Chapter III: On the Laws of Elizabeth's Reign Respecting the Roman Catholics (3)

[160] 1 Eliz. c. i. The oath of supremacy was expressed as follows: "I, A. B., do utterly testify and declare, that the queen's highness is the only supreme governor of this realm, and all other her highness's dominions and countries, as well in all spiritual and ecclesiastical things or causes, as temporal; and that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm; and therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all foreign jurisdictions, powers, superiorities, and authorities, and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear faith and true allegiance to the queen's highness, her heirs and lawful successors, and to my power shall assist and defend all jurisdictions, pre-eminences, privileges, and authorities, granted or belonging to the queen's highness, her heirs and successors, or united and annexed to the imperial crown of this realm."

A remarkable passage in the injunctions to the ecclesiastical visitors of 1559, which may be reckoned in the nature of a contemporaneous exposition of the law, restrains the royal supremacy established by this act, and asserted in the above oath, in the following words: "Her majesty forbiddeth all manner her subjects to give ear or credit to such perverse and malicious persons, which most sinisterly and maliciously labour to notify to her loving subjects, how by words of the said oath it may be collected, that the kings or queens of this realm, possessors of the crown, may challenge authority and power of ministry of divine service in the church; wherein her said subjects be much abused by such evil-disposed persons. For certainly her majesty neither doth, nor ever will, challenge any other authority than that was challenged and lately used by the said noble kings of famous memory, King Henry VIII. and King Edward VI., which is, and was of ancient time, due to the imperial crown of this realm; that is, under God to have the sovereignty and rule over all manner of persons born within these her realms, dominions, and countries, of what estate, either ecclesiastical or temporal, soever they be, so as no other foreign power shall or ought to have any superiority over them. And if any person that hath conceived any other sense of the form of the said oath shall accept the same with this interpretation, sense, or meaning, her majesty is well pleased to accept every such in that behalf, as her good and obedient subjects, and shall acquit them of all manner of penalties contained in the said act, against such as shall peremptorily or obstinately take the same oath." 1 _Somers Tracts_, edit. Scott, 73.

This interpretation was afterwards given in one of the thirty-nine articles, which having been confirmed by parliament, it is undoubtedly to be reckoned the true sense of the oath. Mr. Butler, in his _Memoirs of English Catholics_, vol. i. p. 157, enters into a discussion of the question, whether Roman catholics might conscientiously take the oath of supremacy in this sense. It appears that in the seventeenth century some contended for the affirmative; and this seems to explain the fact, that several persons of that persuasion, besides peers from whom the oath was not exacted, did actually hold offices under the Stuarts, and even enter into parliament, and that the test act and declaration against transubstantiation were thus rendered necessary to make their exclusion certain. Mr. B. decides against taking the oath, but on grounds by no means sufficient; and oddly overlooks the decisive objection, that it denies _in toto_ the jurisdiction and ecclesiastical authority of the pope. No writer, as far as my slender knowledge extends, of the Gallican or German school of discipline, has gone to this length; certainly not Mr. Butler himself, who in a modern publication (_Book of the Roman Catholic Church_, p. 120), seems to consider even the appellant jurisdiction in ecclesiastical causes as vested in the holy see by divine right.

As to the exposition before given of the oath of supremacy, I conceive that it was intended not only to relieve the scruples of catholics, but of those who had imbibed from the school of Calvin an apprehension of what is sometimes, though rather improperly, called Erastianism--the merging of all spiritual powers, even those of ordination and of preaching, in the paramount authority of the state, towards which the despotism of Henry, and obsequiousness of Cranmer, had seemed to bring the church of England.

[161] 1 Eliz. c. 2.

[162] Strype's _Annals_, i. 233, 241.

[163] Haynes, 395. The penalty for causing mass to be said, by the Act of Uniformity, was only 100 marks for the first offence. These imprisonments were probably in many cases illegal, and only sustained by the arbitrary power of the high commission court.

[164] Strype, 220.

[165] Questions of conscience were circulated, with answers, all tending to show the unlawfulness of conformity. Strype, 228. There was nothing more in this than the catholic clergy were bound in consistency with their principles to do, though it seemed very atrocious to bigots. Mr. Butler says, that some theologians at Trent were consulted as to the lawfulness of occasional conformity to the Anglican rites, who pronounced against it. _Mem. of Catholics_, i. 171.

[166] The trick of conjuration about the queen's death began very early in her reign (Strype, i. 7), and led to a penal statute against "fond and fantastical prophecies." 5 Eliz. c. 15.

[167] I know not how to charge the catholics with the conspiracy of the two Poles, nephews of the cardinal, and some others, to obtain five thousand troops from the Duke of Guise, and proclaim Mary queen. This seems, however, to have been the immediate provocation for the statute 5 Eliz.; and it may be thought to indicate a good deal of discontent in that party upon which the conspirators relied. But as Elizabeth spared the lives of all who were arraigned, and we know no details of the case, it may be doubted whether their intentions were altogether so criminal as was charged. Strype, i. 333; Camden, 388 (in Kennet).

Strype tells us (i. 374) of resolutions adopted against the queen in a consistory held by Pius IV. in 1563; one of these is a pardon to any cook, brewer, vintner, or other, that would poison her. But this is so unlikely, and so little in that pope's character, that it makes us suspect the rest, as false information of a spy.

[168] 5 Eliz. c. 1.

[169] Strype, Collier, _Parliamentary History_. The original source is the manuscript collections of Fox the martyrologist, a very unsuspicious authority; so that there seems every reason to consider this speech, as well as Mr. Atkinson's, authentic. The following is a specimen of the sort of answer given to these arguments: "They say it touches conscience, and it is a thing wherein a man ought to have a scruple; but if any hath a conscience in it, these four years' space might have settled it. Also, after his first refusal, he hath three months' respite for conference and settling of his conscience." Strype, 270.

[170] Strype's _Life of Parker_, 125.

[171] Strype's _Annals_, 149. Tunstall was treated in a very handsome manner by Parker, whose guest he was. But Feckenham, abbot of Westminster, met with rather unkind usage, though he had been active in saving the lives of protestants under Mary, from Bishops Horn and Cox (the latter of whom seems to have been an honest, but narrow-spirited and peevish man), and at last was sent to Wisbeach gaol for refusing the oath of supremacy. Strype, i. 457, ii. 526; Fuller's _Church History_, 178.

[172] 8 Eliz. c. 1. Eleven peers dissented, all noted catholics, except the Earl of Sussex. Strype, i. 492.

[173] Even Dr. Lingard admits that Parker was consecrated at Lambeth, on December 19, 1559; but conjectures that there may have been some previous meeting at the Nag's Head, which gave rise to the story. This means that any absurdity may be presumed, rather than acknowledge good catholics to have propagated a lie.

[174] Nobis vero factura est rem adeo gratam, ut omnem simus daturi operam, quo possimus eam rem serenitati vestrae mutuis benevolentiae et fraterni animi studiis cumulatissime compensare. See the letter in the additions to the first volume of Strype's _Annals_, prefixed to the second, p. 67. It has been erroneously referred by Camden, whom many have followed, to the year 1559, but bears date 24th September 1563.

[175] For the dispositions of Ferdinand and Maximilian towards religious toleration in Austria, which indeed for a time existed, see F. Paul, _Concile de Trente_ (par Courayer), ii. 72, 197, 220, etc.; Schmidt, _Hist. des Allemands_, viii. 120, 179, etc.; Flechier, _Vie de Commendom_, 388; or Coxe's _House of Austria_.

[176] Strype, 513, _et alibi_.

[177] Strype, 522. He says the lawyers in most eminent places were generally favourers of popery. P. 269. But, if he means the judges, they did not long continue so.

[178] Cum regina Maria moreretur, et religio in Anglia mutaret, post episcopos et praelatos catholicos captos et fugatos, populus velut ovium grex sine pastore in magnis tenebris et caligine animarum suarum oberravit. Unde etiam factum est multi ut catholicorum superstitionibus impiis dissimulationibus et gravibus juramentis contra sanctae sedis apostolicae auctoritatem, cum admodum parvo aut plane nullo conscientiarum suarum scrupulo assuescerent. Frequentabant ergo haereticorum synagogas, intererant eorum concionibus, atque ad easdem etiam audiendas filios et familiam suam compellabant. Videbatur illis ut catholici essent, sufficere una cum haereticis eorum templa non adire, ferri autem posse si ante vel post illos eadem intrassent. Communicabatur de sacrilega Calvini coena, vel secreto et clanculum intra privatos parietes. Missam qui audiverant, ac postea Calvinianos se haberi volebant, sic se de praecepto satisfecisse existimabant. Deferebantur filii catholicorum ad baptisteria haereticorum, ac inter illorum manus matrimonia contrahebant. Atque haec omnia sine omni scrupulo fiebant, facta propter catholicorum sacerdotum ignorantiam, qui talia vel licere credebant, vel timore quodam praepediti dissimulabant. Nunc autem per Dei misericordiam omnes catholici intelligunt, ut salventur non satis esse corde fidem catholicam credere, sed eandem etiam ore oportere confiteri. _Ribadeneira de Schismate_, p. 53. See also Butler's _English Catholics_, vol. iii. p. 156.

[179] Dodd's _Church His._ vol. ii. p. 8.

[180] Thomas Heath, brother to the late Archbishop of York, was seized at Rochester about 1570, well provided with anabaptist and Arian tracts for circulation. Strype, i. 521. For other instances, see p. 281, 484; _Life of Parker_, 244; Nalson's _Collections_, vol. i.; Introduction, p. 39, etc., from a pamphlet written also by Nalson, entitled, _Foxes and Firebrands_. It was surmised that one Henry Nicolas, chief of a set of fanatics, called the Family of Love, of whom we read a great deal in this reign, and who sprouted up again about the time of Cromwell, was secretly employed by the popish party. Strype, ii. 37, 589, 595. But these conjectures were very often ill-founded, and possibly so in this instance, though the passages quoted by Strype (589) are suspicious. Brandt however (_Hist. of Reformation in Low Countries_, vol. i. p. 105) does not suspect Nicolas of being other than a fanatic. His sect appeared in the Netherlands about 1555.

[181] "That church [of England] and the queen, its re-founder, are clear of persecution, as regards the catholics. No church, no sect, no individual even, had yet professed the principle of toleration." Southey's _Book of the Church_, vol. ii. p. 285. If the second of these sentences is intended as a proof of the first, I must say, it is little to the purpose. But it is not true in this broad way of assertion. Nor to mention Sir Thomas More's _Utopia_, the principle of toleration had been avowed by the Chancellor l'Hospital, and many others in France. I mention him as on the stronger side; for in fact the weaker had always professed the general principle, and could demand toleration from those of different sentiments on no other plea. And as to _capital_ inflictions for heresy, which Mr. S. seems chiefly to have in his mind, there is reason to believe that many protestants never approved them. Sleidan intimates (vol. iii. p. 263) that Calvin incurred odium by the death of Servetus. And Melancthon says expressly the same thing, in the letter which he unfortunately wrote to the reformer of Geneva, declaring his own approbation of the crime; and which I am willing to ascribe rather to his constitutional fear of giving offence than to sincere conviction.

[182] The address of the House of Commons, begging the queen to marry, was on February 6, 1559.

[183] Haynes, 233.

[184] See particularly two letters in the _Hardwicke State Papers_, i. 122 and 163, dated in October and November 1560, which show the alarm excited by the queen's ill-placed partiality.

[185] Cecil's earnestness for the Austrian marriage appears plainly (Haynes, 430), and still more in a remarkable minute, where he has drawn up, in parallel columns, according to a rather formal, but perspicuous, method he much used, his reasons in favour of the archduke, and against the Earl of Leicester. The former chiefly relate to foreign politics, and may be conjectured by those acquainted with history. The latter are as follows: 1. Nothing is increased by marriage of him, either in riches, estimation, or power. 2. It will be thought that the slanderous speeches of the queen with the earl have been true. 3. He shall study nothing but to enhance his own particular friends to wealth, to offices, to lands, and to offend others. 4. He is infamed by death of his wife. 5. He is far in debt. 6. He is likely to be unkind, and jealous of the queen's majesty. _Id._ 444. These suggestions, and especially the second, if actually laid before the queen, show the plainness and freedom which this great statesman ventured to use towards her. The allusion to the death of Leicester's wife, which had occurred in a very suspicious manner, at Cumnor, near Oxford, and is well known as the foundation of the novel of _Kenilworth_, though related there with great anachronism and confusion of persons, may be frequently met with in contemporary documents. By the above quoted letters in the _Hardwicke Papers_, it appears that those who disliked Leicester had spoken freely of this report to the queen.

[186] Elizabeth carried her dissimulation so far as to propose marriage articles, which were formally laid before the imperial ambassador. These, though copied from what had been agreed on Mary's marriage with Philip, now seemed highly ridiculous, when exacted from a younger brother without territories or revenues. Jura et leges regni conserventur, neque quicquam mutetur in religione aut in statu publico. Officia et magistratus exerceantur per naturales. Neque regina, neque liberi sui educantur ex regno sine consensu regni, etc. Haynes, 438.

Cecil was not too wise a man to give some credit to astrology. The stars were consulted about the queen's marriage; and those veracious oracles gave response, that she should be married in the thirty-first year of her age to a _foreigner_, and have one son, who would be a great prince, and a daughter, etc., etc. Strype, ii. 16, and Appendix 4, where the nonsense may be read at full length. Perhaps, however, the wily minister was no dupe, but meant that his mistress should be.

[187] The council appear in general to have been as resolute against tolerating the exercise of the catholic religion in any husband the queen might choose, as herself. We find, however, that several divines were consulted on two questions: 1. Whether it were lawful to marry a papist. 2. Whether the queen might permit mass to be said. To which answers were given, not agreeing with each other. Strype, ii. 150, and Appendix 31, 33. When the Earl of Worcester was sent over to Paris in 1571, as proxy for the queen, who had been made sponsor for Charles IX.'s infant daughter, she would not permit him, though himself a catholic, to be present at the mass on that occasion. ii. 171.

[188] "The people," Camden says, "cursed Huic, the queen's physician, as having dissuaded the queen from marrying on account of some impediment and defect in her." Many will recollect the allusion to this in Mary's scandalous letter to Elizabeth, wherein, under pretence of repeating what the Countess of Shrewsbury had said, she utters everything that female spite and mistrust could dictate. But in the long and confidential correspondence of Cecil, Walsingham, and Sir Thomas Smith, about the queen's marriage with the Duke of Anjou, in 1571, for which they were evidently most anxious, I do not perceive the slightest intimation that the prospect of her bearing children was at all less favourable than in any other case. The council seem, indeed, in the subsequent treaty with the other Duke of Anjou, in 1579, when she was forty-six, to have reckoned on something rather beyond the usual laws of nature in this respect; for in a minute by Cecil of the reasons for and against this marriage, he sets down the probability of issue on the favourable side. "By marriage with Monsieur she is likely to have children, _because of his youth_;" as if her age were no objection.

[189] Camden, after telling us that the queen's disinclination to marry raised great clamours, and that the Earls of Pembroke and Leicester had professed their opinion that she ought to be obliged to take a husband, or that a successor should be declared by act of parliament even against her will, asserts some time after, as inconsistently as improperly, that "very few but malcontents and traitors appeared very solicitous in the business of a successor."--P. 401 (in Kennet's _Complete Hist. of England_, vol. ii.). This, however, from Camden's known proneness to flatter James, seems to indicate that the Suffolk party were more active than the Scots upon this occasion. Their strength lay in the House of Commons, which was wholly protestant, and rather puritan.

At the end of Murden's _State Papers_ is a short journal kept by Cecil, containing a succinct and authentic summary of events in Elizabeth's reign. I extract as a specimen such passages as bear on the present subject.

October 6, 1566. Certain lewd bills thrown abroad against the queen's majesty for not assenting to have the matter of succession proved in parliament; and bills also to charge Sir W. Cecil, the secretary, with the occasion thereof.

27. Certain lords, viz., the Earls of Pembroke and Leicester, were excluded the presence-chamber for furthering the proposition of the succession to be declared by parliament without the queen's allowance.

November 12. Messrs. Bell and Monson moved trouble in the parliament about the succession.

14. The queen had before her thirty lords and thirty commoners, to receive her answer concerning their petition for the succession and for marriage. Dalton was blamed for speaking in the Commons' house.

24. Command given to the parliament not to treat of the succession.

Nota: in this parliament time the queen's majesty did remit a part of the offer of a subsidy to the Commons, who offered largely, to the end to have had the succession established. P. 762.

[190] Catherine, after her release from the Tower, was placed in the custody of her uncle, Lord John Grey, but still suffering the queen's displeasure, and separated from her husband. Several interesting letters from her and her uncle to Cecil are among the Lansdowne MSS. vol. vi. They cannot be read without indignation at Elizabeth's unfeeling severity. Sorrow killed this poor young woman the next year, who was never permitted to see her husband again. Strype, i. 391. The Earl of Hertford underwent a long imprisonment, and continued in obscurity during Elizabeth's reign; but had some public employments under her successor. He was twice afterwards married, and lived to a very advanced age, not dying till 1621, near sixty years after his ill-starred and ambitious love. It is worth while to read the epitaph on his monument in the S.E. aisle of Salisbury Cathedral, an affecting testimony to the purity and faithfulness of an attachment rendered still more sacred by misfortune and time. Quo desiderio veteres revocavit amores! I shall revert to the question of this marriage in a subsequent chapter.

[191] Haynes, 396.

[192] _Id._ 413; Strype, 410. Hales's treatise in favour of the authenticity of Henry's will is among the Harleian MSS. n. 537 and 555, and has also been printed in the Appendix to _Hereditary Right Asserted_, fol. 1713.

[193] Camden, p. 416, ascribes the powerful coalition formed against him in 1569, wherein Norfolk and Leicester were combined with all the catholic peers, to his predilection for the house of Suffolk. But it was more probably owing to their knowledge of his integrity and attachment to his sovereign, which would steadfastly oppose their wicked design of bringing about Norfolk's marriage with Mary, as well as to their jealousy of his influence. Carte reports, on the authority of the despatches of Fenelon, the French ambassador, that they intended to bring him to account for breaking off the ancient league with the house of Burgundy, or, in other words, for maintaining the protestant interest. Vol. iii. p. 483.

A papist writer, under the name of Andreas Philopater, gives an account of this confederacy against Cecil at some length. Norfolk and Leicester belonged to it; and the object was to defeat the Suffolk succession, which Cecil and Bacon favoured. Leicester betrayed his associates to the queen. It had been intended that Norfolk should accuse the two counsellors before the Lords, ea ratione ut e senatu regiaque abreptos ad curiae januas in crucem agi praeciperet, eoque perfecto recte deinceps ad forum progressus explicaret populo tum hujus facti rationem, tum successionis etiam regnandi legitimam seriem, si quid forte reginae humanitus accideret. P. 43.

[194] D'Ewes, 81.

[195] Strype, 11, Append. This speech seems to have been made while Catherine Grey was living; perhaps therefore it was in a former parliament, for no account that I have seen represents her as having been alive so late as 1571.

[196] There was something peculiar in Mary's mode of blazonry. She bore Scotland and England quarterly, the former being first; but over all was a half scutcheon of pretence with the arms of England, the sinister half being, as it were, obscured, in order to intimate that she was kept out of her right. Strype, vol. i. p. 8.

The despatches of Throckmorton, the English ambassador in France, bear continual testimony to the insulting and hostile manner in which Francis II. and his queen displayed their pretensions to our crown. Forbes's _State Papers_, vol. i. _passim_. The following is an instance. At the entrance of the king and queen into Chatelherault, 23rd November 1559, these lines formed the inscription over one of the gates:

"Gallia perpetuis pugnaxque Britannia bellis
Olim odio inter se dimicuere pari.
Nunc Gallos totoque remotos orbe Britannos
Unum dos Mariae cogit in imperium.
Ergo pace potes, Francisce, quod omnibus armis
Mille patres annis non potuere tui."

This offensive behaviour of the French court is the apology of Elizabeth's intrigues during the same period with the malcontents, which to a certain extent cannot be denied by any one who has read the collection above quoted; though I do not think Dr. Lingard warranted in asserting her privity to the conspiracy of Amboise as a proved fact. Throckmorton was a man very likely to exceed his instructions; and there is much reason to believe that he did so. It is remarkable that no modern French writer that I have seen, Anquetil, Garnier, Lacretelle, or the editors of the _General Collection of Memoirs_, seem to have been aware of Elizabeth's secret intrigues with the king of Navarre and other protestant chiefs in 1559, which these letters, published by Forbes in 1740, demonstrate.

[197] Burnet, i. Append. 266. Many letters, both of Mary herself and of her secretary, the famous Maitland of Lethington, occur in Haynes's _State Papers_, about the end of 1561. In one of his to Cecil, he urges, in answer to what had been alleged by the English court, that a collateral successor had never been declared in any prince's life-time, that whatever reason there might be for that, "if the succession had remained untouched according to the law, yet where by a limitation men had gone about to prevent the providence of God, and shift one into the place due to another, the offended party could not but seek the redress thereof."--P. 373.

[198] A very remarkable letter of the Earl of Sussex, October 22, 1568, contains these words: "I think surely no end can be made good for England, except the person of the Scottish queen be detained, by one means or other, in England." The whole letter manifests the spirit of Elizabeth's advisers, and does no great credit to Sussex's sense of justice, but a great deal to his ability. Yet he afterwards became an advocate for the Duke of Norfolk's marriage with Mary. Lodge's _Illustrations_, vol. ii. p. 4.

[199] Hume and Carte say, this first illness was the small-pox. But it appears by a letter from the queen to Lord Shrewsbury (Lodge, 279) that her attack in 1571 was suspected to be that disorder.

[200] Haynes, 580.

[201] In a conversation which Mary had with one Rooksby, a spy of Cecil's, about the spring of 1566, she imprudently named several of her friends, and of others whom she hoped to win, such as the Duke of Norfolk, the Earls of Derby, Northumberland, Westmoreland, Cumberland, Shrewsbury. "She had the better hope of this, for that she thought them to be all of the old religion, which she meant to restore again with all expedition, and thereby win the hearts of the common people." The whole passage is worth notice. Haynes, 447. See also Melvil's _Memoirs_, for the dispositions of an English party towards Mary in 1566.

[202] Murden's _State Papers_, 134, 180. Norfolk was a very weak man, the dupe of some very cunning ones. We may observe that his submission, to the queen (_Id._ 153) is expressed in a style which would now be thought most pusillanimous in a man of much lower station, yet he died with great intrepidity. But such was the tone of those times; an exaggerated hypocrisy prevailed in everything.

[203] _State Trials_, i. 957. He was interrogated by the queen's counsel with the most insidious questions. All the material evidence was read to the Lords from written depositions of witnesses who might have been called, contrary to the statute of Edward VI. But the _Burghley Papers_, published by Haynes and Murden, contain a mass of documents relative to this conspiracy, which leave no doubt as to the most heinous charge, that of inviting the Duke of Alva to invade the kingdom. There is reason to suspect that he feigned himself a catholic in order to secure Alva's assistance. Murden, p. 10.

[204] The northern counties were at this time chiefly catholic. "There are not," says Sadler, writing from thence, "ten gentlemen in this country who do favour and allow of their majesty's proceedings in the cause of religion." Lingard, vii. 54. It was consequently the great resort of the priests from the Netherlands, and in the feeble state of the protestant church there wanted sufficient ministers to stand up in its defence. Strype, i. 509, _et post_; ii. 183. Many of the gentry indeed were still disaffected in other parts towards the new religion. A profession of conformity was required in 1569 from all justices of the peace, which some refused, and others made against their consciences. _Id._ i. 567.

[205] Camden has quoted a long passage from Hieronymo Catena's _Life of Pius V._, published at Rome in 1588, which illustrates the evidence to the same effect contained in the _Burghley Papers_, and partly adduced on the Duke of Norfolk's trial.

[206] Strype, i. 546, 553, 556.

[207] _Id._ 578; Camden, 428; Lodge, ii. 45.

[208] Strype, ii. 88; _Life of Smith_, 152.

[209] Strype, i. 502. I do not give any credit whatever to this league, as printed in Strype, which seems to have been fabricated by some of the queen's emissaries. There had been, not perhaps a treaty, but a verbal agreement between France and Spain at Bayonne some time before; but its object was apparently confined to the suppression of protestantism in France and the Netherlands. Had they succeeded, however, in this, the next blow would have been struck at England. It seems very unlikely that Maximilian was concerned in such a league.

[210] Strype, vol. ii.

[211] The college of Douay for English refugee priests was established in 1568 or 1569. Lingard, 374. Strype seems, but I believe through inadvertence, to put this event several years later. _Annals_, ii. 630. It was dissolved by Requesens, while governor of Flanders, but revived at Rheims in 1575, under the protection of the cardinal of Lorrain, and returned to Douay in 1593. Similar colleges were founded at Rome in 1579, at Valladolid in 1589, at St. Omer in 1596, and at Louvain in 1606.

[212] 13 Eliz. c. 1. This act was made at first retrospective, so as to affect every one who had at any time denied the queen's title. A member objected to this in debate as "a precedent most perilous." But Sir Francis Knollys, Mr. Norton, and others defended it. D'Ewes, 162. It seems to have been amended by the Lords. So little notion had men of observing the first principles of equity towards their enemies! There is much reason from the debate to suspect that the _ex post facto_ words were levelled at Mary.

[213] Strype, ii. 133; D'Ewes, 207.

[214] Strype, ii. 135.

[215] _Life of Parker_, 354.

[216] Strype's _Annals_, ii. 48.

[217] Murden's _Papers_, p. 43, contain proofs of the increased discontent among the catholics in consequence of the penal laws.

[218] Strype, ii. 330. See too in vol. iii. Appendix 68, a series of petitions intended to be offered to the queen and parliament, about 1583. These came from the puritanical mint, and show the dread that party entertained of Mary's succession, and of a relapse into popery. It is urged in these, that no toleration should be granted to the popish worship in private houses. Nor in fact had they much cause to complain that it was so. Knox's famous intolerance is well known. "One mass," he declared in preaching against Mary's private chapel at Holyrood House, "was more fearful unto him than if ten thousand armed enemies were landed in any part of the realm, on purpose to suppress the whole religion." M'Crie's _Life of Knox_, vol. ii. p. 24. In a conversation with Maitland he asserted most explicitly the duty of putting idolaters to death. _Id._ p. 120. Nothing can be more sanguinary than the reformer's spirit in this remarkable interview. St. Dominic could not have surpassed him. It is strange to see men, professing all the while our modern creed of charity and toleration, extol these sanguinary spirits of the sixteenth century. The English puritans, though I cannot cite any passages so strong as the foregoing, were much the bitterest enemies of the catholics. When we read a letter from any one, such as Mr. Topcliffe, very fierce against the latter, we may expect to find him put in a word in favour of silenced ministers.

[219] D'Ewes, 161, 177.

[220] Strype's _Life of Parker_, 354.

[221] Strype's _Annals_, i. 582. Honest old Strype, who thinks church and state never in the wrong, calls this "a notable piece of favour."

[222] _Id._ ii. 110, 408.

[223] Strype's _Annals_, iii. 127.

[224] _Life of Whitgift_, 83. See too p. 99, and _Annals of Reformation_, ii. 631, etc.; also Holingshed, ann. 1574, _ad init._

[225] An almost incredible specimen of ungracious behaviour towards a Roman catholic gentleman is mentioned in a letter of Topcliffe, a man whose daily occupation was to hunt out and molest men for popery. "The next good news, but in account the highest, her majesty hath served God with great zeal and comfortable examples; for by her council two notorious papists, young Rockwood, the master of Euston Hall, where her majesty did lie upon Sunday now a fortnight, and one Downes, a gentleman, were both committed, the one to the town prison at Norwich, the other to the country prison there, for obstinate papistry; and seven more gentlemen of worship were committed to several houses in Norwich as prisoners; two of the Lovels, another Downes, one Beningfield, one Parry, and two others not worth memory for badness of belief.

"This Rockwood is a papist of kind [family] newly crept out of his late wardship. Her majesty, by some means I know not, was lodged at his house, Euston, far unmeet for her highness; nevertheless, the gentleman brought into her presence by like device, her majesty gave him ordinary thanks for his bad house, and her fair hand to kiss: but my lord chamberlain nobly and gravely understanding that Rockwood was excommunicated for papistry, called him before him, demanded of him how he durst presume to attempt her royal presence, he, unfit to accompany any Christian person; forthwith said he was fitter for a pair of stocks, commanded him out of the court, and yet to attend her council's pleasure at Norwich he was committed. And to dissyffer [sic] the gentleman to the full, a piece of plate being missed in the court, and searched for in his hay-house, in the hay-rick, such an image of our lady was there found, as for greatness, for gayness, and workmanship, I did never see a match; and after a sort of country dances ended, in her majesty's sight the idol was set behind the people who avoided; she rather seemed a beast raised upon a sudden from hell by conjuring, than the picture for whom it had been so often and so long abused. Her majesty commanded it to the fire, which in her sight by the country folks was quickly done to her content, and unspeakable joy of everyone but some one or two who had sucked of the idol's poisoned milk.

"Shortly after, a great sort of good preachers, who had been long commanded to silence for a little niceness, were licensed, and again commanded to preach; a greater and more universal joy to the countries, and the most of the court, than the disgrace of the papists: and the gentlemen of those parts, being great and hot protestants, almost before by policy discredited and disgraced, were greatly countenanced.

"I was so happy lately, amongst other good graces, that her majesty did tell me of sundry lewd papist beasts that have resorted to Buxton," etc. Lodge, ii. 188, 30 August 1578.

This Topcliffe was the most implacable persecutor of his age. In a letter to Lord Burleigh (Strype, iv. 39), he urges him to imprison all the principal recusants, and especially women, "the farther off from their own family and friends the better." The whole letter is curious, as a specimen of the prevalent spirit, especially among the puritans, whom Topcliffe favoured. Instances of the ill-treatment experienced by respectable families (the Fitzherberts and Foljambes), and even aged ladies, without any other provocation than their recusancy, may be found in Lodge, ii. 372, 462; iii. 22. But those farthest removed from puritanism partook sometimes of the same tyrannous spirit. Aylmer, bishop of London, renowned for his persecution of nonconformists, is said by Rishton de Schismate, p. 319, to have sent a young catholic lady to be whipped in Bridewell for refusing to conform. If the authority is suspicious (and yet I do not perceive that Rishton is a liar like Sanders), the fact is rendered hardly improbable by Aylmer's harsh character.

[226] Strype's _Life of Smith_, 171; _Annals_, ii. 631, 636; iii. 479; and Append. 170. The last reference is to a list of magistrates sent up by the bishops from each diocese, with their characters. Several of these, but the wives of many more, were inclined to popery.

[227] Allen's _Admonition to the Nobility and People of England_, written in 1588, to promote the success of the Armada, is full of gross lies against the queen. See an analysis of it in Lingard, note B. B. Mr. Butler fully acknowledges, what indeed the whole tenor of historical documents for this reign confirms, that Allen and Persons were actively engaged in endeavouring to dethrone Elizabeth, by means of a Spanish force. But it must, I think, be candidly confessed by protestants, that they had very little influence over the superior catholic laity. And an argument may be drawn from hence against those who conceive the political conduct of catholics to be entirely swayed by their priests, when even in the sixteenth century the efforts of these able men, united with the head of their church, could produce so little effect. Strype owns that Allen's book gave offence to many catholics, iii. 560; _Life of Whitgift_, 505. One Wright of Douay answered a case of conscience, whether catholics might take up arms to assist the king of Spain against the queen, in the negative. _Id._ 251; _Annals_, 565. This man, though a known loyalist, and actually in the employment of the ministry, was afterwards kept in a disagreeable sort of confinement, in the Dean of Westminster's house, of which he complains with much reason. Birch's _Memoirs_, vol. ii. p. 71 _et alibi_. Though it does not fall within the province of a writer on the constitution to enlarge on Elizabeth's foreign policy, I must observe, in consequence of the laboured attempts of Dr. Lingard to represent it as perfectly Machiavelian, and without any motive but wanton malignity, that, with respect to France and Spain, and even Scotland, it was strictly defensive, and justified by the law of self-preservation; though, in some of the means employed, she did not always adhere more scrupulously to good faith than her enemies.

[228] 23 Eliz. c. 1 and 29 Eliz. c. 6.

[229] Strype's _Whitgift_, p. 117, and other authorities _passim_.

[230] Camden, Lingard. Two others suffered at Tyburn not long afterwards for the same offence. Holingshed, 344. See in Butler's _Mem. of Catholics_, vol. iii. p. 382, an affecting narrative, from Dodd's _Church History_, of the sufferings of Mr. Tregian and his family, the gentleman whose chaplain Mayne had been. I see no cause to doubt its truth.

[231] Ribadeneira, _Continuatio Sanderi et Rishtoni de Schismate Anglicano_, p. 111; Philopater, p. 247. This circumstance of Sherwood's age is not mentioned by Stowe; nor does Dr. Lingard advert to it. No woman was put to death under the penal code, so far as I remember; which of itself distinguishes the persecution from that of Mary, and of the house of Austria in Spain and the Netherlands.

[232] Strype's _Parker_, 375.

[233] Strype's _Annals_, ii. 644.

[234] _State Trials_, i. 1050; from the _Phoenix Britannicus_.

[235] _Id._ 1078; Butler's _English Catholics_, i. 184, 244; Lingard, vii. 182, whose remarks are just and candid. A tract, of which I have only seen an Italian translation, printed at Macerata in 1585, entitled "Historia del glorioso martirio di diciotto sacerdoti e un secolare, fatti morire in Inghilterra per la confessione e difensione della fede cattolica," by no means asserts that he acknowledged Elizabeth to be queen _de jure_, but rather that he refused to give an opinion as to her right. He prayed, however, for her as a queen. "Io ho pregato, e prego per lei. All' ora il Signor Howardo li domando per qual regina egli pregasse, se per Elisabetta? Al quale rispose, Si, per Elisabetta." Mr. Butler quotes this tract in English.

The trials and deaths of Campian and his associates are told in the continuation of Holingshed, with a savageness and bigotry which, I am very sure, no scribe for the Inquisition could have surpassed. P. 456. But it is plain, even from this account, that Campian owned Elizabeth as queen. See particularly p. 488, for the insulting manner in which this writer describes the pious fortitude of these butchered ecclesiastics.

[236] Strype, ii. 637; Butler's _Eng. Catholics_, i. 196. The Earl of Southampton asked Mary's ambassador, Bishop Lesley, whether, after the bull, he could in conscience obey Elizabeth. Lesley answered, that as long as she was the stronger he ought to obey her. Murden, p. 30. The writer quoted before by the name of Andreas Philopater (Persons, translated by Cresswell, according to Mr. Butler, vol. iii. p. 236), after justifying at length the resistance of the League to Henry IV., adds the following remarkable paragraph: "Hinc etiam infert universa theologorum et jurisconsultorum schola, et est certum et de fide, quemcunque principem christianum, si a religione catholica manifeste deflexerit, et alios avocare voluerit, excidere statim omni potestate et dignitate, ex ipsa vi juris tum divini tum humani, hocque ante omnem sententiam supremi pastoris ac judicis contra ipsum prolatam; et subditos quoscunque liberos esse ab omni juramenti obligatione, quod ei de obedientia tanquam principi legitimo praestitissent, posseque et debere (si vires habeant) istiusmodi hominem, tanquam apostatam, haereticum, ac Christi domini desertorem, et inimicum reipublicae suae, hostemque ex hominum christianorum dominatu ejicere, ne alios inficiat, vel suo exemplo aut imperio a fide avertat."--P. 149. He quotes four authorities for this in the margin, from the works of divines or canonists.

This broad duty, however, of expelling a heretic sovereign, he qualifies by two conditions; first, that the subjects should have the power, "ut vires habeant idoneas ad hoc subditi;" secondly, that the heresy be undeniable. There can, in truth, be no doubt that the allegiance professed to the queen by the seminary priests and jesuits, and, as far as their influence extended, by all catholics, was with this reservation--till they should be strong enough to throw it off. See the same tract, p. 229. But after all, when we come fairly to consider it, is not this the case with every disaffected party in every state? a good reason for watchfulness, but none for extermination.

[237] Rishton and Ribadeneira. See in Lingard, note U, a specification of the different kinds of torture used in this reign.

The government did not pretend to deny the employment of torture. But the puritans, eager as they were to exert the utmost severity of the law against the professors of the old religion, had more regard to civil liberty than to approve such a violation of it. Beal, clerk of the council, wrote, about 1585, a vehement book against the ecclesiastical system, from which Whitgift picks out various enormous propositions, as he thinks them; one of which is, "that he condemns, without exception of any cause, racking of grievous offenders, as being cruel, barbarous, contrary to law, and unto the liberty of English subjects." Strype's _Whitgift_, p. 212.

[238] The persecution of catholics in England was made use of as an argument against permitting Henry IV. to reign in France, as appears by the title of a tract published in 1586: "Advertissement des catholiques, Anglois aux Francois catholiques, du danger ou ils sont de perdre leur religion et d'experimenter, comme en Angleterre, la cruaute des ministres, s'ils recoivent a la couronne un roy qui soit heretique." It is in the British Museum.

One of the attacks on Elizabeth deserves some notice, as it has lately been revived. In the statute 13 Eliz. an expression is used, "her majesty, and the natural issue of her body," instead of the more common legal phrase, "lawful issue." This probably was adopted by the queen out of prudery, as if the usual term implied the possibility of her having unlawful issue. But the papistical libellers put the most absurd interpretation on the word "natural," as if it was meant to secure the succession for some imaginary bastards by Leicester. And Dr. Lingard is not ashamed to insinuate the same suspicion. Vol. viii. p. 81, note. Surely what was congenial to the dark malignity of Persons, and the blind frenzy of Whitaker, does not become the good sense, I cannot say the candour, of this writer.

It is true that some, not prejudiced against Elizabeth, have doubted whether "Cupid's fiery dart" was as effectually "quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon," as her poet intimates. This I must leave to the reader's judgment. She certainly went strange lengths of indelicacy. But, if she might sacrifice herself to the queen of Cnidus and Paphos, she was unmercifully severe to those about her, of both sexes, who showed any inclination to that worship, though under the escort of Hymen. Miss Aikin, in her well written and interesting _Memoirs of the Court of Elizabeth_, has collected several instances from Harrington and Birch. It is by no means true, as Dr. Lingard asserts, on the authority of one Faunt, an austere puritan, that her court was dissolute, comparatively at least with the general character of courts; though neither was it so virtuous as the enthusiasts of the Elizabethan period suppose.

[239] _Somers Tracts_, i 189; Strype, iii. 205, 265, 480. Strype says that he had seen the manuscript of this tract in Lord Burleigh's handwriting. It was answered by Cardinal Allen, to whom a reply was made by poor Stubbe, after he had lost his right hand. An Italian translation of the _Execution of Justice_ was published at London in 1584. This shows how anxious the queen was to repel the charges of cruelty, which she must have felt to be not wholly unfounded.

[240] _Somers Tracts_, p. 209.

[241] _State Trials_, i. 1160.

[242] _Somers Tracts_, 164.

[243] Strype, iii. 298. Shelley, though notoriously loyal and frequently employed by Burleigh, was taken up and examined before the council for preparing this petition.

[244] P. 591. Proofs of the text are too numerous for quotation, and occur continually to a reader of Strype's 2nd and 3rd volumes. In vol. iii. Append. 158, we have a letter to the queen from one Antony Tyrrel, a priest, who seems to have acted as an informer, wherein he declares all his accusations of catholics to be false. This man had formerly professed himself a protestant, and returned afterwards to the same religion; so that his veracity may be dubious. So, a little further on, we find in the same collection (p. 250) a letter from one Bennet, a priest, to Lord Arundel, lamenting the false accusations he had given against him, and craving pardon. It is always possible, as I have just hinted, that these retractations may be more false than the charges. But ministers who employ spies, without the utmost distrust of their information, are sure to become their dupes, and end by the most violent injustice and tyranny.

[245] The rich catholics compounded for their recusancy by annual payments, which were of some consideration in the queen's rather scanty revenue. A list of such recusants, and of the annual fines paid by them in 1594, is published in Strype, iv. 197, but is plainly very imperfect. The total was L3323 1_s_. 10_d_. A few paid as much as L140 per annum. The average seems, however, to have been about L20. Vol. iii. Append. 153; see also p. 258. Probably these compositions, though oppressive, were not quite so serious as the catholics pretended.

[246] Parry seems to have been privately reconciled to the church of Rome about 1580; after which he continued to correspond with Cecil, but generally recommending some catholics to mercy. He says, in one letter, that a book printed at Rome, _De Persecutione Anglicana_, had raised a barbarous opinion of our cruelty; and that he could wish that in those cases it might please her majesty to pardon the dismembering and drawing. Strype, iii. 260. He sat afterwards in the parliament of 1584, taking, of course, the oath of supremacy, where he alone opposed the act against catholic priests. _Parl. Hist._ 822. Whether he were actually guilty of plotting against the queen's life (for this part of his treason he denied at the scaffold) I cannot say; but his speech there made contained some very good advice to her. The ministry garbled this before its publication in Holingshed and other books; but Strype has preserved a genuine copy. Vol. iii. Append. 102. It is plain that Parry died a catholic; though some late writers of that communion have tried to disclaim him. Dr. Lingard, it may be added, admits that there were many schemes to assassinate Elizabeth, though he will not confess any particular instance. "There exist," he says, "in the archives at Simancas several notices of such offers."--P. 384.

[247] It might be inferred from some authorities that the catholics had become in a great degree disaffected to the queen about 1584, in consequence of the extreme rigour practised against them. In a memoir of one Crichton, a Scots jesuit, intended to show the easiness of invading England, he says, that "all the catholics without exception favour the enterprise, first, for the sake of the restitution of the catholic faith; secondly, for the right and interest which the Queen of Scots has to the kingdom, and to deliver her out of prison; thirdly, for the great trouble and misery they endure more and more, being kept out of all employments, and dishonoured in their own countries, and treated with great injustice and partiality when they have need to recur to law; and also for the execution of the laws touching the confiscation of their goods in such sort as in so short time would reduce the catholics to extreme poverty." Strype, iii. 415. And in the report of the Earl of Northumberland's treasons, laid before the star-chamber, we read that "Throckmorton said, that the bottom of this enterprise, which was not to be known to many, was, that if a toleration of religion might not be obtained without alteration of the government, that then the government should be altered, and the queen removed." _Somers Tracts_, vol. i. p. 206. Further proofs that the rigour used towards the catholics was the great means of promoting Philip's designs occur in Birch's _Memoirs of Elizabeth_, i. 82 _et alibi_.

We have also a letter from Persons in England to Allen in 1586, giving a good account of the zeal of the catholics, though a very bad one of their condition through severe imprisonment and other ill-treatment. Strype, iii. 412, and Append. 151. Rishton and Ribadeneira bear testimony that the persecution had rendered the laity more zealous and sincere. De Schismate, l. iii. 320, and l. iv. 53.

Yet to all this we may oppose their good conduct in the year of the Spanish Armada, and in general during the queen's reign; which proves that the loyalty of the main body was more firm than their leaders wished, or their enemies believed. However, if any of my readers should incline to suspect that there was more disposition among this part of the community to throw off their allegiance to the queen altogether than I have admitted, he may possibly be in the right; and I shall not impugn his opinion, provided he concurs in attributing the whole, or nearly the whole, of this disaffection to her unjust aggressions on the liberty of conscience.

[248] _State Trials_, i. 1162.

[249] 27 Eliz. c. i.

[250] In Murden's _State Papers_ we have abundant evidence of Mary's acquaintance with the plots going forward in 1585 and 1586 against Elizabeth's government, if not with those for her assassination. But Thomas Morgan, one of the most active conspirators, writes to her, 9th July, 1586: "There be some good members that attend opportunity to do the Queen of England a piece of service, which I trust will quiet many things, if it shall please God to lay his assistance to the cause, for the which I pray daily."--P. 530. In her answer to this letter, she does not advert to this hint, but mentions Babington as in correspondence with her. At her trial she denied all communication with him.

[251] It may probably be answered to this, that if the letter signed by Walsingham as well as Davison to Sir Amias Paulet, urging him "to find out some way to shorten the life of the Scots queen," be genuine, which cannot perhaps be justly questioned (though it is so in the _Biog. Brit._ art. WALSINGHAM, note O), it will be difficult to give him credit for any scrupulousness with respect to Mary. But, without entirely justifying this letter, it is proper to remark, what the Marian party choose to overlook, that it was written after the sentence, during the queen's odious scenes of grimace, when some might argue, though erroneously, that, a legal trial having passed, the formal method of putting the prisoner to death might in so peculiar a case, be dispensed with. This was Elizabeth's own wish, in order to save her reputation, and enable her to throw the obloquy on her servants; which by Paulet's prudence and honour in refusing to obey her by privately murdering his prisoner, she was reduced to do in a very bungling and scandalous manner.