Whether or not Mary was a ‘real’ threat, it is clear that throughout the time of her presence in England, from her arrival in 1568 to her execution in 1587, the threat she posed was perceived to be very real.
This perceived threat is well presented through the occurrence of the Northern Rebellion in 1569.
Prompted by the arrival of Mary, there was a conspiracy to marry Mary to the Duke of Norfolk. The marriage would secure Mary’s claim to the English throne and then Mary could attempt to usurp the throne from Elizabeth and restore England to Catholicism. The Earls of Leicester, Northumberland and West Morland were all involved and to an extent De Spes, the Spanish ambassador. On discovering the plot to usurp Elizabeth, the Privy council ordered the execution of Norfolk and Elizabeth fought to remove Mary from England and restore her to her rightful place on the Scottish throne.
Here the threat is not only religious, but also political as many of the Earls that were involved were using the rebellion for selfish needs and their lack of status and wealth was what had sparked them into rebellion. Therefore, we can argue the significance of the threat posed by the Northern rebellion from both sides of the coin. On the one hand, this was only a perceived and merely potential threat as the governmental reaction was so swift in dealing with the participants and never resulted in any change to Elizabeth’s prestige. There was also little enthusiastic support from English Catholics for the rebellion. However on the other hand, on this occasion only, troops had to be used by Elizabeth to defer the rebels, not only this but the support from the nobility was a very significant threat as their own reasons behind rebellion were not purely religious and so Elizabeth had to be careful to tactfully suppress the nobles power and control to prevent further and potentially more successful rebellions in the future.
There were four main groups of Catholics within England during Elizabeth’s reign and each group posed it’s own threat to Elizabeth. Church Papists were the majority of the Catholics in England, this group was loyal to Elizabeth and accepted her as Head of the Church but were conservative and disliked radical change. They were not a serious threat to Elizabeth and were happy to outwardly conform, as long as, Elizabeth recognised their private worship. Recusants made up 1/3 of the nobility and a sizeable section of the gentry. Recusants were a slightly more extreme branch of Catholicism, than Church Papists, they refused to attend Church services and withdrew themselves completely from the established Church. Although there was no immediate threat posed to Elizabeth by the recusants, their potential threat was high due to their secrecy and the fact that the nobility and gentry were able to pay any fines put in place by Elizabeth to stop recusants. The most extreme branches of Catholicism arrived in England during the 1570’s these were trained priests set up by Philip II in Flanders. The seminary priests, as they were known, were taught to work in England to bring people’s souls back to salvation through Catholicism. Although they were determined to disestablish Protestantism within England, in reality they never did. The seminary priests were a limited threat mainly due to the ease with which they were dealt with, but the potential threat they posed to Elizabeth was very real, due to their extreme views and willingness to martyrdom. The Jesuit priests that were active in England during the 1580’s were the most extreme branch of Catholicism and swore an oath of allegiance to the Pope. They believed that the Catholic community should listen primarily to the Pope and that they should separate themselves from the established Church. Due to their unwillingness to compromise, willingness to martyrdom and their foreign support, the Jesuits can be considered a significant threat to Elizabeth although there were few of them the minorities still needed to be watched.
Overall singularly the Catholic groups did not pose significant threat to Elizabeth, but working collectively as Catholics, the threat they posed was significant mainly due to their secrecy, extreme views and willingness to die for their faith.
From 1570 onwards Elizabeth and her government were becoming increasingly intolerant of Catholics and increasingly aware of the threat they posed to Elizabeth’s reign. There policies became much more harsh towards Catholics after the Papal Bull of Excommunication was issued by the Pope in 1570. The papal bull was supposed to spur Catholics into action against Elizabeth, but in actuality it was of no significant threat because it was poorly publicised, this was also probably due to the fact that in 1571 it was made treason to deny Elizabeth as Queen, to publish the papal bull and anyone who fled England forfeited there property to the state. Elizabeth was clever to bring about the treason acts of 1571, as she managed to change a religious issue into a political one, so more could be done to punish the rebels. By 1581 it became treason to try to convert anyone to Catholicism and there were fines imposed on those hearing or saying mass. Throughout the 1580’s the government brought in many new acts, such as that, of the act against Seminary and Jesuit priests in 1585, it became a treasonable offence to be ordained by the Pope’s authority and anyone helping priests would also suffer death. The government’s determination to crush Catholicism resulted in the death of 39 priests.
In conclusion, although it would at first seem that the Catholic threat was indeed significant, it is important to remember that Catholics never really gained enthusiastic support from within England because Elizabeth’s government eventually made it impossible to do so. Catholic support was never fully received from foreign powers either, due to wars in their own countries, there is also evidence of this in foreign reactions to Mary’s execution in 1587 and after Mary’s execution there was never a rebellion during Elizabeth’s reign again. It is evident that the Catholic threat was indeed more significant than that of the Puritans but that is due to the settlement being more adhered to Protestantism and the fact that the Catholics were willing to die for their beliefs, however, there were only 39 recorded deaths of Catholic priests, so in actuality were the cries of martyrdom real on merely a mechanism of intimidation. Therefore, I would conclude that on the one hand the Catholic threat was merely a perceived threat and never gained enough Catholic support or leeway from the government to ever develop into anything more than an ideology for England, but on the other hand it is essential to understand, that to Elizabeth and her government at the time the Catholics posed a very significant and real threat due to its spread through the nobility and the government reaction from early reign leniency to later reign ruthlessness shows just how serious they believed the threat to be. Perhaps if it were not for difficult circumstances abroad and the tough action displayed by Elizabeth the Catholics would have been given the opportunity to overthrow Elizabeth and convert England back to Catholicism.
Katie Furnell – 13CUR
