At this time England was officially a Roman Catholic Country, but the new Queen favoured Protestantism. Elizabeth's first Parliament met on January 25th 1559 and by Easter had made a settlement which separated England from Rome and established the Church of England. This was not without its problems. The old faith of Roman Catholicism did not just disappear, it went underground.
Stratford-upon-Avon, like other communities, had religious division. Some people insisted on clinging to the old Catholic Faith and were fined including, it is thought, Shakespeare's father.
At the other extreme were the Puritan Reformers who wished to do away with Bishops altogether as they were in charge of the Church Courts which Puritans saw as a means of carrying the Reformation into every aspect of people's lives. However the majority of people in Elizabethan England continued to obey the rules and attend Church on Sundays, to take communion two or three time a year and subscribe to the doctrine of the Church of England as set out in The Thirty-Nine Articles.
In 1539 the first Bible written in English had been published and by the middle of Elizabeth's reign a whole generation had been brought up on the English Bible.