MTed, sorry for reference being brief and obscure, but the computer has been slow and awkward, and I'm on someone else's phone line, no mean matter in the UK. I'll get the reference as soon as I can. It's recently published, with a title like "The history of the English Garden", and I posted it because it seemed to me to make more sense than the 12 days stuff. I agree that there was a limited period for oppression. However, the political became religious very quickly, and the current similarities between High Anglican and pre-Vatican 2 services go back only as far as the Oxford Movement in the last century. A reference I can give is Edward Norman, Roman Catholicism in England from the Elizabethan Settlement to the Second Vatican Council, OUP, 1985, which indicates that at times, Catholic worship resembled that of the Methodists. It's a very eye-opening read.

Penny