Catholicism in elizabethan england

• Religion *

What was the Act of Uniformity ?

When was it created ?

1559

Act of Uniformity

• All worship should be the same

• Each week, everyone had to attend a church service that followed the Book of Common Prayer in English

• Those who didn't go had to pay a fine

• Religion *

What was the Act of Supremacy ?

When was it created ?

1559

Act of Supremacy

• Said Elizabeth was the supreme governor of the Church of England

• Head of Church as she was head of state

• Any Roman Catholic who insisted that the Pope was head of God's church on Earth, was a traitor for daring to challenge the Queen's supremacy over all nation's affairs

• Religion *

What religion was Britain during Elizabeth's reign ?

Protestant

• Religion *

What was Elizabeth's strategy with religion ?

Why ?

• Elizabeth catered to both Catholic and Protestant beliefs
• Most priests accepted Elizabeth's changes
• Weekly Protestant sermons gradually altered people's beliefs
• Few Elizabethans could afford the fines for non-attendance at church
• All marriages and baptisms had to follow the Protestant prayer book

• Religion *

What was a disagreement between Protestants and Catholics during church services ?

How did Elizabeth adapt to this ?

• Catholics believed in transubstantiation ( at the service of Mass, the bread and wine turn into the body and blood of Jesus )
• Protestants believed the Communion service was just to remember Jesus's death and the bread and wine is just that
• Elizabeth said the bread and wine do not change but Christ was 'really present' in a spiritual way

• Religion *

What is a famous quote Elizabeth said ?

How did this support her view of the middle way ?

" I would not open windows into men's souls "

• She wouldn't hunt down and persecute Catholics as long as they followed the rules, they could be either religion

• Catholic Resistance *

Who were recusants ?

What did they do ?

• Catholics who refused to attend Protestant church
• Most recusants were wealthy as they paid a 12d ( 4 days of work equivalent ) fine for every church service they missed
• Number of recusants rose in 1580 as more Catholics disobeyed rules and threatened Queen's power
• Arranged their own services of mass

• Catholic Resistance *

Give an example of a famous recusant

Who ?

When ?

Thomas Tresham

1573

• Made sheriff of Northamptonshire by Elizabeth

1580

• Proclaimed loyalty to the Queen even after becoming recusant

1581

• Arrested with other influential Catholics

• Accused of allowing Catholic priests to stay in his home but denied this so was released but fined

• Stayed recusant but lost his money, patronage, and trust of Queen

1585

• Organised petition to the Queen promising loyalty of all her Catholic subjects but this made no difference

1588

• Arrested and held at Ely in Cambridgeshire for 2 years

1605

• Died but declared complete loyalty to Elizabeth and James ( her successor )

• Catholic Resistance *

Who were conformers ?

What did they do ?

How many ?

• Large proportion of English Catholics
• Chose to drop Catholic faith and conform as Protestant
• Avoided social and financial costs of staying Catholic
• Persuasive Protestant sermons with no Catholic Priests to oppose led people to believe the old Catholic ways were corrupt and superstitious

• Catholic Resistance *

Who were church papists ?

What did they do ?

• Most English Catholics
• Attended Protestant Church services, but remained loyal to Pope and Catholic ways
• Valued old Catholic teachings
• Avoided social and financial cost of being recusant
• Hoped country would return to Catholicism when Elizabeth died as Mary was Catholic

• Catholic Resistance *

Who were plotters ?

What did they do ?

• Very small group of Catholics
• Refused to attend Protestant church services
• Extremely loyal to being Catholic and the Pope
• Believed Elizabeth was not the rightful Queen since her excommunication in 1570
• Felt a duty to God and the Pope to kill Queen Elizabeth and replace her with Catholic Mary Queen of Scots

• Catholic Laws *

What was the Act of Persuasion ?

When ?

1581

• Raised fine by 10,000% to 20 pounds per month ( rough income of gentry families ) and extra 200 pound fine for persistent recusants

• Imposed 66 pound fine on anyone who attended a Mass

• Imprisonment of recusants who didn't pay fines within 3 months

• Anyone who persuaded someone to become Catholic, was guilty of treason against Queen's supremacy and should be put to death

• Catholic Resistance *

What was the Act against Priests ?

When ?

1585

• Allowed death penalty for anyone who offered aid or shelter to a Roman Catholic Priest

• Soldiers could search a Catholic house at any time, if they got any information from neighbours or informants

• Catholic Resistance *

What was the Recusancy Act ?

When ?

1587

• Allowed government to take 2/3s of recusant's land who had fallen behind on paying fines

• Queen wanted to increase her income from fining Catholics

• Even recusants like Tresham were in debt

• Catholic Resistance *

What was the Margaret Clitherow ?

What happened to her ?

Why ?

When ?

Margaret Clitherow

1586

• Butcher's wife from York

• Accused of sheltering priests

• Tried to avoid execution by refusing to plead guilty ot not guilty at trial but legally entered a plea

• She was 'pressed' by her captors ( stretched out with a large sharp stone beneath her back with weights on her )

• Still refused to plead and died as her ribcage burst and the air was pressed from her body

• First Catholic martyr of Elizabeth's reign

• Catholic Resistance *

What was the Act Restraining Recusants ?

When ?

1593

• Catholics over 16 years old had to stay within 5 miles of their homes at all times and were banned from holding large meetings

• Catholic Resistance *

Did Elizabeth outlaw Catholicism ?

• Never outlawed Catholicism but enforced Protestant beliefs and made it increasingly hard to stay Catholic

• Catholic Resistance *

What is a martyr ?

• A person killed because of their religion or religious beliefs

• Catholic Resistance *

Who was William Allen ?

Why was he important ?

• Catholic priest in exile

• Saw that Catholics needed priests

1580

• Ran 2 seminaries in France and Italy

• Catholic Resistance *

Who were Seminary priests ?

When did they move ?

1603

• 438 Seminary priests sent to England

• They were young English catholics who trained at seminaries ( colleges ) abroad

• Trained to support Catholics in England by leading them in services of Mass and hearing confessions

• Told not to try and convert Protestants to Catholic ways

• Catholic Resistance *

Who were Jesuit priests ?

When did they move ?

What did they do ?

How did they stay hidden ?

How many came ?

1580

• Robert Persons and Edmund Campion came to England in heavy disguise ( first Jesuit priests )

• They were specially trained to persuade people to become Catholics or deepen existing Catholic faith

• Had a direct loyalty to the Pope

• Over 100 came to England

• Stayed at country houses of wealthy gentry, travelled in disguise under false names, and stayed in 'priest holes' under floorboards or walls in gentry houses

• Catholic Resistance *

Who was against Jesuit priests ?

What did they do ?

Walsingham

• Built a large spy network of spies and informers to learn the plans and movements of Catholic priests
• Charles Sledd, George Eliot, William Parry and Anthony Munday acted as spies for him

• Catholic Resistance *

Who was Edmund Campion ?

How was he executed and caught ?

Why ?

When ?

Edmund Campion

July 1581

• Captured in Oxfordshire by George Eliot

• Was hidden in a priest hole

• Felt he was a loyal Englishman who believed Elizabeth was wrong about religion

November 1581

• Stretched on a rack, and revealed names of Catholics ( including Thomas Tresham )

• Found guilty of treason and condemned to death at his trial

December 1581

Tyburn, London

• Hanged, cut open, and public watched as his body was put on display to stop others from following his example

• Catholic Resistance *

Why did the number of Catholics eventually drastically fall ?

Why couldn't it rebuild ?

Different opinions ?

• Elizabeth and her government countered Catholic propaganda by publishing pamphlets justifying the use of torture
• Some said Catholics failed because they spent too long near London trying to rebuild faith and not near recusants in the north and west
• Some said they spent too long with the gentry and not lower class Catholics
• Some said Campion was too 'saintly' to overthrow Queen's power
• Some said Seminary and Jesuit priests argued too much instead of acting

• Catholic Resistance *

What was the bloody question ?

When ?

1589

• Priests on trial had to answer bloody question between supporting the Pope ( admitting they were traitors to the Queen ) or supporting the Queen ( giving up their credibility as a priest )

• Plots *

Who was Mary Queen of Scots ?

What did she cause ?

Why ?

What religion was she ?

Mary Queen of Scots

1568

• She was a Catholic Scottish Queen

• Elizabeth's cousin, father was king of Scotland

• Fled to England after powerful Protestant lords rose up against her Roman Catholic rule in Scotland

• Many English Catholics rebelled when she arrived in England and they plotted to murder Elizabeth and replace her with Mary

• Elizabeth was excommunicated by the Pope because of Mary

• Plots *

What was the Throckmorton plot ?

When ?

Who was involved ?

1583

• Walsingham's spies told him that Jesuit Robert Persons had recruited Throckmorton ( and English Catholic ) into a plot against Elizabeth

• Throckmorton arrested and tortured

• Confessed to working with Duke of Guise ( powerful French Catholic and relative of Mary ) who was planning to invade England and put Mary on the thrown

• Throckmorton executed but Mary not involved

• Plots *

What did the Throckmorton plot lead to ?

When ?

Who was involved ?

• William Cecil persuaded Elizabth to agree to Bond of Association
• Anyone plotting to kill Elizabeth should be hunted down and executed and anyone for 'who a detestable act shall be attempted '
• Meant that Mary could be executed even if she knew nothing about a plot to put her on the throne

• Plots *

What was the Babington plot ?

When ?

Who was involved ?

July 1586

• Anthony Babington ( a rich Catholic ) met John Ballard ( a Jesuit priest ) who persuaded him to join a plot to kill Elizabeth and put Mary on throne

• Babington placed coded letters inside waterproof tubes and hid them in beer barrels, going in and out of the house in Staffordshire where Mary was imprisoned

• Thomas Phelipines ( Walsingham's spy ) knew about the messages

August 1586

• Babington and Ballard were arrested and under torture confirmed Mary agreed to the plan

September 1586

• They were executed

• Plots *

When was Mary put on trial ?

Where ?

What did she argue ?

What was the outcome ?

12th October 1586

• Mary put on trial at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire

• Argued that God had made her a queen and that court had no right to try her

• No original messages existed and some evidence could have been forged

• Babington and Ballard gave evidence under torture

• Mary was found guilty

• Plots *

When was Mary executed ?

Where ?

What did Elizabeth think about this ?

8th February 1587

• Mary executed

• Elizabeth was furious and said she never gave the order to send the warrant and was innocent of her cousin's death

• Many historians think Elizabeth knew what she was doing

• Plots *

Why was Mary such a big threat to Elizabeth ?

• Mary was next in line for the throne and was Catholic
• She had foreign support from other Catholic leaders in Spain ( Philip II ) and in France ( the Guise family )

• Plots *

Who eventually became Elizabeth's successor when she died ?

What religion was England ?

• James VI of Scotland
• Mary's son
• He was Protestant

• Plots *

What happened to Catholics in England after Elizabeth's death ?

Why ?

• For the next 200 years, they were treated as second class citizens who were dangerous
• Small groups of Catholic still existed
• They planned the Gunpowder Plot ( aimed to assassinate King James and his government ) with one plotter being Francis Tresham ( son of Thomas Tresham ) and Guy Fawkes
  in 1605

• Spanish Armada *

Who were the major powers of Europe during the Elizabethan times ?

What religion were these countries ?

• France and Spain
• Catholic countries

• Spanish Armada *

Why did the King of Spain not like Elizabeth ?

Who was the King of Spain ?

• Elizabeth refused to marry Philip II ( king of Spain ) at the start of her reign
• Throughout the 1570s, English sailors such as Drake and Hawkins acted like pirates, attacking Spanish ports in the New World
• Spain ruled the Netherlands and Philip II was angry when Elizabeth sent money to aid Protestant Dutch rebels there in the 1570s
• Philip II was a deeply religious Catholic and in 1580 when Pope Gregory said it wasn't a sin to kill Elizabeth, Philip started supporting plotters who wanted to replace her with Mary

• Spanish Armada *

What was the Treaty of Nonsuch ?

When ?

Queen Elizabeth

1585

• Promised military assistance to Dutch Protestant rebels in the Netherlands

• Spanish Armada *

When was the Spanish Armada launched ?

How many ships were involved ?

Where ?

May 1588

• Philip II launched a crusade, where medieval knights obeyed the Pope by fighting 'unbelievers' in Holy Land and Philip II and his men would serve the Pope by invading England and defeating Protestantism

• Built an armada ( huge fleet of ships ) which would sail from Spain to the Netherlands and collect an army of 20,000 ships led by Duke of Parma ( Philip's best general ) to carry his army to England

• Spanish Armada *

Why was Spain weakened before the armada was launched ?

1587

• Surprise attack by Francis Drake on the Spanish port of Cadiz

• Damaged many of the Armada's ships and delayed its sailing for months

• This and Mary's death angered Philip II

• Spanish Armada *

Why did the Spanish armada fail ?

• Duke of Medina Sidonia ( in charge of armada ) had little sailing experience
• 130 ship armada was chased by English ships up the English Channel and waited at Calais to join army
• Dutch ships blocked Duke of Parma's army in the Netherlands, stopping it from joining the armada
• English set fire to some old ships and let them drift into armada as fireships, causing the Spanish to sail north
• Near Gravelines, the English attacked Spanish ships, leading to 1000 Spanish men dying and only 50 English
• Spanish ships driven north by winds, and powerful storms wrecked 44 Spanish ships around Scotland and Ireland
• Less than half of the fleet of Spanish ships eventually got back to Spain

• Spanish Armada *

Who commanded the English fleet of ships ?

Lord Howard of Effingham

• Spanish Armada *

What was the 9 years war ?

1594 - 1603

Earl of Tyrone in Ireland

• Launched a rebellion against Elizabeth demanding the restoration of the Catholic Church in Ireland

• Elizabeth was worried Spain would offer help to Tyrone and then invade England from Ireland

1601

• A Spanish fleet sailed to Ireland with 4000 men

• A battle between the English against the Spanish and Irish took place but England won

• Spanish Armada *

When did King Philip II die ?

What did this mean ?

1598

• His son Philip III was a weak rul