Having rejected Catholicism, English society after the Protestant Reformation felt compelled to impose new order on an uncertain universe. Claiming knowledge of a divine plan which linked the celestial and natural worlds into one "great chain of being," some English thinkers depicted humans as the highest link on that portion of the chain belonging to the natural world, and human society, in turn, as comprising a series of vertical political hierarchies. Echoing the assertion of Elizabeth to a rebellious Parliament that "the feet do not rule the head," Edward Forset in 1606 elaborated one hierarchy in which the body was topped, literally and morally, by head and soul. In Forset's scheme, both soul and monarchy possessed "unity" or "indivisibility," each uniting and reigning over subordinate links contained in their respective segments of the worldly chain. Given popular acceptance of the idea of stability as God's will, Elizabeth and her immediate successors possessed a potent, though short lived, ideological restraint.

The passage suggests that, in the years following the Protestant Reformation, English monarchs were able to maintain their political influence primarily because

(A) popular opinion was tightly controlled by a small group of thinkers.
(B) English society accepted that a hierarchical society was consistent with divine will.
(C) monarchs accepted a social position basically equal to that of most other people.
(D) Parliament was politically passive and offered no significant resistance.
(E) English society traditionally supported a strong monarchical authority.



The passage suggests that the idea of a new social order was seen by many English people as

(A) necessary in order to fill a vacuum created by the decline of the monarchy.
(B) an idiosyncratic viewpoint advocated by a few eccentric thinkers.
(C) an amusing but not terribly urgent social issue.
(D) a disguised attempt by the Catholic Church to restore its lost influence in English affairs.
(E) unavoidable because an older order that had provided them with structure and security no longer existed.



Which of the following sentences would most logically follow the last sentence of this passage?

(A) Subsequently, popular acceptance of a divinely ordered social structure continued to shape English politics for an unusually lengthy period.
(B) However, because Forset's ideas were judged to be too radical, they initially failed to make a substantial impact on the balance of power in English government.
(C) Forset's arguments for a strict, hierarchically ordered society found especially enthusiastic support among many members of the English Parliament.
(D) This acceptance undoubtedly helped check growing assertiveness of those social classes that spoke through Parliament.
(E) Thus, freed of her problems with Parliament, Elizabeth was able to focus on the threat to social stability posed by the thinking of men like Forset.