CHAPTER V.

Jesuits in England.-Campion.-Increased severities against Papists.-Expedition to the Netherlands.-Leicester in the Netherlands.-Death of Sir Philip Sidney.-Naval successes under Drake.-Babington's conspiracy.-Trial of the conspirators Alleged complicity of Mary in the plot.-Mary's papers seized.—She is removed to Fotheringay Castle.

FROM the terrible day of Saint Bartholomew in 1572, to the detection of the conspiracy against the life of Elizabeth in 1586, the struggles between the two great principles of Romanism and Protestantism was incessant in England. The government was earnestly supported in this contest by what was now a large majority of its subjects; for although the opinions of the Puritans had be come a serious source of alarm to the Established Church, this party never swerved from a general loyalty to the queen, even under persecution. We shall defer, till another chapter, a general notice of this Protestant schism; and here confine ourselves to a rapid view of the events in which the hostility between the old and new religions was the principal element.

In 1580, the pope, Gregory XIII., at the suggestion of William Allen, despatched a body of Jesuits to England. The mission of these religious enthusiasts was to attempt the re-conversion of the heretic islanders. They were led and organised by Robert Parsons and Edmond Campion, who had formerly belonged to colleges in Oxford, and had been avowed Protestants before their conversion to Romanism. Out of the college of Douay, in which Campion was professor of divinity, came many of those ardent spirits who professed to interpret the bull of Pius V. against Elizabeth in a purely religious sense, but who, nevertheless, were not regarded by the English government as other than secret and most dangerous traitors. The parliament of 1581 met this inroad of able Englishmen, trained in the school of Loyola to extraordinary subtlety and invincible determination, by the most stringent enactments. The first Act of the session of the 23rd of Elizabeth recites that the Statute against bringing in bulls and writings from Rome has been evaded; and that "divers evil-affected persons have practised contrary to the meaning of the said statute, by other means than by

JESUITS IN ENGLAND.CAMPION.

99 bulls written and printed, to withdraw the queen's majesty's subjects from their natural obedience to her majesty," &c. This is distinctly levelled against those who interpreted the decrees of the see of Rome through their oral communications; who, invested with especial authority, moved quietly about from town to town, and from village to village; who were cherished and concealed in mansions where they were cautiously introduced to persons of wavering opinions. The statute makes it a treasonable offence to pretend to any power of absolving subjects from their obedience, or practising to withdraw them to the Romish religion; and all subjects thus willingly absolved or withdrawn from their obedience were also to be deemed traitors. Those who said mass or attended mass, and those who did not attend church, were subject to heavy penalties. The proceedings against Campion and others are such as strikingly exhibit the unfairness and cruelty of trials for treason, as then con ducted. Campion was arrested in Berkshire, in July, 1581; and was lodged in the Tower with two other priests. He was tortured; and revealed the names of those who had sheltered him. He was questioned, again and again, upon the power of the pope to depose sovereigns, and, his answers being evasive, he was racked with increased severity. Finally, he was tried for hightreason, not under the statute of 1581, but under that of Edward HI., for compassing and imagining the queen's death. Others were tried and convicted with him; but three were spared, who renounced the pope's deposing power. It was a principle of the Jesuits that the pope had an undoubted right to deprive kings of their crowns. The Romanist exiles had proclaimed throughout Europe that the heretic Elizabeth was an usurper. The English government rested its defence of the severities which it had prac tised, upon the ground that the persecutions were not directed against religious tenets; that catholics, whether of the laity or the priesthood, lived unmolested on the score of their faith, when they paid due temporal allegiance to their sovereign; and that none were indicted for treason but such as obstinately maintained the pope's bull depriving the queen of the crown. Gregory XIII. had opened the door to evasion of this charge, by granting to Romanists a permission to dissemble, under the colour of an explanation, "that the bull should be considered as always in force against Elizabeth and the heretics, but should only be binding on catholics when due execution of it could be had: "—that is, that they should obey till

Hallam, "Constitutional History."

they were strong enough to throw off their allegiance. The queen's High Court of Commission would not accept this interpretation : "The prisoners were called upon to say, if the pope were to absolve them from their oath of allegiance, and to attack England, what they should do, and which side they should support. The miserable frightened men knew not how to extricate themselves from this dilemma. They answered that they would render unto God what was God's and unto Cæsar what was Cæsar's; but this evasion was itself interpreted into a confession by their judges. Thus the prisons were filled; execution followed upon execution; and Catholicism, in its turn, had its martyrs." The severities of the

laws against papists went on increasing. In 1584, all Jesuits, seminary priests, and other priests, were commanded by Act of parliament, to depart from the kingdom within forty days, on pain of being adjudged traitors; and penalties were to be inflicted upon those who, knowing any priest to be within the realm, should not denounce him to a magistrate. These intolerant enactments produced the very opposite consequences that were contemplated by the legislature. It was probably difficult to restrain the zealotry of some of the more fiery Protestants. In a memorial to the queen in 1583, Burleigh thus sensibly speaks of the results of enforcing penal laws against such as refused the oath of supremacy: "I ac count that putting to death does no ways lessen them; since we find by experience that it worketh no such effect, but, like hydra's heads, upon cutting off one, seven grow up; persecution being accounted as the badge of the church: and, therefore, they should never have the honour to take any pretence of martyrdom in England, where the fulness of blood and greatness of heart is such, that they will even for shameful things go bravely to death, much more when they think themselves to climb to heaven; and this vice of obstinacy seems to the common people a divine constancy; so that for my part, I wish no lessening of their number, but by preaching and by education of the younger under schoolmasters." + The reign of Elizabeth was, happily for the progress of the country, singularly exempt from foreign wars. Her policy was of the most cautious nature; involving upon the face of it some insincerity. In her relations to France and to Spain, when the governments were oppressing their Protestant subjects, she abs stained, except in 1562, from sending troops to the assistance of those with whom she was identified in principle. But indirect aid

Ranke, vol. ii. 168.

↑ Quoted in Hallam, chap. iii.

EXPEDITION TO THE NETHERLANDS.

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she on many occasions afforded. Thus, in 1577, she had assisted the revolted provinces of the Netherlands, whose commissioners had, in 1575, offered her the sovereignty, which she declined to accept. But ten years later it had become of essential importance to England to weaken the power of Philip of Spain, by keeping alive the cause of independence and religious freedom in the Low Countries. The assassination of the prince of Orange in 1584, by a religious fanatic, excited by the reward which Philip II. had set upon his head, had produced a fierce indignation in England against the bigoted king of Spain. The schemes of Philip and pope Sixtus V. for the invasion of the contumacious island were no longer concealed. The Jesuits and seminary priests had been steadily endeavouring to weaken whatever spirit of patriotism remained amongst the English catholics. It was a wise resolve, therefore, of Elizábeth's government to break through that superstitious love of peace which influenced the queen, and boldly encounter Philip on his own ground. Elizabeth was very slow to consent to engage in a war in the Netherlands. To support subjects against their sovereign, appeared to her as treason against the rights of monarchs. The democratic government of the United Provinces was to her an anomaly which she held in scorn. Above all, she dreaded, and wisely, expenses which would fall heavily upon her people. But her old sagacious counsellor, Burleigh, the acute Walsingham, and the favourite Leicester, prevailed over her scruples, and an expedition was determined upon at the end of 1585. Burleigh, writing to Leicester, who was appointed to its command, says, "For the avancement of the action, if I should not with all the powers of my heart continually both wish and work avancement thereto, I were to be an accursed person in the sight of God; considering the ends of this action-tend to the glory of God, to the safety of the queen's person, to the preservation of this realm in a perpetual quietness." Elizabeth had again declined the sovereignty which had been again offered her by the commissioners of the States; and she now instructed Leicester also to refuse their offer to put themselves under the absolute control of the lieutenant she should send with her army, but to exhort them to listen to his advice. The extreme eagerness of the ambitious earl to undertake this command, offering even to pawn his estates to the Crown to cover some of the expenses of the undertaking, seems to indicate that he had personal designs upon that sovereignty which his queen had rejected. On

"Leycester Correspondence," p. 21.

the 10th December, the English fleet was near Flushing. Leicester was received with pageantries which appear to have thrown him off that balance which it was somewhat hazardous for one of Elizabeth's ministers to lose. On New Year's Day, 1586, the States General, by a solemn deputation, offered the queen of England's lieutenant the absolute government of the United Provinces. He first hesitated, then yielded to further supplications, and on the 25th of January accepted the dangerous honour. On that day, a letter was written to him expressive of the queen's dislike of his proceedings. He had sent his secretary with explanations, but his arrival was unaccountably delayed. Then the queen herself wrote a letter to the earl, which is one of the most remarkable examples of that force of character which she frequently displayed in the nervous words of her correspondence. There was no chance of mistaking the meaning of such sentences as these: "We could never have imagined, had we not seen it fall out in experience, that a man raised up by ourself, and extraordinarily favoured by us above any other subject of this land, would have in so contemptible a sort broken our commandment in a cause that so greatly toucheth us in honour. Our express pleasure and commandment is, that all delays and excuses laid apart, you do presently, upon the duty of your allegiance, obey and fulfil whatsoever the bearer hereof shall direct you to do in our name; whereof fail you not, as you will answer the contrary at your uttermost peril." * One who could thus write might not be an amiable mistress to serve; but she was a queen fit to be at the head of a great nation. She had sent an army to assist the people of the Low Countries to maintain their civil privileges and their religious faith against Philip and against Rome; and was she to contradict her own published declarations? was her servant to disobey her positive instructions? It was very long before the anger of the queen could be softened. She withdrew from her first intention to compel Leicester publicly to lay down his authority, but she restricted its exercise in many ways which were irksome to so proud a man. The war was altogether mismanaged. The prince of Parma, who commanded the troops of Spain, was an experienced general. Leicester was always hesitating; sometimes successful through the bravery of his captains; but gradually losing fortress after fortress, and obtaining petty advantages with no permanent results. There was one in his

"To my lord of Leycester from the queen by Sir Thomas Heneage," "Leycester Correspondence," p. 110.