an outward demanded, to burning of which were intended to apply generally to both of the resisting factions, while others were designed for special application to Roman Catholics, or to protestant dissenters, in order to meet special emergencies. At the outset the worldly and tolerant spirit animating both Elizabeth and Cecil, which demanded only an outward conformity to the church establishment, at first only refused to enter the sacred realm of individual opinion. While uniformity there was a positive refusal upon the part of the state to grant but freedom freedom of public worship, which was then generally consid- of public worship ered as incompatible with public order, it was distinctly an- denied; nounced that there was to be no interference with the rights of conscience.1 In this temper it was that Elizabeth at once Elizabeth put an end to burnings for heresy, and ordered the release of put an end all who had been imprisoned for religion in the preceding reign.2 for heresy ; In the same tolerant spirit the oaths prescribed by the Act of Supremacy were certainly applied to the ten thousand catholic priests who then occupied the benefices of the Church of England, the bulk of whom are said to have simply left the commissioners' summons unheeded. While the bishops and tolerant greater dignitaries were dealt with without mercy, only about of the infetwo hundred of the inferior clergy actually suffered depriva- rior clergy; tion. Upon the part of the English catholics a disposition tendency of was manifested to meet this tolerant policy by outward con- catholics to formity, which continued until it was suddenly checked in outward August, 1562, by a brief from the pope forbidding their attend- checked by a papal ance at church, and denouncing their joining in the common brief in 1562; prayer as schismatic. The sharp assault thus made from Rome upon Elizabeth's hopeful policy was promptly met by the countera memorable act 5 passed in the parliament which met in Hal 1 See Green's Hist. of the Eng. People, vol. ii. pp. 297, 298, as to Eliza beth's toleration at the outset. lam tells us, however (vol. i. p. 113 of his Const. Hist.), that "we find instances of severity towards Catholics, even in that early period; and it is evident that their solemn rites were only performed by stealth at much hazard." 66 Opinion, it was announced, was to be practically free, but all must go to church, and the exercise of the Roman Catholic worship was rigidly suppressed.". S. R. Gardiner's Hist. Eng., vol. i. p. 12. * Strype's Annals, vol. i. p. 54; Blount, Reform. of the Church of Eng., vol. ii. p. 338. The power of the High 8 See above, p. 158. 4 Green, Hist. of the Eng. People, vol. ii. p. 342. 5 5 Eliz. c. 1, and entitled, "for the assurance of the queen's royal power over all estates and subjects within her dominions." treatment English conformity blast; the oppression of Roman the act; the act of January, 1563, that laid the foundation for a system of legal 1563, the first of the oppression which English catholics were forced to endure for series for nearly two hundred and fifty years. This act, which was opposed in the lords in an historic speech from Viscount MontaCatholics; gue,1 after declaring that it was necessary for "correcting the marvellous outrage and licentious boldness of the fautors of the bishop of Rome," and after imposing severe penalties upon all who should maintain his authority within the realm, provided for a commission to be composed of the bishops and other commissioners to be appointed by the crown, who were contents of authorized to tender the oath of supremacy (1) to all members of the house of commons, to all who had ever been admitted to holy orders or to degrees in the universities, to schoolmasters, private tutors, barristers, and attorneys, as well as to all other persons engaged in the execution of the law; (2) to all who should openly disapprove of the established worship, or who should celebrate or attend any mass said in private. From the terms of this sweeping act, which embraced the entire catholic population, were excepted only the catholic peers, in whom the queen still expressed confidence. The penalty for the first refusal of the oath was forfeiture and perpetual imprisonment; for a second, death, as in the case of high treason. moderation The terrible result which a rigid enforcement of this act might have brought about was wisely averted by the moderation of primate in its enforce the primate, who privately instructed the bishops to use great caution in tendering the oath, which was never to be offered the second time, so as to make a case of treason, without his previous approval.2 And yet, in spite of this admonition, the oath to Horne, bishop of Winchester, persisted in tendering the oath to Bonner, the hated and deprived bishop of London, then in prison in the Marshalsea, whose refusal to take it was duly legal status of the new certified to the queen's bench, where, under the advice of bishops questioned Plowden, Bonner pleaded not guilty on several grounds, one of which was that the person who had tendered him the oath was not a bishop.3 In order to cut short a controversy which of the ment; Horne tendered Bonner; in the queen's bench; 1 Strype's Annals, vol. i. pp. 259 273. 126. Strype's Life of Parker, pp. 125, 8 "After a long argument in Serjeants' Inn, all the judges agreed that Bonner had a right to an inquiry be fore a jury as to the matter of fact, whether Horne, at the time when he offered the oath, was or was not a bishop in the eye of the law." - Lingard, vol. vi., Appendix, note C, p. 668. 1 ended by an act thus presented the legal status of the new episcopate, the controversy prosecution was dropped, and an act 1 passed in the parliament of 1566, "declaring the manner of making bishops and arch- passed in bishops in this kingdom," employed since the queen's accession, "to be good, perfect, and lawful." 1566. scheme for Elizabeth, the pope, in favor The act of 1563, which suspended a sword over the head The of every catholic by a thread that the queen could break at the deposipleasure, was regarded at Rome as a challenge to which the tion of papacy should reply by the reassertion of the right, still claimed by the pontiffs, to depose sovereigns for the commission of heinous crimes against the church through decrees enforceable with the aid of temporal princes. Upon that theory was organized a far-reaching scheme, which contemplated the deposition of Elizabeth through the joint action of the pope, to be carPhilip of Spain, and the English catholics, and the placing in ried out by her stead upon the throne of Mary Stuart, who, at the queen's Philip, and the English accession, had assumed the arms and title of an English sov- catholics ereign. In order to meet as they arose the manifold dangers of Mary to which the several attempts to execute that design gave Stuart; birth, the remaining statutes of Elizabeth specially hostile to catholics were enacted. The central point in the controversy was the right to the succession, which the advocates of the indefeasible hereditary theory claimed belonged to Mary Stuart, Mary's the undoubted heir of Henry VIII.'s eldest sister Margaret, to the as against Elizabeth, whom they assumed to be illegitimate.3 succession; The claim thus set up against the childless queen was greatly strengthened by Mary's marriage with Darnley on July 20, 1565, and the birth of a son, who, on July 29, 1567, was solemnly crowned as James VI. of Scotland. The bright hopes forced to which the appearance of an heir naturally excited were dark- favor of ened, however, by the fact that three days before his coronation Mary had been forced to abdicate in his favor by the of ScotScotch Calvinists, who, after routing her partisans in battle, drove her in May, 1568, to cross the border, in order to seek 4 18 Eliz. c. I. The main purpose of this act was to legalize retrospectively the Edwardian ordinal used at the consecration of Parker and his associates. 2 See the interesting evidence upon this subject collated by Blount, Re form. of the Church of Eng., vol. ii. pp. See Bailey, The Succession to the claim abdicate in her son, James VI. land; in Eliza beth's hands; the threat ened Spanish invasion in her behalf; failure of in the north which a prisoner protection and succor at the hands of Elizabeth.1 Mary's imprisonment, which thus began, and which ended only with her death, instead of removing the dangers to which she had so long exposed her rival, at once gave rise to fresh designs in her own behalf, that soon involved the English queen in the gravest peril with which she had so far been confronted. With Philip triumphant in the Netherlands, and the Guises dominant in France, the time had now come for Rome to strike a decisive blow in Mary's favor, which was to be given through a Spanish invasion,2 to be met by a rising of the cath olic peers under Norfolk, the head of the nobility, who was to remove all prejudice against Mary by making her his wife. But when the time for action came, the irresolute allies failed to coöperate. The rising in the northern counties, then chiefly the rising catholic, which took place in November, 1569, under the leadership of the earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland, untook place in Novem- supported by Philip, was quickly suppressed, and the rebels ber, 1569; punished by ruthless measures which mark the first stage of actual severity in the reign of Elizabeth. The counterblast bull of ex- from Rome was the publication by Pius V. in March, 1570, of Cation and the famous bull of excommunication and deposition, really deposition prepared the year before, declaring that the heretic queen had published forfeited all right to the throne, absolving her subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and forbidding them to obey her upon pain of excommunication. The response made by parliament to the attempt against the sovereign, of which the revolt of the northern earls and the bull of deposition were component parts, was embodied in two statutes enacted within a year after passed for the bull was published. In the first it was provided that the the queen's penalty of treason should be imposed upon all who should the first to obtain or put in use any bull or other writing from the bishop prohibit the publication of Rome, or absolve or be absolved by virtue of the same; and that the penalties of præmunire should be imposed upon their aiders and abettors, and upon all who should introduce or receive pictures, crosses, beads, or other things "hallowed and consecrated, as it is termed, by the bishop of Rome." In the communi in March, 1570; two statutes of papal bulls; 1 Keith, pp. 477-483; Anderson, vol. iv. p. 333. 2 The aid was expected from the Spanish army in the Netherlands. Ep. 8 Printed in Burnet's Collectanea. claim the second it was provided (1) that any one should be guilty of the second to punish treason who claimed the crown during the queen's life, or who those who should assert that it belonged to any other person than the should queen, or who should affirm that the queen was a heretic, crown during the schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper, or who should deny the queen's life; right of parliament to regulate the descent of the crown by statute; (2) that every one should be punished by imprisonment and forfeiture who should by writing or printing affirm that any particular person was the heir to the queen who was not "the natural issue of her body." of the priesthood; During the ten years which followed the enactment of the oppression statutes of 1571, existing laws were enforced with such severity Roman against the catholic population that many were forced to seek Catholic refuge beyond sea, while the catholic priesthood, thinned by death and unrecruited by fresh ordinations, threatened to become extinct. In order to supply "a new English clergy," it occurred to William Allen, who had been principal of St. Mary's Hall at Oxford, to establish a college at Douay, in Flanders, where priests could be educated who, after ordination, might return to labor in England. The stream of missionaries thus set in motion from Douay, where the first seminary was the college founded in 1568,2 was swelled in 1579 by the founding of an additional seminary at Rome; and about the same time the another at general of the Jesuits assented to Allen's request that the members of his aggressive order should share the fortunes of the enterprise. To meet this new danger, by which the council seems to have been thoroughly alarmed, an act 6 was passed in the parliament that met in January, 1581, which fresh provided (1) that it should be high treason to withdraw others legislation or to be withdrawn from the established religion; (2) that Roman the saying and hearing of mass should be punished by fines in 1581; 1 13 Eliz. C. I. * In 1576, driven out by a riot, the seminary was removed to Rheims, where it remained until 1593, when it was reestablished at Douay. There it remained until the French Revolution, when it migrated to Old Hall Green at Ware, in Hertfordshire, and is now known as St. Edmund's College. Blount, Reform. of the Church of Eng., vol. ii. p. 455. 3 Others were also founded at Madrid, Seville, Paris, Lisbon, and in other continental cities in the following forty 4 Lingard, vol. vi. p. 334. 5 A proclamation was first issued denouncing as abettors of treason any one who should harbor or fail to reveal the presence of any Jesuit or seminarist in the kingdom. Camden, p. 348; Sanders, p. 384. 6 23 Eliz. C. I, "to retain the queen's majesty's subjects in their due obedi ence." at Douay; Rome; against Catholics |