1579-1580

THE JESUITS IN ENGLAND

453

soldiers, landed at Smerwick under the authority of the Pope, but was overpowered and slaughtered by Lord Grey, the Lord Deputy. Then the Earl of Desmond, the head of a branch of the family of Fitzgerald, which was all-powerful in Munster, rose in insurrection. The insurrection was put down by the usual barbarous methods, and Desmond himself was slain in 1583. It is said that in 1582 no less than 30,000 perished-mostly of starvation—in a single year. It is an English witness who tells us of the poor wretches who survived, that 'out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they spoke like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find them.'

19. The Jesuits in England. 1580.-In England the landing of a papal force at Smerwick produced the greater alarm because Parma (see p. 450) had been gaining ground in the Netherlands, and the time might soon come when a Spanish army would be available for the invasion of England. For the present what the Government feared was any interruption to the process by which the new religion was replacing the old. In 1571 there had been an act of Parliament in answer to the Papal Bull of Deposition (see p. 442), declaring all who brought Bulls into the country, and all who were themselves reconciled to the see of Rome, or who reconciled others to be traitors, but for a long time no use was made by Elizabeth of these powers. The Catholic exiles, however, had witnessed with sorrow the gradual decay of their religion in England, and in 1568 William Allen, one of their number, had founded a college at Douai (removed in 1578 to Reims) as a seminary for missionaries to England. It was not long before seminary priests, as the missionaries were called, began to land in England to revive the zeal of their countrymen, but it was not till 1577 that one of them, Cuthbert Mayne, was executed, technically for bringing in a copy of a Bull of a trivial character, but really for maintaining that Catholics would be justified in rising to assist a foreign force sent to reduce England to obedience to the Papacy. There were, in fact, two rival powers inconsistent with one another. If the Papal power was to prevail, the Queen's authority must be got rid of. If the Queen's power was to prevail, the Pope's authority must be got rid of. In 1580 two Jesuits, Campion and Parsons, landed. They brought with them an explanation of the Bull of Deposition, which practically meant that no one need act on it till it was convenient to do so. They went about making converts and strengthening the lukewarm in the resolution to stand by their faith.

20. The Recusancy Laws. 1581.-Elizabeth in her dread of religious strife had done her best to silence religious discussion and even religious teaching. Men in an age of religious controversy are eager to believe something. All the more vigorous of the Protestants were at this time Puritans, and now the more vigorous of those who could not be Puritans welcomed the Jesuits with joy. There were never many Jesuits in England, but for a time they gave life and vigour to the seminary priests who were not Jesuits. In 1581 Parliament, seeing nothing in what had happened but a conspiracy against the Crown, passed the first of the acts which became known as the Recusancy laws. In addition to the penalties on reconciliation to Rome and the introduction of Bulls, fines and imprisonment were to be inflicted for hearing or saying mass, and fines upon lay recusants - that is to say, persons who refused to go to church. Catholics were from this time frequently subjected to torture to drive them to give information which would lead to the apprehension of the priests. Campion was arrested and executed after cruel torture; Parsons escaped. If the Government and the Parliament did not see the whole of the causes of the Jesuit revival, they were not wrong in seeing that there was political danger. Campion was an enthusiast. Parsons was a cool-headed intriguer, and he continued from the Continent to direct the threads of a conspiracy which aimed at Elizabeth's life.

21. Growing Danger of Elizabeth. 1580-1584.-Elizabeth was seldom startled, but her ministers were the more frightened because the power of Spain was growing. In 1580 Philip took possession of Portugal and the Portuguese colonies, whilst in the Netherlands Parma was steadily gaining ground. Elizabeth had long been nursing the idea of the Alençon marriage (see p. 446), and in 1581 it seemed as if she was in earnest about it. She entertained the Duke at Greenwich, gave him a kiss and a ring, then changing her mind sent him off to the Netherlands, where he hoped to be appointed by the Dutch to the sovereignty of the independent states. In the spring of 1582 a fanatic, Jaureguy, tried to murder the Prince of Orange at Philip's instigation. Through the summer of that year Parsons and Allen were plotting with Philip and the Duke of Guise, for the assassination of Elizabeth, on the understanding that as soon as Elizabeth had been killed, Guise was to send or lead an army to invade England. They hoped that such an army would receive assistance from Scotland, where the young James had become the tool of a Catholic intriguer whom he made

1583

SCOTLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS

455

Duke of Lennox. Philip, however, was too dilatory to succeed. In August James was seized by some Protestant Lords, and Lennox

Hall of Burghley House, Northamptonshire, built about 1580: from Drummond's Histories of Noble British Families, vol. i.

was soon driven from the country. In 1583 there was a renewal of the danger. The foolish Alençon, wishing to carve out a principality for himself, made a violent attack on Antwerp and other

Flemish towns which had allied themselves with him, and was consequently driven from the country; whilst Parma, taking advantage of this split amongst his enemies, conquered most of the towns-Antwerp, however, being still able to resist. He now held part of the coast line, and a Spanish invasion of England from the Netherlands once more became feasible. In November 1583 a certain Francis Throgmorton, having been arrested and racked, made known to Elizabeth the whole story of the intended invasion of the army of Guise. In January 1584 she sent the Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, out of England. On June 29 Balthazar Gerard assassinated the Prince of Orange.

22. The Association. 1584-1585.—Those who had planned the murder of the Prince of Orange were planning the murder of Elizabeth. In their eyes she was a usurper, who by main force held her subjects from all hope of salvation by keeping them in ignorance of the teaching of the true Church, and they accordingly drew the inference that it was lawful to murder her and to place Mary on her throne. They did not see that they had to do with a nation and not with a queen alone, and that, whether the nation was as yet Protestant or not, it was heart and soul with Elizabeth against assassins and invaders. In November 1584, at the instigation of the Council, the mass of Englishmen-irrespective of creed-bound themselves in an association not only to defend the Queen, but, in case of her murder, to put to death the person for whose sake the crime had been committed—or, in other words, to send Mary to the grave instead of to the throne. In 1585 this association, with considerable modifications, was confirmed by Parliament. At the same time an act was passed banishing all Jesuits and seminary priests, and directing that they should be put to death if they returned.

23. Growth of Philip's Power. 1584–1585.—In the meantime Philip's power was still growing. The wretched Alençon died in 1584, and a far distant cousin of the childless Henry III., Henry king of Navarre, who was a Huguenot, became heir to the French throne. Guise and the ardent Catholics formed themselves into a league to exclude Huguenots from the succession, and placed themselves under the direction of the king of Spain. A civil war broke out once more in 1585, and if the league should win (as at first seemed likely) Philip would be able to dispose of the resources of France in addition to his own. As Guise had now enough to do at home, Philip took the invasion of England into his own hands. He had first to extend his power in the Netherlands. In August the great port of Antwerp surrendered to Parma. The Dutch had

1586

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

457

offered to make Elizabeth their sovereign, and, though she had prudently refused, she sent an army to their aid, but neutralised the gift by placing the wretched Leicester at its head, and by giving him not a penny wherewith to pay his men. In 1586, after an attempt (after Alençon's fashion) to seize the government for himself, Leicester returned to England, having accomplished nothing. What Elizabeth did not do was done by a crowd of young Englishmen who pressed over to the Netherlands to fight as volunteers for Dutch freedom. The best known of these was Sir Philip Sidney, whose head and heart alike seemed to qualify him for a foremost place amongst the new generation of Englishmen. Unhappily he was slain in battle near Zutphen. As he lay dying he handed a cup of water untasted to another wounded man. 'Thy necessity,' he said to him, 'is greater than mine.' Parma took Zutphen, and the territory of the Dutch Republic—the bulwark of England-was the smaller by its loss. By sea England more than held her own, and in 1586 Drake returned from a voyage to the West Indies laden with spoils.

24. Babington's Plot, and the Trial of Mary Stuart. 1586.—The Spanish invasion being still delayed, a new plot for murdering Elizabeth was formed. A number of young Catholics (of whom Anthony Babington was the most prominent) had been allowed to remain at Court by Elizabeth, who was perfectly fearless. Acting under the instructions of a Jesuit named Ballard, they now sought basely to take advantage of their easy access to her person to assassinate her. They were detected and executed, and Walsingham, the Secretary of State who conducted the detective department of the government, discovered, or said that he had discovered, evidence of Mary Stuart's approving knowledge of the conspiracy. Elizabeth's servants felt that there was but one way of saving the life of the queen, and that was by taking the life of her whose existence made it worth while to assassinate Elizabeth. Mary was brought to trial and condemned to death on a charge of complicity in Babington's plot. When Parliament met it petitioned Elizabeth to execute the sentence. Elizabeth could not make up her mind. She knew that Mary's execution would save herself and the country from enormous danger, but she shrank from ordering the deed to be done. She signed the warrant for Mary's death, and then asked Mary's gaoler Paulet to save her from responsibility by murdering his prisoner. On Paulet's refusal she continued her vacillations, till the Council authorised Davison, Walsingham's colleague in the Secretaryship, to send off the warrant without further orders.

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