Act of Uniformity (1559)
The statute of Elizabeth I’s first Parliament that restored the Book of Common Prayer of 1552, with a few changes, as the only lawful form of public worship in England from 24 June 1559, and required everyone to attend church on Sundays and holy days.
The act repeals Mary I’s abolition of the Prayer Book and orders every minister to use the book authorised in the fifth and sixth years of Edward VI, with three changes that it names: certain lessons for Sundays, an altered litany, and “two sentences only added in the delivery of the sacrament to the communicants”. The new order was to begin on the feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, 24 June.
Its penalties rise by degrees. A minister who uses any other form of service, or who speaks against the book, loses a year’s income and goes to prison for six months for a first offence and for life for a third. Lay people who mock the book or cause another service to be used are fined a hundred marks, then four hundred, then lose their goods and are imprisoned for life. Everyone is to attend the parish church on Sundays and holy days or pay twelve pence for each absence, for the use of the poor. A proviso keeps the church ornaments and vestments in use in the second year of Edward VI until the queen orders otherwise.
It is paired with the Act of Supremacy (1559).
Cited in
- 1559, firm date