The Queen's Agent: Francis Walsingham at the Court of Elizabeth I (26 page)

In the early years of Elizabeth’s reign, a sort of doublethink prevailed among English Catholics. Obedience to the monarchy was justified, no matter what
Regnans in Excelsis
may have said, so long as spiritual allegiance was owed to Rome. By the early 1580s, this dualism was becoming increasingly difficult to sustain as both the English crown and the Roman Church demanded a monopoly over personal loyalty. Later Elizabethan Catholics were caught in a vice formed by their faith on one side and their nationality on the other. Most laypeople struggled with
this twin identity until the end of the reign, attending mass when they could and quietly ignoring the shrill propaganda that was assailing them from the continent. Some, like Nicholas Roscarrock, went further by sheltering priests or suffering imprisonment and torture for their faith. And a handful crossed the line into open treason.

NOTES

1
Tregian: A. L. Rowse,
Tudor Cornwall
(London, 1941), 346–54; R. F. Trudgian,
Francis Tregian 1548–1608
(Brighton, 1998). Mayne’s interrogation: TNA SP 12/118, fol. 105;
APC
IX (1575–7), 375, 390. Agnus Dei: statute 13 Eliz. I, c. 2,
Statutes of the Realm
(London, 1810–28), IV, 529–30; Keith Thomas,
Religion and the Decline of Magic
(London, 1971), 33, 60.

2
Council of Trent: Christopher Haigh, ‘The Continuity of Catholicism in the English Reformation’,
PP
93 (1981), 46. Rebellion in Edward VI’s reign: J. P. D. Cooper,
Propaganda and the Tudor State: Political Culture in the Westcountry
(Oxford, 2003), 62.

3
Martyred clergy:
Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church
(London, 1974), under ‘Forty Martyrs of England and Wales’.

4
Walsingham’s admirers: for example Conyers Read,
Mr Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth
(Oxford, 1925), II, 266–70, 338–9. Mission untainted by politics: Patrick McGrath,
Papists and Puritans under Elizabeth I
(London, 1967), 122 – the Catholic revival resulted from ‘the efforts of men who were not concerned with politics and who strove to bring their countrymen back to the Roman Church by spiritual means’. Fabrication of the Babington plot: Francis Edwards,
Plots and Plotters in the Reign of Elizabeth I
(Dublin, 2002), 125 – ‘no historian of any colour could deny that the principal contriver was Francis Walsingham’.

5
Engine of the state: Robert Naunton,
Fragmenta Regalia
, ed. John S. Cerovski (Washington, 1985), 59.

6
Hunting: ‘Journal of Sir Francis Walsingham from Dec. 1570 to April 1583’, ed. C. T. Martin,
Camden Miscellany
6 (London, 1870–1), 32. Knighthood and Garter: History of Parliament,
The House of Commons 1558–1603
, ed. P. W. Hasler (London, 1981), III, 571. Garter ceremonial: Diarmaid MacCulloch,
Tudor Church Militant: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation
(London, 1999), 30–6.

7
Secretary: John Bossy,
Under the Molehill: An Elizabethan Spy Story
(New Haven and London, 2001), 29. Papists marvellously increase: Bishop of London to Walsingham 21 June 1577, in Read,
Walsingham
, II, 280. Recusancy: Peter Holmes,
Resistance and Compromise: The Political Thought of the Elizabethan Catholics
(Cambridge, 1982), 83–9.

8
Bonfires: Christopher Haigh,
English Reformations
(Oxford, 1993), 242–3. Predestination: the seventeenth of the thirty-nine articles of religion (1571). St Piran:
Nicholas Roscarrock’s Lives of the Saints: Devon and Cornwall
, ed. Nicholas Orme (Exeter, 1992), 106, 166.

9
Church fabric: Eamon Duffy,
The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c.1400–c.1580
(New Haven and London, 1992), 570–7. Clergy: Haigh, ‘Continuity of Catholicism’, 40; Eamon Duffy,
The Voices of Morebath
(New Haven and London, 2001), 176, 186–7.

10
Lumbye’s burial: John Bossy,
The English Catholic Community 1570–1850
(London, 1975), 140.

11
Elizabeth’s faith: Richard Rex,
Elizabeth I: Fortune’s Bastard
(Stroud, 2003), 54–60. Latin prayerbook, observed by the visiting Duke of Stettin-Pomerania: Leanda de Lisle,
After Elizabeth
(London, 2005), 9. Pius IV: Alexandra Walsham,
Church Papists
(Woodbridge, 1993), 17. Louvainist loyalty: Holmes,
Resistance and Compromise
, 13–17.

12
Church papists: Walsham,
Church Papists
, 9; Bossy,
Catholic Community
, 110–12, 121–4; McGrath,
Papists and Puritans
, 27–31.

13
Tunicle: Duffy,
Morebath
, 178.

14
Prayerbook and accession day: David Cressy,
Bonfires and Bells
(London, 1989); Cooper,
Propaganda
, 233. Catholic prisoners:
APC
VIII (1571–5), 264, 269. Bishop Horne: McGrath,
Papists and Puritans
, 109. 

15
Allen and missionary priests: Bossy,
Catholic Community
, 12–19; Haigh,
English Reformations
, 5–6, 254, 261–2; Patrick McGrath, ‘Elizabethan Catholicism: A Reconsideration’,
JEH
35 (1984), 424 n. 57; Peter Lake and Michael Questier, ‘Prisons, Priests and People in Post-Reformation England’, in Nicholas Tyacke (ed.),
England’s Long Reformation 1500–1800
(London, 1998), 202.

16
Colleges founded: Penry Williams,
The Later Tudors
(Oxford, 1998), 117. Oxford University and seminary priests: James McConica (ed.),
The Collegiate University
(Oxford, 1986), 378–86, 407–8.

17
July conference: Read,
Walsingham
, II, 280–2. Feckenham re-arrested:
APC
X (1577–8), 4, 13. Garlick: Haigh, ‘Continuity of Catholicism’, 54.

18
Census of recusants:
CSP Dom
. 1547–80, 558; McGrath,
Papists and Puritans
, 117 n. 3. Population: D. M. Palliser,
The Age of Elizabeth
(London, 1983), 34.

19
Country-house Catholicism: Bossy, ‘The Character of Elizabethan Catholicism’,
PP
21 (1962), 39–43, 48; Christopher Haigh, ‘From Monopoly to Minority: Catholicism in Early Modern England’,
TRHS
5th series, 31 (1981). Newcastle: TNA SP 12/178, fol. 36–7.

20
Aysgarth: Duffy,
Stripping of the Altars
, 570.

21
Chapels: Bossy,
English Catholic Community
, 125–8. Music: Craig Monson, ‘William Byrd’ in
Oxford DNB
.

22
Priest-hunters:
John Gerard: The Autobiography of an Elizabethan
, ed. Philip Caraman (London, 1951), 41–2. Priest-holes: Michael Hodgetts,
Secret Hiding-Places
(Dublin, 1989) and ‘Nicholas Owen’ in
Oxford DNB; John Gerard
, ed. Caraman, 201.

23
Candlemas: Ronald Hutton, ‘The English Reformation and the Evidence of Folklore’,
PP
148 (1995), 96–8.

24
Prisons: TNA SP 12/165/5, fol. 23r and BL Harley 286, fol. 97 (Newgate), TNA SP 12/194/32, fol. 55r (Dorchester);
John Gerard
, ed. Caraman, 5, 78 (the Marshalsea and the Clink); Lake and Questier, ‘Prisons, Priests and People’; Alexandra Walsham, ‘Thomas Bell [alias Burton]’ in
Oxford DNB
.

25
Theatre of the gallows: Peter Lake and Michael Questier, ‘Agency, Appropriation and Rhetoric under the Gallows’,
PP
153 (1996); Michael E. Williams, ‘Ralph Sherwin’ in
Oxford DNB
. Walsingham on martyrs: Read,
Walsingham
, II, 312–13.

26
Burghley: Robert M. Kingdon (ed.),
The Execution of Justice in England by William Cecil, and A True Sincere and Modest Defense of English Catholics by William Allen
(Ithaca, 1965), 9–10, 29, 39. Espials: scouts, spies.

27
Allen: Kingdon (ed.),
Execution of Justice
, 60–1; Eamon Duffy, ‘William Allen’ in
Oxford DNB
, where he describes Allen’s postbag as ‘stuffed with the explosive matter of high espionage’.

28
Regnans
: Geoffrey Elton,
The Tudor Constitution
(Cambridge, 1960), 416–18; McGrath,
Papists and Puritans
, 69–72; Julian Lock, ‘John Felton’ in
Oxford DNB
. Treason: statutes 13 Eliz. I, c. 1 and 2,
Statutes of the Realm
, IV, 526–31.

29
Arundell:
CSP Dom
. 1547–80, 353, 369; Pamela Stanton, ‘Arundell family 1435–1590’ and Thomas M. McCoog, ‘John Cornelius’ in
Oxford DNB
; Rowse,
Tudor Cornwall
, 332–3. Fines: McGrath,
Papists and Puritans
, 54, 176.

30
Burghley’s fears: Kingdon (ed.),
Execution of Justice
, 6–7.

31
Paris and exiles: Catherine Gibbons, ‘The Experience of Exile and English Catholics: Paris in the 1580s’ (PhD thesis, University of York, 2006), 169–92.

32
Apartheid: 2 Corinthians vi, 14–15; Walsham,
Church Papists
, 34–5. Sander: Holmes,
Resistance and Compromise
, 26–30; T. F. Mayer, ‘Nicholas Sander’ in
Oxford DNB
; Kingdon (ed.),
Execution of Justice
, 13.

33
Ideological turning-point: Holmes,
Resistance and Compromise
, 129–35. Mayne and Bell: TNA SP 12/118/46, fol. 105; Peter Holmes, ‘James Bell’ in
Oxford DNB
.

34
Roscarrock:
CSP Dom
. 1547–80, 649;
APC
XII (1580–1), 264–5; Orme (ed.),
Lives of the Saints
, 1–14.