Puritan Choir - Revisionist Criticism

Revisionist Criticism

The historian Norman L. Jones has, however, argued that the 'Puritan Choir' is a misinterpretation of evidence. He maintains that in framing the religious settlement, Elizabeth faced opposition not from the forty-three alleged Puritans in the House of Commons, but rather from Catholic resistance and conservatism in the House of Lords which she and Cecil had underestimated. The influence that the 'Puritan Choir' could have feasibly had on the Elizabethan Religious Settlement has also been questioned by Haigh. Of the forty-three individuals named as part of 'our choir' in Neale's document, only twenty-two of them were definitely Protestants. Furthermore, only nineteen Marian exiles were elected to the 1559 parliament, and some were unable to play any role in the Parliamentary session as they returned too late. The influence of the twenty identifiable Catholics in the 1559 House of Commons is also ignored under Neale's 'Puritan Choir' thesis.