Westminster Conference 1559

The Westminster Conference of 1559 was a religious disputation held early in the reign of Elizabeth I of England. Although the proceedings themselves were perfunctory, the outcome shaped the Elizabethan religious settlement.

The participants were nine leading Catholic churchmen, including five bishops, and nine prominent Protestant reformers of the Church of England.

Catholics:

Protestants

From the Protestant side, Cox and Jewel gave official accounts, and John Foxe and Raphael Holinshed published on the conference based on those. Other accounts, from Catholics, are by Aloisio Schivenoglia, the Count de Feria, and Nicholas Sanders; Schivenoglia acted as secretary to Sir Thomas Tresham.

The conference started on 31 March 1558/9; the disputation began, and was stopped because of disagreement on rules, and was adjourned (as it turned out, permanently), on April 3 (a Monday). The timing coincided with the Easter recess of Parliament. It has been argued that the event was staged to discredit the Catholic position on reform, and Patrick Collinson states that the disputation was manipulated to that end. It took place in Westminster Hall.

There were three articles at issue in the disputation (on the liturgical language, church authority over forms of worship, and scriptural warrant for propitiatory masses).Nicholas Bacon was in the chair, with Nicholas Heath sitting by him.John Feckenham and James Turberville sat with the bishops' side.

For the Catholic side, Henry Cole began, defending the use of Latin in the liturgy. Then Robert Horne replied, with a prepared statement. He put the case for English. The disputation then foundered: there was a lack of agreement whether it should be oral or written, and whether Latin or English should be employed. Heath, who had collaborated in Bacon in setting up the disputation, did not intervene to support the Catholic side's view on the pre-agreed conditions.

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