ratifies it in 1690.
- 24 May 1689, firm dateThe Toleration Act and Locke’s Letter
In May 1689 the English Parliament exempts Protestant dissenters who take the oaths from the penalties of the laws on worship, but not Catholics or those who deny the Trinity. In the same year John Locke’s Letter argues that the care of souls is no business of the magistrate.
- 24 May 1738, firm dateJohn Wesley and the Rise of Methodism
On 24 May 1738, at a meeting in Aldersgate Street in London, the clergyman John Wesley feels his heart “strangely warmed”. The next year he begins to preach in the open air at Bristol, and the societies he and his brother Charles organise come to be called Methodist.
- 7 March 1804, firm dateThe British and Foreign Bible Society
Moved by the want of Bibles in Wales, Christians of several denominations meet in London on 7 March 1804 and found a society with one object, the wider circulation of the Scriptures without note or comment, at home and abroad.
- 25 March 1807, firm dateChristians and the Abolition of the Slave Trade
After twenty years of campaigning by Quakers, Anglicans and a formerly enslaved writer, Parliament makes the British slave trade unlawful. Other Christians had defended the trade from the Bible, and a missionary society held slaves of its own.
- July 1865, firm dateWilliam and Catherine Booth Found the Salvation Army
William Booth, a former Methodist minister, begins preaching in a tent in the East End of London in 1865. The mission he and his wife Catherine build takes the name Salvation Army in 1878 and adds to its preaching a scheme of work, food and shelter for the destitute.
- July 1888, firm dateThe Lambeth Quadrilateral
The Anglican bishops meeting at Lambeth in 1888 name four things as a basis for reunion with other churches (the Scriptures, the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, the two sacraments and the historic episcopate), taking them from a declaration of the American bishops in 1886.