Abstract

This chapter explores a long-neglected relationship, which has escaped scholarly notice in part because of the assumption that reformation remained fixed after the sixteenth century. Historians previously focused on fragmentation within the Lutheran tradition following the death of Luther in 1546. Yet the conversion of the Elector Palatine Frederick III to the reformed faith in 1561 has more recently drawn attention for inaugurating a second reformation in central Europe along with the confessional conflicts that contributed to the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War. The discussion follows the peculiar role of the Palatinate in constructing the Church of England’s reformed identity from the late sixteenth to the early seventeenth centuries. The unique circumstances of reform initiated by the Prince, for instance, could be used by both conformist and puritan divines.