Elizabeth I: Religion - The Catholic Threat (AQA A Level History: Component 1: Breadth study): Revision Note

Summary

• Catholicism never disappeared under Elizabeth, but it was kept alive by a small minority of committed recusants and a growing network of missionary priests rather than by any mass popular movement

• The most sustained challenge came from the seminary and Jesuit missions, which kept underground Catholicism alive across the reign

  • William Allen founded the Douai seminary in 1568

  • Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons led the Jesuit mission from 1580

• The government responded with escalating penal legislation, moving from early recusancy fines to the 1585 Act that made harbouring a priest an act of high treason

• Around 130–150 Catholic priests were executed

  • The government always framed these as treason, not persecution for faith

• Historians disagree about how serious the threat really was:

  • Turvey and Heard argue that 1570 was a turning point that hardened the Catholic challenge

  • Davies argues conventional Catholicism was always declining

Recusancy & Catholic Resistance to the Settlement

The position of Catholics after 1559

• Most Catholics were willing to accept the settlement outwardly

  • Most of Mary's bishops refused to accept Elizabeth's religious changes and lost their positions

  • But very few parish priests refused to take the Oath of Supremacy

    • This did not mean they were enthusiastic; many simply went along with what the law required

• Catholic practice survived in pockets across the country

  • Regional surveys show substantial Catholic sympathy in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Durham, Herefordshire and South Wales

  • In some areas, Mass continued semi-openly or with limited enforcement

  • Catholic customs, prayers and practices persisted in many communities throughout the 1560s

What was recusancy?

• Recusants were those who refused to attend Church of England (Protestant) services

  • The recusancy laws required all subjects to attend their parish church on Sundays

  • Initial fines were 1 shilling per absence, rising to £20 per month under the 1581 Act

    • Which made it impossible for ordinary people to afford

  • In practice, fines were rarely collected before 1569; the government had no desire to push Catholics into outright defiance

• Most Catholics were "church papists" rather than active recusants

  • Church papists attended Anglican services while outwardly maintaining Catholic beliefs in private

    • This allowed them to avoid fines and stay loyal to the Crown at the same time

  • Active recusancy remained a minority position throughout the reign

    • By 1603, only around 2% of the population were active recusants

The 1570 papal excommunication as a turning point

• Pope Pius V's papal bull Regnans in Excelsis (1570) changed the situation significantly

  • It excommunicated Elizabeth and declared her subjects released from their allegiance to her

    • This made loyal Catholicism harder to sustain without suspicion of treason

  • It forced English Catholics to choose between loyalty to Rome and loyalty to their queen

    • Most chose their queen; the excommunication had the effect of isolating committed Catholics rather than radicalising ordinary ones

• The papacy's own actions weakened Catholic resistance

  • By forbidding attendance at church, the Pope exposed Catholics to heavy fines

  • Most Catholics could see a difference between Elizabeth as the head of their Church and Elizabeth as their rightful monarch

  • Social stability mattered: if Elizabeth's right to the throne was questioned, so too could landowners' rights to their property

Seminary Priests & Jesuit Missions: Campion, Parsons & Allen

William Allen and the Douai Seminary

• The seminary mission was designed to keep Catholicism alive in England

  • In 1568, William Allen, an English Catholic exile, founded a training college for priests at Douai in the Spanish Netherlands

  • Its purpose was to train Englishmen as priests who could return to England and minister to English Catholic communities

  • The first four seminary priests arrived in England in 1574

  • By the 1590s, there were over 100 seminary priests operating secretly across the country

    • They moved around in secret, living with Catholic gentry families

• The seminary priests were primarily pastoral in purpose

  • Their role was to administer the sacraments, say Mass and keep the faith alive

  • They were not initially seen as a major political threat by the government

  • Initially treated with relative leniency compared to later decades

    • Several were executed for denying the royal supremacy (treason), not simply for being priests

The Jesuit mission from 1580

• From 1580, a new and more organised mission began

  • The Jesuits were members of the Society of Jesus, a religious order dedicated to serving the Pope

  • They were highly trained, intensely committed and seen by the government as far more dangerous than the seminary priests

  • The first two Jesuits to arrive in England were Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons

  • They arrived in 1580 and immediately began building a network of safe houses

  • Many of these safe houses had specifically built priest holes (hidden spaces where priests could hide during searches)

IMAGE: PRIEST SPACE

Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons

• Campion was the most celebrated of the Jesuit missionaries

  • He travelled to Lancashire, the heartland of English Catholicism, and preached in the homes of Catholic gentry families

  • He disguised his identity to avoid arrest

  • He was eventually tracked down by government agents and arrested in 1581

  • At his trial, he denied any treasonous intent

    • He claimed he had come only for the saving of souls

  • He was convicted of high treason and executed in December 1581

  • His death made him a Catholic martyr, giving the mission greater attention

• Robert Parsons escaped to the Continent after Campion's arrest

  • He continued to organise the mission from Europe throughout the rest of the reign

  • He was a more politically ambitious figure than Campion, associated with plans for a Catholic succession to the English throne

The scale and impact of the missions

• The seminary and Jesuit missions grew significantly across the reign

  • Over 100 seminary priests were active in England by the 1590s

  • The missions kept Catholicism alive in the gentry households of the north and west

  • Some historians argue the missions gained genuine converts; others argue that they ministered to families already committed to Catholicism

Government Response: Penal Laws, Fines & Executions

The early approach: caution over confrontation

• In the 1560s, the government moved cautiously against Catholics

  • Public celebration of Mass was forbidden, but private worship was largely ignored

  • Recusancy fines were imposed in law but rarely enforced by Justices of the Peace (JPs) or collected

  • Elizabeth had no desire to create martyrs or push loyal Catholics into open resistance

    • No Catholic priest was executed simply for saying Mass until the 1580s

Penal legislation: the key acts

• The table below summarises the main legislation against Catholics across the reign

The scale of executions

• Nearly 150 Catholic priests were executed in Elizabeth's reign

  • Around 60 Catholic laypeople were also executed for sheltering or assisting priests

  • The government consistently framed all executions as treason, not religion

  • The official position was that no one was executed for their faith alone

  • Campion's execution in 1581 was presented as punishment for treason, not for being a Jesuit

• Elizabeth remained reluctant to push persecution further than necessary

  • She consistently resisted pressure from Parliament and hardline councillors for harsher measures

  • The 1585 Act was driven partly by the deteriorating relationship with Spain

    • It was also driven by the pressing need to act against Mary,Queen of Scots and the plots around her

The result by the 1590s

• By the 1590s, Catholicism had become a largely private and gentry-based practice

  • Active recusant communities survived mainly in the north and west: Lancashire, Durham, Yorkshire, Herefordshire and South Wales

  • Catholicism had little widespread popular support by the end of the reign

  • The missionary priests kept the faith alive in isolated gentry households

    • But enthusiasm for plots against Elizabeth was low even among committed Catholics

How Serious Was the Catholic Threat to Elizabeth?

• Use the specific evidence below to build and support your argument

The case that the Catholic threat was serious

• The papal excommunication of 1570 made loyal Catholicism more difficult without suspicion of treason

  • It formally released Catholics from their allegiance to Elizabeth

  • It gave foreign Catholic powers a religious justification for intervention in England

• The seminary and Jesuit missions sustained organised Catholic activity across the country

  • Over 100 priests were operating in England by the 1590s

  • The missions kept the faith alive across a generation and prevented Catholicism from simply dying out

• Catholic plots repeatedly threatened Elizabeth’s life and throne

  • The Ridolfi (1571), Throckmorton (1583) and Babington (1586) plots all aimed at replacing Elizabeth with Mary Queen of Scots

• The Spanish Armada of 1588 showed the scale of the foreign Catholic threat

  • Spain’s attempt to invade England was partly driven by the desire to restore Catholicism

• Lancashire and parts of Yorkshire and the Welsh Marches remained strongholds of recusancy throughout the reign

  • Regional Catholicism had deep roots that penal laws could not fully eradicate

Key historians

The case that the Catholic threat was manageable and overstated

• The vast majority of English Catholics chose loyalty to their queen over obedience to Rome

  • Most were church papists who attended services and avoided trouble

  • The papal excommunication isolated committed Catholics rather than mobilising wider support

• Active recusancy never had mass popular support

  • Only around 2% of the population were active recusants by 1603

  • Plots against Elizabeth found little enthusiasm even among Catholic families

• The seminary and Jesuit missions mainly served existing Catholic gentry households

  • There is debate about whether they made significant new converts or simply maintained existing faith

  • The missions were strongest in remote areas far from the centres of power

• The Catholic cause was not helped by the plots carried out in its name

  • Attacks by foreigners on Elizabeth were not popular with most English Catholics

  • Each plot tended to harden Protestant feeling and justify harsher government action

  • The Spanish Armada (1588) further hardened Protestant attitudes, associating Catholicism with foreign invasion and reinforcing suspicion of English Catholics

• The Catholic threat declined as the reign went on

  • As the Marian generation of priests died out, maintaining Catholic practice became harder

  • Without new recruitment from a dying English Catholic community, the old faith would eventually fade

Key historian