Eighty-five Martyrs of England and Wales - Historical Context and Treason Accusations

Historical Context and Treason Accusations

Queen Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V, on 25 February 1570, creating a situation full of perplexity for English Roman Catholics. Once this declaration was made, a number of Catholics acted on it, and a number, under the influence of Spanish ambassador Bernardino de Mendoza and others, were implicated in plots against Elizabeth which were undoubtedly treasonable from the English Government's point of view. That a certain party of English Catholics was in rebellion against Elizabeth is not disputed. Thus William Allen, with many of the exiles of Douai and Louvain, and Robert Persons, with many of the Jesuits, saw in the rule of Elizabeth a greater danger to the highest interests of England than had previously been threatened in cases where history had justified the deposition of kings. And the supreme authority had sanctioned this view.

In the eyes of Elizabeth and her ministers, such opposition was nothing less than high treason. But a large number of English Catholics refused to go so far as rebellion. As John Lingard writes:

"...among the English Catholics (the bull) served only to breed doubts, dissensions, and dismay. Many contended that it had been issued by an incompetent authority; others that it could not bind the natives till it should be carried into actual execution by some foreign power; all agreed that it was in their regard an imprudent and cruel expedient, which rendered them liable to the suspicion of disloyalty, and afforded their enemies a presence to brand them with the name of traitors".

The next pope, Gregory XIII, on 14 April 1580 issued a declaration that although Elizabeth and her abettors remained subject to the excommunication, it was not to be binding on Catholics to their detriment. The majority of English Roman Catholics then did not give the royal government grounds for suspecting their loyalty, but they persisted in the practice of their religion, which was made possible only by the coming of the seminary priests. After the Northern Rising, Parliament had passed a statute (13 Eliz. c. 2) declaring it to be high treason to put into effect any papal Bull of absolution to absolve or reconcile any person to the Church of Rome, to be absolved or reconciled, or to procure or publish any papal Bull or writing whatsoever. Purely religious acts were declared by Parliament to be treasonable.

Elizabeth's government, for its own purposes, refused to make any distinction between Catholics who had been engaged in open opposition to the Queen and those who were forced by conscience to ignore the provisions of this statute of 1571. All were purposely identified by the government and treated as one for controversial purposes.

This view was put forward officially in a pamphlet by William Cecil, Lord Burghley:

"The Execution of Justice in England for maintenance of public and Christian peace, against certain stirrers of sedition and adherents to the traitors and enemies of the realm without any persecution of them for questions of religion, as is falsely reported, and published by the fautors and fosterers of their treasons." In it, Catholic priests risking their lives are not given credit for any religious purpose, but "the seminary fugitives come secretly into the realm to induce the people to obey the Pope's bull".

Under the Act of 1585, it became high treason for any seminary priest, or any Jesuit, simply to come to England; and felony for any person to harbour or relieve them. Burghley insists that before the excommunication no one had been charged with capital crimes on the ground of religion, and brings everything back to the question of the Bull. The pamphlet ends by proposing six questions or tests by which traitors might be distinguished from simple scholars (the so-called "bloody questions").