were similar to those of Edward and Mary, and the regular and ecclesiastical courts exercised jurisdiction in establishing and maintaining the supremacy and ecclesiastical order in much the same way that they had in the past. The purposes of the government had been to construct a Church which would enable Elizabeth to retain her throne, which would reconcile Catholics and Protestants, and which might serve as a police force over the outlying districts of the kingdom. The Church as established served as a protection against Catholic dangers and in a minor degree insured the avoidance of Protestant excesses. As a governmental tool it accomplished its objects with as little friction and injustice as could be expected. In the hands of Elizabeth and her government it came as near satisfying all parties as any system that could have been devised.

The years from 1563 to the end of Elizabeth's reign brought no essential changes in the structure of the Church. Details were adjusted and relationships changed somewhat as new problems arose and as the Church itself developed an independent ecclesiastical consciousness, but essentially the structure given the Church in the first years of Elizabeth remained unchanged. Of the adjustments and changed relationships, so far as they concern the growth of an independent Anglican Church, and the development of various phases of Protestant dissent, we shall speak in succeeding chapters. They are phases of English religious and ecclesiastical history which may be best treated after we have reviewed the course of those events which, to the minds of all Protestant elements in the kingdom, most closely concerned the religious as well as the political integrity of England.

1 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. vi, no. 22; vol. xIII, no. 32; Strype, Annals, vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 279; Collier, Ecc. Hist., vol. VI, p. 332.

CHAPTER III

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE CATHOLICS

THE Catholic danger was, during the whole reign of Elizabeth, the one most prominent in English religious politics, yet the lenient policy in the handling of her Catholic subjects, inaugurated at the beginning, was maintained by Elizabeth and her government. Repression of disorder and restraint of individuals whose activity might be politically dangerous were in general the only purpose of that policy. Nevertheless, we find considerable diversity in the thoroughness with which such restraint and repression were exercised, and a growing severity in the laws enacted for dealing with Catholic recusants. At times of great national danger or of increased Catholic activity, laws were put in execution with greater vigor and greater legal safeguards were erected. A history of the reign in detail is unnecessary here; but a résumé of the chief events and situations in connection with the Catholic problem will make clear the grounds for political fear of Catholic disturbance and the incentives afforded for new legislation; and a description of this legislation will, in conjunction with other sources of information, afford a basis for an analysis of the character and purposes of governmental repression of Catholics.

THE REBELLION OF THE NORTHERN EARLS

From 1563 until 1570 there is little of striking interest or importance to detain us. They were years of anxiety, it is true, years during which the kingdom was least prepared to meet the Catholic disorders within and attack from Catholic powers outside the kingdom, yet the wisdom of the governmental policy of waiting, and the confusion of Continental politics enabled the State to weather the minor dis

turbances caused by the revolt of the nobles in the north and the tempests of the vestiarian controversy. We are for the present concerned only with the former.

The rebellion of Northumberland and Westmoreland in 1569 was not based exclusively upon dislike of the religious changes made by Elizabeth and a consequent advocacy of the claims of Mary Stuart, but was in part at least founded upon the disgruntled feeling of the old nobility displaced by "new men." The earls, a remnant of the feudal nobility, with many of the views and ideals of family position which belonged to an earlier time, were jealous of the power wielded by Cecil, Bacon, Walsingham, and the new families. In their proclamation the rebels charged that the Queen was surrounded "by divers newe set-upp nobles, who not onlie go aboute to overthrow and put downe the ancient nobilitie of the realme, but also have misused the queen's majestie's owne personne, and also have by the space of twelve yeares nowe past set upp and mayntayned a newfound religion and heresie contrary to God's word." In one sense, the revolt of 1569 was a struggle between the old and the new aristocracy, and it is easily conceivable that some such strife would have arisen had a political situation other than the religious one made the monarchy as dependent upon the employment and preference of the new men as was Elizabeth in the situation which had been forced upon her.

The revolt was easily quelled, and punished with a cruelty in excess of the dangers that might justly have been feared from such a poorly planned attempt upon the throne of Elizabeth. The revolt of the north proved that internal Catholic discontent could not serve as the primary force for the overthrow of existing conditions, although it might, under certain circumstances, form a powerful auxiliary to foreign invasion should the international political situation unite the enemies of Elizabeth against England. The fact

1 Lingard, Hist. Eng., vol. v, p. 113. Cf. Bull of Excommunication, par. 2; Jewel, Works, vol. IV, pp. 1130–31.

that the parties of opposition were essentially foreign, papal, Scotch, Spanish, won for Elizabeth the support of all who resented outside interference in English affairs, and brought her triumphantly through the succession of crises that confronted the kingdom.

THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF ELIZABETH

In February, 1570, the carefully laid and remarkably successful plans of the government to secure by a broad and inclusive policy the adherence of Catholics to the establishment were rudely disturbed. The question now became whether the government's lenient policy during the years preceding would bear good or evil fruit. Four years before, Pius V, hot-tempered and pious in fact as well as name, had come to the papal throne. In 1570 he issued a Bull of Excommunication against Elizabeth. What its consequences might be it was hard to estimate. Catholics were compelled to choose definitely whether they should withdraw from the Elizabethan establishment that assent which the leniency of the government had made possible, or remain true to their loyal feelings and incur the censures of Mother Church. Would the leniency of governmental religious policy bear fruit in continued adherence of loyal Catholics at so great cost? Or would they yield obedience to the Pope at the sacrifice of personal comfort and safety, loyalty and home? The Pope demanded the sacrifice of English loyalty to ecclesiastical and religious zeal. Many hesitated, and Elizabeth issued a masterly proclamation in which she disclaimed a desire to sacrifice religious feeling to patriotic feeling :

Her majesty would have all her loving subjects to understand, that, as long as they shall openly continue in the observation of her laws, and shall not wilfully and manifestly break them by their open actions, her majesty's means is not to have any of them molested by any inquisition or examination of their con1 Wilkins, Concilia, vol. IV, p. 260; Cardwell, Doc. Annals, vol. 1, pp. 32831; Burnet, pt. II, bk. III, no. 13, p. 579.

sciences in causes of religion; but to accept and entreat them as her good and obedient subjects. She meaneth not to enter into the inquisition of any men's consciences as long as they shall observe her laws in their open deeds.1

2

The Bull was not popular with the reasonable English Catholics, nor with the European princes. From this time forth, until the final settlement of the danger to England from foreign aggression, all parties in England felt that however much they differed, there was need for a common front against the enemy. In a sense it aroused the Protestants of England to a united loyalty to the Crown which had not been possible before, not even ten years before at the reorganization of the Church. The only point of disagreement was as to the severity of the measures that should be taken in retaliation upon the Catholics who submitted to the commands of the Bull.

The publication of the Bull of Excommunication was the occasion for the most striking proclamation of governmental determination to adhere to its fundamental policy of abstaining from active interference with Catholics whose religious beliefs did not involve them in political plots; but the revolt of the northern earls and the dangers attendant upon the imprisonment of Mary Stuart, in conjunction with the publication of the Bull, led the political leaders to favor the passage of more restrictive legislation by the Parliament of 1571. That element in Parliament which wished for a more radically Protestant reformation of the Anglican Establishment was more bitterly anti-Catholic than the government, and heartily lent itself to the framing of severe laws against the Catholics. An act, "whereby certayne offences bee made treason," attempted to counteract the effects of the Bull by making any way that the Queen was not, or ought not to be, queen

treasonable the declaration in

1 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. LXXI, nos. 16 and 34.

Span. Cal., p. 254, Philip to Gueraude Spes; For. Cal., p. 291, Norris to Eliz.; ibid., p. 339; Raynaldus, p. 177 (1571).

• Statutes of the Realm, 13 Eliz., c. I.