But, while we can hardly pronounce Mary's execution to have been so

wholly iniquitous and unwarrantable as it has been represented, it may

be admitted that a more generous nature than that of Elizabeth would not

have exacted the law's full penalty. The Queen of Scots' detention in

England was in violation of all natural, public, and municipal law; and

if reasons of state policy or precedents from the custom of princes are

allowed to extenuate this injustice, it is to be asked whether such

reasons and such precedents might not palliate the crime of

assassination imputed to her. Some might perhaps allege, as was so

frequently urged at the time, that if her life could be taken with

justice, it could not be spared in prudence; and that Elizabeth's higher

duty to preserve her people from the risks of civil commotion must

silence every feeling that could plead for mercy. Of this necessity

different judgments may perhaps be formed; it is evident that Mary's

death extinguished the best hope of popery in England: but the relative

force of the two religions was greatly changed since Norfolk's

conspiracy; and it appears to me that an act of parliament explicitly

cutting her off from the crown, and at the same time entailing it on her

son, would have afforded a very reasonable prospect of securing the

succession against all serious disturbance. But this neither suited the

inclination of Elizabeth, nor of some among those who surrounded her.

_Continued persecution of Roman catholics_.--As the catholics endured

without any open murmuring the execution of her on whom their fond hopes

had so long rested, so for the remainder of the queen's reign they by no

means appear, when considered as a body, to have furnished any specious

pretexts for severity. In that memorable year, when the dark cloud

gathered around our coasts, when Europe stood by in fearful suspense to

behold what should be the result of that great cast in the game of human

politics, what the craft of Rome, the power of Philip, the genius of

Farnese, could achieve against the island-queen with her Drakes and

Cecils--in that agony of the protestant faith and English name, they

stood the trial of their spirits without swerving from their allegiance.

It was then that the catholics in every county repaired to the standard

of the lord-lieutenant, imploring that they might not be suspected of

bartering the national independence for their religion itself. It was

then that the venerable Lord Montague brought a troop of horse to the

queen at Tilbury, commanded by himself, his son and grandson.[254] It

would have been a sign of gratitude if the laws depriving them of the

free exercise of their religion had been, if not repealed, yet suffered

to sleep, after these proofs of loyalty. But the execution of priests

and of other catholics became on the contrary more frequent, and the

fines for recusancy exacted as rigorously as before.[255] A statute was

enacted, restraining popish recusants, a distinctive name now first

imposed by law, to particular places of residence, and subjecting them

to other vexatious provisions.[256] All persons were forbidden, by

proclamation, to harbour any of whose conformity they were not

assured.[257] Some indulgence was doubtless shown during all Elizabeth's

reign to particular persons, and it was not unusual to release priests

from confinement; but such precarious and irregular connivance gave more

scandal to the puritans than comfort to the opposite party.

The catholic martyrs under Elizabeth amount to no inconsiderable number.

Dodd reckons them at 191; Milner has raised the list to 204. Fifteen of

these, according to him, suffered for denying the queen's supremacy, 126

for exercising their ministry, and the rest for being reconciled to the

Romish church. Many others died of hardships in prison, and many were

deprived of their property.[258] There seems nevertheless to be good

reason for doubting whether any one who was executed might not have

saved his life by explicitly denying the pope's power to depose the

queen. It was constantly maintained by her ministers, that no one had

been executed for his religion. This would be an odious and hypocritical

subterfuge, if it rested on the letter of these statutes, which adjudge

the mere manifestation of a belief in the Roman catholic religion, under

certain circumstances, to be an act of treason. But both Lord Burleigh,

in his _Execution of Justice_, and Walsingham in a letter published by

Burnet,[259] positively assert the contrary; and I am not aware that

their assertion has been disproved. This certainly furnishes a

distinction between the persecution under Elizabeth (which, unjust as it

was in its operation, yet as far as it extended to capital inflictions,

had in view the security of the government), and that which the

protestants had sustained in her sister's reign, springing from mere

bigotry and vindictive rancour, and not even shielding itself at the

time with those shallow pretexts of policy which it has of late been

attempted to set up in its extenuation. But that which renders these

condemnations of popish priests so iniquitous, is, that the belief in,

or rather the refusal to disclaim, a speculative tenet, dangerous indeed

and incompatible with loyalty, but not coupled with any overt act, was

construed into treason; nor can any one affect to justify these

sentences, who is not prepared to maintain that a refusal of the oath of

abjuration, while the pretensions of the house of Stuart subsisted,

might lawfully or justly have incurred the same penalty.[260]

An apology was always deduced for these measures, whether of restriction

or punishment, adopted against all adherents to the Roman church, from

the restless activity of that new militia which the holy see had lately

organised. The mendicant orders established in the thirteenth century

had lent former popes a powerful aid towards subjecting both the laity

and the secular priesthood, by their superior learning and ability,

their emulous zeal, their systematic concert, their implicit obedience.

But in all these requisites for good and faithful janissaries of the

church, they were far excelled by the new order of Ignatius Loyola.

Rome, I believe, found in their services what has stayed her fall. They

contributed in a very material degree to check the tide of the

reformation. Subtle alike and intrepid, pliant in their direction,

unshaken in their aim, the sworn, implacable, unscrupulous enemies of

protestant governments, the jesuits were a legitimate object of jealousy

and restraint. As every member of that society enters into an engagement

of absolute, unhesitating obedience to its superior, no one could justly

complain that he was presumed capable at least of committing any crimes

that the policy of his monarch might enjoin. But if the jesuits by their

abilities and busy spirit of intrigue promoted the interests of Rome,

they raised up enemies by the same means to themselves within the bosom

of the church; and became little less obnoxious to the secular clergy,

and to a great proportion of the laity, than to the protestants whom

they were commissioned to oppose. Their intermeddling character was

shown in the very prisons occupied by catholic recusants, where a schism

broke out between the two parties, and the secular priests loudly

complained of their usurping associates.[261] This was manifestly

connected with the great problem of allegiance to the queen, which the

one side being always ready to pay, did not relish the sharp usage it

endured on account of the other's disaffection. The council indeed gave

some signs of attending to this distinction, by a proclamation issued in

1602, ordering all priests to depart from the kingdom, unless they

should come in and acknowledge their allegiance, with whom the queen

would take further order.[262] Thirteen priests came forward on this,

with a declaration of allegiance as full as could be devised. Some of

the more violent papists blamed them for this; and the Louvain divines

concurred in the censure.[263] There were now two parties among the

English catholics; and those who, goaded by the sense of long

persecution, and inflamed by obstinate bigotry, regarded every heretical

government as unlawful or unworthy of obedience, used every machination

to deter the rest from giving any test of their loyalty. These were the

more busy, but by much the less numerous class; and their influence was

mainly derived from the law's severity, which they had braved or endured

with fortitude. It is equally candid and reasonable to believe that, if

a fair and legal toleration, or even a general connivance at the

exercise of their worship, had been conceded in the first part of

Elizabeth's reign, she would have spared herself those perpetual terrors

of rebellion which occupied all her later years. Rome would not indeed

have been appeased, and some desperate fanatic might have sought her

life; but the English catholics collectively would have repaid her

protection by an attachment, which even her rigour seems not wholly to

have prevented.

It is not to be imagined that an entire unanimity prevailed in the

councils of this reign as to the best mode of dealing with the adherents

of Rome. Those temporary connivances or remissions of punishment, which,

though to our present view they hardly lighten the shadows of this

persecution, excited loud complaints from bigoted men, were owing to the

queen's personal humour, or the influence of some advisers more liberal

than the rest. Elizabeth herself seems always to have inclined rather to

indulgence than extreme severity. Sir Christopher Hatton, for some years

her chief favourite, incurred odium for his lenity towards papists, and

was, in their own opinion, secretly inclined to them.[264] Whitgift

found enough to do with an opposite party. And that too noble and

high-minded spirit, so ill fitted for a servile and dissembling court,

the Earl of Essex, was the consistent friend of religious liberty,

whether the catholic or the puritan were to enjoy it. But those

counsellors, on the other hand, who favoured the more precise reformers,

and looked coldly on the established church, never failed to

demonstrate their protestantism by excessive harshness towards the old

religion's adherents. That bold bad man, whose favour is the great

reproach of Elizabeth's reign, the Earl of Leicester, and the sagacious,

disinterested, inexorable Walsingham, were deemed the chief advisers of

sanguinary punishments. But, after their deaths, the catholics were

mortified to discover that Lord Burleigh, from whom they had hoped for

more moderation, persisted in the same severities; contrary, I think, to

the principles he had himself laid down in the paper from which I have

above made some extracts.[265]

The restraints and penalties, by which civil governments have at various

times thought it expedient to limit the religious liberties of their

subjects, may be arranged in something like the following scale. The

first and slightest degree is the requisition of a test of conformity to

the established religion, as the condition of exercising offices of

civil trust. The next step is to restrain the free promulgation of

opinions, especially through the press. All prohibitions of the open

exercise of religious worship appear to form a third, and more severe,

class of restrictive laws. They become yet more rigorous, when they

afford no indulgence to the most private and secret acts of devotion or

expressions of opinion. Finally, the last stage of persecution is to

enforce by legal penalties a conformity to the established church, or an

abjuration of heterodox tenets.

The first degree in this classification, or the exclusion of dissidents

from trust and power, though it be always incumbent on those who

maintain it to prove its necessity, may, under certain rare

circumstances, be conducive to the political well-being of a state; and

can then only be reckoned an encroachment on the principles of

toleration, when it ceases to produce a public benefit sufficient to

compensate for the privation it occasions to its objects. Such was the

English Test Act during the interval between 1672 and 1688. But, in my

judgment, the instances which the history of mankind affords, where even

these restrictions have been really consonant to the soundest policy,

are by no means numerous. Cases may also be imagined, where the free

discussion of controverted doctrines might for a time at least be

subjected to some limitation for the sake of public tranquillity. I can

scarcely conceive the necessity of restraining an open exercise of

religious rites in any case, except that of glaring immorality. In no

possible case can it be justifiable for the temporal power to

intermeddle with the private devotions or doctrines of any man. But

least of all, can it carry its inquisition into the heart's recesses,

and bend the reluctant conscience to an insincere profession of truth,

or extort from it an acknowledgment of error, for the purpose of

inflicting punishment. The statutes of Elizabeth's reign comprehend

every one of these progressive degrees of restraint and persecution. And

it is much to be regretted that any writers worthy of respect should,

either through undue prejudice against an adverse religion, or through

timid acquiescence in whatever has been enacted, have offered for this

odious code the false pretext of political necessity. That necessity, I

am persuaded, can never be made out: the statutes were, in many

instances, absolutely unjust; in others, not demanded by circumstances;

in almost all, prompted by religious bigotry, by excessive apprehension,

or by the arbitrary spirit with which our government was administered

under Elizabeth.

FOOTNOTES:

[155] Elizabeth was much suspected of a concern in the conspiracy of

1554, which was more extensive than appeared from Wyatt's insurrection,

and had in view the placing her on the throne, with the Earl of

Devonshire for her husband. Wyatt indeed at his execution acquitted her;

but as he said as much for Devonshire, who is proved by the letters of

Noailles to have been engaged, his testimony is of less value. Nothing,

however, appears in these letters, I believe, to criminate Elizabeth.

Her life was saved, against the advice of the imperial court, and of

their party in the cabinet, especially Lord Paget, by Gardiner,

according to Dr. Lingard, writing on the authority of Renard's

despatches. Burnet, who had no access to that source of information,

imagines Gardiner to have been her most inveterate enemy. She was even

released from prison for the time, though soon afterwards detained

again, and kept in custody, as is well known, for the rest of this

reign. Her inimitable dissimulation was all required to save her from

the penalties of heresy and treason. It appears by the memoir of the

Venetian ambassador, in 1557 (Lansdowne MSS. 840), as well as from the

letters of Noailles, that Mary was desirous to change the succession,

and would have done so, had it not been for Philip's reluctance, and the

impracticability of obtaining the consent of parliament. Though of a

dissembling character, she could not conceal the hatred she bore to one

who brought back the memory of her mother's and her own wrongs;

especially when she saw all eyes turned towards the successor, and felt

that the curse of her own barrenness was to fall on her beloved

religion. Elizabeth had been not only forced to have a chapel in her

house, and to give all exterior signs of conformity, but to protest on

oath her attachment to the catholic faith; though Hume, who always loves

a popular story, gives credence to the well known verses ascribed to

her, in order to elude a declaration of her opinion on the sacrament.

The inquisitors of that age were not so easily turned round by an

equivocal answer. Yet Elizabeth's faith was constantly suspected.

"Accresce oltro questo l'odio," says the Venetian, "il sapere che sia

aliena dalla religione presente, per essere non pur nata, ma dotta ed

allevata nell' altra, che se bene con la esteriore ha mostrato, e mostra

di essersi ridotta, vivendo cattolicamente, pure e opinione che

dissimuli e nell' interiore la ritenga piu che mai."

[156] Elizabeth ascended the throne November 17, 1558. On the 5th of

December Mary was buried; and on this occasion White, bishop of

Winchester, in preaching her funeral sermon, spoke with virulence

against the protestant exiles, and expressed apprehension of their

return. Burnet, iii. 272. Directions to read part of the service in

English, and forbidding the elevation of the host, were issued prior to

the proclamation of December 27, against innovations without authority.

The great seal was taken from Archbishop Heath early in January, and

given to Sir Nicholas Bacon. Parker was pitched upon to succeed Pole at

Canterbury in the preceding month. From the dates of these and other

facts, it may be fairly inferred that Elizabeth's resolution was formed

independently of the pope's behaviour towards Sir Edward Karn; though

that might probably exasperate her against the adherents of the Roman

see, and make their religion appear more inconsistent with their civil

allegiance. If, indeed, the refusal of the bishops to officiate at her

coronation (January 14, 1558-9) were founded in any degree on Paul IV.'s

denial of her title, it must have seemed in that age within a

hair's-breadth of high treason. But it more probably arose from her

order that the host should not be elevated, which in truth was not

legally to be justified. Mass was said, however, at her coronation; so

that she seems to have dispensed with this prohibition.

[157] See a paper by Cecil on the best means of reforming religion,

written at this time with all his cautious wisdom, in Burnet, or in

Strype's _Annals of the Reformation_, or in the _Somers Tracts_.

[158] _Parl. Hist._ vol. i. p. 394. In the reign of Edward, a prayer had

been inserted in the liturgy to deliver us "from the Bishop of Rome and

all his detestable enormities." This was now struck out; and, what was

more acceptable to the nation, the words used in distributing the

elements were so contrived by blending the two forms successively

adopted under Edward, as neither to offend the popish or Lutheran, nor

the Zuinglian communicant. A rubric directed against the doctrine of the

real or corporal presence was omitted. This was replaced after the

restoration. Burnet owns that the greater part of the nation still

adhered to this tenet though it was not the opinion of the rulers of the

church. ii. 390, 406.

[159] Burnet; Strype's _Annals_, 169. Pensions were reserved for those

who quitted their benefices on account of religion. Burnet, ii. 398.

This was a very liberal measure, and at the same time a politic check on

their conduct. Lingard thinks the number must have been much greater;

but the visitors' reports seem the best authority. It is however highly

probable that others resigned their preferments afterwards, when the

casuistry of their church grew more scrupulous. It may be added, that

the visitors restored the married clergy who had been dispossessed in

the preceding reign; which would of course considerably augment the

number of sufferers for popery.

[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.

[252] Questions were put to civilians by the queen's order in 1570,

concerning the extent of Lesley, Bishop of Ross's privilege, as Mary's

ambassador. _Murden Papers_, p. 18; _Somers Tracts_, i. 186. They

answered, first, that an ambassador that raises rebellion against the

prince to whom he is sent, by the law of nations, and the civil law of

the Romans, has forfeited the privileges of an ambassador, and is liable

to punishment: secondly, that if a prince be lawfully deposed from his

public authority, and another substituted in his stead, the agent of

such a prince cannot challenge the privileges of an ambassador; since

none but absolute princes, and such as enjoy a royal prerogative, can

constitute ambassadors. These questions are so far curious, that they

show the _jus gentium_ to have been already reckoned in matter of

science, in which a particular class of lawyers was conversant.

[253] Strype, 360, 362. Civilians were consulted about the legality of

trying Mary. _Idem_, Append. 138.

[254] Butler's _English Catholics_, i. 259; Hume. This is strongly

confirmed by a letter printed not long after, and republished in the

Harleian _Miscellany_, vol. i. p. 142, with the name of one Leigh, a

seminary priest, but probably the work of some protestant. He says, "for

contributions of money, and for all other warlike actions, there was no

difference between the catholic and the heretic. But in this case [of

the Armada] to withstand the threatened conquest, yea, to defend the

person of the queen, there appeared such a sympathy, concourse, and

consent of all sorts of persons, without respect of religion, as they

all appeared to be ready to fight against all strangers as it were with

one heart and one body." Notwithstanding this, I am far from thinking

that it would have been safe to place the catholics, generally speaking,

in command. Sir William Stanley's recent treachery in giving up Deventer

to the Spaniards made it unreasonable for them to complain of exclusion

from trust. Nor do I know that they did so. But trust and toleration are

two different things. And even with respect to the former, I believe it

far better to leave the matter in the hands of the executive government,

which will not readily suffer itself to be betrayed, than to proscribe,

as we have done, whole bodies by a legislative exclusion. Whenever,

indeed, the government itself is not to be trusted, there arises a new

condition of the problem.

[255] Strype, vols. iii. and iv. _passim_; _Life of Whitgift_, 401, 505;

Murden, 667; Birch's _Memoirs of Elizabeth_, Lingard, etc. One hundred

and ten catholics suffered death between 1588 and 1603. Lingard, 513.

[256] 33 Eliz. c. 2.

[257] Camden, 566; Strype, iv. 56. This was the declaration of October

1591, which Andreas Philopater answered. Ribadeneira also inveighs

against it. According to them, its publication was delayed till after

the death of Hatton, when the persecuting part of the queen's council

gained the ascendency.

[258] Butler, 178. In Coke's famous speech in opening the case of the

Powder-plot, he says that not more than thirty priests and five

receivers had been executed in the whole of the queen's reign, and for

religion not any one. _State Trials_, ii. 179.

Dr. Lingard says of those who were executed between 1588, and the

queen's death, "The butchery, with a few exceptions, was performed on

the victim while he was in full possession of his senses." Vol. viii. p.

356. I should be glad to think that the few exceptions were the other

way. Much would depend on the humanity of the sheriff, which one might

hope to be stronger in an English gentleman than his zeal against

popery. But I cannot help acknowledging that there is reason to believe

the disgusting cruelties of the legal sentence to have been frequently

inflicted. In an anonymous memorial among Lord Burleigh's papers,

written about 1586, it is recommended that priests persisting in their

treasonable opinion should be hanged, "and the manner of drawing and

quartering forborne." Strype, iii. 620. This seems to imply that it had

been usually practised on the living. And Lord Bacon, in his

observations on a libel written against Lord Burleigh in 1592, does not

deny the "bowellings" of catholics; but makes a sort of apology for it,

as "less cruel than the wheel or forcipation, or even simple burning."

Bacon's Works, vol. i. p. 534.

[259] Burnet, ii. 418.

[260] "Though no papists were in this reign put to death purely on

account of their religion, as numberless protestants had been in the

woeful days of Queen Mary, yet many were executed for treason."

Churton's _Life of Nowell_, p. 147. Mr. Southey, whose abandonment of

the oppressed side I sincerely regret, holds the same language; and a

later writer, Mr. Townsend, in his _Accusations of History against the

Church of Rome_, has laboured to defend the capital, as well as other,

punishments of catholics under Elizabeth, on the same pretence of their

treason.

Treason, by the law of England, and according to the common use of

language, is the crime of rebellion or conspiracy against the

government. If a statute is made, by which the celebration of certain

religious rites is subjected to the same penalties as rebellion or

conspiracy, would any man, free from prejudice, and not designing to

impose upon the uninformed, speak of persons convicted on such a statute

as guilty of treason, without expressing in what sense he uses the

words, or deny that they were as truly punished for their religion, as

if they had been convicted of heresy? A man is punished for religion,

when he incurs a penalty for its profession or exercise, to which he was

not liable on any other account.

This is applicable to the great majority of capital convictions on this

score under Elizabeth. The persons convicted could not be traitors in

any fair sense of the word, because they were not charged with anything

properly denominated treason. It certainly appears that Campian and some

other priests about the same time were indicted on the statute of Edward

III. for compassing the queen's death, or intending to depose her. But

the only evidence, so far as we know or have reason to suspect, that

could be brought against them, was their own admission, at least by

refusing to abjure it, of the pope's power to depose heretical princes.

I suppose it is unnecessary to prove that, without some overt act to

show a design of acting upon this principle, it could not fall within

the statute.

[261] Watson's _Quodlibets_. True relation of the faction begun at

Wisbech, 1601. These tracts contain rather an uninteresting account of

the squabbles in Wisbech castle among the prisoners, but cast heavy

reproaches on the jesuits, as the "firebrands of all sedition, seeking

by right or wrong simply or absolutely the monarchy of all England,

enemies to all secular priests, and the causes of all the discord in the

English nation."--P. 74. I have seen several other pamphlets of the time

relating to this difference. Some account of it may be found in Camden,

648, and Strype, iv. 194, as well as in the catholic historians, Dodd

and Lingard.

[262] Rymer, xv. 473, 488.

[263] Butler's _Engl. Catholics_, p. 261.

[264] Ribadeneira says, that Hatton, "animo Catholicus, nihil perinde

quam innocentem illorum sanguinem adeo crudeliter perfundi dolebat." He

prevented Cecil from promulgating a more atrocious edict than any other,

which was published after his death in 1591. _De Schismate Anglic._ c.

9. This must have been the proclamation of 29th Nov. 1591, forbidding

all persons to harbour any one, of whose conformity they should not be

well assured.

[265] Birch, i. 84.