Catholic Response to Religious Settlement

• Catholics in England

  • 1558: 3-4mil Catholics in England (majority)
  • 1603: 40,000, 1% population
  • Four different Catholic groups in England:
  • Conformists (outwardly)
  • Church Papist (followed pope)
  • Kept catholic beliefs
  • North and west England
  • Recusants (refuse to go to Church)
  • Can afford fine
  • 1/3 of nobility
  • Plotters: 200, actively planning a counter reformation
  • 1581:
  • Catholics still refusing to attend services in were forced to pay a bigger fine
  • £20 monthly
  • Any who converted others to Catholicism committed treason and could be put to death
• Europe and Catholic Plots

  • Powerful European rulers (Spain and France) were Catholic
  • Plots often had foreign backing
  • Pope told Catholic priests to do secret missionary work; if they were discovered they would be sentenced to death for treason
  • Pope Pius V declared Elizabeth a heretic and excommunicated
  • Releasing Catholics any loyalty to her
  • Called her removal from throne
  • William Cecil asked who they would support if Pope invaded (Pope or Queen)
  • William Allen made colleges to train English missionary priests in Douai (North France), 1570
• Key Terms

  • Seminary priests: Roman Catholic priests trained in english seminary or European study houses
  • Jesuits: Jesus society members
  • Take chastity and poverty vows
  • Take a vow to Pope (go wherever Pope asks)
  • Elizabeth bans them 1585
• Margaret Clitherow

  • Crimes:
  • Recusant
  • Hiding Catholic Priests
  • Refuses to give a plea
  • Punishment:
  • Death by Pressing
  • Crushed to death by her door while lying on a sharp stone
  • Weights are placed on door
  • Elizabeth displeased
  • Said it was only done as she was a women
  • Remembered as a Martyr and is a saint
• Religious Tension

  1. Arrival of Mary Queen of Scots
  2. Religious Division
  3. The Ridolfi Plot: 1571
  4. The Throckmorton Plot: 1583
  5. The Babington Plot: 1586
  6. Trial and execution of Mary Queen of Scots
• Mary Queen of Scots Arrival

  • Became queen of Scotland 1542
  • She was moved to France and married heir, when he died she returned
  • Under Elizabethan pressure, Scotland became more Protestant
  • So Catholic Mary was unpopular
  • She remarried and had a son
  • After this husband's suspicious death
  • She married man accused of murder
  • Protestants forced her to give throne up
  • Fled to England (1568)
  • Fear for her life
  • Left James as Scotland's King
  • Hoped Elizabeth would help
  • Imprisoned for 19 years
  • Moved south as Catholic plots increased
• Religious Division

  • Catholicism remained popular in North England
  • Many Catholics, including powerful Northern Earls, considered Mary Queen of Scots rightful Queen of England
  • Counties around London generally more supportive of Protestantism
  • Had closer links to Netherlands and German states, where Protestantism had become popular
• Trial and execution of Mary Queen of Scots

  • Mary put on trial, found guilty of treason, and executed at Fotheringhay Castle 8th February 1587
  • Elizabeth always believed executing Mary would cause bigger problems, like war with France or Spain
  • So hesitated to sign her death warrant
  • Elizabeth wrote to King James, apologising for death of his mother