When Queen Mary died in 1558, the last of Henry VIII’s children became queen – Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn. Until this time Elizabeth’s life had often been both hard and insecure. After her father had executed her mother he paid his young daughter little attention, and during her sister Mary’s reign she knew that her position was very precarious. Anyone who disagreed with or disliked Mary was likely to see Elizabeth as a good alternative. Mary knew this, and Elizabeth knew that Mary knew it. She knew that if a rebellion broke out with the aim of making her queen instead of her sister – whether or not she gave it any encouragement – she was likely to suffer the same fate as Lady Jane Grey and her own mother. For much of Mary’s reign Elizabeth was kept as a prisoner under house arrest.
When she became queen Elizabeth’s main aim was to make her situation as secure as possible, and one of the first decisions she had to take was what to do about the English Church. Should it remain Catholic and in obedience to Rome, or should it be Protestant and independent from the Pope? Elizabeth’s decision was that the Church of England should again be as it had been under her brother Edward VI – Protestant, with services in English. In 1559 her government passed new Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, making it compulsory to acknowledge the queen as the head of the Church and to attend Church of England services. All but one of the bishops who had served under Queen Mary refused to take the Oath of Supremacy (a promise of allegiance to Elizabeth as the head of the Church) and probably around three hundred priests lost their jobs. In practice, though, most people muddled through. Some had no sympathy with the Catholic Church and were glad to see the changes, others were indifferent, and many simply made the best of them, continuing with Catholic practices and attending Mass where possible, while still also attending the Church of England. These people became known as “Church-Papists”, and it is thought that William Shakespeare and his father may have belonged to this group. A small but significant number refused to attend the Church of England and paid a weekly fine instead. These were known as “recusancy” fines, and the Catholics who paid them became known as “recusants”.
Elizabeth does not seem to have been particularly anti-Catholic, so long as Catholics did not make any trouble – if anything she seems to have disliked extreme Protestants more. It may be that everything would have muddled along in the same way for much longer, but an outside event changed the situation dramatically. In 1570 Pope St.Pius V officially excommunicated Queen Elizabeth. He declared her to be a heretic and announced that Catholics were no longer obliged to obey her as their queen. To make things worse only a few months before this a failed rebellion had taken place in the north of England during which the rebels had Mass said in Durham Cathedral. It now seemed both to Elizabeth and to many of her subjects that Catholics were not just disobedient in religion, but also dangerous traitors. Although the majority of Catholics wanted simply to remain as loyal subjects while practicing their religion, they were distrusted, particularly as England was soon at war with Catholic Spain. Perhaps the Catholics who refused to attend their parish church were Spanish spies? Maybe they were plotting to kill the queen and replace her with a Spanish king? And as for Catholic priests – in twenty first century language, any Catholic priest was considered to be a potential terrorist, who could be planning to strike at any time.
Step after step the laws against Catholics were tightened. Recusancy fines were increased from twelve pence to twenty pounds*. Any priest found in England was to be found automatically guilty of treason and would receive the death penalty. It was also made a capital offence to shelter a priest. Various other restrictions were imposed on Catholics. In practice, the laws were often not enforced, or were enforced only half-heartedly. It was even known for Catholic priests who had been arrested to turn prisons into Mass centres before being thrown out of the country. These were the lucky ones. At other times and in other places the laws were imposed more harshly, and in 1577 St.Cuthbert Mayne became the first of one hundred and twenty three English Catholic priests to be martyred in Elizabeth’s reign.
Where did these heroic priests come from? Some were older men who had been priests in Mary’s reign. Others were “mission” priests, Englishmen who went abroad to train for work in England. In 1568 a Catholic college was founded at Douai in France by Cardinal William Allen to educate English Catholics. By the mid-1570s there were around two hundred and forty students at Douai, and it was here that the famous Douai translation of the Bible into English was made – a translation that remained in common use by English-speaking Catholics for four hundred years. In 1576 the English College was set up in Rome, and others were founded in Spain. As well as secular priests these colleges trained English Jesuits (members of the new Society of Jesus founded in 1534 by St. Ignatius Loyola). Of the missionary priests sent back to work in England, around half were arrested, and half of these were put to death. You will read the stories of some of these men in the next chapter.
* Twelve pence made up one shilling, and twenty shillings made up one pound. Fines had therefore increased by 4000%.
PRAYER: Come Lord Jesus quickly, and judge betwixt us and our Adversaries, and in the meantime give patience, comfort, and constancy to all that suffer for Thy name, and trust in Thee. Lord God our only helper and protector, tarry not long. Amen. (Prayer included at the end of the Douay-Rheims New Testament)
FEAST DAYS:
St. Cuthbert Mayne – 29 November
TIMELINE:
St. Cuthbert Mayne: b.1544, d.1577
Cardinal William Allen: b.1532, d.1594 – priest and theologian, effectively leader of the English Church in exile
1559 Elizabethan Settlement re-establishes the Church of England
1570 Pope Pius V releases English Catholics from their allegiance to Queen Elizabeth
1577 St. Cuthbert Mayne becomes first Catholic priest to be put to death
1601 Death of Queen Elizabeth I
HISTORICAL NOTE:
Douai College remained until it was forced to close at the end of the eighteenth century by the French Revolution. The English College in Rome still educates English priests today.
© Kathryn Faulkner 2005. All rights reserved.