Background
Elizabeth I of England died at the end of March 1603, and James VI of Scotland claimed the English throne, with effectively no overt opposition. The religious situation in England and Wales included a substantial number of Catholics subject to fines if they did not attend Church of England services, under a system of penal laws. The Anglo-Spanish War had been continuing for nearly two decades, with fighting at sea, in the Netherlands and in Ireland.
English Catholics widely protested loyalty to the Crown, and wished the legal constraints on their worship relaxed. They were ministered to by priests, both of the Society of Jesus and other religious orders active in England as a mission, and seminary priests and others not in religious orders (secular priests). The legal position of these priests was, in practice, very unclear.
Read more about this topic: Bye Plot
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)