Elizabeth I famously claimed that she did not wish to open windows into the souls of her subjects.1 And yet, despite her best intentionsâperhaps because of the worst intentions of some of her subjectsâshe could never comfortably live up to those aspirations. Although elements of the regime fought against strong impulses to see all Catholics as traitors, to many they seemed to threaten the stability of the state. To this group, Catholics carried the stench of sedition and treason.2 Treason could be committed (and was deemed to have been committed) by Protestants, but the Catholic threat loomed so large that it thoroughly informed the understanding and articulation of treason laws during the Elizabethan era. Both the personalization of treason statutes meant to protect Elizabeth I herself and the expansion of how treason was defined emerged out of a context of real threats against the queenâs life and attacks on her legitimacy by Catholic subjects.3 The resulting legislationâhaltingly, disputedly, and unevenly enforcedânot only set up principles of justice and a rhetoric of persecution against confessional enemies but also framed how Catholics
struggled to define treason and how to define themselves. Indeed, ideas about treason helped organize the development of intra-Catholic conflicts and fundamentally structured modes of Catholic strife and processes of internal âothering.â Catholic responses to, and engagements with, accusations of treason show that the concept was far from self-evident and was subject to manipulations guided by a range of rhetorical and political concerns. Although treason had statutory definitions, the concept remained unstable because accusations of treason set off several acrimonious and public conversations about their validity. Such instability both ensured on-going confessional strife and secured (a very fragile) Elizabethan victory over Catholics who grew evermore divided about their understanding of loyalty.
After nearly a decade of mounting tension, but mostly muted confessional strife, in England, the floodgates of rebellion were flung open and the existential threat of Catholic radicalism reared its head. A rebellion led by Catholic nobles, together with the subsequent publication of Regnans in excelsis, a papal bull excommunicating Elizabeth and releasing her subjects from obedience (1570), portended more troubling times to come.4 Further rebellion in Ireland (1578â81), the discovery of several plots to kill the queen (in the 1570s and 80s), and what seemed to be a coordinated politico-missionary plot carried out by deceitful priests (1581) had the Elizabethan court in panic mode. The regime reacted in line with their deep fears, doubling down on existing precedents of treason and expanding treason laws to deal with immediate circumstance. For example, the Treason Act of 1571 (13 Elizabeth I, c.1) personalized statute by defending the queen herself from any who might âcompass, imagine, invent, devise, or intend the death or destruction, or any bodily harm tending to death, destruction, maim, or wounding of the royal person of the same our sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth.â5 The statute called for the persecution of conspirators in and outside of England in response to the flight of traitors from England after a failed rebellion, and other rebellious activities, were linked to their activities on the Continent. With the papal excommunication still ringing in Elizabethâs ears, the most crucial element of the statute retroactively attacked the bull and any document like it, rendering treasonous all who âby writing, printing, preaching, speech express words, or sayings, maliciously, advisedly, and directly publish, set forth, and affirm that the Queen our sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth is an heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or an usurper of the Crown ⦠.â6 This law, like all laws, tried to deal with present realities. It both protected the queen from clear and present dangers posed by the words and actions of Catholics and tried to delegitimize them. The long-term significance of the statute was uneven as it proved ineffectual in the prosecution of dangerous missionaries, but its enactment was significant because it emphasized royal authority and informed loyal subjects of the challenges that bad Catholics posed to it.7 Thus, the importance of the documentâs personalization was that it humanized the struggle between the regimeâs confessional enemies and the regnant queen in an attempt to make subjects choose sides.
The 1571 law was only one of many episodes in the regimeâs ongoing struggle to define the parameters of treason consonant with immediate threats. Elizabeth and her counselors promoted its definition as it related to Catholics in sophisticated public relations campaigns that began after the arrival of missionaries from the Continent.8 In 1581, a band of fifteen priests led by the Jesuits Robert Persons and Edmund Campion travelled around England giving comfort to beleaguered Catholics. As Leslie Ward suggests, treason laws of the previous decade were not sufficiently capacious to deal with this new threat. The regime soon realized âthat not every missionary priest carried a papal bull under his hat, without which grounds for persecution were difficult to secure in accordance with the 1571 act.â9 Elizabethâs government faced an equally important challenge posed by Catholic efforts to pre-empt accusations of treason. Campion, prior to his capture and subsequent execution, had already predicted what he wanted to characterize as mendacious accusations that would be brought upon him. During his travels in England, he wrote a short text that he supposedly intended to be made public only after his capture. Those in charge of the manuscriptâs safe holding could not keep it to themselves, and so Campionâs self-defense and challenge of the regime, popularly known as âCampionâs Brag,â entered the realm of public discourse.10 In it, Campion argues that although he went to England to care for souls, Elizabeth and her advisors would no doubt accuse him of political misdeeds. But, he insists, âI never had mind, and am strictly forbidden by our Father that sent me, to deal in any respect with matter of state or Policy of this realm, as things that appertain not to my vocation, and from which I do gladly restrain and sequester my thoughts.â11 In light of these claims, the regime felt compelled to disentangle religious and political motives for punishment. According to Elizabeth and her close advisers, the death of those whom Catholics would come to think of as martyrs had nothing to do with their religious beliefs and everything to do with treason. As William Cecil, Elizabethâs chief advisor, explained in a pamphlet defending the executions, missionaries were prosecuted for âhigh treason, not being dealt withal upon questions of religion, but justly condemned as traitors.â12 To help underscore this, and to deal with the limitations of previous laws, English missionaries were tried under fourteenth-century treason laws established by Edward III (25 Edward III, st. 5, c. 2), which, since they were enacted well before the Reformation, did not have confessional overtones. The Edwardian law aimed to punish those planning or plotting the monarchâs death, those trying to levy war against him, and those attempting to help his enemies at home. Missionaries, according to the regimeâdespite their priestly lies and obfuscationsâtook part in a cocktail of these dastardly activities. Reversion to medieval law suggests that the regime was still finding its bearings against the confessional enemy and that it chose to lean on tradition rather than the imputed innovations of recent statute.
Those who supported the missionaries predictably remained unsatisfied and undeterred. In fact, the shared acceptance of Edwardian laws created new polemical possibilities. No one doubted the legitimacy of medieval statute, but William Allen (a future cardinal) argued that there was absolutely no proof that the accused committed treason as defined by that law, of which he explained the two chief components were to âconspire or compass the death of the sovereign, or to levy men of arms against him.â13 He tries to prove that the regime could only justify its claims by employing a definition of treason imbued with the twisted logic of more recent laws that could not cohere with medieval ones enacted well before the religious divisions that beset early modern Europe. To take one example, Allen points out the absurdity of prosecuting anyone for the mere fact of introducing a papal bull of excommunication, something that was most certainly not illegal during the reign of Edward III.14 According to Allen, evoking Edwardian law provided a mere cover for the broadly decried censorship of conscience. This, he suggests, was symptomatic of a regimeâif not a queenâthat had given itself to rampant secularism. Such misguided use of statute, he asserts, was the product of a time and place âwhen the superiority temporal hath preeminence and the spiritual is but accessory, dependent, and wholly upholden of the other, error in faith is little accounted of, whatsoever their pulpit men (to make themselves and their patrons sport) brawl of such matters; and all our doings, endeavors, and exercises of religion are drawn to treasons and trespasses against the Queen.â15 Harping on this theme, he suggests that the shame of their own statutes compelled them to claim impartiality in matters of faith, while prosecuting religion under the veil of treason. In the process, they âwipe so hard as they draw blood.â16 Elizabethan attempts to remove religion from the regimeâs persecutory logic surely satisfied those who had come to see Campion and his companions as hypocrites and agitators, but it left others more desperate and angry than ever. Indeed, the use of established treason laws gave critics the opportunity to edge ever closer to public statements against the regimeâs legitimacy. The use of medieval law opened up a space wherein enemies could not only challenge legal outcomes based on evidence but could also point to a spurious use of statute that spoke to more profound corruptions.
By undermining the legal tools used by the Elizabethan regime, men like Allen set the stage for more assertive critiques of Elizabeth and her government. Few legislative acts horrified English Catholics more than a 1585 statute (27 Elizabeth I, cap. 2) that forcefully criminalized the very presence of Catholic priests. By it, all priests trained abroad had to leave within forty days of its enactment or be deemed treasonous. The regime now labelled as traitorous anyone trained in a Jesuit college or seminary who failed to return to England after six months of enactment and swear allegiance to royal supremacy.17 In an anonymous pamphlet emphasizing English (or, as it says, Calvinistic) cruelty, the editors published the statute for Continental consumption, adding contumacious commentary on the margins. The editors assert that such a decree reminded them of past tyrants including Huneric, Maximanius, Licinius, and Valerian.18 Along the lines of Allenâs arguments, the editors claimed that while the regime continued to peddle the line that punishments were rendered only for political reasons, in fact the law emerged from âab dissimulato odio religionisâ [the dissimulated hatred of religion].19 The editors found one element of the law particularly risible: the admonition that Catholics promise to abide by current and future regal pronouncements, thus forcing them to change religion whenever the queen decided to change her own.20 Such legislation could only be tyrannical, and those subject to its whims found themselves in vile servitude, they argued.21 If such laws mirrored the efforts of ancient tyrants, English Catholics of a certain stripe also pointed out how unprecedented they were in English history. Reflecting on the recent past, the editors of Nicholas Sanderâs De origine ac progressu schismatis Anglicani [On the Origins and Progress of the English Schism] (1585) marvel at the âNew laws, and laws such as nobody heard of before, are made every year, and executed with the utmost severity, against Christians, subjects and members of the same state, and at the same time the robe of justice is thrown over such excessive wickedness.â22
Either because Elizabethan actions looked like ancient tyranny or because they looked like ânoveltyâ (a pejorative term at the time), Catholic critics thought the queenâs efforts undermined the very foundations of Elizabethan rule. By the inversionary rules that mark so much early modern polemic, accusations of treason against Catholic agitators needed to be rejected in kind by turning the accuser into the accused.23 Because the regime failed to rule well, they had in fact betrayed the Commonwealth and should be considered disloyal.
The promulgation and contestation of treason laws and their logic deepened divisions between the regime and Catholics. By stating their dislike of the Elizabethan authorities and arguing that they wrongfully used laws to achieve sinister ends, English Catholics provided potential fodder for those Elizabethans who wanted to tar Catholics as traitors. These were the words and ideas to be expected among a brood of men who, as contemporary playwright Anthony Munday reported (in a hostile account), relished the thought that âthe dogs shall tear her [Elizabethâs] flesh and those that be her props and upholders.â24 Munday was well informed, and Elizabethan fears cannot be discarded as mere fantasies. The execution of Campion and other traitors undoubtedly inspired more radical action and plotting. Activities seen as treasonous from an Elizabethan perspective could be countenanced by hardline Catholics because some saw the queenâs removal, indeed her violent death, as the just ends of just rebellion. This logic moved many individual Catholics (often with official backing in and outside of England) to plot the queenâs murder or to overthrow the government.25 This logic was promoted by those who clung to high papist ideologies and saw the popeâs excommunication as a justification for revolt,26 as well as those political theorists who espoused a contractual understanding of the Commonwealth and argued that an errant king might be dethronedâand indeed killedâespecially if his errors of faith put souls in jeopardy. Should monarchs fail to live up to their contractual obligations toward subjects, they could be legally removed.27 English Catholics could (and did) draw on a range of secular and spiritual tropes to justify violent action while the queen and her advisors felt that they had to annihilate traitorous Catholics for using those tropes to undercut the regime.
If, however, the very laws that the Elizabethan government instituted displayed marks of undeniable heresy and tyranny among hardcore resisters of the regime, their position was one of several. Amid the recent flourishing of English Catholic studies, early modern English Catholicism has emerged as a much more complex phenomenon than had once been supposed. Recent scholarship has revealed how internally divided and confessionally ambiguous English Catholicism could be, especially in a political context where its practice was essentially outlawed. Peter Lake, Michael Questier, Alexandra Walsham, and Thomas McCoog, SJ, among others, have shown that Catholics of different stripes could have slightly (and sometimes greatly) different takes on how faith could be expressed and, more specifically, how individuals should relate to the Elizabethan church settlement.28 They could not agree on how to define allegiances to the queen, what kind of loyalties were owed to her, and on what terms. Over time, a discourse emerged among Catholics themselves that emphasized good versus bad members of the community, often in terms of loyalty or treason. Treason laws existed to draw lines in the sand between loyal subjects and disloyal ones, but the Catholics targeted by Elizabethan statute did not want the regime to have its way. The fervid responses by some Catholics put others who were less zealous or less eager to flaunt their allegiances in an uncomfortable position; as a result, the English Catholic community remained divided and fought over how best to construe, or even pursue, loyalty to the queen.
Elizabethan treason laws succeeded to the extent that unless individuals were prepared to cut ties with the queen, they had to find ways to claim loyalty based on how the regime defined it. Even hardliners had to bend to the will of the state sometimes. For example, while there is little doubt that Allen promoted activities that the Elizabethan regime deemed treasonous, he often tried to straddle the line between resistance and compromise, to use Peter Homesâ phrase.29 Thus, even as Allen assailed the regime for its tyrannical inclinations and condemned laws punishing religious beliefs, he nevertheless sometimes accepted the notion that some of his own kind really did go too far. Although he was behind the revival of several books by the theologian Nicholas Sander,30 within the context of his Defense, Allen set him up as an outsider. Sander, a man who died fomenting rebellion in Ireland and who had written plain texts against the queen and in favor of the pope, could not be embraced wholeheartedly. Consequently, Allen mentions Sander and his defenses of Roman supremacy, but does not wholly condone his efforts. Sander encouraged rebellion for âspecial reasonsâ which Allen would not âdefend or reprove.â31 This ambivalence has nothing to do with Allenâs like or dislike of Sander himself but is the result of prudential considerations.
A similar dynamic is at play in a near-contemporary book, most likely written with the approval and connivance of Allen and his close intimate, Persons, titled Leicesterâs Commonwealth (1584).32 The book was a full-throttled, slanderous assault against Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, casting him as an evil counselor, all the while claiming complete loyalty to Elizabeth herself. Though it was most likely produced by those who were considered radical by other Catholics, it took on a moderating stance. In it, âthe Lawyerââan interlocutor described as being âinclined to be a papistâ (65)âdiscussed several forms of treason among subjects adhering to a different confession from that endorsed by their ruler. There are those, he says, who aim to spread their own religion, âwhich is always either directly or indirectly against the stateâ (67). A direct assault is inevitable âwhen the said religion containeth any point or article directly impugning the said stateâ (67). But any deviance from an official Church will create the context for an indirect affront âfor that every different religion divideth in a sort draweth from the state, in that there is no man who in his heart would not wish to have the chief governor and state to be of his religion if he could â¦â (67). Direct treason, he continues, leaves little room for questioning just punishment. Indirect treason, however, requires more reflection. Though individuals might betray a potential for treason, those guilty of it might not be condemned as traitors (67â8). Insisting on the moderation of most English Catholics, the lawyer nevertheless must concede that there are some who might be legitimately punished. The likes of Charles Neville, sixth earl of Westmoreland (conspirator in the northern rebellion), and Sander were âopenly known to have been in the second degree or kind of treasonâ (70). But the text also tepidly legitimizes the execution of recent missionaries who being in the âfirst degree of treason (wherein no doubt they were) was sufficient to dispatch and make them away, especially in such suspicious times as these are; to the end that being hanged for the first, they should never be in danger to fall into the second â¦â (70). Here, the Catholic voice in the text not only shares the regimeâs opinions about undoubted traitors but also shows some empathy for the regimeâs impulse to punish for the sake of religion tout court, acknowledging latent dangers within a multi-religious state. While this might reveal a current in English Catholic thought, it does not reveal the point of view embraced by those involved in producing the polemic. People like Persons and Allen did not believe dialogue with the queen would be of any use. In the real world, they would have fiercely challenged anyone like the âmoderate Catholicâ depicted. The guise of moderation shows how deep Catholics waded in the Elizabethan logic of treason even when they harbored hatred of the regime itself. The decision to take such a stance was predicated largely on strategic calculations at a moment when Catholics spoke from a position of relative weakness before the launching of the Armada seemed like a real possibility. Just a year later, in 1585, the scene would change, the idea of a Spanish invasion of England seemed likely, and anti-Elizabethan discourse would become much sharper.33 Save for the queenâs removal or advocacy for it, those who opted for anything other than resistance had few options but to embrace a version of treason promoted by governing authorities.
Even if taking a moderate stance was a strategic necessity, Victor Houliston has rightly argued that Leicesterâs Commonwealth gave a voice to more âmoderateâ Catholics whom people like Persons otherwise disliked.34 This voice became more emboldened in light of the regimeâs deepening commitment to obliterating the threat of a papist fifth column. Especially for those Catholics in England who had to face threats of fines, imprisonment, or even death for failure to conform to Elizabethan diktat, hard-liners seemed out of touch. Those who decided against recusancy tried to convince the regime of their loyalty by rejecting the affinity to extremists. Efforts to establish loyalist bona fides had been a part of English Catholic polemic and literature from the start of the regime, but it hardened during the last decade of Elizabethâs reign. Although Spain would not attack again after the failed Armada campaign of 1588, plotting was always afoot, and the Elizabethan regime never stopped fearing renewed aggression. In 1591, Elizabeth went so far as to publish a proclamation in which she encouraged the capture and punishment of Catholic missionaries deemed vile conspirators with the pope and the Spanish king, Philip II, against the realm.35 In the subsequent blood-thirsty campaigns of men like Richard Topcliffe (the so-called priest-hunter), attestations of loyalty by some became more desperate to avoid further punishment.
In direct response to Elizabethâs pointed accusation of Catholic ties to papal and Spanish enemies, Thomas Wright (a renegade Jesuit) wrote a text that circulated in the highest echelons of Elizabethan government, An licitum sit catholicis in Anglia sumere, et aliis modis, reginam et regnum defendere contra Hispanos (1595) [Whether Catholics in England may use arms and other means in defence of the Queen and the kingdom against the Spanish].36 In it, Wright forcefully urges fellow Catholics to embrace loyalism and rebukes those who allied with the Spanish king or the pope to effectuate a re-conquest, spiritual or otherwise. First, Wright had to detach English Catholicism from Spanish imperial aspirations. He does this by summarizing the concerns of those Catholics who were unsure about what to do should a new Armada be sent. Because the previous one had been launched with papal blessings, some feared that to resist Spain was akin to resisting the pope, âwhich is a sin of disobedienceâ (584). They also wondered whether the king had a just claim for aggression, given the queenâs affronts. Should this be the case, it seemed to some that they could not act in favor of the wrongful participant in future potential warfare. Finally, Catholics could not possibly resist a king (Philip II of Spain) âwho endeavors to restore and amplify the Catholic faithâ (584). This is the kind of inconstancy that typified Catholic treason, inspiring the rage of the Elizabethan regime. This is precisely the kind of logic Wright rejects. He insists that the King of Spain continually offended the queen and that his aggression is not based on religion but on expansionist aspirations. Allowing disobedience to the pope proved a bit more ticklish. Although he does not reject the idea of papal intervention altogether, Wright suggests that the pope need not be obeyed as he âmay err in sending the Spanyard to Englandâ (589). Though he admits that it is âdifficult businessâ to figure out when the pope may intervene, he does allow for the possibility only when âthe subjects of one king, by an unanimous consent, (that is, the whole community, or the chief heads) have informed the pope of their state, and affirm the safety of souls are in extreme jeopardyâ (590). Though this might still annoy Elizabeth, Wright renders the power of the pope against the Elizabethan regime impossible to execute. Neither Elizabeth nor her counselors would willfully ask for papal assistance. Such clawless authority (in political matters) created a space wherein Catholics could claim loyalty to the queen and implicitly legitimize the regimeâs actions against those who refused to let go of their hispano-papal allegiances. Wright wedged a space between purported loyalists (like him) and those who entered wrongful contact with the enemy. He argues that English men and women who had been âhispaniolizedâ deserved the punishment they got for helping (or wanting to help) a foreign power against their rightful monarch.
If Wright rejected Spanish allegiances forcefully, others would have to push further to help explain how loyalties to the queen and the pope, to English and Roman churches, could be reconciled. An anonymous manuscript from the end of the Elizabethan period, A Plee for a Prieste (c. 1598â1603), offers a template for mounting a proper defense of Catholic priests coming under the scrutiny of recent treason laws.37 It does not reject those laws, but tries to explain how Catholics are not inherently opposed to the regime or the regimeâs conception of loyalty. The basic premise of the paper hinges on the reconcilable (though not friendly) relationship between the English and Roman churches. The author argues that being part of a Catholic establishment did not deny the queenâs role as the ecclesiastical head in England. On the other hand, to assert the exclusivity of the English Church would be to suggest that âeythere the communion of saintes muste only be in England, or England they have sequestred out of the communion of saintesâ (125). If England were âto be only the Churche of Christe, this were greatly to ympare the principallytie and signurie of our Saviour â¦â (125). If the queen were not part of that mystical body, it would be an insult to her as she would be excluded from greater Christendom. If the English Church is represented by the English clergy, then no doubt the Roman church is represented by its clergy instituted by its bishops, thus rendering the priesthood (and even the Catholic priesthood in England) legitimate and its powers of absolution and reconciliation innocuous.38 By arguing this, the author creates some distance between English clergy and Roman authorities as the clergy would be part of an English Church, which the queen was in charge of protecting. For such an argument to work, the author must neutralize papal authority, which threatened to sour his division between a mystical and terrestrial Church since it was well known that the pope often tried to intervene in earthly matters. His argument hinges on the role of the
papacy, or its many roles, depending on the kind of jurisdiction being claimed. The pope is bishop of Rome and the leader of the church in general, not to mention a secular lord. Since Elizabethan statute discusses the âsea of Rome,â it must be talking about the pope as bishop, which is not quite the same as the papacy or all-encompassing papal authority (with powers to excommunicate, loose, and bind) (130). The author argues against the conflation of allegiance to the pope with treason and criticizes attempts by prosecutors to put Catholics into a corner. Elizabethan law itself allows for different forms of absolution and reconciliation that leaves room for a range of engagements with Rome (136). In the end, though, the author accepts the premise that allegiance to foreign entities by those who belong to the Church (a point of contention from within) might indeed be treasonous, but he hopes good Catholics outnumber bad ones (145â6). Thus, the author formulates a language of defense for Catholics that could also appeal to the queen. The text tries to establish a rhetoric of conviviality by canvassing the legal coexistence of various ecclesiastical entities in England and, as a consequence, wittingly or unwittingly, deepens an allegiance to Elizabethan laws and a rejection of treasonous forms of Catholic behavior and practice.
Such arguments were meant to persuade the regime of loyalty, but they facilitated polarization among Catholics as well. Just as Catholics felt increasingly compelled to find a way to work within existing Elizabethan legal structures, the regime tried to exploit intra-Catholic strife by co-opting priests eager to smear other Catholics who typified the traitor of Elizabethan nightmares. Much of this vituperation took the form of anti-Jesuit discourse, wherein the Jesuits were portrayed by secular priests as corrupt elements within Catholicism that endeavored to overturn the existing political and religious order.39 Elizabethan tropes were deemed useful and appropriate in a series of altercations over matters of ecclesiastical governance, be it within English Catholic colleges on the Continent or in Catholic prisons such as that at Wisbech where Catholic prisoners were at each otherâs throats. These conflicts culminated in what is now known as the Appellant Controversy during which secular priests and Jesuits fought a polemical war in England and Rome about whether or not to accept an âarchpriestâ as opposed to a bishop as the head of English Catholicism.40 âThe Pleeâ had been written within the context of these controversies, but the author of that text chose to appeal to the regime while avoiding aggressive attacks on his co-religionists. Others who had come to believe that the Jesuits posed a threat to Catholicism itself would go out of their way to say what went unsaid by more âmoderateâ voices as they intertwined promises of loyalty to the regime with attacks against Catholic disloyalty.
William Watson, a secular priest, is exemplary of Appellant crudeness, especially in his merciless attacks on the Jesuit, Persons.41 According to Watson, Persons was behind plots to establish a novel form of church governance in England to facilitate dastardly plans of his own and
to stop the discovery of his treacherous minde towards his countrey probatur for it came in ⦠at that time when bothe in Spaine Italie & the lowe countries his dealings began to be odiouse for his tyrany against all priests & lay persons yt consented not to his Jappon kingdome & in England his bookes & all their dealings being by cathol[ics] generally disliked & by Seminarists condemned and reiected as full of ambition, bloodshed, infamy & crime intended to or whole contrey.42
In A Decacordon of Ten Quodlibeticall Questions Concerning Religion and State (1602), Watson examines the implications of tyrannical impulses for Catholics as a whole.43 At first, he claims English Catholics, especially seminarians on the Continent, gave Jesuits the benefit of the doubt. However, charity gave way to reality when âthey were intangled by penall lawes iustly made against them equally, as against the Iesuites: (whose plots and practises, they seemed at first to defend, or at least to winke at) and withal perceived that the Ies. religious pietie, being turned into meere secular, or rather temporall and laicall pollicie, did occasionate in them an aspire to soveraigntie.â Watson asserts that only lately had these complicit priests been awakened to the fact that the Jesuits went about their Machiavellian, atheist, secular plotting only under a veil of religion. These men (the Jesuits) who had brought so much pain to Catholics were guilty as charged by the Elizabethan regime, according to Watson, and that guilt was defined by laws established by the regime to punish those who passed off worldly ends and holy ones. Those critical of Jesuits thus appropriated a language of tyranny that was diametrically opposed to that of strident Catholic critics of the regime, wherein the Queen was not the tyrant and the Jesuits were. Appellants embraced a version of the Elizabethan regimeâs take on extreme Catholics; far from innocents, many Catholics were very much the traitors they pretended not to be. Established treason laws were validated and embraced as an effort to win points against the confraternal enemy and to distance English Catholicism from the potential grip of legal prosecution. In doing so, Appellants not only accepted an Elizabethan position, but they separated themselves from what they portrayed as an extreme faction within the Catholic community. Although they did not eradicate the threat of treasonous Catholics from the regimeâs perspective, by parroting its exclusionary rhetoric, Catholic priests helped amplify efforts by Elizabeth and her counselors to divide and conquer. By adopting the regimeâs tactics toward other Catholics, aspiring allies of the regime cemented an idea of incommensurability that, though implicit in previous internecine battles, had not been so forcefully declared in public discussions.
The basic dynamic of the polemic described here in its most extreme versions conforms to an early modern mindset that often thought in black and white, hardened dichotomies, and narrative inversions. One personâs saint was another personâs sinner; one personâs martyr was anotherâs traitor. And yet, there are ambiguities evident here too. Though in the hearts of certain men there was little room for turmoil, most Catholics understood that things were not that simple and that loyalty and treason were moving targets. To say this is not to suggest that ardent enemies of the regime ever argued for submission but that notions of loyalty and its opposite could be subjected to manipulation for specific aims. Just as the regime struggled to define treason within changing circumstances and changing threats, Catholic subjects too had to accommodate to political realities and lived experiences. In light of Elizabethan persecution and no real hope of plausible resistance, virulent anti-Elizabethans could deploy moderate rhetoric when necessary. The absorption of Catholics into a rhetorical sphere established by the Elizabethan regime marks its greatest success against the threats posed by the confessional enemy. Laws in themselves would not ensure the capture and punishment of all dangerous Catholics, but a blend of exemplary punishments (like that of Campion) and the promise of severe punishment imposed by various laws against (Catholics) traitors elicited a set of conformist reactions that only further legitimized the regime and legitimized fears of Catholic âextremists.â Thus, regardless of what form polemics took, it was impossible to get away from the central concerns of the regime and their formulation of the Catholic problem. Some might (almost) escape the regimeâs impositions by rejecting it altogether, but by and large, Catholics tried to find ways to accommodate readings of the regimeâs intentions within their own viability. In the process, they deepened fissures with putative confreres and enhanced the power of the regime and the State.
J.E. Neale, Queen Elizabeth I (Chicago: Academy, 2001), 180; David Loades, Elizabeth I: A Life (London: Continuum, 2003), 137. Though the sentiment conforms to Elizabethan principles, the quote comes from Francis Bacon and, as Diarmaid MacCulluch points out, he talks about âheartsâ not âsouls.â Diarmaid MacCulluch, âThe Latitude of the Church of England,â in Religious Politics in Post-Reformation England: Essays in Honor of Nicholas Tyacke, ed. K. Fincham and P. Lake, 41â59 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2006), 49.
Peter Lake, âAnti-popery: The Structure of a Prejudice,â in Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics, 1603â1642, ed. Richard Cust and Ann Hughes, 72â106 (London: Longman, 1989).
For what is still the most useful treatment of treason laws, see: Leslie J. Ward, âThe Law of Treason in the Reign of Elizabeth,â (PhD Dissertation, Cambridge University, 1985). See also a very useful, much shorter synthesis, in Michael Questier, âHistorical Introduction,â in Papal Authority and the Limits of the Law in Tudor England, ed. Peter D. Clarke and Michael Questier, 103â120 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). For a detailed description of laws against Catholics, see: Dom Hugh Bowler, introduction in Recusant Roll no. 2 (1593â1594), ed. Dom Hugh Bowler, ix-xlvii (London: Catholic Record Society, 1965).
See: K.J. Kesselring, The Northern Rebellion of 1569: Faith, Politics, and Protest in Elizabethan England (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010).
J.R. Tanner, ed. Tudor Constitutional Documents ad 1485â1603 with an Historical Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951), 413. For a useful analysis of this law, see: Ward, âThe Law of Treason,â 14â21.
For a thorough discussion of show trials and their place in an emergent âpublic sphere,â see: Peter Lake and Michael Questier, âAgency, Appropriation and Rhetoric under the Gallows: Puritans, Romanists, and the State in Early Modern England,â Past & Present 153.1 (Nov. 1996): 64â107.
Thomas M. McCoog, SJ, The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England 1541â1588: âOur Way of Proceedingâ (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 146â148.
Edmund Campion, âCampionâs âChallenge,ââ in A Jesuit Challenge: Edmund Campionâs Debate at the Tower of London, ed. James V. Holleran (New York: Fordham University Press, 1999), 180.
William Cecil, The Execution of Justice in England, ed. Robert Kingdon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1965), 7.
William Allen, A True, Sincere, and Modest Defense of English Catholics, ed. Robert Kingdon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1965), 78.
Anonymous, Crudelitatis Calvinianae exempla duo recentissima ex Anglia (n.p., 1585), 11vâ12v, 15v.
Nicholas Sander, De origine ac progressu schismatic Anglicani (Cologne, 1585), 204r. Translation taken from: David Lewis, ed., The Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism (London: Burns and Oates, 1877), 334.
On this dynamic, see: Stuart Clark, âInversion, Misrule and the Meaning of Witchcraft,â Past & Present 87.1 (May 1980): 98â127, and the expansion on these themes in: Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 1â148.
For an accessible summary of these plots, see: Stephen Alford, The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I (New York: Bloomsbury, 2011).
This is a key argument in Robert Persons, Conference about the Next Succession to the Crowne of Ingland, Divided into Two Parts (n.p., 1594).
For example: Thomas McCoog, SJ, The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland and England, 1589â1597: Building the Faith of Saint Peter upon the King of Spainâs Monarchy (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016); Thomas McCoog, SJ, The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England 1598â1601: Let Our Lamp be Entirely Extinguished (Leiden: Brill, 2017); Peter Lake and Michael Questier, Trials of Margaret Clitherow: Persecution, Martyrdom, and the Politics of Sanctity in Elizabethan England (London: Continuum, 2011); Michael Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, 1550â1640 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); and Alexandra Walsham, Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1999).
Holmes, Resistance and Compromise: The Political Thought of the Elizabethan Catholics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
Freddy C. DomÃnguez, ââWe Must Fight with Paper and Pensâ: Spanish Elizabethan Polemics, 1585â1598,â (PhD Dissertation, Princeton University, 2011).
Leicesterâs Commonwealth: The Copy of a Letter Written by a Master of Art of Cambridge (1584) and Related Documents, ed. D.C. Peck (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1985). Hereafter, page numbers are given in parentheses.
Peter Lake, Bad Queen Bess? Libels, Secret Histories, and the Politics of Publicity in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); See also: DomÃnguez, âFighting with Paper and Pens.â This radicalization will be the topic of my future monograph tentatively titled Radicals in Exile: English Catholic Books during the Reign of Philip II.
Victor Houliston, âPersonsâ Displeasure: Collaboration and Design in Leicesterâs Commonwealth,â in Publishing Subversive Texts in Elizabethan England and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ed. Teresa Bela, Clarinda Calma, and Rolanda Rzegocka, 155â166 (Leiden: Brill, 2016).
For the text of the proclamation, see: âEstablishing Commissions against Seminary Priests and Jesuits,â in Tudor Royal Proclamations, ed. Paul L. Hughes and James F. Larkin, 86â93 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969). See also: Lake, Bad Queen Bess?, 312â336.
Thomas Wright, âAn licitum sit catholicis in Anglia sumere, et aliis modis, reginam et regnum defendere contra Hispanos. Resolved by one Wryght, a priest as it seems, of the college of Doway,â in John Strype, The Annals of the Reformation and the Establishment of Religion, and Other Various Occurrences in the Church of England during Queen Elizabethâs Happy Reign: Together with an Appendix of Original Papers of State, Records, and Letters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1874), III: II, 583â597 at 584. Hereafter, page numbers will be given in parentheses.
Michael Questier, ed.,âA Plee for a Prieste : And a Plee to Prove, that to Absolve Only From Heresy, Schisme, and Sinne to Reconsile Merely to the Unitie of the Holy Catholike Churche, and to Perswade to the Holy Catholike, and Apostolyke Religion, or to the Roman or Romishe Religion Merely and Only for Religion, Is Not Treason According to the Lawes, Promulgate by Hyr Majestie,â in Papal Authority and the Limits of the Law in Tudor England, ed. Peter D. Clarke and Michael Questier, 121â149 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Hereafter, page numbers are given in parentheses.
Questier, âA Plee,â 125; Lucy Underwood, âPersuading the Queenâs Majestyâs Subjects from their Allegiance: Treason, Reconciliation and Confessional Identity in Elizabethan England,â Historical Research 89.244 (May 2016): 247â267.
For a recent take on this issue, see: Peter Lake and Michael Questier, âTaking it to the Street? The Archpriest Controversy and the Issue of the Succession,â in Doubtful and Dangerous: The Question of Succession in Late Elizabethan England, ed. Susan Doran and Paulina Kewes, 71â91 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014).
On this, see: McCoog, The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England 1598â1601, and Arnold Pritchard, Catholic Loyalism in Elizabethan England (London: Scolar Press, 1979).
Very little has been written on Watson, but mention of his work and a description of the polemics he took part in can be found in Peter Milward, Religious Controversies of the Elizabethan Age: A Survey of Printed Sources (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977), 119â121.