Elizabeth became Queen of England on November 17th 1558. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and was crowned on January 15th 1559. 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.
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. Elizabeth I died on the 24th March 1603. She had many suitors but never married and on her death James VI of Scotland became James I of England.