Under Henry VIII, it had separated the English Church from the Pope
and formed the Church of England, under the King. All subjects were
obliged to swear oaths affirming the King's Supremacy as head of the
Church and those who did not were imprisoned. This was still a savage
Age.
Under the chancellorship of Thomas Cromwell, things become more
difficult still. The considerable Church property was confiscated and
the monasteries were dissolved.
When Henry VIII died and was succeeded by the young and sickly Edward VI
(1547), the new Prayer Book (1549 and 1552) separated the new English
Church even further. But Queen Mary Tudor upon Edward's death in 1553
acceded to the throne. A Catholic herself, she ill advisedly and clumsily
tried to restore the old Faith. She failed and when
Elizabeth I came to
power in 1558, the following 48 years drove Catholics further and further
underground.
During the period from 1563, successive legislation, starting with the
(second) Act of Supremacy, required an oath from all subjects that the
monarch was Supreme Governor of the Church and any refusal was punishable
by death. Catholics continued their religion in secret and the great
houses were equipped with secret rooms where Mass would still be
celebrated by priests smuggled in from the Continent and using false names.
This had been tolerated in the early part of Elizabeth's reign. But it
was not to last.