58

PERSECUTION UNDER MARY.

CHAP. II.

of argument, I know not whether any be more reasonable, and none certainly is so congenial to unsophisticated minds. Many are said to have become protestants under Mary, who, at her coming to the throne, had retained the contrary persuasion. And the strongest proof of this may be drawn from the acquiescence of the great body of the kingdom in the re-establishment of protestantism by Elizabeth, when compared with the seditions and discontent on that account under Edward. The course which this famous princess steered in ecclesiastical concerns, during her long reign, will form the subject of the two ensuing chapters.

CHAPTER III.

ON THE LAWS OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN RESPECTING THE ROMAN CATHOLICS.

1. Change of Religion on the Queen's Accession. 2. Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity. . 3. Restraint of Roman Catholic Worship in the first Years of Elizabeth. 4. Statute of 1562. This Act not fully enforced. § 5. Application of the Emperor in behalf of the English Catholics. 6. Persecution of this Body in the ensuing Period. 7. Uncertain Succession of the Crown between the Families of Scotland and Suffolk. 8. The Queen's unwillingness to decide this, or to marry. § 9. Imprisonment of Lady Catherine Grey. 10. Mary Queen of Scotland. 11. Combination in her Favour. § 12. Bull of Pius V. Statutes for the Queen's Security. 13. Catholics more rigorously treated. § 14. Refugees in the Netherlands. Their Hostility to the Government. § 15. Fresh Laws against the Catholic Worship. Execution of Campian and others. § 16. Defence of the Queen by Burleigh. § 17. Increased Severity of the Government. § 18. Mary. Plot in her Favour. Her ExeRemarks upon it. § 19. Continued Persecution of Roman Catholics. 20. General Observations.

cution

§ 1. THE accession of Elizabeth, gratifying to the whole nation on account of the late queen's extreme unpopularity, infused peculiar joy into the hearts of all well-wishers to the Reformation. Child of that famous marriage which had severed the connection of England with the Roman see, and trained betimes in the learned and reasoning discipline of protestant theology, suspected and oppressed for that very reason by a sister's jealousy, and scarcely preserved from the death which at one time threatened her, there was every ground to be confident, that, notwithstanding her forced compliance with the catholic rites during the late reign, her inclinations had continued stedfast to the opposite side. Nor was she long in manifesting this disposition sufficiently to alarm one party, though not entirely to satisfy the other. Her great prudence, and that of her advisers, which taught her to move slowly, while the temper of the nation was still uncertain, and her government still embarrassed with a French war and a Spanish alliance, joined with a certain tendency in her religious sentiments not so thoroughly protestant as had been expected, produced some complaints of delay from the ardent reformers just returned from exile. But she began to make alterations, though not very essential, in the church service; and the bishops must have been well aware of the course she designed to pursue, when they adopted the violent and impolitic resolution of refusing to officiate at her coronation. Her council was formed of a very few catholics, of several pliant con

60

FIRST PARLIAMENT OF ELIZABETH.

CHAP. III.

formists with all changes, and of some known friends to the protestant interest. But two of these, Cecil and Bacon, were so much higher in her confidence, and so incomparably superior in talents to the other councillors, that it was evident which way she must incline. The parliament met about two months after her accession. The creed of parliament from the time of Henry VIII. had been always that of the court; whether it were that elections had constantly been influenced, as we know was sometimes the case, or that men of adverse principles, yielding to the torrent, had left the way clear to the partisans of power. This first, like all subsequent parliaments, was to the full as favourable to protestantism as the queen could desire: the first-fruits of benefices, and, what was far more important, the supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, were restored to the crown; the laws made concerning religion in Edward's time were re-enacted. These acts did not pass without considerable opposition among the lords; nine temporal peers, besides all the bishops, having protested against the bill of uniformity establishing the Anglican liturgy, though some pains had been taken to soften the passages most obnoxious to catholics. But the act restoring the royal supremacy met with less resistance; whether it were that the system of Henry retained its hold over some minds, or that it did not encroach, like the former, on the liberty of conscience, or that men not over-scrupulous were satisfied with the interpretation which the queen caused to be put upon the oath.

Several of the bishops had submitted to the Reformation under Edward VI. But they had acted, in general, so conspicuous a part in the late restoration of popery, that, even amidst so many examples of false profession, shame restrained them from a second apostasy. Their number happened not to exceed sixteen, one of whom was prevailed on to conform; while the rest, refusing the oath of supremacy, were deprived of their bishoprics by the court of ecclesiastical high commission. In the summer of 1559 the queen appointed a general ecclesiastical visitation, to compel the observance of the protestant formularies. It appears from their reports that only about one hundred dignitaries, and eighty parochial priests, resigned their benefices, or were deprived. Men eminent for their zeal in the protestant cause, and most of them exiles during the persecution, occupied the vacant sees. And thus, before the end of 1559, the English church, so long contended for as a prize by the two religions, was lost for ever to that of Rome.

§ 2. These two statutes, commonly denominated the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity,1 form the basis of that restrictive code of laws, deemed by some one of the fundamental bulwarks, by

1 1 Eliz. c. 1. See NOTE at end of chapter, The Oath of Supremacy.'

others the reproach of our constitution, which pressed so heavily for more than two centuries upon the adherents to the Romish church. By the former all beneficed ecclesiastics, and all laymen holding office under the crown, were obliged to take the oath of supremacy, renouncing the spiritual as well as temporal jurisdiction of every foreign prince or prelate, on pain of forfeiting their office or benefice; and it was rendered highly penal, and for the third offence treasonable, to maintain such supremacy by writing or advised speaking. The latter statute trenched more on the natural rights of conscience; prohibiting, under pain of forfeiting goods and chattels for the first offence, of a year's imprisonment for the second, and of imprisonment during life for the third, the use by a minister, whether beneficed or not, of any but the established liturgy; and imposed a fine of one shilling on all who should absent themselves from church on Sundays and holydays.2

§ 3. This act operated as an absolute interdiction of the catholic rites, however privately celebrated. It has frequently been asserted, that the government connived at the domestic exercise of that religion during these first years of Elizabeth's reign. This may possibly have been the case with respect to some persons of very high rank whom it was inexpedient to irritate. But 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, and at much hazard. This commencement of persecution induced many catholics to fly beyond sea, and gave rise to those re-unions of disaffected exiles, which never ceased to endanger the throne of Elizabeth.

It cannot, as far as appears, be truly alleged that any greater provocation had as yet been given by the catholics than that of pertinaciously continuing to believe and worship as their fathers had done before them. I request those who may hesitate about this, to pay some attention to the order of time, before they form their opinions. The master mover, that became afterwards so busy, had not yet put his wires into action. Every prudent man at Rome (and we shall not at least deny that there were such) condemned the precipitate and insolent behaviour of Paul IV. towards Elizabeth, as they did most other parts of his administration. Pius IV., the successor of that injudicious old man, aware of the inestimable importance of reconciliation, and suspecting probably that the queen's turn of thinking did not exclude all hope of it, despatched a nuncio to England, with an invitation to send ambassadors to the council at Trent, and with powers, as is said, to confirm the English liturgy, and to permit double communion; one of the few conces

2 1 Eliz. C. 2.

62

STATUTE OF 1562.

CHAP. III. sions which the more indulgent Romanists of that age were not very reluctant to make. But Elizabeth had taken her line as to the court of Rome; the nuncio received a message at Brussels, that he must not enter the kingdom; and she was too wise to countenance the impartial fathers of Trent, whose labours had nearly drawn to a close, and whose decisions on the controverted points it had never been very difficult to foretell. I have not found that Pius IV., more moderate than most other pontiffs of the sixteenth century, took any measures hostile to the temporal government of this realm: but the deprived ecclesiastics were not unfairly anxious to keep alive the faith of their former hearers, and to prevent them from sliding into conformity, through indifference and disuse of their ancient rites. The means taken were chiefly the same as had been adopted against themselves, the dispersion of small papers either in a serious or lively strain; but the remarkable position in which the queen was placed rendering her death a most important contingency, the popish party made use of pretended conjurations and prophecies of that event, in order to unsettle the people's minds, and to dispose them to anticipate another reaction. Partly through these political circumstances, but far more from the hard usage they experienced for professing their religion, there seems to have been an increasing restlessness among the catholics about 1562, which was met with new rigour by the parliament of that year.

§ 4. The act entitled, “for the assurance of the queen's royal power over all estates and subjects within her dominions," enacts, with an iniquitous and sanguinary retrospect, that all persons, who had ever taken holy orders or any degree in the universities, or had been admitted to the practice of the laws, or held any office in their execution, should be bound to take the oath of supremacy, when tendered to them by a bishop, or by commissioners appointed under the great seal. The penalty for the first refusal of this oath was that of a præmunire; but any person who, after the space of three months from the first tender, should again refuse it when in like manner tendered, incurred the pains of high treason. The oath of supremacy was imposed by the statute on every member of the House of Commons, but could not be tendered to a peer; the queen declaring her full confidence in those hereditary councillors. Several peers of great weight and dignity were still catholics.3

This harsh statute did not pass without opposition. Two speeches against it have been preserved; one by lord Montagu in the House of Lords, the other by Mr. Atkinson in the Commons, breathing such generous abhorrence of persecution as some erroneously imagine

* 5 Eliz. c. 1,