in 1559, five years before shakespeare's birth, the elizabethan religious settlement finally severed the church of england from the roman catholic church. in the ensuing years, extreme pressure was placed on england's catholics to accept the practices of the church of england, and recusancy laws made illegal any service not found in the "book of common prayer", including the roman catholic mass. in shakespeare's lifetime there was a substantial and widespread quiet resistance to the newly imposed reforms. some scholars, using both historical and literary evidence, have argued that shakespeare was one of these recusants.