410 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
landing in England
from Flanders , Stukely was sent with a
Papal brief to the Low Countries .
Don John had no need
of him, for the English expedition had already proved im
possible, but Stukely returned to Rome
mendation to Philip and the Secretary of State. 1
The failure of the English scheme only had the effect of
urging Cardinal Galli to take up the matter of Ireland
zealously. It would not appear that the Secretary of State
aimed at a real conquest ; he only wished to assist the
troublesome and impatient Stukely, and to annoy Elizabeth
by fastening " a thorn " as he expressed it, in
the queen s
side, just as Orange
seemed to him to be the very man. 2
On October 27th, 1577, Cardinal Galli wrote that the Pope
was thinking of employing Stukely and Fitzmaurice against
he did not go to Ireland Lisbon
himself to be won over by King Sebastian for his expedition
against Africa , and
Cardinal Galli, against his will, gave some
sort of approval of this. At the battle of Alcazar Stukely
fell,
a cannon ball carrying off both his legs. 3 Even at the time
of
Stukely s departure Bishop Odescalchi had written : "
God
1 POLLEN, loc. tit., 77.
*Ibid 78. *Di questo infelice successo et di quanto passava
giornalmente li avvisi, che n hebbe N.S. et Msgr. di
Piacenza
nunzio appresso il Re cattolico, che teneva cura di quel
negotio,
al quale S.S^ haveva volontieri dato orecchio piii per
desiderio
di far qualche profitto in quelle parti che non speranza di
conseguirlo, furno loro dati dalla corte di Francia dal
medesimo
nunzio per il continue commercio che teneva con chi haveva
buoni avvisi d Inghilterra. *Memorie of Dandino, Cod. D. 5,
Boncompagni Archives, Rome
8 BELLESHEIM, Irland, II., 172 seq. POLLEN, loc. cit. 79.
*I1
Stucleo o non volendo disgustare il Re, o per la speranza
d accrescere le sue forze o pure, come lui proprio scrisse,
che
gli fusse fatta un po di forza con non lassargli pigliar in
Lisbona
quelle commodita che gli bisognavano per la lunga
navigatione,
si risolse di compiacer lo Re. Memorandum of Cardinal Galli,
Cod. D. 5, Boncompagni Archives, Rome
STUKELY. 411
grant that this handful of soldiers may not give the Queen
of
to their death " ; and he added that it had caused
general sur
prise that the Pope had placed any confidence in that
refugee. 1
Events justified this surprise. A little time before his
death
Stukely had openly expressed his true sentiments towards the
Pope. Irritated by the fact that Fitzmaurice had been asso
ciated with him in the allocation of the Pope s subsidy, he
said that he would make them repent of this, that he would
sell
the equipment of his ships, turn pirate, and lay waste the
States of the Church themselves ; thus he had never had any
intention of going to Ireland
The brave Fitzmaurice underwent many adventures. In
December 1577, he set sail with one ship, and captured an
other, but as his provisions were exhausted, he was forced
in
1578 to return to Spain Madrid
who was representing the English Catholics, the
distinguished
1 *" Quelli mille fanti che 1 altro giorno scrissi a V.
A. che
si facevano per mandare in Avignone, si e scoperto poi che
vera-
mente vanno in Inghilterra guidati da un Signore Inglese che
si
trovava qua, il quale ha dato ad intendere al Papa che
arrivandovi
con detti fanti rivoltera tutto quel Regno, nel quale vi
sono ancora
piu Catolici che Luterani. Cos !
detti fanti s imbarcheranno a
Civita vecchia sopra un orca di Fiandra comparsa pochi
giorni
sono in queste bande. Et piaccia Dio che questi pochi fanti
non siano causa di fare che quella Regina
capo a tutti li ratholici che sono rimasti in quella insula.
. . .
In somma sono molti che si meravigliano di S. S tA che si
habbia
lasciato persuadere da questo Signore Inglese fuoruscito.
Vogli-
ono molti che il Re di Spagna tenga la mano in questo
negotio
per divertire quella Regina
Odescalchi to the Duke of Mantua ,
Rome
Gonzaga Archives, Mantua
concerning the expedition of King Sebastian on July 29, 1578
(ibid.) : *" Tengono che 1 impresa del
in Inghilterra," as English ships, in contravention of
treaties,
have attacked his fleet on its way back from the East Indies .
* Statement of Captain Cleyborn, in BELLESHEIM, Irland, II.,
172, 703.
412 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
English theologian, Nicholas Sanders. 1 The latter joined
Fitzmaurice and accompanied him, not so much as a legate
or nuncio as an accredited Papal agent. 2
In the middle of July Fitzmaurice and Sanders reached
cipally at Smerwick and urged the people to rise against
She was afraid that Spain
and irritated would at last force her to a decisive battle.
She
had no small opinion of the military power of Philip ; her
am
bassador in Spain
against Portugal
of the Catholic King was greater than the united strength of
persuaded by the nuncio Sega to take some definite action.
On September I3th, 1580, under the command of Bastiano
San Joseppi, as " captain and general of His Holiness
" a
squadron of six ships set sail with 1000 sailors, 550
regular
soldiers and 800 volunteers for Smerwick, and at once
erected a
fortress as a base for further operations. 4 Philip had
great
schemes in mind for further action against Elizabeth
meantime he struck a severe blow at English commerce when,
in December, 1580, he forebade all foreign ships to sail
from
the ports of Spain
Nevertheless the whole Irish expedition met with a
1 BELLESHEIM, loc. cii., 167 seq. t 697 seq. With regard to
Sanders, whom KRETZSCHMAR (p. 54) and BROSCH (VI., 576)
wrongly describe as a Jesuit, cf. POLLEN in the English
Historical
Review, VI., (1891), 36 seqq.
2 No brief containing his plenitentiary powers is known. In
his correspondence he only appears as " Dr.
Sander." POLLEN
in The Month, CI., 80.
PHILIPPSON, Granvella, 140, 195 seq. The viceroy of Ireland
was given authority to treat with the rebels, and if
necessary to
promise them religious liber 1 y. English Hist. Review, VI.,
38.
4 PHILIPPSON, loc. cit., 197 seq.
8 Ibid. 198 seq.
Ibid. 200.
THE IRISH EXPEDITION. 413
disastrous end. In response to the call of Sanders and Fitz-
maurice, the powerful Earls of Desmond and the whole
province
of Munster
small engagements was carried on until the end of 1581 and
even longer, and covered southern Ireland
and ruins, 1 without however securing any decisive result
against the foreign domination. The auxiliary expedition
under the command of San Joseppi had suffered in its prepara
tions from the delays of the Spanish officials, whose ineffi
ciency had once wrung from the lips of the nuncio, who was
urging them to greater efforts, the saying " these
people would
make one wonder whether there is a sun in the heavens."
2
As a matter of fact San Joseppi arrived too late ; the gar
rison of the fortress at Smerwick surrendered after three
days
seige, and was cruelly butchered by the English with the
exception of six of the leaders. 3 Of the commanders of the
, Irland, II., 180. For the devastation caused
by the war see Spenser in BROSCH, VI., 668.
2 Letter of May 25, 1580, in POLLEN, in The Month, CL, 81.
8 BELLESHEIM, loc. cit., 179. Mendoza
Corresp. de Felipe, II., vol. V., 524. Among the prisoners
was
a priest, Lawrence Moore, a certain Oliver Plunket and
William
Walsh, the servant of Sanders. When these three refused the
oath of fealty and supremacy, they were taken to a
blacksmith
and their arms and legs broken in three places, and left in
this
condition during the night ; on the following day they
underwent
a traitor s death. (Sanders to Galli, January 19, 1581, Eng.
Hist. Review, VI., 39). Many looked upon San Joseppi as a
traitor : *Ma molti hebbero opinione che se egli voleva,
poteva
tenersi sicurissimo in quel forte et aspettare il soccorso
degli
Hiberni cattolici, il quale senza dubio gli saria venuto et
cosi
haveria potuto metter in gran travaglio la Regina Inglese.
Ma
egli si rese con gran biasimo de la fede et del
dotto in un castello presso a Londra dove fu tenuto alquanti
mesi con trattamento non da prigione, ma da hospite
amicissimo
et honoratissimo. 11 che accrebbe tanto maggiormente il
sospetto
che si havea di lui et massimamente che mentre stette in
quel
castello, mando a Roma due volte a procurare del
lo facesse liberar con pagar I2 m scudi . . ., ma il
pontefice and6
414 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
expedition Fitzmaurice fell as early as August i8th, 1579 ;
Sanders died at the beginning of 1581 as the result of his
hard
ships, in a wood near Limerick ,
and his body, to save it from
the hatred of the English, was buried in an unknown grave,
and none were found to betray it to the enemy. 1 Three of
the
Earls of Desmond met with death as the result of the in
surrection. 2
Apart from the great harm done to Ireland
haustion of the Papal treasury, 3 Fitzmaurice s enterprise
had
no results beyond having irritated Elizabeth
ordinary degree, without having inflicted any notable damage
upon her, or preventing her from interfering in the events
in France
and Flanders . The anger of the queen vented
itself
especially on persons who were altogether innocent, namely,
her own Catholic subjects. It is easy to understand how
men like Walsingham and Burghley did not let the oppor
tunity slip for taking even more severe action against the
Catholics under a legal pretext. 4 On August 2ist, 1580, the
Spanish ambassador Mendoza wrote that the queen had
ordered the arrest of four earls, five barons and 300
gentlemen
from fear lest the Catholics should rise in England
tan to procrastinando questa resolutione per il sospetto che
havea
di lui, ch egli si risolse di partirsi d Inghilterra con
pretesto
d esser fugito et and6 in Fiandra, et conoscendo esser
scoperto
de le attioni sue, non hebbe piu ardire di tornare a Roma ne
in
Italia, ma dopo alcuni mcssi s inferm6 et morse in Fiandra.
Memor
andum of Cardinal Galli, Cod. D. 5, Boncompagni Archives, Rome
I BELLESHEIM, Irland, II., 179.
8 Ibid. 1 80 seqq.
3 Gregory XIII. had spent more than 200,000 scudi on the
expedition to Ireland
ALBERI, II., 4, 282.
4 Elizabeth herself attributed the Irish expedition rather
to
the influence of Philip than of the Pope. The French
ambassador
wrote on November 6, 1580, that the queen had spoken "
honor-
ablement "of Gregory, and did not wish any harm to this
"pauvre
bon homme, qui estoit si liberal de donner des royaumes qui
n estoient pas en sa puissance." POLLEN in The Month,
1C.
(1902), 408.
THE IRISH EXPEDITION. 415
done in Ireland
ported 2 that they were proceeding apace with the imprison
ment of the Catholics in order to prevent an English rising
;
the victims bore themselves with great patience in their
trials
and did not ask for their liberty in return for the payment
of
fines ; they freely admitted that without the strong support
of foreign troops they were quite incapable of doing any
such
thing. Sweeping measures against the confessors of the
Catholic faith could not fail to follow, with popular
opinion
excited as it was to the highest pitch.
The Irish expedition was especially disastrous to the coming
to England
When Campion and his companions set out from Rome
knew nothing of Sanders undertaking ; it was with alarm
that they heard of it at Rheims
henceforward they too would be looked upon as political
agents like Sanders by the English government. Among the
English priests their coming gave rise to the same anxiety ;
the two Jesuits declared that the Catholics might be
satisfied
by their sworn assurance that they had nothing whatever to
do with politics, and that before the courts they would
demand
that their accusers should give proofs of their political
mach
inations, which certainly could not be adduced, because they
did not exist. 3 It was quite true that Campion s defence
before his judges and the whole behaviour of the martyrs
made it clear that they had had nothing to do in any way
with the rebels. 4
1 Corresp. de Felipe II., vol. V., 511. Cf. Dandino to
Galli,
September 26, 1580, in THEINER, 1580, n. 88 (III., 217).
2 POLLEN, he. cit., CI., 82. Cf. Mendoza, October 23, 1580,
Corresp. de Felipe, II., vol. V., 518 : " Aqui de mes y
medio a
esta parte, han encarcelado & titulo de ser cat61icos
mas de 500
gentiles-hombres ingleses, temiendose . . ., no se
levantasen
con los rumores de Irlanda."
8 Persons in POLLEN, loc. cit. 1C., 294 seq.
4 One of the first accusers, the apostate Nichols, admitted
publicly that he made his statement only out of fear of
torture.
LINGARD, VIII., 149 n.
416 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
Even before the capture of the missionaries the effects of
what had happened in Ireland
of laws against the Catholics. On July I5th, 1580, an order
was issued that all Englishmen must within the space of four
months recall their sons from educational establishments
beyond the seas. 1 This law, which was directed against the
seminary priests, was followed by another in January, 1581,
which, by amplifying the statute of 1571, was intended to
hamper their activities in England
power to absolve, or exercised that power, and those who
attempted to win over anyone from the state religion, or who
abandoned it, were to incur, together with their
accomplices,
the penalties of high treason. The fine for saying mass was
fixed at 200 marks, and 100 for hearing mass, and in both
cases imprisonment for one year. Failure to attend the
Protestant services was punished by a fine of twenty pounds
sterling for each lunar month, which meant thirteen times a
year ; anyone who did not present himself for a whole year
at his parish church must find two guarantors of his good
conduct, each of 200 pounds sterling. In order that priests
might not be lodged in a family under some other title, no
one
must employ a tutor without the permission of the bishop of
the diocese ; if this rule were infringed, the tutor was to be
punished by one year s imprisonment, while the man who had
employed him had to pay ten pounds sterling a month.
About 1581 the state of affairs concerning religion had thus
been made quite clear. On the one hand national opinion
towards the old religion was generally favourable ; the
mission
of the Jesuits in particular had made this clear. It was
equally
clear, however, on the other hand, that by means of
preaching
and the care of souls alone, the old Church would never be
able to secure the victory, since the government was quite
determined to put an end entirely to all Catholic preaching,
nor could there be any doubt that it had the power to
enforce
its will.
What was to be done under these circumstances became an
142.
Ibid. 143.
PASSIVE ATTITUDE OF THE CATHOLICS. 417
anxious question for zealous Catholics. The times were not
yet ripe for the modern methods of a loyal opposition, the
use of
the press, the rights of assembly, etc. ; on the other hand
the time had gone by for a protest made sword in hand, as
had been attempted in medieval style in 1569 by Northumber
land, who was otherwise perfectly loyal to the king. Was it
therefore necessary to adhere firmly to the principle laid
down
by Archbishop Heath when Elizabeth
first acts of violence against the Church of their fathers,
who,
when he was asked what they were to do, had replied : there
is nothing to be done, but to suffer what God may will? 1
This view had actually been followed by the English
Catholics
during the first ten years of Elizabeth
they had remained entirely passive, a party without a leader
or a programme. If the queen was praised because at last
under her rule England
internal and undisturbed peace, this was due to her Catholic
subjects, in that they had not imitated the example of their
Protestant fellow-countrymen in the time of Queen Mary. 3
After the interlude of the ill-judged rebellion of 1569, the
great mass of the Catholics adhered to this policy, and the
conspiracies of Ridolfi and others had no roots whatever
among the Catholic population. Were the Catholics then in
future to look on with folded arms while their most sacred
heritage, their religion, was persecuted ? It seemed to them
that a very easy means of defence was ready to their hands ;
if only Spain
and France
order to put an end to the acts of violence against the
sufferers,
it seemed to them that Elizabeth
strength to make an effective resistance. Quite apart from
this, those two nations had just reasons for declaring war
against Elizabeth
Certain Catholics accordingly took measures which must
not be judged by modern principles. According to the
1 " Agere nihil, inquit, pati autem quaecunque Deus
volet."
The Month, CIV. (1904), 504.
2 POLLEN, ibid., 1C. (1902), 43-60.
8 See Vol. XIV. of this work, p. 401 seqq.
VOL. XIX. 27
418 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
doctrines then in force, which were purely Christian in
origin,
and which had hitherto prevailed, the laws concerning the
love of one s neighbour applied not only to private
individuals,
but to nations as such ; l if a nation was oppressed by
foreigners
or by those of its own race, then the others were bound to
come to its assistance. The principle of non-intervention
was not yet recognized. Thus even the most esteemed
Catholics of recent times, such as Bishop Fisher of Rochester
or Cardinal Pole, 3 had had no hesitation in appealing for
the
1 Cf. O. KLOPP, Das Jahr 1683 und der folgende grosse
Tiirken-
krieg Gratz, [1883], i-n.
2 ... nor do I see any appearance of their obeying the
censure
of the Pope unless they be accompanied with the remedies of
which I have before written. And as the good bishop of Rochester
says, who sent to me to notify it, the arms of the Pope
against
these men, who are so obstinate, are more frail than lead,
and
that your Majesty must set your hand to it, in which you
will
do a work as agreeable to God as going against the Turk.
Chapuys
to Charles V. on 27 September, 1533, in J. GAIRDNER, Letters
and Papers foreign and domestic of the reign of Henry VIII.,
vol. VI., London
bishop [of Rochester
immediately, as I wrote in my last ; which advice he has
sent
to me again lately to repeat. The most part of the English,
as far as I can learn, are of his opinion, and only fear
that your
Majesty will not listen to it. Chapuys to Charles V. on
October 10,
1533. ibid. 1249, p. 511.
3 A long rhetorical discourse to this effect is to be found
in
Pole s letter " Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis
defensione," 1. 3, c. 7.
(RoccABERTi, Bibliotheca Maxima pontificia, XVI 1 1., Rome
1698, 288 seq.). There e.g. it is stated (p. 288) : "
Si amor reipub-
licae christianae te movet, ut regem Turcarum . . . bello
diaris, an non unde maius periculum reipublicae nostrae
imminet,
et ubi praesens iam malum, et novus hostis urget multo quam
Turca infestior, eo potius cursum convertere te oportet ?
" The
English had not yet risen against Henry, only because they
wished to wait for the intervention of the Emperor (p. 289).
Cf. ATH. ZIMMERMANN, Kardinal Pole, Ratisbon, 1893, T02
seq. Sanders and Stapleton, Owen Lewis, Ely and Allen shared
the opinion of Fisher and Pole in this matter. POLLEN in The
Month, XCVII. (1901), 508.
FOREIGN INTERVENTION. 419
assistance of the Emperor against the oppressive conduct of
Henry VIII. ; Fisher and Pole were thus of opinion that such
an undertaking would be as pleasing to God as an expedition
against the Turks, and the Imperial ambassador Chapuys
wrote that England
Fisher. The Protestants themselves were no exception
in this ; the Presbyterians of Scotland
France and the Gueux of Flanders relied upon foreign as
sistance in their struggle against their lawful sovereigns,
and
Elizabeth herself had given them her help. 1
It was nevertheless an unfortunate step to have asked for
help from Spain
Bishop Fisher the medieval idea of the state had lost much
ground ; almost every Englishman would only have accepted
a Spanish conqueror unwillingly, and the interference of a
foreigner would only have caused odium against the Catholic
Church. Most unfortunately, there was added the fact that
it was especially the Jesuits, priests and religious, who,
with
greater or less success, mixed themselves up in matters
which
were indeed at that time closely allied to religion, but
never
theless far removed from their real mission. 2 That their
conduct on the whole was judged to have been mistaken
even by the Jesuit Order, was soon made manifest at the next
General Chapter of 1593. In one of the decisions arrived at
on that occasion all interference in political questions was
strictly forbidden to all members of the Society of Jesus. 3
1 Cf. W. Allen in LINGARD, VIII., 428.
2 Cf. the letter of Persons, dated Seville
KNOX, II., 283, BELLESHEIM, Allen, 133, n. i. : Cf. Persons
letter
dated Seville
Allen, 133, n. i : Verissimum sane est, vehementer me
cupere,
ut haec ipsa de terrenis regnis nihil quidquam ad nos
pertinerent ;
sed cum nostra peccata id effecerint, ut prostrata republica
nostra
res politicae atque religionis adeo sint iminixtae atque
perplexae,
ut de unis restituendis sine aliis tractari non possit, . .
. non
possumus de secundo quoque non esse solliciti.
8 Cong. V., deer. 47 : Institutum Soc. lesu, II., Florence
1893, 275 ; cf. deer. 79, ibid., 288.
420 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
A few years later this was followed by a Papal confirmation
of this decision, so that no superior of the Order could any
longer dispense in this matter in particular cases. 1
The Catholics of the three kingdoms of Great Britain
that there was a faint hope of help to be looked for in Scotland
It was therefore in that kingdom that the attempts to bring
back better times for the old religion by means of political
intrigues were renewed.
It was true that so far the position of the Catholics in
Scot
land as well as that of its Catholic queen had been
well-nigh
desperate. With the surrender of the Castle of Edinburgh
on May 29th, 1573, Mary Stuart had lost her last fortress,
the government was in the hands of her bitter enemy Morton,
her only son was in his keeping, and was being brought up
in Protestantism and hatred of his mother. 2 At first Morton
did not show himself hostile to the Catholics in Scotland
but even under his rule, between 1573 and 1575, several
Catholic priests were put to death as such, while others
were
for the same reason banished from the kingdom, while others
again were declared to be traitors to their country, and to
have incurred the penalties of high treason. 4 The general
assembly of the Scottish national church pronounced ex
communication upon all Catholics who refused within eight
days to accept the state religion ; 5 decrees were issued
against
pilgrimages, festival days, and sacred images or organs in
the churches. 6
If these prohibitions of Catholic usages were necessary,
it is clear that Protestantism could not yet have taken deep
root in the hearts of the people. Indeed, during the pontifi
cate of Gregory XIII. , the state of Catholicism in Scotland
was not altogether hopeless. The Scottish Jesuit, John Hay,
1 Edict of September 4, 1606, ibid. I. (1892), 133.
1 Cf. *" Relatio de statu Mariae Scotiae Reginae,"
Cod. Barb.,
XXXIII.-no, Vatican
Library.
BELLESHEIM, Schottland, II., 131.
4 Ibid. 136, cf. 140.
8 Ibid. 138.
Ibid. 139.
THE POSITION IN SCOTLAND
who visited his country in 1579, was f opinion 1 that a few
men of influence, if they would only accept the old religion
boldly, could quickly restore it. The general distress im
pressed the people as a scourge from heaven on account of
the
religious changes ; the bad faith of the ministers who
promised
to abolish the tithes, and yet after the lapse of three
years
still insisted on their payment, their sumptuous banquets in
the face of their railing at the comfortable life led by
Catholic
priests, their covetousness of honours, as well as their
marrying
with women whose lawful husbands were still alive, had
made the preachers of the new religion unspeakably hateful
to the people. Theirs was the responsibility for the
increasing
decline of morality, the result of their doctrine that good
works were devoid of merit ; 2 it was complained that the
revenues of monasteries which formerly had sufficed for 200
persons were now no longer sufficient for one. 3
The results of the Jesuit missions in Scotland
1 Letter to Everard Mercurian, November 9, 1579, in FORBES-
2 Ibid. 158.
3 Ibid. 162. Mendoza
of the Jesuit Holt, who had come back from Scotland
country districts, especially in the north of Scotland
sympathy with the Catholic religion : men are angry with the
pastors because they are married and give no alms. The
cities
are to a great extent Protestant. Yet one of the old
priests,
Holt states, distributed communion to more than TOO
Catholics
in Edinburgh
old priests there are not more than half a dozen in the
country :
it is considered lawful to take part at the same time in
sercet
at Catholic worship and publicly at the Protestant (Mendoza
February 9, 1582, Corresp. de Felipe II., vol. V., 276). Mendoza
is also of opinion onMay 4, 1582 (Ibid. 369) concerning the
Scottish
people " que tiene aborrecimiento de los ministros y
gente eccle-
siastica que la man por su ruin vida, y tanto que de Escocia
dice por ellos, que la palabra que predican era buena, pero
su
vida muy mala." Cf. the memorial of 1580 on the
conditions
in Scotland
in Spicilegium Ossoriense, I. , 72-80.
4 BELLESHEIM, Schottland, II., 152 seq. ; FORBES-LEITH, 207
seq.
422 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
prove that this description of the state of affairs was sub
stantially true. That the ancient religion could still count
upon a strong following in the nation was admitted, two
years
after the death of Gregory XIII., in a secret report to
Walsing
ham. The Protestants, this report states, consist of a few
members of the higher nobility, the lairds, or the lesser
nobles,
whose sons and younger brothers are for the most part
occupied
in commerce by land and sea, and most of the merchants
in the towns. Of those who were indifferent about religion
many, who formerly had been adherents of Mary Stuart,
would join the Catholics, and thus the latter could count
upon
the greater part of the nobility, and as far as power was
concerned, were superior to their adversaries. 1 The
following
are named as friendly to the Catholic Church in a memorial
of a Scottish priest who was sent to Allen in Rome
the Duke of Lennox , the
Earls of Argyll, Huntly and Egling-
ton, and Lords Hume and Seton. 2 Catholic priests still
lived in secret with the Catholic families ; these were to a
great extent English fugitives, who as foreigners were
allowed
greater freedom of movement than the natives. 3 An attempt
was made to provide against the extinction of the priesthood
by the establishment of Scottish seminaries. One such was
commenced in 1576 at Douai
to Pont-a-Mousson. Mary Stuart as well as Gregory XIII.
contributed to this establishment. 4 At the request of the
Scottish queen Bishop Lesley was instructed to attempt
to recover the Scottish monasteries in Germany
nation. The Emperor Rudolph II. supported these attempts
1 Archibald Douglas on November 17, 1587, Calendar of Hat-
field Papers, III., 295 ; cf. POLLEN in The Month, 1C.
(1902),
406 seq.
* Attached to the letter of Allen of February 18, 1582, in
THEINER, 1582, n. 62 (III., 371).
8 Ibid. 371. Cf. Corresp. de Felipe II., vol. V., 274 seq.
4 BELLESHEIM, Schottland, II., 221 seq. MEYER, 96 seqq.
Mary s letter of July 31, 1581, in THEINER, 1581, n. 57
(III., 300).
For the Scottish priests in Paris
n. i.
THE POPE AND SCOTLAND
by a letter of recommendation to the princes and cities of
Although the state of affairs at home was not entirely
unsatisfactory, the Catholic party could not hope to rescue
their country from the oppression of England
assistance. In this respect, too, the adherents of Mary
Stuart
had by no means yet given up all for lost. Even though
the princes remained more or less indifferent in the queen s
regard, there still remained as a last resource the Pope
with
his authority and influence. It was to him that Mary s
envoys in Paris, Archbishop Beaton of Glasgow, and Bishop
Lesley of Ross, had recourse, in order to win the Catholic
powers over to their sovereign s cause by his mediation. 2
At first Gregory XIII. naturally could not do more than
send encouraging letters to the captive queen. 3 When,
in 1575, Philip II. showed himself prepared for an
undertaking
against England
adherence to the plan, 4 Gregory XIII. concurred, but the
plan came to nothing owing to the delays and hesitation of
Philip, as was again the case in 1577, when Don John was to
attempt a landing in England
from the Low Countries ,
with a view to supporting Mary Stuart ; Gregory XIII. had
in Hist-polit. Bldttern, CHI. (1889), 35, CVII.
(1891), 706. Cf. Lesley to Castagna, nuncio at Cologne
23 and July 23, 1579, in BELLESHEIM, Irland, II., 720 (cf.
219),
and THEINER, 1579, n. 102 (III., 106).
2 Beaton, February 22, 1573, in THEINER, 1573, n. 104 (I.,
186) ; Lesley, February 24, 1574, ibid. 1574, n. 94 (I. , 307).
*As early as November i, 1572, Arco, the Imperial ambassador
in Rome
the Pope, Spain
and France
State Archives, Vienna
8 Briefs of June 30, 1572, and August 18, 1577, in THEINER,
1572, n. 72 ; 1577, n. 82 (I. ,
63, II., 337).
4 The dealings of Philip II. with his ambassador in Rome
(March-September, 1575) in W. STIRLING
MAXWELL, Don John
of Austria ,
II., London
CI. (1903), 76.
424 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
placed 50,000 scudi at his disposal for his expedition. 1
With
like want of success in 1579 an< ^ I 5^ did Mary
Stuart
and the nuncio in Madrid
IT. to undertake the conquest of England
brought pressure to bear to get her son withdrawn from the
influence of the Protestants and educated in the Catholic
religion under the care of the Guise or Philip II. 3
In addition to all these hopes and frustrated attempts,
in the meantime a lucky star had risen for the Catholic
party.
Morton was overthrown in 1578 by the two Earls of Argyll
and Atholl, and James VI., though still but a minor of
twelve
years of age, was declared independent. 4 Atholl was a
zealous Catholic and exercised a great influence over the
young
king. 5 Gregory XIII. thought that the time had come to
open new relations with the northern kingdom ; he sent the
Bishop of Ross as his ambassador with letters to James VI.,
the Scottish people, Mary Stuart, Henry III. and the leading
Catholics of France
was suddenly carried off by death ; 7 and Morton again came
1 Ibid. 77. KRETZSCHMAR, 47 seqq. RITTER, I. ,
524. The
instructions of Philip II., November u, 1576, to Don John
concerning the invasion of England
Relations, IX., 15-21.
8 PHILIPPSON, Granvella, 101, 137 seqq. Report of Sega in
KRETZSCHMAR, 194 seqq.
8 PHILIPPSON, loc. cit. 193. Cf. Beaton to Galli, November
13, 1578, in THEINER, 1578, n. 82 (II., 439).
4 LINGARD, VIII., 154; FORBES-LEITH, 134 seq.
6 " Tanta
ut loco parentis coleretur." Lesley to Cardinal Galli,
June 20,
1578, in THEINER, 1579, n. 104 (III., 108). " Is vere
catholicus
princeps ... id unum expetebat . . . ut avtia Christianorum
eligio Scotiae restitueretur " (ivid. 107).
6 All of July 5, 1578, published in THEINER, 1578, N. 89-90
(II., 437).
7 Cf. the letters of Lesley to Galli, May 15, June 20, July
19,
1579, in FORBES-LEITH, 134 seqq., 137 seqq. ; THEINER,
n, 104^ (III., 108 seq., no).
AUBIGNY. 425
into power ; l Lesley had to content himself with trying to
influence his country by letter. 2 It soon became clear, how
ever, that a successor for Atholl had been found.
In 1579, at the desire of King James, 3 his young cousin
Esme Stuart, Lord of Aubigny, and a cousin of Darnley,
came to the Scottish court, and rose in the king s favour
from day to day. Aubigny had been brought up as a Catholic
in France ,
and before his departure from Paris
himself before the Papal nuncio, promising to work on behalf
of Catholicism with James VI. 4 He sought not only to with
draw his royal patron from English influence, and bring him
into closer touch with his mother, but also gradually to win
him over to the Catholic cause. Mary Stuart worked in the
same sense ; when in 1580 James put forward a suggestion
that he should be recognized by her as sharing the throne,
Mary agreed, provided James would embrace the Catholic
faith. 5 On the other hand, Aubigny favoured Mary s plan
for sending her son abroad into Catholic surroundings. At
the beginning of April, 1580, it would seem that this plan
was on the point of being carried into effect with the
consent
of James. 6
Naturally Elizabeth
1 LINGARD, VIII., 154 seq.
2 Lesley to Gregory XIII., July 9, 1580, in THEINER, 1580,
n. 91 (III., 219).
3 Lesley to Galli, May 15, 1579, in FORBES-LEITH, 136.
4 Lesley to Galli, July 8, 1579, in THEINER, 1579, n. 105
(III.,
no). The Pope approved the decision of Aubigny to go to
also rested his hopes for the recovery of Scotland
the head of the Hamilton
after the Stuarts (ibid., in).
5 PHILIPPSON, Granvella, 309.
6 " Scribit insuper D. d Aubignius, nimium [minimum ?]
abfuisse, quia 6 die Aprilis Principem nostrum de ipsius
consensu,
ex adversae factionis potestate ereptum, in castrum
Dumbarto-
nium perduxisset, unde in Galliam brevissimus est
traiectus."
Lesley to Galli, July 9, 1580, in THEINER, 1580, n. 91 (III.,
220),
426 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
the French newcomer. 1 But these attempts only made it
clear how deeply rooted Aubigny s influence was, and they
led to the fall, not of the latter, but of Morton. On
December
3ist, 1580, the regent, who hitherto had been all-powerful
in the Council of State, was arrested as an accomplice in
the
murder of Darnley, and after he had confessed his knowledge
of the conspiracy, was executed on July 2nd, 1581. On
August 8th, 1581, the king created his favourite Duke of
James VI. thus seemed to have embraced the cause of
the Catholic religion and a Catholic policy, and the most
joyful hopes sprang up among the Catholics. Elizabeth
might continue to issue persecuting laws as before, but what
was the use of all her blows if her lawful heir, the future
successor to the threefold crown, inclined in the opposite
direction ? 3 If ever there was a time when the friends of
the
Catholic religion must not remain passive, it was now. If
the present favourable opportunity were allowed to pass,
without being turned to advantage, it would probably never
return.
It was above all Campion s companion, Robert Persons,
who insisted upon this, and he gradually gave up his
pastoral
labours for politics. Persons thought he had the gift of
exercising great influence by his words and writings ; this
belief was pardonable, for all are in agreement as to the re
markable qualities of this man. He had not yet attained
to the height of his wide-spread activity when William Allen
described as incredible the readiness, the prudence, the
zeal,
the political skill and literary ability of this friend of
his. 4
Moreover, he was one of the most talented writers of his
1 BELLESHEIM, Schottland, II., 147.
2 Ibid. 146.
* The Spanish ambassador on the other hand thought that the
fall of Protestantism in England
" Segun todo juicio humano medio para poderse extirpar
la
muchedumbre de herejes de Europa." Mendoza
n, 1581, Corresp. de Felipe, II., vol. V., 181.
4 SACCHINUS, P. V., 1. i, n. 288.
ROBERT PERSONS. 427
age, whose English style was extolled by Swift as a model
of simplicity and clearness ; above all, he was without a
rival
as a polemical writer. 1 The first thing which led him on to
this
new line of action naturally had nothing in itself to do
with
politics. When he heard of the course of events in Scotland
he begged the well-informed secular priest, William Watts,
to come to him in London
order to win over the young king to the cause of the Church.
2
Soon afterwards, at the beginning of August, 1581, Persons
left England
place on July ijth, he might indeed die for the Church, but
could no longer work for it. 3
About ten days later Watts set out for Scotland
Persons, others as well had given him tasks to perform ;
six English nobles through him invited the Duke of Lennox
to interest himself in obtaining the liberation of Mary
Stuart,
and to overthrow, if not Elizabeth herself, at any rate the
1 Character sketch in the Dictionary of National Biography,
XLIII., 416. Taunton
says of him : " Look at him from almost any point you
will,
he was great." (ETHELRED L. TAUNTON, The History of the
Jesuits in England ,
London
writings (Amenities of Literature, London, 1867, 438) :
" Parsons
may be ranked among the earliest writers of our vernacular
diction in its purity and pristine vigour, without ornament
and
polish. . . . His English writings have not a sentence
which,
to this day, is either obsolete or obscure/ In TAUNTON, loc.
cit., 475. Cf. MEYER, 169.
2 Persons to Aquaviva, September 26, 1581, in H. MORUS,
Historia Missionis Anglicanae, St. Omer, 1660, 116; FORBES-
3 He puts forward as the motive for his flight that he had
been
sought for in England
noyance to the Catholics, many priests had fallen into the
hands
of the spies who were seeking him (Persons to Aggazari,
August
24, 1583, in THEINER, 1583, n. 85, III., 475). Mendoza
December n, 1581, that Persons could not return to England
without being immediately taken by his enemies. Corresp. de
Felipe II., vol. V., 206.
428 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
statesmen who were governing England
land were to declare himself a Catholic, many of the English
nobles and the greater part of the people would side with
him ;
the help of the Pope, Spain
and France
forthcoming. As soon as the king crossed the English border
with an army, the six nobles would stir up rebellion in the
north of England
liberate his mother, while Spain
religion she should be deposed. 1 Lennox
did not show himself
averse to this plan, but even before his answer reached Watts
the renewed persecution of the Catholics had placed the
greater
number of the six nobles in question in prison, so that the
scheme came to nothing. 2
As had been the case in England
lead to fresh projects abroad. 3 Philip II., in contrast to
his
previous attitude, now seemed to be willing to assume the
position of a leader. He not only placed at the disposal of
his ambassador in London 2,000 ducats for the purpose of
sending preachers to Scotland
he promised the Pope to make an attack upon England
if Gregory, by forming a defensive alliance among the
Italian
states would prevent a counter-attack on the part of France
But in all probability, as far as the King of Spain was con
cerned, all he really cared about was an Italian alliance
and
a declaration by the Pope against France
therefore, revoked even the concessions of May, 1581, into
which he had allowed himself to be led, 6 and Philip, as far
as England
and fair words. It was in vain that a cousin of Mary, one
of the Hamiltons
her son ; 7 it was equally in vain that Aubigny, after
fruitlessly
1 Mendoza
8 Mendoza
PHILIPPSON, Granvella, 309-320. KRETZSCHMAR, 58 segq.
4 PHILIPPSON, loc. cit., 310.
6 Ibid. 311.
Ibid. 312.
7 Ibid. 313.
FOREIGN INTERVENTION. 429
approaching Henry of France, joined with Mary Stuart in
approaching the Pope, the Guise and Spain
everything depended, asked Mary to send a representative
for the negotiations to Lisbon
money for the Scottish Catholics, but otherwise maintained
his attitude of reserve. 1 When, too, the nuncio Taverna,
at the beginning of 1582, took steps on behalf of Ireland
Philip only spoke of his war in Flanders ,
which he said tied
his hands. The proposals of the Catholic nobles in Scotland
only met with evasive replies from Granvelle.
If then the Pope wished to profit by the favourable oppor
tunity he would have to intervene himself, and this he did.
At the end of 1581 the Secretary of State wrote to the
nuncio
Castelli in Paris
Mary s envoy, how it would be possible to withdraw King
James from the influence of the heretics. To convey him
overseas to a Catholic country, as Mary Stuart had often
suggested, would have been impossible, and might well cost
the young prince his throne ; on the other hand, it might be
possible to attempt, through Aubigny and the King of France,
to surround him with loyal Catholics. 2 At the beginning of
1582 the Jesuit William Crichton was sent to Paris
Pope to confer with Castelli and Beaton about the state of
affairs in Scotland
; at Rouen
Eu the Duke of Guise. When he continued his journey to
William Holt, who had been sent to the north by Persons for
missionary work, in the disguise of a teacher of Italian ;
he had stayed a long time at the court of James, and was now
returning from a visit to London
ambassador Mendoza, promising the Duke of Lennox the
support of Spain
Thus Lennox at the same
time received favourable news
from two quarters, from the Pope by the hands of Crichton
1 Ibid. 315-320.
2 Galli to Castelli, December n, 1581, in KRETZSCHMAR, 121.
8 PHILIPPSON, loo. cit, t 321 seq.
43O HISTORY OF THE POPES.
and from Spain
stood as definite promises the general expressions made use
of by the Pope, and by the nuncio in Paris
promise an auxiliary force of 15,000 men. Full of joy, the
Duke at once put forward a plan for the liberation of the
whole
of Great Britain
from the yoke of Elizabeth
An army of 20,000 men was to set out from Scotland
the command of King James and Lennox ,
and march against
England ; at the same time the Irish and the English
Catholics
were to rise in rebellion. Crichton took the plan to France,
where Guise reduced the 20,000 men suggested to 16,000,
but otherwise promised to assist the undertaking with an
expeditionary force. 2 After several conferences, in which
the Papal nuncio, Castelli, Beaton, Allen, Persons, and
above
all Guise, took part, it was decided to agree to the Duke of
Lennox s proposal, and to send Crichton to Rome and Persons
to Lisbon to further its execution with the Pope and Philip
II. At the end of May both of them set out upon their
journey. 3 The noble-hearted Guise, for whom the plan meant
the liberation of a persecuted queen, and his own relative,
looked forward enthusiastically to the expedition against
England. " In a month or two," he exclaimed,
" we shall
be either conquerors or dead." 4 Castelli wrote to Rome
5
that a more glorious or advantageous, undertaking, as
far as he could judge, was difficult to imagine, much less
to
carry out.
As Galli told Castelli, 6 Gregory XIII. too welcomed the
project with as great joy as if it had been a question of
setting
free the Holy Land. Galli added, however, that long years
of experience had taught him that things are often set forth
in fair words which cannot afterwards be put into practice ;
1 Given from Dalkeith, March 7, 1582, in KRETZSCHMAR,
124-128.
z Ibid. 64, 128 seq.
3 Ibid. 65 seq.
*Ibid. 65.
5 On May 22, 1582, ibid. 135.
6 On May 28, 1582, ibid. 146 seq.
DELAYS OF SPAIN. 431
the Pope, therefore, wished to see the undertaking begun
before he promised his support. Gregory adhered firmly to
this principle even when a memorial was sent to him by
Persons through Castelli, 1 and Crichton had arrived in
Rome. 2
In an autograph letter, however, he tried to win over the
King of Spain to an expedition against England. 3
In his financial difficulties, 4 and in the midst of his
many
other undertakings, Philip felt himself unable to embark upon
a war against England, which would only have strengthened
French influence there. He charged his ambassador in France,
Tassis, but of course too late, to hold Persons back from
his
journey to Lisbon, 5 so that when the unwelcome envoy
reached
the court of Spain, for a long time he was not received ; 6
it
was only through third parties and in vague terms that the
king assured him of his good will. 7 At last, when Gregory
XIII., who for many months had received no reply to his
autograph letter, complained bitterly to Crighton of the
delays
of Spain, Philip summoned the English Jesuit to his
presence,
but only in his turn to throw all the blame on the Pope. 8
However unimportant all these occurrences may have been,
they are nevertheless characteristic of the sentiments that
prevailed at the Papal and Spanish courts. The Spanish
Council of State was annoyed, after the receipt of the Pope
s
letter, that in a matter which principally concerned
religion
the Pope should show so little zeal, and should wish to lay
the
whole burden on the shoulders of Spain. 9 In Rome it was
thought that the obstinate silence of the king could only be
excused if Philip had it in his mind to embark upon the
1 Of May 22, 1582, published ibid. 135-146.
8 Galli to Castelli, June n and 25, 1582, ibid. 147, 148.
8 Galli to Taverna, June 25, 1582, ibid. 148 seq.
* Ibid. 76.
* Ibid. 71.
6 Taverna to Galli, August 6, 1582, ibid. 151.
7 Report of Persons on his stay at Lisbon, ibid. 157.
8 PHILIPPSON, loc. cit., 334.
9 Taverna to Galli, Madrid, August 6, 1582, in KRETZSCHMAR,
432 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
undertaking without the previous knowledge of the Pope ; it
was indeed felt that it would have been better for the
clergy to
have appeased God by their prayers, and leave other matters
to laymen. 1 At length, on September 4th, Philip resolved,
not
indeed upon any promise, but to send a reply to Gregory
XIII.
His participation in the English expedition, so he said, de
pended upon two things : one, the amount of the subsidy
which the Pope was willing to grant, the other, the success
of
the Spanish arms in the war with Don Antonio about the
Azores. 2
In the meantime a fresh success on the part of the English
Protestant party in Scotland, had for the time being put an
end to all plans against England. Although Lennox out
wardly professed himself a Protestant and had subscribed
to a formula of faith by which he accepted the doctrines of
the
Scottish church, and rejected the Papacy, 3 nevertheless the
Protestant ministers had not abandoned their attempt to
withdraw the king from his influence. Lennox had become
particularly hateful to them on account of the favour which
he had shown to the episcopal system, which Morton, with
the consent of Knox, had already tried to introduce in 1572.
4
When, at the end of August, 1582, James went hunting near
Perth, Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie, enticed him to his castle,
and carried him off to Stirling, where he was kept in a mild
form of imprisonment, though his life was by no means safe
1 Galli to Taverna, September 3, 1582, ibid. 152.
* PHILIPPSON, loc. cit., 334 seq.
* BELLESHEIM, Schottland, II., 146. It is interesting that
in
spite of this Lennox did not consider that his hypocrisy was
justified by the worthiness of his purpose. As he himself
says,
he knew well enough that his denial of the faith cou]d not
be
justified before God : " quoy considerant [the weakness
of the
Scottish Catholics] je m estois delibere de ne plus
dissimuler
pour sauver la vie temporele du roy, combien que je luy sois
proche parent, et perdve mon ame et la vie eternelle, ains
me retirer
en France et le laisser en proye a ses ennemys." Lennox
to
Gregory XIII., March 7, 1582, in KRETZSCHMAR, 123.
4 BELLESHEIM, Schottland, II., 130, 135, 142 seq.
IMPRISONMENT OF JAMES VI. 433
from the designs of Elizabeth. 1 Lennox withdrew to the
fortress of Dumbarton ; his part was played.
The person who was most deeply cut to the heart by the
news of James imprisonment was his unhappy mother, who
now saw her own misfortunes hanging over the head of her
only son. When at length she received the news of this
occurrence, so terrible for her, she wrote to Elizabeth the
celebrated letter, 2 in which she enumerated all the plots
and
treacherous schemes whereby the Queen of England had
brought her Scottish rival to an ever increasing
unhappiness,
so that now she found herself broken down even in body,
and, as she affirmed on her honour, looked for no other
kingdom
than that of heaven, which she saw awaiting her as the
blessed
end of all her tribulations and adversities. She only asked
now for a Catholic priest, which had hitherto been denied
her,
and for two waiting maids to assist her in her illness and
weakness.
But although, physically speaking, Mary s course was run,
her spirit was still unbroken ; she no longer desired any
earthly
kingdom for herself, but she did not sit with folded hands
when
the liberty and life of her only son were at stake. She sent
ambassadors to France and Rome, she wrote to Beaton and
to Madrid, she implored the King of Spain at least to give
help in money, and urged the Guise to come to the assistance
of James even in default of Spain. 3
The energy of Guise was indeed increased, rather than
1 Ibid., 150 seq.
*Of November 8, 1582, in LAEANOFF, V., 338 seqq. ; OPITZ,
II.,
208-218.
8 PHILIPPSON, loc. dt. t 339. KRETZSCHMAR, 81 seq. Her
ambassador to the Pope (BELLESHEIM, Schottland, II., 151,
n. i) was the Jesuit Henry Samerie, who was with Mary as a
doctor under the name of de la Rue. For him see POLLEN in
The Month, CVXII. (1911), n seqq., 136 seqq. His letters of
credence to Gregory XIII. in THEINER, 1582, n. 65 (III.,
373).
Allen also wrote to the Pope on September 12, 1582, after he
had
received the news of the capture of James ; in THEINER, 1582
n. 64 (III., 372 seq.).
VOL. xix. 28
434 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
cooled, by the persecution of his cousin James VI. Like
Mary, he thought of taking action, even without the help of
Spain ; he wrote in this sense to Gregory XIII., 1 who was
also assured by Beaton that the prospects were now better
rather than worse. 2 The Pope-, however, now had serious
doubts as to whether it would be possible to accomplish any
thing without the help of Spain, 3 and he tried once more to
win the consent of Philip to the undertaking, and promised
to contribute a quarter of the expenses. 4 He informed Guise
that even if Spain would not or could not co-operate, the
Holy
See would do all that lay in its power. 5
As the result of the pressure brought to bear by Mary
Stuart,
this much at least was accomplished, that Henry III. of
France
sent as his ambassadors to Scotland to assist Lennox, first
Fe*nelon, and then Meyneville. But it was no longer possible
to help Lennox. At the end of 1582, by an order extorted
from the king, he was banished to Dumbarton, and at the end
of May, 1583, he died in France. 6
Meyneville found James VI. fairly well disposed towards the
Catholic religion. The king, wrote the ambassador, will have
nothing to do with all these arrogant preachers, and has
detected many errors in their version of the Bible. When
Meyneville convinced him that his only hope lay in the inter
vention of the Catholic powers, he promised not to persecute
the Catholics. The divisions among the Protestant nobles
gave rise in the king s mind to the hope that he might soon
be
able to free himself from their dominion. 7 Meyneville s
return
1 Galli to Castelli, October 15 (25), 1582, in KRETZSCHMAR,
155.
2 September 9, 1582, in THEINER, 1582, n. 64 (III., 372).
3 Galli, loc. clt.
4 " E poi per levar affatto a S. Maestaogni pretesto .
. .S.S td/
si e resoiuta di far qualche cosa di piu de le forze sue
etc." Galli
to Taverna, October 24 (November 3), 1582, in KRETZSCHMAR,
158.
5 Galli to Castelli, October 29 (November 8), 1582, ibid.
159.
6 BELLESHEIM, Schottland, II., 157 seqq. PHILIPPSON, loc.
cit., 341 seq., 475.
Castelli to Galli, May 20 (30), 1583, in KRETZSCHMAR, 165.
When the king gave a banquet to the French ambassador, who
ESCAPE OF JAMES VI. 435
to France in May, 1583, thus gave a fresh impetus to the ex
pedition against England ; a further conference was held at
the house of the nuncio to France, 1 and a plan was drawn up
for a landing in England. 2 According to this plan, Spain
was
to deliver an attack in the north, and the Guise in the
south.
But the strained relations between Spain and France, and
between the French government and the Guise, the friends of
Spain, had increased after the expedition of Alencon to the
Low Countries. 3 The carrying out of the enterprise had
there
fore of necessity to be postponed, nor was it of any avail
when
Gregory increased his subsidy of 4000 ducats by another
3000.*
After all these disappointments hope was again renewed,
when in June 1583 James succeeded in escaping from his
captivity. In the following August further discussions were
held in Paris, the results of which were conveyed by Persons
to the Pope and by Crichton to the King of Spain. 5 Gregory
welcomed the plan with enthusiasm. He even thought of
renewing the bull of excommunication against Elizabeth,
and pronouncing her deposition, a step which had not been
contemplated during the discussions of the two preceding
had asked for the right of Catholic worship for himself, the
Church
of Scotland ordered a fast, and excommunicated all who took
part in the banquet. It seemed to give pleasure to the king
to
irritate the pastors. BELLESHEIM, Schottland, II., 156 seq.
1 Castellito Galli, June i (n), 1583, in KRETZSCHMAR, 166.
2 By Castelli, who was sent to Rome on June 10 (20), 1583,
ibid., 168-171. The memorial concerning the easiness of an
invasion of England, placed by Theiner (1583, n. 9, III.,
480
.seq.} in the year 1583, obviously belongs to the first year
of Sixtus
V. ; of. e.g. 481, col. i, under 2 : the insurrection of
1569 was
" ante sedecim annos " ; 483, col. i : The Papal
States are at
peace " per felicissima novi pontificis auspicia "
; Belgium has
returned almost entirely to its obedience, etc.
3 KRETZSCHMAR, 94 seqq.
4 Galli to Castelli, ibid., 171 seq.
5 POLLEN in The Month, 1C. (1902), 395. Instructions for
Richard Melino (i.e. Persons), August 12 (22), 1583, in
TEULET,
Relations politiques de la France et de 1 Espagne avec 1
Ecosse,
V., Paris, 1862, 307.
436 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
years. 1 Allen was to be appointed Bishop of Durham, and
was to accompany the expedition as Papal legate. 2 The
attitude of Philip, however, naturally made the publication
of the two documents, which had already been drafted, im
possible, though Gregory did not yet give up hope of being
at
last able to win over the king to his views. He was prepared
to grant as a subsidy a tax upon the Spanish clergy up to
400,000 scudi. 3 He replaced the nuncio Taverna, who was
not very acceptable to Philip, by his friend Sega. 4 But all
was in vain. On June 24th, 1584, the French nuncio wrote
that the English and the Scots who had knowledge of the
matter had lost all hope ; on August 6th of the same year
Tassis reported that Philip estimated the cost of the expedi
tion at two million crowns, and that it would therefore be
necessary to wait for some future date. 5
In London, in spite of everything, the changed attitude of
the Scottish court had at first given rise to considerable
anxiety.
In order to obtain definite information concerning the vague
rumours of negotiations between the King of Scotland and
Rome, they did not scruple to have recourse to the most un
dignified measures. A supposed autograph letter from James
VI. was prepared, in which the King most respectfully turned
to the Pope, and recommended as his ambassador a pretended
young relative, John Stuart, by whose means James had found
the way to the light in the midst of the darkness. 6 A spy,
who
1 POLLEN, loc. cit., MEYER, 243 seq. Persons moreover in
his memorial sent to Rome on May 22, 1582, had urged the ex
communication (KRETZSCHMAR, 144 seq.}. The minute of the
bull of excummunication bears the date September 24, 1583.
MEYER, 244.
2 Ibid. Persons had also suggested the appointment of a
bishop of Durham. KRETZSCHMAR, 143 seq.
3 On August 15, 1583, in KRETZSCHMAR, 98 seq.
4 Sega arrived in Madrid on October i (n), 1583; ibid. 99
seq., cf. 212 seqq.
6 POLLEN, loc. cit., 395.
6 The letter of March 10, 1584, in THEINER, 1584, n. 113
(III.,
602).
EMBASSY TO FRANCE. 437
acted the part of this zealous Catholic relative, was sent
to
sound the views of the Scottish party in Paris and at the
Roman Curia, and to ask the Pope himself in James s name
what was the best way to bring Scotland back to the faith. 1
In Paris the supposed John Stuart found favour with Guise,
Seton and Beaton, 2 but in Rome he was unmasked as an
impostor and his letter of recommendation discovered to be a
forgery. 3
By the time this unmasking had taken place Elizabeth
had but little to fear from the Catholic leanings of James,
but at the beginning of 1584 the hopes of the friends of
Allen
and Persons still ran high. James sent Lords Gray and
Fentray from Scotland to the Duke of Guise to urge him to
negotiate. 4 The most ardent Catholic among the Scottish
nobles, Lord Seton, again received his office of ambassador
at the court of France after the escape of the king from his
imprisonment. 5 On February igth, 1584, the King of Scot
land personally had recourse by letter to Guise, as well as
to
the Pope. 6 On March 22nd Mary Stuart wrote to Allen full
of hopes, 7 and at the end of October she again urged
forward
the negotiations, 8 as after the coming spring it would be
too
late. The personal effect upon herself, the Queen of
Scotland,
1 The diplomatic instructions of James on the subject, ibid.
2 THEINER, 1584, n. 114 (III., 603) ; cf. the letter of
Beaton
to the Pope on April 16, ibid. ; that of the French nuncio
Ragaz-
zoni on April 2, ibid. 805 seq., and that of Guise of April
15, 1584,
ibid. 807, 808.
3 The letter of Galli to Ragazzoni on June 18, 1584,
mentioned
in that of Ragazzoni of July 9, 1584, ibid. 808 ; Ragazzoni
to
Galli, July 23, 1584, on the reasons for the spuriousness of
the
letters of credence, ibid. 809.
4 His credentials, January 22, 1584, in THEINER, III., app.
801.
5 The son of Seton, on April 17, 1584, ibid. 806. Lord Seton
was charged to treat with the King of France, but only after
he had an interview with Beaton. Beaton to Galli, March ig,
1584, ibid. n. 109 (III., 596).
6 Both letters in THEINER, III., App. 802, 806.
7 Ibid., 1584, n. no (III., 599 seq.).
8 Letter to Allen, October 28, 1584, ibid. (III., 600),
HISTORY OF THE POPES.
of an armed landing must not be taken into consideration,
for she was firmly convinced that she could not lay down her
life in a better cause j 1 she looked upon as assured the
loyalty
of her son to the common cause and his filial love for
herself.
The unhappy queen was not aware that by that time she
had been betrayed and deserted even by her only son. As
early as February igth, James had written to Guise that the
power of his enemies and the rebels was increasing from day
to day owing to the help given them by Elizabeth in order to
stir up the nation to revolt and deprive him of his life. He
could not resist any longer ; Guise must therefore bring
pres
sure to bear upon the princes and the Pope to give prompt
and powerful help, because otherwise he would in a short
time
be forced either to destruction or to yield himself into
their
hands and submit to their detestable wishes and designs ;
he made a similar declaration to the Pope. The prompt and
powerful help that he asked for was not forthcoming, and
accordingly the young prince, who was precocious indeed, but
weak in will, did what he had threatened to do, and threw
him
self entirely into the arms of Elizabeth. 2 The English
queen
had already received detailed information concerning the
secret negotiations in Paris from James s ambassador
himself,
for Lord Gray, on his return from Paris to Edinburgh had
betrayed his sovereign by communicating his secrets to Eliza
beth. 3
1 " lam enim statui nunquam mihi vitam felicius, quam
in
hoc tempore et causa finire posse, quod pro mea hac in re
resolu-
tione semel tandem tibi dictum velim." THEINER, III., 600.
3 BELLESHEIM, Scpttland, II., 164,
8 Ibid,
CHAPTER XII.
PERSECUTION IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. RISE OF THE
PURITANS.
BY the middle of 1584 it was certain that the attempt to
bring about any intervention by force of arms on behalf of
Catholicism and Mary Stuart had completely failed. Henry
III. of France at the end of May informed the Scottish queen
in clear and definite terms, through his ambassador in
England,
that he could do nothing for her ; that he would even
willingly
see the crown of Scotland upon the head of Elizabeth rather
than make common cause with the hated Guise and with Spain,
even on behalf of his own cousin. 1 In the following month
the
Duke of Alencon died, the last of the Valois, except the
king,
who had no children ; thus France found herself faced with a
civil war, and could no longer think of any foreign
undertaking.
On the other hand Spain s relations with England had become
so much worse that, in spite of all negotiations, open war
was
inevitable. Among the partisans of Spain amongst the English
Catholics there was a feeling of disappointment. At the
beginning of 1584 they had realized that the Pope was not
only their principal friend, but the only one who was
prepared
to make any sacrifice. The constant failures of the
political
intrigues had led Allen and Persons to the conclusion "
to
give up all thought of such things, and to concentrate upon
the way they had previously followed, namely that of
spiritual
means, and thus, even though it should only be after a long
1 Mauvissiere, May 22, 1584, in Memoires de Mons. de Castel-
nau, Seigneur de Mauvissiere, I., Brussels, 1731, 595.
TIIEINER ?
III., 599-
439
440 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
time, bring matters to a decision." 1 A letter from
Allen in
1584 informed the Catholics of this decision and of recent
events
and advised patience. 2
The knowledge that they had been abandoned by the
Catholic powers, and that they had been thrown helplessly
into
the hands of those who would tyrannize over their
consciences,
led some of the English Catholics to a desperate step. In
1580, Humphrey Ely, a doctor of canon law and theology,
was sent by some of the English nobles and by the Jesuits to
Madrid, to the Papal nuncio Sega, and proposed to him a
question of conscience. These nobles, Ely declared, had
made up their minds to attempt to kill Elizabeth if the Pope
would assure them that by so doing they would not commit a
sin. They wished for this assurance because it was a case of
an undertaking in which they might very easily be killed,
and would thus have to appear before the judgment seat of
God without any opportunity for repentance or expiation. 3
The meaning of this singular question was explained in the
1 " Dr. Allen and I ... had resolved, to leave
cogitation of
such matters and to follow only our spiritual course,
whereupon
all dependeth though in longer time." POLLEN in The
Month,
1C-, 399.
2 Ibid. 397 seq.
8 Tra le altre cose che mi dice questo dottore Umfrido Elci,
una me ne ha detto con molto secreto in nome di alcuni
nobili
de la isola [e] de li medesimi padri Gesuiti, et e che li
sodetti
nobili si risolveriano di tentare di ammazzare la regina di
mano
propria, ogni volta che si assicurassero, almeno con la
parola
. . . ., che S.S tA gli assicurasse che per questo non
caderiano
in peccato, per il pericolo che gli instaria de la morte lor
propria
in tentar cosa tanto grave et pericolosa. Sega to Galli,
November
14, 1580, in MEYER, 426. The Jesuits mentioned were Persons
and Campion. That they approved of the nobles project is not
likely; in other ways the English Jesuits, as far as is
known,
always pronounced against such schemes (see further, infra,
p. 450, and SPILLMANN, III., 388, IV., 57). In the present
case
they referred the petitioners to the declaration of a higher
author
ity, and in the same sense, Ely, in their name, addressed
the request
to the nuncio.
t f
TAKE UP ARMS." 441
nuncio s reply. Sega answered 1 that these nobles should,
or so it seemed to him, let their consciences be quieted by
the
words of the bull of excommunication against Elizabeth, as
this gave to all her subjects the right to take up arms
against
the queen. In reply to a question addressed to Rome, the
Secretary of State confirmed the view of the nuncio, and
described the project of the questioners as meritorious. 2
In
order to understand this reply and the question which
elicited
it, the following must be taken into consideration. Its
founda
tion was to be found in the bull of Pius V. against
Elizabeth,
which had only been revoked by Gregory XIII. as far as its
effects upon the Catholics were concerned. Since the queen
was deposed, and therefore unjustly retained the sovereignty
of England, it seemed a legitimate conclusion, both to the
questioners and to the nuncio that it " was lawful to
take up
arms against her " or that it was permissible to raise
an armed
rebellion on a larger or smaller scale against the
government,
after the manner of that of Northumberland in 1569. On that
point the nobles in question had no hesitation ; their doubt
only referred to the question whether, in the event of a
similar
rising, it would be lawful to lay hands upon the queen
herself,
or whether the sacred person of the sovereign must in any
case
be respected. In the view of the nuncio, as well as of the
Secretary of State, the permission to " take up arms
" against
the pretended sovereignty of the queen also included the
other
right of using them if necessary against the person of the
un
lawful sovereign. If the nuncio and the Secretary of State
1 Io gli ho risposto che per le parole de la sentenza di Pio
V. di
sa. me. pare que questi si potriano assicurare, poiche
particoi
larmente da lizenza a tutti li vassalli di poter pigliar le
arm-
contra la regina impune. In MEYER, 427.
2 " Non e da dubitare che tenendo quella rea femina d
Ingm lterra
occupati a la christianita dui regni si no bill, et essendoi
causa
di tanto danno a la fede cattolica et de la perdita di tanti
milioni
d anime, ciascimo che la levasse dal mondo col fine debito
del
servitio di Dio, non solo non peccaria, ma anco meritaria,
massime
stante la sententia contra di lei di Pio V. sta. me."
Galli to
Sega, 12 December, 1580, edited for the first time by MEYER,
428.
442 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
approved of the killing of Elizabeth this was in conformity
with the principles of law then in force. Gregory too, with
whom the Secretary of State undoubtedly consulted before
he sent his letter to the nuncio, concurred in this view. 1
That
Gregory did not approve of political murder as such, a thing
that at that time was spreading like a contagious disease,
is
shown by the fact that later on he expressly condemned as
unlawful an attempt upon the life of Henry III. 2 If he did
not give a like reply to the Englishmen when they asked
their
question, it was because the case of Elizabeth was
substantially
different. She had been expressly excommunicated and de
posed ; for that reason, according to the laws of that time,
she
was a usurper, and a rising of her subjects against her with
all
its consequences was looked upon as lawful. 3 Gregory XIII.,
1 " Quanto poi a V. S. in caso che lei fosse incorsa in
alcuna
irregularita, N. S. le da la sua santa benedizione."
Galli to
Sega, 12 December, 1580, in MEYER, 428. Cf. Sega to Allen,
12 March, 1581, BELLESHEIM, Allen, 277.
2 " Au reste, le Pape ne trouve pas bon, qu on attente
sur la
vie du roi, car cela ne se peut faire en bonne conscience ;
mais
si on pouvait se saisir de sa personne et oter d aupres de
lui ce
qui sont cause de la ruine de ce royaume ... on trouverait
bon
cela." P. Claude Matthieu au due de Nevers de
Pont-a-Mousson,
ii February, 1585, in Les Memoires de Mons. le due de Nevers,
I.,
Paris, 1665, 657.
MEYER [Engl. transl.] (p. 267) says : " Gregory XIII.
adopted
without hesitation all the politicdl methods of his time. He
alone among the Popes of the counter-reformation regarded
assassination, when employed in the church s service, as a
work
well-pleasing to God." Meyer continues (p. 271) with
reference
to the letter from Galli to Sega (quoted infra, p. 441, n.
2).
" These words go far beyond what canon law permits to
be done
to excommunicate persons. Excommunication in canon law
corresponds to outlawry in civil, to kill an excommunicate
person
is not regarded as murder by canon law, but rather as a deed
wlvch calls for penance, lest the discipline of the church
suffer
harm, and because impure motives can easily prompt the deed.
Inasmuch as Gregory represents the assassination of
Elizabeth
as meritorious and as a good work/ he, who previously was
ELIZABETH " INCORRIGIBLE." 443
as a logical canonist, found all the less reason for
departing
from the principles then in force, in that he deemed
Elizabeth
to be incorrigible and the cause of the loss of millions of
souls. 1
The nuncio urged Ely to hurry on the execution of the plan
such a stickler for legal exactitude, abandons the
standpoint
of the canonists and takes his stand among the advocates of
the
doctrine of political murder." To this account, which
is free
from all animosity, as was only to be expected from so
serious
a scholar as Meyer, the following objections may be made :
Urban
II., c. 47, C. 23, q. 5 indeed says that he (in the case
presented
to him) does not consider a man a murderer who, in an access
of
zeal for his mother, the Church, has assaulted an
excommunicate
person. But this is not a pronouncement of the general
principle
that the killing of one who is excommunicated which is
described
by Urban II. himself, loc. cit. as a " flagitium "
is not murder
and may be freely allowed. Phinees and Mathathias (Numb.
25, 7, and I. Mace. 2, 26) were manifestly not looked upon
as
murderers, but that is very far from putting forward their
actions
as lawful or normal. Their zeal for the honour of God,
indeed,
led them to overlook the fact that they were not appointed
to
punish the guilty ; in their case, the author is
praiseworthy,
but not the action in itself (cf. E. MICHAEL, Ignaz.v.
Dollinger,
1894, 548 seq.}. As for Gregory XIII. it is clear that his
starting
point was the bull of Pius V. ; according to that, Elizabeth
was
not a lawful sovereign, but a usurper, and the attempt to
get rid
of a usurper by means of a rebellion was in his opinion
lawful.
Therefore it is going too far to say that Gregory XIII.
indis
criminately welcomed all the measures adopted by lay policy,
or looked upon the assassination as justified by its good end.
He did not succumb to the contagion of a disease then
prevalent,
but was guided by canonical principles. In the translation
of
the reply of Galli in Meyer, the point " since that
guilty woman
of England rules over two such noble kingdoms " is not
well
put. The word " occupati " here bears as is shown
by the allusion
to the bull of excommunication by Pius V., which immediately
follows, the sense of " usurpati."
1 His successor formed a different judgment of Elizabeth,
for he hoped for her return to Catholicism. He therefore
definitely rejected any proposal to kill Elizabeth. Further
particulars in Vol. XXII, of this work.
444 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
as quickly as possible. 1 But the latter only got as far as
Rheims on his return journey to the English nobles, and no
more was heard of the projected insurrection. 2
Elizabeth remained upon her throne for more than twenty
years without having to fear any act of violence against her
person on the part of the oppressed Catholics, for the rising
of 1569 was expressly directed against the queen s
ministers,
and not against the queen herself. 3 For the first time
during
the years 1580-1587, and again between 1593 and 1594, was
there much talk of any such plan. In some cases something
of the sort was actually suggested by certain persons, but
for
the most part it was a case of groundless rumours, or of
plans
that were not taken seriously, and were put forward by
charla
tans, who wished in this way to raise money.
Even before the above mentioned mission to the nuncio in
Spain, an English noble had gone from Flanders to Owen
Lewis in Rome, and had offered in return for a reward of
10,000 gold crowns to bring about the assassination of Eliza
beth. It makes very little difference, he wrote, whether the
queen is removed by means of an armed expedition or secretly
by means of a well planned attack. " But I am by no
means
inclined to any such schemes," wrote Owen Lewis two
years
later to the Secretary of State ; "it does not at all
beseem me
as a priest to have anything to do with deeds of blood, so I
gave him no reply." 4 We hear nothing more of this
affair ;
there is reason to suppose that it was only the work of an
impostor, who wished to act the spy and traitor against
Rome.
Three years later a similar scheme was laid before the Duke
of Guise. A similar refugee from England represented himself
as being a secret Catholic at the court of Elizabeth, who
was
angry with the queen because she had caused some of his
Catholic relatives to be put to death ; in return for a
reward
1 Letter to Galli, November 14, in MEYER, 427.
2 Ely became a priest and a professor at Rheims ; see POLLEN
in The Month, 1C. (1902), 605 seq.
8 Cf. Vol. XVIII. of this work, p. 207.
4 From the letter of Lewis, March i, 1582, in POLLEN, loo.
tit.
THE VIEWS OF GUISE. 445
of 100,000 francs he declared his readiness to carry out a
bloody
revenge. At first Guise allowed himself to be tempted by the
plan, though after a few weeks this courtier of Elizabeth
had
taken his departure, probably because he had been detected
as a rogue. 1 Guise, who had again been strengthened in his
determination to undertake an expedition against England
by this proposal, and who needed a money subsidy for that
purpose, informed the Spanish ambassador and the French
nuncio of this offer. He expressly told the nuncio, however,
that he was not asking for any subsidy from Gregory for the
murder of Elizabeth, 2 and the nuncio replied that it was
not
fitting even to write to the Pope about such things. He was
of opinion that Gregory would be very well satisfied with
what
ever way in which God might punish his enemy, but that it
was not right that the representative of God should bring
about that punishment by any such means. 3 On the other
hand it would seem that the nuncio did nothing to dissuade
the duke from his purpose, and remarked very emphatically
for a man in his position upon the coldness with which he
spoke of such matters. Gregory XIII., whom the Secretary
1 Castelli, the nuncio in Paris, to Galli, April 22 (May 2),
1583,
and Galli to Castelli, May 13 (23), 1583, in KNOX, Letters,
412
seqq., published again in KRETZSCHMAR, 161 seqq. ; cf.
POLLEN,
loc. cit., 607. According to BROSCH (VI., 579) Persons too
was
involved in the plan. But at the beginning of May, 1583,
Persons
was still in Spain, and only left Madrid on April 30 (cf.
KRETZ
SCHMAR, 163). When he reached Paris at the end of May
(ibid.),
the plan had already been abandoned (cf. POLLEN, loc. cit.,
613).
KRETZSCHMAR too (p. 103, 112) attributes to the Jesuits
plans for
assassination, but without giving proofs.
2 Ne per questo fatto esso duca dimanda alcuno aiuto a
Nostro
Signore. KRETZSCHMAR, 162.
3 lo quanto a far morire questa mala donna, le ho detto che
non ne voglio scriver a N. S., come faccio, ne dico a V. S.
Ill ma
che gli lo dica ; peroche se bene io credo che a N. S. fussi
di
contento che Dio per qual si voglia modo castigasse questa
sua
nemica, tuttavia non converrebbe far si che il suo vicario
lo
procurasse per questi mezi, et esso si quiet6. KRETZSCHMAR,
loc. cit.
446 HISTORY OF THE
of State nevertheless informed of such <a project,
expressed
himself upon the subject exactly as the nuncio in France had
foretold. 1
In 1585, at the request of Morgan and Paget, two of Mary
Stuart s agents in Paris, a certain George Gilbert again
went to
the Duke of Guise and submitted to him a fresh plan for the
murder of Elizabeth. Gilbert, however, was soon discovered
to be an impostor. 2
The conspiracies which have been spoken of so far,
principally
on account of any seriousness that may have been attached
to them, had not placed the queen in any great danger. Far
less had she any need in 1583 to be on her guard against a
wretched man named John Sommerville, who was subject
to periodical attacks of madness, and in one had publicly
cried out that the queen was a serpent and that he intended
to
kill her with his dagger. In our days the unhappy man
would have been placed in an asylum, but in the time of
Elizabeth men did not judge so kindly of such things. Sommer
ville himself, his father-in-law, Edward Arden, the high
sheriff
of Warwickshire, three of his relatives and their chaplain,
were
all arrested and condemned to death in October, 1583, on a
charge of high treason. The sentence was carried out in the
case of Edward Arden, while Somerville hanged himself .in
prison. Contemporaries attributed the barbarous severity of
this sentence to the influence of Leicester, who was an
enemy
of Arden and covetous of his possessions. 3
1 " et perche la S.S. non puo se non sentir bene, che
in qual
si sia modo venghi levato d oppressione quel regno et
restituito
a Dio et a la religion mostra santa." Galli to Castelli
in KRETZ-
SCHMAR, 163. If a criminal should lose his life by a crime,
it is
possible to rejoice that he can do no more harm, without
thereby
excusing or justifying the crime. It is right therefore to
interpret
the phrase " in qual si sia modo " of Gregory
XIII. in this sense
for otherwise he would be made out as approving any sort of
crime against Elizabeth, which would certainly be going too
fat.
2 POLLEN, loc. cit., 610 seqq.
See POLLEN in The Month, 1C., 616; LINGARD, VIII., 167
seq. ; Rishton, Diarium, October 30 to December 23, 1583, in
SANDERS, App.
ARRESTS OF CATHOLICS. 447
A few days after Sommerville, Francis Throckmorton, the
son of a former chief-justice of Chester, was thrown into
the
Tower. 1 An unfortunate suspicion had attached to him
because some confiscated letters seemed to show that he had
been in correspondence with Paget and Morgan, Mary Stuart s
agents in Paris. Other arrests followed. The indictment
against Francis Throckmorton accused him of conspiracy
against the life and sovereignty of the queen, and of
treason
able negotiations with Francis Englefield, with whom he was
supposed to have conspired for an invasion of England by
foreign powers ; he was also accused of having drawn up for
treasonable purposes a list of the English ports suitable
for a
landing, and also of having, for the same purpose, been in
correspondence with Thomas Throckmorton. 2 On the fourth
occasion on which he was put to the torture, Throckmorton
admitted that he had written this list, as well as another
containing the names of the leading English Catholics, and
that these lists had been made for the Spanish ambassador
Mendoza, for the purpose of promoting an expedition by Guise
against England. This confession was later on retracted
by Throckmorton, then once more admitted, and on the gibbet,
immediately before his execution, again retracted. The
extent
of his guilt cannot therefore be precisely estimated ; at
any
rate, there is no proof of his participation in any conspiracy
against the life of Elizabeth. The Spanish ambassador had
to leave London in consequence of the confession of Throck
morton.
There is no reason to feel surprise at the fact that after
1580
the English Catholics several times spoke of acts of violence
against Elizabeth. At that time, such ideas were, so to
speak,
in the air, so that, on the other hand, it would have been
wonderful if at any rate individual Catholics had not fallen
victims to them. Mary Stuart went in constant dread of being
secretly poisoned ; in 1574 she was openly warned of her
danger by the Earl of Shrewsbury. In the same year Burghley
1 RISHTON, loc. cit. ; POLLEN, loc. cit,, 616-618 ; LINGARD,
VIII., 168-170 ; KRETZSCHMAR, 104 seq.
2 POLLEN, loc, cit., 616 seq.
448 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
took into his service an assassin, and caused him to put his
powers into force against the Earl of Westmoreland ; in 1581
Elizabeth and Walsingham took steps to have Philip II. and
Gregory XIII. murdered ; x in 1578 Burghley wrote, in a dis
patch describing the danger of Don John s bringing about
the complete triumph of the Spanish cause in the Low Coun
tries, that the queen, as a sovereign, might lawfully do
anything
for the preservation of herself and her people, 2 and the
murder
of Don John was actually planned at the house of Leicester,
with the consent of Elizabeth. 3
If Burghley allowed himself to be guided by such principles,
there can be nothing surprising in the fact that from 1581
onwards a whole series of purely imaginary conspiracies
against the life of Elizabeth was attributed to Catholic
priests
before the courts, and that not a few were put to death on
1 PLATZHOFF, 81-84.
8 " The queen s majesty, being a sovereign, may
lawfully do
anything for preservation of herself and her people."
PLATZHOFF,
82.
8 " Aqui se trata en casa del Conde de Lecester de
matar a su
Alteza." Mendoza, May 8, 1578, Corresp. de Felipe II.,
vol.
V., 227. " Aqui ha muchos dias que se platica, en casa
de
Lecester el matar a S.A." the assassin sent was Edmund
Ratcliffe
(Mendoza, May 16, 1578, loc. cit. 231). " El de Parma
ha mandato
hacer justicia de los ingleses, que escrebi a V.M. a los 16.
de
Mayo, que habian partido de aqui con 6rden de matar al Sr.
Don Juan." When the queen received news of the
execution
of Ratcliffe, she said to Walsingham that this was the
result of
the advice which he and others had given, and these were the
difficulties in which she found herself in consequence.
Walsing
ham was so much affected by this remark that he fell into a
fever
(Mendoza, January 15, 1579, loc. cit. 308). Cf. the note to
Don
John concerning Ratcliffe, about August 12, 1578, in KERVYN
DE LETTENHOVE, Relations, X., 714. Ratcliffe had obtained a
recommendation to Don John from Beaton (ibid. 689). The
murder of the Duke of Guise was spoken of in England before
it
took place " porque sabiam que se habia de hacer."
Guaras
to Zayas, November 7, 1574, Corresp. de Felipe II., vol.
V., 70.
ALLEGED CATHOLIC PLOTS. 449
the strength of these accusations. Burghley was well aware
of how much help he could get in his struggle against the
Catholics by exciting public opinion against them. At the
trial of Campion and his companions the accusation was made
against them that they had plotted at Rheims, Rome, and
elsewhere for the deposition and murder of the queen. As
the exact dates, months and years of these pretended plots
were given, and as, on the other hand, we can tell where
these
priests were at those times from the diaries of the English
colleges at Douai, Rheims and Rome, their fictitious nature
is clearly proved ; the dates given in the indictments are,
without a single exception, false. It was nevertheless on
the
strength of such an indictment that Campion and his two
companions were executed on December ist, 1581 ; and seven
other priests on May 28th and 3oth, 1582. l On April 2nd,
1582, the priest Payne suffered a simflar fate, because one
witness, who was absolutely untrustworthy, swore to a story
of his having participated in such an attempt. 2 On March
4th fourteen other priests were brought before the courts on
a
similar accusation ; five of them were condemned to death. 3
Very similar was the case of the printer, William Carter,
who
was hanged in 1584 on the charge that in 1580, in a book
which he had recently published, he had instigated the
murder
of Elizabeth by alluding to the story of Judith. As a matter
of fact, nothing but blind prejudice could have put any such
interpretation upon the passage, 4
Of far greater importance for the purpose of passing more
severe laws against the Catholics, and exciting popular
opinion,
than all these pretended plots, were the machinations of a
government spy : William Parry had been successful in obtain
ing a letter from the Papal Secretary of State, which might
1 The contents of the accusation in POLLEN in The Month, 1C
(1902) 614 seq.
* Ibid. 606. SPILLMANN, II., 347, 396.
3 POLLEN, loc. cit. 615.
4 LINGARD, VIII., 429 seq., note J, where the text in
question
is printed with the reply of Carter.
VOL. XIX. 29
450 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
be interpreted as giving approval to an attempt upon the
life of Elizabeth. 1
Ever since 1570 Parry had given his services to the Lord
Treasurer, as an informer in various countries. When he came
back to England in 1577, he dissipated the fortune of his
wealthy wife, and attempted to murder his principal
creditor,
but escaped the hangman, probably through the influence of
his powerful patron. He then went to France to play the
spy for Burghley among the exiled English Catholics. At
Lyons Parry was received into the Church by the Jesuit,
Crichton, and then informed him that he was aiming at
liberat
ing the Catholics of England by killing Elizabeth. Crichton
strongly dissuaded him from this course, and told him that
such an act was quite unlawful. 2 Parry then went to Venice,
to the Jesuit Palmio, and secretly hinted to him that he had
a plan for a great deed for the welfare of England, but
wished
1 For Parry see LINGARD, VIII., 176 seqq. ; DAN. BARTOLI,
Dell istoria della Compagnia di Gesu : L Inghilterra, 1. 4,
c. 10,
Turin, 1825, 102-113 i POLLEN, loc. cit. C. (1902), 72-77.
2 After Crichton had replied twice over " quod omnio non
liceret," Parry once more entered upon a discussion
with him
that is not without interest. Crichton adduced the words of
Holy Scripture (Rom. 3, 8) : that we may not do wrong that
good may come, and therefore may not procure even the
greatest
good by means of the smallest culpable act. It is not enough
that an action should have a good end, it must also be done
in a
good and right manner, which was not the case with Parry.
(" Dixi, Deum magis amare adverbia quam nomina, quia in
actionibus magis ei placet bene et legitime quam bonum ; ita
ut nullum bonum liceat facere, nisi bene et legitime fieri
possit,
quod in hoc casu fieri non potest "). If others decide
otherwise,
they may perhaps be understood in the sense that they adopt
a
permissive attitude, and wish to leave each one to his own
con
science, or perhaps that in their writings they allow
themselves
to be guided by their compassion for the English Catholics,
rather
than by a decisive judgment ; it is, however, certain, that
a private
individual may not do such things without a special
revelation
from God. Crichton from the Tower to Walsingham, February
20, 1585, in BARTOLI, loc. cit., in.
WILLIAM PARRY. 45!
first to obtain the opinion of some learned theologians.
Palmio refused to mix himself up in the matter, and referred
him to the nuncio, Campegio. Through the latter Parry
asked for a passport so that he might be able to go to the
Eternal City, without fear of the Inquisition. His request
was granted, but Parry did not go to Rome, but instead
tried to extract by deceit from the English priests in
France
an approval of his pretended attempt ; but all his efforts
were
in vain. l On the other hand, he found a hearing from
Morgan,
Mary Stuart s lay agent in Paris. Having been introduced by
him to the nuncio, Ragazzoni, he entrusted to the latter a
letter for Rome, which in substance contained no more than
a request for a plenary indulgence, and a certificate that
he
had always lived as a good Catholic in spite of certain ad
ventures in political matters. 2 Ragazzoni sent the letter
on
December i8th, 1583, but added that he was keeping a watch
upon Parry ; on December 25th he repeated that the Pope
must not trust those who were working on behalf of the
English
exiles, as several of them were spies. 3
On January ist, 1584, Parry renewed his offer, which this
time he amplified by a fuller explanation. By the grace of
God he was thinking of at once carrying out an undertaking
by which he aimed at the general good, the peace of the
whole
of Christendom, the bringing back of England to the
obedience
of the Apostolic See, and the liberation of Mary Stuart. If
he should succeed, he made one request of the Pope ; as he
was embarking upon so dangerous an undertaking without any
ulterior motives, and without asking for any promises or
rewards, he only begged the Pope to grant him a plenary
indulgence, and to regard him as a faithful son of the holy
Catholic and apostolic Roman Church. Ragazzoni sent on
this request on January 8th, 1584, but for the third time
added
VIII., 178.
2 A survey of the whole correspondence on the question in
POLLEN, loc. cit., 74-76.
3 Crichton had already put him on his guard from Lyons on
July 17, 1583, THEINER, III., App. 754.
452 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
the warning ""Parry is too well known, and his
reputation
here is bad."
Although it might have been thought that the warnings
were sufficient, nevertheless the Secretary of State fell
into
the trap with, so to speak, open eyes. He did not look for
any action on the part of Parry, but to have granted him a
simple plenary indulgence ought to have seemed to him a
dangerous step to take. He therefore wrote to Ragazzoni,
with incredible imprudence, that the matter referred to in
Parry s two letters was of such a nature, that so long as he
did not ask anything further, nothing would be lost by be
lieving him. 1 At the same time he sent the letter which
Parry had asked for. The Pope, this letter states, had seen
Parry s petition of January ist ; he rejoiced at the good
intentions of the petitioner, and at his resolve ; he
exhorted
him to carry out his design, and sent him his blessing and
the
desired indulgence ; he would reward in every way he could
the services rendered, all the more so that Parry, in his
modesty, asked for nothing. 2 No sooner had Parry received
from the Pope a reply to his request than he returned to Eng
land, and in the presence of Burghley and Walsingham
described to the queen what he had done, and maintained
that the Pope had urged him to kill Elizabeth. A few weeks
later he handed over as proof of the truth of what he said,
the letter from Galli containing the concession of the
indulgence
which was now generally known.
It is easier to excuse the Pope in this matter than Galli ;
as the Secretary of State had presented Parry s request to
him as a matter of small importance, he had neglected to
examine the letter carefully. But wherever the blame
may lay, the unfortunate granting of the indulgence was a
terrible blow for the English Catholics. For many years
1 " Le due lettere del Parri so no in materia che non
si perde
niente dandogli credito, sinche non passa in altro."
Galli,
January 30, 1584, in POLLEN in The Month, C., 75.
* Galli to Parry, January 30, 1584, ibid. 75 seq. This reply
was
undoubtedly drafted by a secretary of Galli at the request
of
Parry.
ASSOCIATIONS. 453
Catholic priests had been suspect, as conspirators and
regicides,
and as such had been condemned by the courts, but now,
although these calumnies were, as before, quite without
founda
tion and quite unjust, their constant reiteration could not
fail to make an impression upon the masses of the people.
When the edict of Philip II. against Orange in 1582 gave
rise
to an attempt upon the prince, it increased in the queen of
England and her ministers the fear of similar results from
the bull of excommunication of Pius V., while the actual
murder of Orange on July loth, 1584, fanned the feeling of
irritation in England to fever heat. 1 Associations were
formed everywhere the members of which bound themselves
by oath to hound to their death anyone who made an attempt
upon the life of the queen, as well as all those to whom
such
an attempt should be advantageous. This association was
obviously directed against Mary Stuart ; when, however,
the form of oath of the associates was read to the captive
queen,
she at once offered to sign it, but this was refused. 2 But
the
Catholics were unable to take part in this because the oath
was taken in the Protestant church. The association thus
became an exclusively Protestant organization, and became
a means for the spread of Protestantism. 3
The autumn of 1584 brought fresh disaster to the Catholics.
The Jesuit Crichton, on his way to Scotland, was captured
by a Dutch pirate, and contrary to the law of nations was
handed over to England. Unfortunately, Crichton was still
carrying a copy of the plan of attack upon England of 1583,
although the undertaking had become impossible owing to
the attitude taken up by Philip II., and thus the dangerous
document had lost all value. Crichton s confessions
completed
the disaster ; the secret treaties between Spain and Rome
were now common property. 4 Burghley knew very well
how to turn this fresh occurrence to the disadvantage of the
1 POLLEN, loc. cit., 71.
2 LiNGARD, VIII., 172. She wrote a similar statement on
January 5, 1585, which she then signed. Ibid,, 183.
3 POLLEN, loc. cit., 70.
4 LlNGARD, VIII., 172.
454 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
English Catholics, and when all these misfortunes had, one
after another, stirred the resentment against the Catholics
beyond all bounds, there now came the letter of the
Secretary
of State to Parry, in which the Pope seemed to give his
approval
to the most desperate measures which the most perverted
will had, contrary to all truth, imputed to the English
Catholics.
The ground was therefore ready for the most harsh and
severe enactments. At the end of November, 1584, a legisla
tive scheme was laid before Parliament, embodying especially
the objects of the above-mentioned association for the
personal
safety of the queen. In the case of any attack upon England
or upon the queen s person, all who should take part in such
an undertaking, or for whose advantage it should be made,,
were to forfeit all right to the English throne, and to be
put
to death j 1 in other words, summary justice was to be
executed
upon the Catholics, and Mary Stuart was to be punished,,
even for enterprises for which she was not responsible.
Eliza
beth was a sufficiently shrewd judge of public opinion to
reject such unheard of proposals. Persecution to the point
of death, she laid down, must only be employed in the case
of those who had been declared to be traitors by a
commission
of 24 members ; Mary and her descendants were only to be
excluded from the throne in the event of the murder of the
Queen of England. 2 In January, 1585, there followed a
fresh severe enactment against the Catholics, the putting
into force of which deprived them of all spiritual ministry.
According to this, every Jesuit or other priest who should
be found in the kingdom after 40 days was to be considered
as ipso facto guilty of high treason ; anyone who gave
shelter
to or assisted a priest was guilty of felony, as sharing in
an
act of high treason. Severe penalties were also inflicted
upon
all those who knew where a priest was lodging and failed to
notify the authorities within twelve days ; in like manner,
the students of any foreign seminary who did not return
within six months, the parents who sent their sons to such
1 Ibid. 174 seq,
* Ibid. 175.
NEW PENAL LAWS. 455
establishments, and lastly, all who gave assistance to the
semin
arists, were equally to be held guilty. 1
The supreme injustice of this new law drove the victims
to take the risk of addressing a petition to the queen. All
Catholics, both priests and laymen, this petition stated,
looked
upon Elizabeth as their legitimate and true queen ; they
looked upon it as absolutely unlawful to lay hands upon her
person ; neither priests nor the Pope himself could give
per*
mission tor such an act, and if any ol their number held the
opposite opinion, they declared his view to be infernal and
abominable, heretical and contrary to the Catholic faith. If
Catholics withheld themselves from Anglican worship, this
implied no reflection upon their loyalty as subjects. They
begged the queen to refuse her approval to any law which
deprived them of all their priests. A courageous Catholic
was
found, who, in the middle of March, took it upon himself to
present this petition ; he was in consequence thrown into
prison, and only death set him free a few years later. 2
In Parliament only one member dared to raise his voice
against the anti-Catholic law, 3 and this exception came
from
a quarter whence it was least to be looked for, namely, from
Parry, who had been rewarded for his services by a seat in
Parliament, though he had by no means been adequately
rewarded in his own estimation. Parry s boldness led to his
immediate imprisonment, though he was set free on the follow
ing day by the queen. After a few weeks, however, he again
found himself in prison, this time in the Tower. He had once
more taken to his old trade of spying, and probably in order
to involve a fellow spy, Neville, and ruin him, had tried to
urge
him to murder Elizabeth. Neville apparently agreed, but
then proceeded to denounce Parry as guilty of high treason.
The unhappy man perished on the scaffold. In the Tower
he drew up a confession in writing in which he once again
maintained that Cardinal Galli had approved of the murder
1 Ibid. 176. SPILLMANN, III., 39 seq.
2 LINGARD, VIII., 182, seq.
3 On December 17, 1584, ibid. 176.
456 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
of Elizabeth. This confession was read before the court, but
when the judge prepared to pronounce sentence Parry denied
the whole thing ; neither had he thought of regicide, nor
had
the Cardinal urged him to it. Even on the scaffold he main
tained his innocence, and when Topcliffe produced Cardinal
Galli s letter, he once more declared that there was nothing
of the kind in that letter. 1 Any attempt to discover the
true
meaning and motives of the unhappy man s conduct must
always remain vain ; perhaps the easiest explanation is that
at the end he was mad.
Parry died on March 2nd, 1585. 2 On the 29th of the same
month Elizabeth gave her approval to the law against the
Catholics. During the same year she caused to be conveyed
to France and set at liberty 70 imprisoned priests released
from English prisons. 3 But this act of comparative leniency
must not deceive us as to the gravity of the situation ;
with
the law of 1585 the persecution of the Catholics reached its
highest point.
During the first ten years of Elizabeth s reign the laws
against the old religion had been enforced with some degree
of moderation. It had been deemed sufficient to exclude
Catholics from public office and from places of influence,
and
with making the coming of fresh priests impossible.
Gradually
the government became more strict ; this was the case after
the rising of the Catholics in 1569, after the conspiracy of
Ridolfi, 4 and after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 5
which
gave an opportunity to the Protestant bishops and some of
the
preachers to demand of the queen the blood of the Catholic
bishops and prisoners. 6 On all these occasions the
persecution
1 Ibid. 1 79 seqq.
2 Ibid. 181.
3 SANDERS, 332 seqq. Allen on February 28, 1585, in THEINER,
1585, n. 19 (III., 634 seq.).
4 Cf. Vol. XVIII. of this work, p. 226 seqq. POLLEN in The
Month, CIV. (1904), 508.
5 KERVYN DE LETTENHOVE, Relations, VI., 513.
8 Despues que se supo aqui el destroco de Paris, se fueron
los
obispos a la Reyna, diziendole quanto le ymportava, porque
no
CAMPAIGN AGAINST PRIESTS. 457
became severe enough ; a Catholic document of 1572 com
plains that all the prisons were choked with the members
of the greater and lesser aristocracy, that even ladies and
widows were punished for having secretly heard mass, that
hardly anyone could pass from one town to another without
being questioned, that hardly a letter arrived that had not
been opened, and that no conversation could be held by the
best of friends without being overheard. 1
A specially bloody campaign against priests and Catholics
followed the events of 1569, at first only in exceptional
cases. 2
It was different when, in 1575, the first seminary priests
arrived, and when, after a few years, the fruits of their
labours
were manifest. Now the government could no longer count
on the dying out of the priests, and therefore began to
inter
fere with greater severity, especially when, by the coming
of
Campion, the Catholics were filled with fresh courage, and
many who had wavered openly declared themselves for the
Church. 3 In 1577 the first seminary priest, Cuthbert Maine,
died as a martyr. 4 Until the time of Elizabeth s death
about
124 priests and 61 laymen followed him. 5 They generally
uviesse albo rotes y tumultos en el reyno, que mandasse
luego
hacer execucion en los obispos, con los otros mas religiosos
y
seglares que estan presos por la religion chatolica, a lo
qual la
Reyna no quiso consentir (KERVYN DE LETTERHOVE seq. 513).
Burghley sought to pacify London, porque con la nueva de lo
de Paris los de aquella seta, qu esta mayor parte, han hecho
consultos y mostrado de querer hazer movimientos contra los
Chatolicos, como en Paris se hizo contra los hugonotes, y ha
passado tan adelante esto que no ha faltado algunos destos
pre-
dicadores que lo dixessen publicamente en los pulpitos,
procurando
conmover la gente e ello. Antonio Fogaca to Alba on 8 Septem
ber, 1572 (ibid. 514).
1 " A treatise of treason " in POLLEN in The
Month, CIV., 509.
2 SPILLMANN, II., 109 seqq.
3 Burghley and Walsingham had already decided upon a re
newal of the persecution even before the coming of the
Jesuits.
POLLEN, in The Month, CXV. (1910), 54 seq.
4 CHALLONER, I., 28 seqq. SPILLMANN, II., 150.
^ According tp the list in CHALLONER, I., n seqq.
HISTORY OF THE POPES.
suffered the death appointed for traitors, that is they were
hanged, disembowelled while still alive, their heart and
bowels
torn out, and their dead bodies quartered. 1
Others were called upon to suffer for years, in such a way
that, by comparison, death at the hands of the executioner
seemed almost desirable. The son of the Duke of Norfolk
who had been executed in 1572, Philip Howard, Earl of
Arundel
and Surrey, was thrown into prison at the age of 28, and
there
awaited his death for ten years. 2 Thomas Pound lay for 30
years in various prisons, and was for a time in an
underground
dungeon, deprived of all light. 3 Many less distinguished or
less wealthy had their lives cut short by their privations
in
the filthy dungeons of the prisons. 4 At the beginning of
July,
1580, the ordinary prisons were so filled with Catholics
that
old castles were demanded of the bishops or suspect nobles,
in order that the prisoners might be taken there. 5 A few
months later Persons 6 wrote that the gentry and the common
folk, men and women, were everywhere thrown into prison,
and that even boys were loaded with iron chains. Execution
was generally preceded by cruel torture. The prisoners were
laid upon the bed of torture and racked, or suspended by
their
1 The text of these sentences translated in SPILLMANN, I.,
no
seq., cf. III., 10 seq. Of the few women condemned, Margaret
Clitheroe was pressed to death in 1586 under a door loaded
with
stones, because she had concealed a priest (LINGARD, VIII.,
452) ;
two other women were condemned to the stake, but afterwards
pardoned. CHALLONER, I., 315.
3 Biography by A. F. Rio, translated by K. ZELL, Freiburg,
1874 ; cf. LINGARD, VIII., 185, 291 seq.
8 FOLEY, III., 567 seqq.
* Cf. the list in CHALLONER, I., 17 seq.
6 Allen to Cardinal Galli, in THEINER, 1580, n. 88 (III.,
215).
POLLEN in The Month, CXV. (1910), 55.
To Galli on September 17, 1580, in THEINER, 1580, n. 88
(III., 216). Owen Lewis also wrote from Milan on October 13,
1580 : " Numquam ita saevitum fuit in catholicos in
Anglia
atque nunc, quae res eos facile moveret ad arma contra
Reginam,
si caput et auxilium haberent, vel certe sperarent,"
Fasc,
62 of the Favre Mss. in the Library at Geneva.
TORTURE. 459
thumbs until they swooned, or their maimed bodies were com
pressed in iron bands in the so-called " scavenger s
daughter" ; x
in some cases recourse was had to that torture which in
Spanish
popular opinion is reserved for Antichrist, 2 namely when
wedges were thrust under the finger nails. 3 Besides these
there were the money fines for non-attendance at divine wor
ship, the amount of which, for those times, can only be des
cribed as unheard of, 4 the search for hidden priests, for
Catholic
books and objects of devotion, in the course of which
helpless
women and children were threatened with drawn swords with
out any regard for their state. 5
It was inevitable that under the protection of the laws the
lowest dregs of the population should seek to take advantage
of this state of affairs. There was every opportunity for
them to enrich themselves from the property of the
Catholics,
and every use was made of it. 6 An army of paid spies and
1 Cf. LiNGARD,VIII., 423 seq.\ Diarium in App. in SANDERS,
350.
2 " Entre otros usan uno que en Espana se imagina la
gente,
que como el mayor de todos ha de obrar el Anticristo, que es
meter hierros entre las unas y la carne." Mendoza,
August 12,
1581, Corresp. de Felipe II., vol. V., 83.
3 e.g. in the case of Campion and Bryant. SPILLMANN, II.
274, 300.
4 More fully in LINGARD, VIII., 448, n.R., and especially in
F. A. GASQUET, Hampshire recusants, a story of their
troubles
in the time of queen Elizabeth, London, 1895. George Cotton
paid, for 20 years, 260 pounds sterling a year (ibid. 31) ;
a certain
Neve a tailor, and his wife were each condemned to pay 140
pounds
sterling, for having refused to attend the church during the
last
six months (ibid.}. A third of the fine went to the queen, a
third to the poor, and the remaining third to the informant.
During the last 20 years of the XVIth century, the
government
treasury received 6,000 pounds sterling a year for the fines
of
these who disobeyed, and in 1601 the sum reached 9,226
pounds
19 shillings and four pence (the whole of the queen s
revenues
were 400,000 pounds sterling in 1601).
5 LINGARD, VIII., 422, n.F. and POLLEN, loc. cit., CV.
(1905),
283 seq.
P Jessopp in SPILLMANN, III., 54,
460 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
informers was spread everywhere by Walsingham, even in
the seminaries on the continent, and poisoned the closest
ties of friendship and blood. 1 Bloodthirsty natures such as
those of the infamous Topcliffe, 2 and Henry Hastings, Earl
of Huntingdon, President of the North from 1572 to 1595, 3
saw the opportunity for satisfying their cruelty and
employed
it in every possible way. An agent of Walsingham, a certain
Vane, who had managed to get himself received into the
seminary at Rheims, seriously contemplated removing at one
blow by poison Allen and all the students in the
establishment. 4
Even the English in Flanders, who by leaving their country
had escaped from dangers to their conscience, were made to
feel the heavy hand of Elizabeth. On the strength of a
treaty
of 1495 she demanded their extradition, and the Spanish
regent, Requesens, granted the demand in 1575, so as not to
injure the commerce with England. 5 Gregory XIII. assisted
these unfortunates as far as he could. 6
I LINGARD, VIII., 166. MEYER, 144 seqq. For the principal
spies in the English seminary in Rome cf. the report of the
visita
tion of Sega in 1596, in FOLEY, VI., 13-19 ; ibid. p. xix.,
extracts
from the letters of the spies. Naturally every attempt was
made
to discover the spies in the seminaries, which may explain
certain
complaints of eavesdropping, etc. (MEYER, 87 seq.}.
2 " Anything of inhumanity that the wildest phantasy
can
imagine was incarnate in this example of unspeakable
vulgarity,"
says Meyer very rightly (p. 54) ; cf. POLLEN in The Month,
CV.
(1905), 277 seqq. He had full authority to torture priests
in his
own house at will, without witnesses. MEYER, loc. cit.
3 POLLEN, loc. cit., 273 seqq. After the death of
Huntingdon,
the number of Catholic recusants in the archdeaconry of Rich
mond increased in two years to 20,000 (ibid.} ; cf. for him
Jessopp
in SPILLMANN, III., 53.
4 Sega, loc. cit. 7, 61.
6 LECHAT, 98 seqq., 115 seqq. ; MEYER, 210 seqq. Among the
exiles were also to be found some who had taken no part in
the
rising of 1569, e.g. Englefield. LECHAT, 115.
6 To the Archbishop of Cambrai, April 15, 1575, in THEINER,
1575, n. Ti2 (II., 133), to the Bishop of Liege, August 17,
1777,
n. 82 (II., 337) ; brief in favour of Norton, May i, 1577,
ibid.
CRUELTIES IN IRELAND. 461
Even worse cruelties than in England were employed against
unhappy Ireland. 1 In order to extort a certain confession
from him, in 1584 the feet of Archbishop O Hurley of Cashel
were enclosed in metal boots which were filled with oil, and
then left to become red-hot in the fire, until whole pieces
of
the flesh fell away. 2 It is also related of Bishop MacBrien
that in 1584 leaden boots were made for him to force him to
deny the faith. 3 Twenty-two wretched old men, some of
whom were blind and crippled, whom the Catholic army
had not been able to take with it in their retreat from
Moho-
mack in 1580, were questioned about their faith, and when
they
declared that the Pope was the supreme head of the Church,
were shut up in a church, which was then set on fire. 4 The
Irish Franciscans had many martyrs, 5 and their
self-sacrificing
labours in Ireland compelled the admiration of their very
enemies. 6
1 The *" Disco rso sopra il regno dTrlanda diretto a
Gregorio
XIII." deals with the oppression of Ireland by the
English :
Urb. 854, p. 408 seq. Vatican Library. This brings out the
unhappy state of that nation.
2 BELLESHEIM, Irland, II., 200, 202. Nugent and Georhagan
to Galli, June 4, 1584, in THEINER, III., 818.
8 BELLESHEIM, loc. cit., 203.
4 Duodeviginti senes catholici, impotentes, caeci et claudi,
viri
simplices et idiotae in oppido quod dicitur Mohomack ab
exercitu
catholico relicti, ne militibus impedimento fuissent, ab
haereticis
inventi sunt ; et de sua fide examinati fuerunt, qui omnes
uno
ore profitebantur fidem catholicam. Interrogati utrum Papam
an reginam pro capite ecclesiae haberent, Papam aiunt. Tune
absque mora in templum dicti oppidi divo Nicolao dedicatum
pa]ea coopertum omnes coniecti sunt portisque clausis vivi
cremati fuerunt. A 1580 lunii 26. MORAN, Spicilegium, I.,
104.
6 BELLESHEIM, loc. cit., 189.
6 " There also arose," says BROSCH (VI., 545),
" a dangerous
enemy to English Protestantism in the army of the
Mendicants,
who did not reach the heights of the Jesuits in discipline,
but
were unrivalled in their spirit of sacrifice. Who could cope
with
men who went on foot from place to place, who were content
462 HISTORY OF THE POPES,
Especially evident in the behaviour of the government
was their contempt for everything which an upright mind
looks upon as the greatest possessions of humanity ; truth,
morals and religion. It was clear that the Catholics who
suffered themselves to be drawn to the Anglican churches
were
acting against their conscience, but in spite of all the pro
fessions of Protestant liberty of conscience violence
continued
to be employed. The spies in the English seminaries had at
their reception to take the same oath as the other students.
They made this promise without any intention of keeping it ;
for many years they professed Catholic belief and piety,
they
frequented the sacraments, and were ordained priests ; in
other words they sacrificed honour, character, morals and
religion to the interests of the state, and the government
encouraged such things, which were even worse than the
cruelties they practised against the priests, since they
ruined
not the bodies of men, but their souls.
The question may be asked whether the attitude of Elizabeth
may be described as religious or political persecution. This
question is easy to answer. Elizabeth wished at all costs to
destroy the Catholic religion in England, and the attempt to
destroy a religion can only mean, so long as words retain
their
meaning, a persecution of that religion. Of course the
motives
lor which the queen wished to get rid of Catholicism were to
be
sought, as far as she was concerned, in political
considerations.
Elizabeth had, from the very first, been quick to see what
mis
fortunes religious differences implied in those days in the
life
ot a nation. The whole of her foreign policy was based upon
the religious differences of her neighbours, and by forming
alliances with the Presbyterians across the Tweed, with the-
gueux, and the Huguenots, she held Scotland, Spain and
France
with a dunghill or a heap of straw for bed, who shared their
last
morsel or begged bread with the Celtic inhabitants, and
were;
their only solace in their sorrows ? " Brosch adds,
however,,
that " in them there was to be found a faint reflection
of the pure^
Christian spirit." The lives of the Protestant pastors
was in:
strong contrast to this self-denial. Cf. the testimony of
the poet:
Spenser, ibid. 548, and BELLESHEIM, loc. cit., 67.5.
THE MOTIVES OF ELIZABETH. 463
in check, and completely paralysed those powerful adver
saries. Hence came her suspicion that the Catholics of Eng
land would in like manner avail themselves of the help of
some
foreign power against their own sovereign. Hence too came
her efforts to bring about religious unity in the kingdom by
the
destruction and persecution of the Catholic religion. It is
possible too that in the case of Elizabeth hatred of the
ancient
Church had its part ; generally speaking, however, she was
very little influenced by religious considerations. 1
The enemies of the Catholics knew very well how to let loose
men s passions against them by every kind of fable and in
vention. Thus, in a pamphlet of 1572 the story was spread
that at the Council of Trent, the Pope, together with the
Emperor and the Kings of Spain and France, had entered into
a conspiracy to kill the Protestants in Scotland and France.
2
In 1575 there appeared, with the tacit consent of the
1 " Just as it suited her, she behaved as an
unrepentent Pro-
iestant, or as a half-hearted and secret Catholic,"
says BROSCH
(VI., 588). Guaras, who expressed the hope to Burghley that
little by little England might be brought back to the
obedience
of the Pope, received the reply (in accordance with the
views of
Elizabeth) that in matters of religion the queen did not
think
like the Genevans or the Huguenots ; she was of opinion that
in
the Church there must be a single head ; if the College of
Cardinals
would change its ways, the queen would accept their
doctrines
(Guaras to Alba, October 12, 1572, in KERVYN DE LETTENHOVE,
Relations, VI., 550 ; Corresp. de Felipe II., vol. IV., 40).
On
the other hand, in the credential letters of November 5,
1582,
for William Harebone, her envoy to the Sultan, Elizabeth
styled
herself : " The immoveable and most powerful upholder
of the
true faith against the idolaters who falsely confess the
name of
Christ." (Jos. v. HAMMER, Gesch. des osmanischen
Reiches,
II., Pesth, 1834, 513). Later on she represented the
Catholics
to the Sultan as idolaters, and the Presbyterians and
Huguenots
as a kind of Mahometans (ibid. 576). Cf. AL. PICHLER,
Geschichte
der kirchl. Trennung zwischen Orient und Okzident, I.
(1864),
507-
3 Guaras to Alba, November 18, 1572, Corresp. de Felipe II.,
vol. IV., 59.
464 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
government a publication full of the " most incredible
false
hoods and lies " concerning the Spanish Inquisition ; J
in 1580
we hear of a broadsheet with pictures representing the
"three
tyrants of the world," namely the Pope, Nero and the
Turks ; 2
in the following year Leicester spread the report that a
plot
was in preparation for the slaughter of all the Protestants,
beginning with the queen. 3
The queen had seen for herself in the reign of her elder
sister
how odious were executions for purely religious motives.
Although Elizabeth s motive was simply the destruction of
the Catholic religion, she nevertheless always made it
appear
that the victims of her religious persecution were merely
political offenders, who, by their violation of the laws, or
as
conspirators and regicides, had incurred a well-deserved
fate.
If the Catholics were dragged by force to the Anglican
services,
it was stated that the queen did not wish to do violence to
their consciences, since each could believe and think what
he
liked interiorly. 4 Maine, the proto-martyr of the seminary
of Douai, was not condemned as a priest, but on the pretext
that a Papal bull had been found in his baggage, 5 which was
absolutely illegal, since the possession of a Papal document
did not come under the law. Later on the charge of high
treason was brought against priests, 6 and by means of
stories
of conspiracies, for the most part quite fictitious, the
attempt
was made to get even the Catholics to believe it. 7
Falsehood was an outstanding feature of Elizabeth s political
1 Guaras to Zayas, July 4, 1575, ibid. 84.
8 Mendoza, March 23, 1580, ibid. 472.
8 Mendoza, January 9, 1581, ibid. 538.
4 LiNGARD, VIII., 134. The Month, CIV. (1904), 509.
8 Not the bull against Elizabeth, as was thought by RANKE
(L, 389), FROUDE (XL, 54) and MEYER (p. 126), but a copy of
the
Jubilee bull of 1575, which had nothing but an historical
interest.
Cf. MORRIS-HOFFMANN, I., 124 ; where the bull found on Maine
is printed. In the English edition of his work (London 1916,
150), Meyer has corrected the mistake.
6 Cf. more fully supra, p. 458.
7 Cf. more fully supra, p. 440 seq.
THE PRIESTS NO CONSPIRATORS. 465
methods, but it may be said that this miserable trifling
with truth never showed itself in such an outrageous way as
in
the trials of priests, wherein the honour and lives of men
were
being dealt with who, from the moral point of view, were the
flower and glory of their country. All the while these
priests
were busy with the care of souls in England they always
scrupulously avoided all meddling with politics. William
Allen although political aims were by no means foreign to
his own labours carefully kept his students away from such
matters ; at the seminary at Douai, for example, the
questions
whether the Pope had the power to excommunicate or depose
sovereigns were never to be touched upon. 1 Even the English
government knew very well that the priests were no conspira
tors ; the interrogatories of Campion and his companions,
for example, afford such incontrovertible proof of this,
that no
historian could ask for more, and the same thing applied in
the case of the great majority of the English Catholics. In
September, 1582, at the very moment when men were so
eagerly discussing the invasion of England on the continent,
one of Walsingham s spies wrote to his master that, in spite
of the most painstaking search, he had not been able to dis
cover any plans for an insurrection on the part of the
English
Catholics. Leicester, at the same time, complained, as also
did Walsingham, that Elizabeth would not believe that the
great increase of the " papists " involved any
danger to her
kingdom ; " may the Lord in His mercy, open her
eyes," he
adds. 2 Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador between the years
I 5 8 3- I 5 8 5> was unable to discover any wish to
rebel among
the English Catholics. He also speaks of their steadfastness
in their faith, and wonders that not a few of the
Protestants
were returning to Catholicism. On the other hand he
describes
the Catholics as paralysed by fear ; there is in existence
no
sort of union among the landed gentry of the nation to throw
1 BELLESHEIM, Allen, 132. FRERE (p. 212) also says : "
Allen,
while he played his own part in political machinations
abroad,
kept his college free from all that side of the
question."
2 Cal. of State Papers. Domestic, 69, quoted by POLLEN in
The Month, CI. (1902), 408.
VOL. xix. 30
466 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
off the Protestant yoke, and no one dares to express any
opinion on such subjects. As far as he is aware, no Catholic
is in touch with Guise. 1 The French ambassador, Castelnau
de Mauviss ere, wrote of the English Catholics that they con
tinued to console themselves with the hope that their queen
had more sympathy with them in her heart than she showed
in her laws and her policy. Even the Protestants always had
the fear lest she should show favour to the Catholics in the
event of her marrying a Catholic prince. Elizabeth herself
recognized that the Catholics were her best subjects. 2
Loyalty
to the queen often manifested itself in a very touching way
in
the case of the martyrs. Generally their last prayer upon
the
scaffold was for the queen herself. Felton, who had fastened
to the gates of the archiepiscopal palace the bull of ex
communication of Elizabeth, immediately before his excution
drew a precious diamond ring from his finger and sent it to
her. 3
In order to fasten the crime of high treason upon the
priests,
in spite of the absence of visible proof, Burghley had
recourse
to a desperate expedient. Relying upon the bull of excom
munication of Pius V., he presented to the accused the so-
1 POLLEN, loc. cit., 409. " Con e"sto envio V. M.
copia de
una carta de la de Escocia, respondole acerca de los cat61icos
que
de ningun manera no s61o conviene declararles nada, mas aun
tentallos, por estar demasiadamente amilanados, como lo he
escripto a V. M. por diversas veces." Mendoza on 28
March,
1583, Corresp. de Felipe II., vol. V., 488. " Yo no
se" verdad-
eramente que haya aqui algunos cat61icos principales que
traten
con el de Guisa." Mendoza on 16 July, 1583, ibid. 516.
On
November 30, 1583 (LECHAT, 142) Aless. Farnese remarks that
according to the opinion of the English refugees in
Flanders,
the Catholics of England would not take up arms before a
land
ing was effected on their shores. They wished this landing
to
be made in the name of the Pope, for otherwise both
Catholics
and heretics would combine to resist the foreigner.
Castelnau, May 27, 1579, August 30, 1580, April 9, 1581,
in POLLEN, loc. cit., 408.
8 SPILLMANN, II., 116.
THE " BLOODY QUESTION. " 467
called " bloody question " : l What would you do
if the Pope
or the King of Spain were to send an army to England to
restore the Catholic religion ? It was not sufficient for
the
accused to say that in the existing circumstances they recog
nized Elizabeth as their lawful sovereign ; it was insisted
that they should give an express assurance that they did not
recognize any circumstances in which according to the inter
national law of the middle ages an armed attack by a foreign
power would be lawful, or in which the Pope could proceed
to The deposition of the queen. To answer this question
without reservation in the sense demanded by the government
was impossible ; any evasive or conditional reply was at
once
taken as proof of treasonable opinions. On the strength of
this " bloody question " the government was thus
naturally
able to punish any Catholic as a traitor. But at the same
time they placed in the hands of their adversaries the proof
that those who were condemned in this way died for their
religion, and when the government set itself in these trials
to search into men s thoughts, it was made manifest that
they
had no tangible proofs against the accused priests in order
to
prove, either their treason, or as far as facts went, their
treasonable opinions. Burghley himself thought it necessary
in 1583 to take his pen in hand in defence of his procedure.
William Allen answered him, and among other things pointed
out that even the Protestant reformers held that in certain
circumstances resistance to a government by violence was
justified, 2 that the Protestants of France, Scotland and
1 Cf. for this POLLEN, loc. cit., CIV. (1904), 513 seq.
2 See CALVIN (Praelectiones in Daniel, c. 6, v. 22) : "
Abdicant
enim se potestate terreni principes, dura insurgunt contra
Deum
imo indigni sunt, qui censeantur in hominum numero. Potius
ergo conspuere oportet in ipsorum capita, quam illis parere,
ubi ita proterviunt, ut velint etiam spoliare Deum iure suo
et
quasi occupare solium eius, ac si possent eum e coelo
detrahere "
(Corp. reform, vol. LXIX : Calvini opera, XLI., 25 seq. A
detailed work, of about 1575, in Flanders concerning the
right
of the people to depose princes ; see KERVYN DE LETTENHOVE,
Relations, VIII., 51-58 ; cf. MARNIX, ibid., 113.
468 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
Flanders had acted on this supposition, and that Elizabeth
herself had approved of this principle when she gave
assistance
to the insurgents of those nations. 1
A short time after the death of Campion there fell into the
hands of the government the document in which Gregory
XIII. granted that mitigation of the bull of excommunication
of Pius V. which had been asked for by Persons and Campion.
2
Burghley published this Papal declaration in his apologetic
work of 1583 as a proof that Campion, in spite of all his de
clarations to the contrary had, together with Persons, come
to England to put the bull into execution ! 3
As a matter of fact, nothing more could be gathered from
the concession of Gregory XIII. than the fact that he wished
to tranquillize the consciences of the English Catholics,
and
to moderate the bull of his predecessor ; but this
mitigation
is an outpouring of the burning sympathy shown by the Pope
on so many occasions for the English Church. Gregory had
taken his name in memory of the great Pope who first sent
the missionaries to the Anglo-Saxons, and it is quite
certain
that the mind of Gregory XIII. often adverted to the fact
that his name ought to be an incentive to him to become in
his turn the apostle of England. 4 The support which he gave
both the English seminaries sprang from the same idea ;
he did everything in his power for the English exiles who
had been driven from their country for their faith ; 5
lastly
1 ALLEN, a true, sincere and modeste defence of English
Catho-
liques that suffer for their faith both at home and abrode
against
a false, seditious and slanderous libel intitled : The
Execution
of Justice in England, Ingolstadt 1584., cf. BELLESHEIM,
Allen,
105 seq. ; LINGARD, VIII., 428, n.H.
a Cf, supra p. 390.
3 MEYER, 120 seq. Gregory XIII. also gave another decision
concerning the duties of the English Catholics ; this stated
that
in all matters concerning the state they were to recognize
Elizabeth
as true queen : " externo honore et verbis
observarent." POLLEN
in The Month, 1C. (1902), 96.
4 Cf. supra p. 404 ; MEYER, 242.
* *Distributio 500 sc. a gloriosissimae memoriae S. S tis
de-
cessore indulta et a S. D. N. Gregorio XIII. continuata et
Religiosis
GREGORY XIII. AND THE MARTYRS. 469
it was Gregory who conferred on the victims of the judicial
murders in England the supreme honour with which the
Catholic Church is wont to crown moral grandeur ; he allowed
their bodies to be treated as relics, and opened the way to
their
veneration and cultus in the Church, when he caused the
church of the English College in Rome to be adorned by the
painter Circiniani with the representation ol their martyr
doms. 1
Besides the Catholics, there was another very powerful
party in England which also refused to have anything to do
with the state church, and which hated and resisted its
worship
as well as its bishops. This was the growing party of the
Puritans.
et Pauperibus Anglis in Belgio exulantibus in eleemosynam
collata nee sine novo S. S tis annuatim consensu ratificata
(Con-
ventui monialium S. Brigittae sc. 200 ; Conventui
Carthusianorum
sc. 50 ; sacerdotibus Anglis, qui in Belgio praedicant sc.
50 ;
D. Thomae Fremano sc. 20 etc.), Encyclical of January 21,
1582, to the whole of Christendom on behalf of the English
refugees. Bull. Rom., VIII., 383 seq. ; *to Philip II.,
recommend
ing to him two nobles, Brevia XXI., n. 283, p. 218, Papal
Secret
Archives ; to Don John, Jan. 26, 1578, in THEINER, 1578, n.
96,
III., 435 (to recommend Norton and the English Carthusians,
who had been exiled from Bruges to St. Quentin, and the
Brigit-
tines at Malines) ; to Philip II., April 9, 1578, ibid. n.
87, p. 436
(to recommend the Prior of England [Richard Shelley] ; to
the
King of France (for Lesley), March 27, 1574, ibid. 1574, n.
94,
I., 307 seq. (cf. II., 133) ; to Philip II., for
Westmoreland and
Dacre, September 5, 1580, in BELLESHEIM, Allen, 273 ; cf.
THEINER
III., 701. Cf. supra, p. 460 ; A. BERTOLOTTI, Relazioni di
Inglesi
col governo pontificio nei secoli XVI. -XVI I. e XVIII. The
documents collected in the Roman archives, in Giornale
avaldico-
genealogico-diplomatico, XV., anno 1887-1888, Pisa, 1888.
112
seqq. For the Brigittines and Carthusians cf. LECHAT, 25,
132
seqq.
1 The decree of the Congregation of Rites, confirmed by Leo
XIII. on December 9, 1886, on the beatification of 54
English
martyrs, in Katholik, 1887, I., 549 seqq. KNOX, Letters of
card.
Allen, 1 86. MEYER, 91. Ecclesiae anglicanae trophaea sive
sarictorum martyrum, qui pro Chris to catholicaeque fidei
veritate
470 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
It is a strange thing that the fiercest enemies of the
Catholics,
Leicester, Burghley, Walsingham, and the terrible
persecutor,
Huntingdon, were either open Puritans, or at any rate
inclined
much more to Puritan ideas than to the state church. 1 The
persecution which was being carried on on behalf of
religious
unity and the official church against the old religion thus
came
from men who substantially had no love for the state church.
The Catholics themselves attributed their sufferings much
more to the Puritans than to the queen. 2 This fact throws
a new light upon the motives of the persecution ; since,
as far as the Puritans were concerned, it was not politics
but
religious hatred which incited them to the struggle, and the
same thing is true of the ministers who so often spurred men
on to hostility and to the destruction of the Catholics. 3
The attitude of the government towards the Puritans
also throws a light upon its behaviour towards the
Catholics.
As the future was to show, Puritanism was far more dangerous
to the state and church of Elizabeth than the recognition
of the Pope, but the political sagacity of Burghley and
Walsingham, who feared everything from Rome, was blind
asserenda antique recentiorique persecutionum tempore mortem
in Anglia subierunt passiones, Roniae in Collegio Anglico
per
Nicolaum Circinianum depictae, nuper autem per Io. BAPT. de
CAVALLERIIS aeneis typis repraesentatae, Romae, 1584 (36
copper plates representing the English martyrs of ancient and
modern times). Cf. GASQUET, English College, 118 seq., 147
seq.
1 Cf. for Leicester, FRERE, 115 seq., 185, 226; for
Burghley,
ibid. 229 ; for Walsingham, Mendoza, April 22, 1578,
Corresp. de
Felipe II., vol. V., 221 ; Camden calls Walsingham " a
strong
and resolute maintainer of the purer religion "
(Dictionary of
National Biography, LIX., 127) ; of Huntingdon he says :
" He
was of a mild disposition, but being a zealous puritan, much
wasted his estate by a lavish support of those hotheaded preach
ers " (ibid., XXV., 127). According to Mendoza on
February
27, 1581 (Corresp. de Felipe II., vol. V. 550), Huntingdon
was
" Gran puritano y enemiguisimo de la Reina de Escocia
" Cf.
POLLEN in The Month, CV. (1905), 273.
* POLLEN, loc. cit., 1C. (1902), 407.
a Cf. e.g. supra, p. 4^6.
THE PURITANS. 471
to the danger which threatened them from the Puritans. 1
Anyone who wishes to form a true judgment of the persecu
tion of the Catholics must keep both these things before
him,
1 See more fully infra, p. 474 seq. On Nov. 15, 1573,
Antonio
de Guaras wrote to Alba (KERVYN DE LETTENHOVE, Relations,
VI., 844) : " Esta semana, por comission de la Reyna,
se ha dado
orden para que, en este pueblo y en todo el reyno, se tome
nota
de los que son conocidos por Catolicos y Puritan os. . . .
La
persecution solamente es contra los Catolicos, porque todo
es dis-
imulacion contra los Puritanos por ser los mas finos y
apasionados
hereges de la opinion dellos, y ay muchos que estan en gran
autoridad, que son los principales dellos, y tanta discordia
por
ello que se teme de alteracion." Persons also writes
from Paris
on 24 August, 1583, to the rector of the English College,
Rome :
" Catholici . . . dimicant fortiter pro sua fide.
Queruntur enim
cum libris, tarn etiam scriptis et sermone, se solos plecli
et vexari,
cum boni et fideles subditi sint ; Puritanos vero, qui
manifestos
se produnt Reginae inimicos, liberos esse ab omni vexatione.
Hoc regni consiliarii audiunt, sed dissimulant tamen, quia maxima
ex parte et ipsi Puritani sunt (THEINER, 1583, n. 85, III.,
476).
Mendoza also wrote on July 16, 1583 (Corresp. de Felipe II.,
vol. V., 513) : The sect of the Puritans increases greatly
" siendolo
muchos principales del Reino." Six nobles of their
number had
taken counsel with the French Huguenots as to whether they
ought not to take up arms against the queen, to depose or
kill
her, because she would not enter into their ideas of reform,
and
would not kill all the Catholics " pidiendoles parescer
si podian
tomar las armas contra la Reina para deponella de la corona,
poniendo otro en su lugar 6 matalla, por concertarse su
religion
y evangelio." The letter was intercepted, and the six
nobles
summoned before the Council, but were not punished "
que es
bueno para la sevicia que usan con los catolicos." A
book was
published by the Puritans in Zeeland and Middelburg, which
taught among other things that superiors are no longer
superiors
if they do not regulate their conduct in accordance with the
Gospel,
and that in that case anyone may depose or kill them "
en cual
como falten, ipso facto tiene poder cualquiera para
descompon-
ellos 6 matallos." The Council wished to interfere, but
as
Leicester, Walsingham and Redefort adhered to Puritanism,
1;his was not done.
472 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
and for the same reason the history of the Popes must not
fail to deal briefly with a party which in the future
exercised
so important an influence upon the fortunes of England.
The Puritan tendency of English Protestantism had its
beginning at the time when some of the ministers in the
reign of Queen Mary fled to Geneva, and there absorbed the
doctrines of Calvin ; on their return to England they
naturally
could not accept certain half-Catholic institutions of the
national church. At first the fight was confined to apparent
trifles ; of the sacerdotal vestments of Catholic times, the
simplest of all, the so-called rochet or surplice, a linen
garment
worn over the ordinary dress, was still in use for Anglican
worship. A campaign against this " anti-scriptural
relic
of papistry " as well as against other things of a like
nature,
was begun with a great display of zeal. 1 Archbishop Parker
resisted the innovators, whereupon the struggle became
much more far-reaching ; the new party declared the office
of bishop to be unscriptural, and aimed at a presbyterian
constitution by which the community was to be ruled by a
body of elders. 2 Some of the supporters of the new views
then began to form a separate community, against which the
government then proceeded to take action. 3
But the new movement would not allow itself to be re
strained. The infant state church by the grace of Elizabeth
had as yet no roots in the hearts of the people ; in
comparison
with it the Puritans had at any rate the merit of being
logical ;
to this must be added the fact that the state bishops were
often quite unworthy men. 4 Elizabeth looked upon the ap-
1 FRERE, 54 seq., 111-128. One of the " gross points of
popery "
was the fur collar which the higher ecclesiastics were
careful to
wear. This was given up in 1571, as being tainted with super
stition, a concession which naturally encouraged the
Puritans to
make further demands.
2 FRERE, 126.
3 Ibid. 126 seq.
* " There were many upon the bench of bishops who were
unworthy of their place there, and the proportion of these
did
not diminish as Elizabeth s reign went on." (FRERE, 156
seq.).
THE PURITANS. 473
pointments to bishoprics, as well as the vacant sees, as
sources
of revenue, and once the new bishops had taken possession
of their sees they tried to recoup themselves for their
expenses
by doing to their subordinates what the queen had done to
them. 1 Thus the Church "was daily sinking deeper into
a
sea of corruption." 2 Piiritanism made capital of this
state
of affairs, and its opposition to the national church became
daily more bitter, its progress more daring, and its
supporters
more numerous. Its leaders up to this time, Sampson and
Humphrey, had only become familiar with Calvinism at a
mature age, and had always preserved many memories of the
state of affairs of their youth ; Thomas Cartwright,
however,
a Cambridge professor, who took the leadership of the party
in 1570, had grown up among the ideas of Geneva. He had
the boldness to direct open attacks from the pulpit at the
episcopal constitution of the church, and though in
Cambridge
he found an adversary in Whitgift, the greater part of the
university was on his side. 3 Whitgift himself later on, as
the
second successor of Parker in the archiepiscopal see of
Canter
bury, proved himself the most bitter enemy of the Puritans ;
4
but though he opposed their destructive efforts in the
matter
of ecclesiastical discipline, he nevertheless sympathized
strongly with their views as far as doctrine was concerned,
5
Elizabeth s bishops, says Frere (p. 303), for the most part,
were
little else but sponges ; the queen first squeezed them
herself
and then left them to extract what they could from the
benefices
assigned to them. " In the early part of Elizabeth s
reign," it
is stated, ibid. 304, " the clergy were both unlearned
and ill bred.
. . . The married clergy suffered from the dubious position
of their
wives, for clerical marriage was not yet authorised by
statute."
1 FRERE, 191.
3 " a Church which was daily sinking deeper into a sea
of cor
ruption." ibid, 191. Under Elizabeth there were
benefices in
the hands of boys of fourteen. Ibid, 162.
* FRERE, 155 seq.
4 Ibid., 223-236.
5 " He was decidedly in sympathy with the Calvinists in
his
doctrinal standpoint, and in this respect he joined hands
with
the puritan party." Ibid, 224,
474 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
while his predecessor, Grindal, had entirely adopted Puritan
ideas. 1 Even among the masses there were to be found many
zealots, and a general consensus of opinion against the
" abuses." When in 1572 there appeared a pamphlet
with
the title " An Admonition to Parliament," 2 which
expressed
itself strongly against the bishops, against the Book of Com
mon Prayer, and against the abuses in the church, 3 its two
authors, Field and Wilcox, who were quickly discovered, were
indeed imprisoned, but the people flocked to their prison as
to a shrine : 4 the order that all the copies of this book
should
be handed over to the bishops was paid so little attention
to
that not even one copy was delivered to the Bishop of
London. 5
The Parliament to which the admonition had been addressed
counted many Puritans among its members ; many times
proposals of a Puritan tendency were laid before it, and if
none of these became law, this was due solely to the inter
vention of the queen. 6 Elizabeth kept a jealous watch over
Parliament, especially with regard to her supremacy in
eccles
iastical matters. In 1572 she forbade the House of Commons
to pass bills on religious questions, which had not first
been
submitted to the clergy, 7 and in 1576 she again declared
that
she did not wish Parliament to interfere with such matters.
8
The primate of the English Church found his hands almost
entirely tied. Grindal, Parker s successor, had experience
of this when the queen demanded of him the suppression among
the Puritans of the so-called " prophesyings " ;
or the suppres
sion of those private gatherings at which each person
present
1 Ibid, no, 191.
1 Ibid. 1 78 seqq.
1 This work called the archiepiscopal court " the
putrid slough
and the poisonous well of all the pestilences which infect
the king
dom." The Book of Common Prayer is called " a
faulty book,
taken and dug out of the Papal dunghill of the breviary and
the
missal." FRERE, 179.
Ibid. 182.
8 Ibid. 185.
Ibid. 161, 177, 198 seq.
7 Ibid. 177.
Ibid. 199.
THE PURITANS. 475
was allowed to speak according to his own ideas concerning
some scriptural text proposed to him. Grindal refused,
appealing to his conscience, and at the end of his letter in
sisted that the queen should leave religious matters to the
bishops and theologians. Elizabeth retorted by suspending
Grindal from the exercise of his episcopal office for six
months,
and, passing over the head of the archbishop, sent her
orders
directly to his suffragans. 1 The " prophesyings "
nevertheless
went on, in spite of the royal orders, though under another
name. 2 For the most part the government behaved with
extraordinary leniency and consideration towards the
Puritans.
Some of the preachers were, it is true, deprived when they
had
made themselves too noticeable, and here and there one or
two were sent to prison, 3 but harsh treatment was only
really
meted out to the extreme left of the party, the adherents of
Robert Browne, who had formerly separated himself from
the national church in order to form a community composed
solely of the " more worthy," and denied not only
the validity
of the Anglican consecration, but also the spiritual
supremacy
of the queen. In spite of this, Browne, who was a relative
of
Burghley, was for a long time treated with great
consideration,
until in 1581 he thought it wise to fly to Middelburg in
Holland
with his friends. 4 This sect gave the Puritans their first
two
martyrs ; two of Browne s disciples, who obstinately denied
the spiritual supremacy of Elizabeth had, in 1583, to
expiate
their unpardonable crime on the scaffold. 5 Thus it was no
longer only the Catholics who were threatened with a violent
death for their faith. But it was at once shown at the execu
tion of these first two Puritans that the two religious con
fessions approached such an eventuality with an entirely
different religious outlook. Whereas the Catholics could be
1 Ibid. 193 seq.
2 Ibid. 194 seq.
3 Ibid. 172 seqq. Puritan writers estimate that 100 pastors
were removed from their posts, " but truthfulness was
never the
Puritans strong point," remarks Frere (p. 174).
4 Ibid. 202 seq.
6 Ibid, 204.
476 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
dragged to their death without any fear of their being
forcibly
set free by their friends, in the case of the Puritans there
was
at once rebellion. It was found necessary to postpone
judicial
action in the case of one of the accused, in order to calm
the
populace, while the other was for the same reason taken to
the
scaffold immediately after his condemnation. 1
In the same year 1583, the new Archbishop of Canterbury,
John Whitgift, Cartwright s former adversary at Cambridge,
deemed it necessary to start a bitter campaign against the
Puritans. During the last ten years that sect had made great
advances ; the " Admonition to Parliament " of
1572 had
been followed in 1574 by the " Book of
Discipline," to which all
the adherents of the Geneva opinions bound themselves by
subscription. 2 During the years preceding the appointment
of Whitgift, meetings had been held, especially in London,
against the Book of Common Prayer and the episcopal office ;
sixty ministers from the west of England came on May i6th
1582 to Cockfield to promote resistance to the Book of
Common
Prayer ; a further meeting gave the demands of the sect a
definite form by means of series of decrees. 3 A few weeks
later, Whitgift, who had now taken possession of his office,
addressed a letter to the ministers, which they were all re
quired to sign under the penalty of being removed from their
posts. 4 This demand raised a storm of opposition, both from
the ministers and from the laity ; 5 when the commission
appointed by Whitgift demanded under oath from the suspect
ministers a profession of faith on certain points, 6
Burghley who,
in spite of his secret leaning towards the Puritans,
officially
supported the national bishops, showed his displeasure. The
1 Ibid.
3 Ibid. 195 seq.
* Ibid. 225,
Ibid. 224.
* Ibid. 227 seq.
8 This was the celebrated ex-officio oath, which was
afterwards
eagerly disputed. It was called ex-officio, because the sole
juridical title on which it was demanded, was the office of
judge
(officium) of the one who exacted the oath,
OMNIPOTENCE OF ELIZABETH. 477
procedure oi the commission," he wrote, " is
conceived after
the Roman fashion " and " smacks too much of the
Roman
Inquisition " in saying which the ingenuous statesman
naturally and very properly condemned the " bloody
question"
of the Catholic trials which he had himself devised.
Whitgift
defended himself, and Burghley thought it wise to let him
have his own way. The resistance offered by the ministers
to the archbishop was of no great importance ; out of 800
fifty refused to sign 1 and only a few turbulent ones were
sent
to prison. 2
Once more in 1584 the Puritans attempted to induce Parlia
ment, to approve their designs, but once more all their
attempts
were defeated by the opposition of the queen. After many
discussions the two Houses at length agreed upon a decree
for
the strict observance of the " Sabbath," but the
queen refused
her assent, and the matter was heard no more of. A further
plan for reform did not even reach the House of Commons
for discussion, while another reached the House of Lords,
but
out of consideration for Elizabeth, the peers prudently
rejected
it. The complaints of the people against the bishops were
brought before Burghley and Whitgift, who answered the com
plainants with scorn, so that the latter did not dare to
make
any reply. Moreover, the queen then informed the members
of the House of Commons that they were not to interfere
in matters which did not concern them ; in the speech from
the throne at the dissolution of Parliament Elizabeth
declared
that the reform of the clergy was her affair. In the full
per
suasion of her authority over the Church itself she at the
same
time sent the bishops a public warning that she would remove
them if they did not busy themselves in bettering the state
of affairs. 3 No Pope and no prince of the XVIth century had
ever dared to treat their bishops in such a way.
It seemed to Elizabeth that she had attained to the height
of her power. She was mistress of the seas, and within the
boundaries of England she was more king than a Charles V.,
1 FRERE, 229 seq.
2 Ibid. 234.
8 Ibid. 230-233.
478 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
and more Pope than a Gregory VII. or an Innocent III. The
state bishops could not move a finger without her permission
;
the proud nobles humbly bowed their heads before her, and
she cut off the heads of the Catholics who would not bend to
her will ; as for the stiff-necked Puritans, she thought, it
would
seem, that she could pulverise them by her enactments, and
perhaps ignore them as insignificant and inconsiderable per
sons. Her great ambition of raising herself up to unlimited
sovereignty in matters temporal and spiritual seemed to have
been attained.
Elizabeth had set herself a gigantic task when, on her
accession to the throne she had aimed at reconstituting on a
Protestant basis the religious unity of England, which was
still
to a great extent Catholic. From the moral point of view one
must naturally condemn a policy which could only be carried
into effect by violating the consciences of thousands, by de
priving thousands of their possessions, their worldly
position,
and of all happiness in life, and by inhumanly sacrificing
to a
vile tyranny hundreds of noble lives. Undoubtedly all this
showed the great administrative genius of Elizabeth and
Burghley. It needed courage even to form the idea of so
gigantic an undertaking, and a profound understanding of
English conditions to look upon it as practicable. The
sagacity
of Burghley, the real " king of England/ 1 who was
able, by a
well-weighed policy, to combine an iron severity towards the
recalcitrant with consideration towards the obedient, his
skill in stirring up public opinion in England against the
Catholics, and his logically persistent government through
many years, actually succeeded in reducing the religion of
ancient England, once supreme from sea to sea, to a handful
of despised helots. But in spite of everything what short
sightedness was displayed in the political outlook of
Burghley
and his sovereign ! It might be supposed that both of them
1 " Antonio de Guarae mesmes me diet qu en effet c est
le
roy d Anglcterre." Champagney to Requesens, January 28,
1576, in KERVYN DE LETTENHOVE, Relations, VIII., 137."
[Burle] es el todo deste Reino y la anima de la Reina."
Guaras
to Alba, October 12, 1572. Corresp. de Felipei II., vol.
IV., 39.
THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 479
knew no more than the upper classes of English society, who
for that matter had often shown themselves ready to embrace
even Islam at the royal command, 1 and that they had not
even a notion of what religion really means, or of what deep
roots it takes in the hearts of a sane people. Thus the
king-
made state church which was to unite the nation was a
failure ;
a fierce vendetta followed upon the criminal attempt to en
force it, and this, wonderful to say, did not come from the
persecuted Catholics, but from the kindly treated Puritans.
In contrast to the national church of Elizabeth Puritanism
waxed strong, and it was due to it that, in less than half a
century after the death of the queen, the political life of
Eng
land passed through its time of greatest peril, and her
second
successor was brought to the scaffold. 2
Without intending it Elizabeth afforded to the Holy See the
most wonderful recognition that it has ever received. The
view has certainly been expressed that the English martyrs
were not so much martyrs for Catholicism, as for the idea of
the supremacy of the Papacy over all sovereigns, 3 that they
died for the power of the Pope to depose secular rulers, 4
and
thus for a political ideal and not for a principle of faith.
But
they were above all things persecuted and gave their lives
because they would have no part in the separation of England
from the universal Church, and thus for the principles of
the
Catholic faith concerning the unity of the Church and the
authority of the Holy See ; even if they did assent to the
principle which gives rise to this objection, it would be
more
true to say that they died for the claim, which the Pope put
1 See Vol. XIV: of this work, p. 408.
2 Mary Stuart had warned Elizabeth in 1584: "Pour Dieu,
prenez garde," she wrote to her, " que pied a pied
vous ne laissiez
tant croistre ceote faction puritaine que, si vous n y
pourvoyez
en temps, ils vous donneront la roy a vous-mesme, m
asseurant
que diverses choses s exercent en ce royaume pour I
advancement
de leurs dessins." LABANOFF, VI., 155 ; KERVYN DE
LETTEN-
HOVE, Marie Stuart, I., Paris, 1889, 71.
8 RANKE, Engl. Gesch., I., 390.
4 FRERE, 221.
480 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
forward as to his right of deposition, and because they
would
not disobey the Holy See even in matters which were not
defined dogmas. Moreover, the bull of excommunication
was only a pretext for the persecution ; it would soon have
passed into oblivion and been hardly known if the government
had not again and again called attention to it. 1 It was to
the
English government, then, and its repeated insistence upon
the bull, that the Roman See owed the fact that its loyal
sons
equally insistently affirmed the duty of obedience to the
vicar
of Christ, and that so many of them sealed their loyalty to
him with their blood.
In how many ways, during this century of religious up
heaval, men had tried to drag the successor of St. Peter and
his claims in the mud, by means of songs and pictures, in
sermons and lectures, in broad-sheets and folio volumes ; in
how many ways had they tried to take from him the last
remains of reverence in the hearts of the people, by scorn
and
derision, and with all the artifices of eloquence and
learning,
sometimes with coarse abuse, sometimes in polished periods !
But now it had been shown that not only people of the common
folk, but often men who belonged to the greatest and most
wealthy families, who were possessed of ah 1 the culture of
their
age, were more ready to renounce their riches and their
rank,
1 So said the martyrs themselves, and so said W. Allen (LiN-
GARD, VIII., 426). FRERE (p. 176) says : " The princes
of Europe
either did not take the bull into consideration at all, or
like France,
paid little attention to it, while it is probable that
England
generally had hardly heard of it, or heard of it only by the
answers
put forth to it." Moreover, to speak precisely, it is
not true to
say that Pius V. by his bull concerning Elizabeth, inflicted
deposition on her. In the opinion of the Pope, the English
queen had forfeited her crown by her heresy long before the
issu
ing of the bull ; he himself affirmed and declared that this
was
the case. Cf. Paul III. on Henry VIII. : " Se ipse illo
regno
et regia dignitate privavit, ita ut sola declaratio
privationis
adversus eum supersit." (RAYNALDUS, 1535, n. n). It is
impossible to appeal to Pius V. to prove that the Popes
claimed
the right to depose princes.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE MARTYRS. 481
their liberty and their country, and even their honour and
their
life, than their loyalty to the man whom they venerated as
the
vicar of Christ. The Papacy could have had no more glowing
testimony, since they who gave it, by their very testimony
proved that they were capable of the greatest sacrifice and
the
most sublime moral grandeur, and were worthy to be looked
upon, from this point of view, as the flower of their age.
VOL. XIX. U
CHAPTER XIII.
THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW.
THE peace of St. Germain, which was so favourable to the
Huguenots, was to be sealed by the marriage of Margaret, the
daughter of Catherine, to the Calvinist Henry of Navarre.
For
the validity of this marriage, however, the Papal
dispensation
was required, and this Pius V. had refused to grant so long
as
Henry remained a Huguenot. Without letting this fact stand
in the way, the marriage contract between Margaret and
Henry of Navarre was signed in April, 1572, and soon after
wards an alliance was formed between France and England. 1
This was an important victory for the anti-Spanish party,
while at the same time the preparation of an armada placed
Philip II., in difficulties that were all the greater
because, after
the capture of Brielle, the insurrection in the Low
Countries
had become more violent. Would France seize upon this
opportunity of giving assistance to the insurgents ? The
French Huguenots, and above all Coligny, employed every
means to bring this about. Charles IX., an immature youth,
passionate and easily led, agreed to their plans ; only
Catherine
de Medici shrank from a breach with the power of Spain.
She had indeed good reasons for acting with circumspection ;
Queen Elizabeth had proved herself a very doubtful ally,
who would not allow France to obtain possession of the
coasts
of Flanders. The interests of her co-religionists in the
Nether
lands were, as far as the Queen of England was concerned, an
entirely secondary consideration in comparison to the
pressing
political question of the domination of the Channel. All
Coligny s attempts to win over England to intervene in the
Low Countries were in vain. The news that was received
of the undecided attitude of the Protestant princes in
Germany
1 Cf. Vol. XVIII. of this work, p. 143.
482
CATHERINE AND COLIGNY. 483
was very discouraging, and still less could France count
upon
the much desired help of the Turks. 1
While the balance was thus wavering between the two
parties a crisis occurred in consequence of the defeat
inflicted
upon the volunteer Huguenot levies under the command of
Genlis on July I7th, 1572, near Mons. Coligny was deeply
affected by this, and strove more than ever for a rupture
with
Spain, for which purpose the Queen-Mother must be forced to
yield to the opposition, and the Huguenots obtain the upper
hand in France. 2 It was also very opportune for Coligny
that
Catherine and her younger son, Henry of Anjou, were at that
time visiting the sick Duchess of Lorraine ; thus Coligny s
influence was able to work upon the weak king, and the
Venetian ambassador reported that the war was decided upon.
The return of the Queen-mother to Paris (July 3oth, 1572)
once more made everything uncertain. It was not only the
fear of a war against the great power of Spain which filled
her
with dismay ; she, whose predominant passion was the desire
to rule, 3 feared no less the loss of that authority over
her son
which Coligny threatened to usurp. At two plenary meetings
of the council on August 6th and gih, Catherine caused the
question of the war to be gone into thoroughly once more.
The reasons urged by Morvilliers, the want of money and the
uncertainty of foreign help, did not fail to make an impression
;
the decision was adverse to Coligny, and it was resolved to
maintain the peace. But the king continued to support
Coligny as much as possible. 4 The latter was by no means
disposed to abandon his plans against Spain : "
Madame,"
he said to Catherine, " the king is avoiding a war
which
promises to bring him great advantages ; God grant that he
may not run into another which he cannot avoid." These
words might have referred to the war in the Low Countries,
1 See BAUMGARTEN, Bartholomausnacht, 153 seq., 161 seq.,
178 seq., 193 seq.
2 Cf. SEGESSER, Pfyfler, II., 147.
3 " Affetto di signoreggiare," says the Venetian,
Sig. Cavalli,
(ALBERI, I. 4, 321) was the prevailing passion of Catherine.
4 See BAUMGARTEN, 211 seq., 220 seq.
484 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
but Catherine saw in them a threat, as though the admiral
had it in mind to stir up another civil war. 1 There could
be no
doubt that Coligny had the power to do so ; throughout
France the Huguenots, who were wonderfully organized
both for military purposes and in their finances, looked
upon
him as their leader. 2 The Queen-mother realized this very
clearly, as well as the fact that she could only secure a
com
plete triumph by succeeding in freeing her son once and for
all
from the influence of the dangerous and powerful leader of
the
Huguenots.
In the meantime the day on which the marriage of Henry of
Navarre and Margaret was to take place in Paris was at hand.
This celebration had been postponed on account of the death
of the Queen of Navarre and the illness of the Duchess of
Lorraine, and also because it was still hoped that the
granting
of the dispensation, which was necessary on account of the
Calvinism of the bridegroom, but which had been steadily
refused by Pius V., might be obtained from the new Pope,
Gregory XIII. As all efforts to obtain this were seen to be
vain, Cardinal Charles de Bourbon was tricked by a forged
letter from the French ambassador in Rome, which stated that
the Pope had granted the dispensation at the request of the
Cardinal of Lorraine. In consequence of this Cardinal de
Bourbon blessed the marriage on August i8th, without the
bridegroom being present at the mass. 3 The Huguenot nobles
1 See SOLDAN, II., 433 n. 17; RANKE, Franzos. Gesch., I. 2 ,
315. Cf. Lettres de Cath. de Medicis, IV., Ixvii.
* See SEGESSER, II., 139 seq.
9 Cf. Lettres de Cath. de Medicis, IV., liv. seq., Ixvii.
seq. ,
RAUMER, Briefe, I., 292 seq. ; Rev. d. quest, hist., LXXX.
(1906),
489 seq, ; PALANDRI, 168 seq. SAULNIER (Bibl. de 1 Ecole d.
Chartes, LXXI. [1910], 305 seq.} thinks that the rumour of
the
granting of the dispensation may be referred to the brief of
July
7, 1572 ; however, in this the Pope only exhorts Cardinal
Bourbon
to work for the conversion of his nephew. The command of
Charles IX. not to allow any courier to go to Italy, was
intended
to prevent the discovery of the fraud to which it was
intended
to have recourse in the matter of the dispensation (See
BEZOLD in
Hist. Zeitschrift, XLVII., 564).
THE PLOT AGAINST COLIGNY. 485
had flocked to Paris in great numbers with 4000 armed men
to take part at the marriage of Navarre. The Guise too were
there with a. splendid following. There was a succession of
riotous festivities and unbridled merry-making. While the
heedless young king gave himself up to empty amusements,
his mother was deep in her nefarious plans.
Catherine de Medici hated Coligny with all the ardour of an
Italian, because he threatened to shake her authority over
the king and to upset her policy. She had often entertained
the idea of removing this dangerous man by an attack upon
his person. 1 Now, however, she made up her mind to do so,
both so as to avoid all risk of France becoming embroiled
in a war with Spain, and to recover her former ascendancy
over the helpless king.
For the carrying out of this attack it was to her advantage
to make use of the as yet unsatisfied blood-feud of the
Guise.
For that reason Catherine came to an understanding, not
only with Henry of Anjou, but also with the young Duke of
Guise and his mother, the Duchess of Nemours, who could
not forget how Coligny had hailed the murder of her first
husband as the most happy event for France and the Calvinist
religion. 2 The king was not admitted to the plot by his
mother, and only Catherine s confidants knew of it. It
would seem that the latter cherished more far-reaching
designs, whereas Catherine only aimed at the removal of
Coligny. 3 But the shot that was fired by Maurevel on August
22nd did not kill the admiral, but only wounded him. Still
in possession of the king s confidence, and protected by the
Huguenots, who demanded with threats the punishment of
the criminal, Coligny was now much more dangerous than
before. It Catherine already had reason to fear a Huguenot
rising if the war policy were to be abandoned, what sort of
retaliation had she not cause to expect if it were
discovered
1 Cf. PLATZHOFF, Mordbefugnis, 52 seqq.
2 See Hist. Zeitschr., LXII., 42 seqq.
8 PHILIPPSON infers this from the report of Salviati of
August
24, 1572 (Romische Kurie, 183). Cf. also MARTIN,
Gallicanisme,
105 seq.
486 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
that, not the Guise and Alba, but the Queen-mother herself,
had guided the blow of Maurevel ? All her spies brought
news of the threatened rebellion of the Huguenots. They are
so angry, says Cavriana, that they have declared that if the
king will not give them justice, they will take it with
their
own hands. According to the Venetian, Michele, the Huguenots
had threatened that the arm of the admiral would cost
another
40,000 arms. T&igny, Coligny s son-in-law, and Roche
foucauld, were, as the nuncio Salviati learned, uttering the
foulest insults against Catherine. 1 Coligny had been
wounded
without his life being imperilled ; one word from him would
set his party, which was splendidly organized from the
military
point of view, in motion. 2 Under these circumstances, it
seemed that nothing but another and greater crime could bring
safety, namely the death of Coligny and those of his
followers
who were in Paris. This was the course resolved upon by
Catherine, to whom might be applied the poet s words :
" This
is the curse of an evil act, that it must needs go on
producing
evil." 3
1 See the reports in DESJARDINS, III., 813 ; KERVYN DE
LETTEN-
HOVE, Huguenots, II., 551 seq. ; H. DE LA FERRIERE, Le XVI.
6
siecle et les Valois, 320 seq. ; THEINER, I., 32$ seq., 335.
Cf.
DUHR in Stimmen aus Mana-Laach, XXIX., 129 seq. RANKE
(Franzos. Gesch., I. 2 , 324) is of the opinion that the
state of affairs
was such that Catherine feared, not only for her position,
but
even for her life.
* Cf. SEGESSER, II., 154 seq.
8 The true view of the genesis of the massacre of St.
Bartholomew
as the result, not of a long premeditated plan, but of a
sudden
decision, is already to be found in the memoirs of Tavannes
and
in the " Discours du roy Henry III.," published
for the first
time in 1623. Even though modern research has shown that the
latter is not the work of Henry III. (see BAUMGARTEN, 257
seqq. ;
SEGESSER, II., 159 ; MONOD in Rev. Hist., CI. f 316 seq.},
it has
nevertheless, on the strength of the diplomatic reports,
come to a
decision in the negative on the much discussed question as
to
whether there was premeditation or not (see as to this the
con
spectus of K. HAID in Sammler, Innsbruck, 1906, n. 5, and
PLATZHOFF in the periodical V ergangenheit und Gegenwart,
1912).
THE MASSACRE. 487
On the afternoon of August 23rd the king was told the truth
about the attempt which had been made against Coligny,
and in spite of the resistance which he first offered, a
consent
was extorted from him for the order which led to the
massacre
of the following night. 1 Coligny was killed first, and then
the
other principal leaders and Huguenot nobles who were there.
The horrors of the Paris Matins, as the massacre was called
in memory of the Sicilian Vespers, reached their height when
the masses of the populace were let loose. Many, when they
learned of the king s commands, supposed that a Huguenot
conspiracy had been discovered, others wished to be avenged
for the cruelties which the Calvinists had hitherto employed
against the Catholics. In many cases it was personal enmity,
rapine and murder which inspired them. Some Catholics
In this matter importance attaches to the critical
historical study
by Baumgarten of the years immediately preceding the bloody
event, which definitely discards the view that all that was
done
by the French monarchy after August, 1570, was nothing but a
preparation for August 24, 1572. Quite independently of Baum
garten and almost at the same time, Segesser had come to sub
stantially the same conclusion. The gap in the reports of
Salviati
which Baumgarten laments has in the meantime been bridged
by Philippson. From the report of the nuncio of August n,
1572 : of which he hopes "to be able soon to publish
something
more satisfactory " Philippson believes (Kurie, 132,
137) that
the conclusion may be drawn that Catherine formed the plan
of killing Coligny at the latest on that date.
1 Although the events in Paris between August 22 and 24,
1572, have been treated of so often, a strictly critical
account
which satisfies all requirements is still wanting. The same
defect also marks the recent accounts by HECTOR DE LA
FERRIERE
(La Saint-Barthelemy : La veille le jour le lendemain,
Paris,
1892 ; cf. MARCKS in Hist. Zeitschr., LXXIL, 341), Thompson
and Merki. Both the characteristic reports of Joachim Opfer
on the " horrenda tragoedia," dated Paris, August
24 and 26,
1572, which were published with errors in the dissertations
in the
St. Gallisch-Appenzellischen Gemeinnutzigen Gesellschaft,
1858,
109 seq., may now be seen in a more correct edition in the
Zeit-
schnft fur schweiz. Kirchengeschichte, XII. (1918), 53 seqq.
488 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
also fell victims ; for example, the learned Pierre Ramus
was
killed, the victim of a rival philosopher, whose scientific
shortcomings he had exposed. Other Catholics were saved
from death, not without risk, by the Jesuits. 1
Royal letters to the prefects of the provinces, dated August
24th, had sought to represent the massacre as a private feud
of the Guise and Chatillon, but two days later Charles IX.
found himself obliged to take the responsibility upon his
own
shoulders. He did this by accusing Coligny and his adherents
of high treason.
In view of the predominant position held by Paris, one can
not be surprised that, at the news of what had happened
there, the passions of the populace broke out in the
provinces
as well. In several cities, especially where the Catholics
had suffered harsh treatment during the frequent occupation
by Calvinist troops, the people now rose up against their
enemies. In this way, at Orleans, Bourges and Lyons, and
later on at Rouen and Toulouse, there was more or less a
repetition of what had occurred in the capital. The disturb
ances in Provence, the Dauphine", Languedoc, Auvergne
and Burgundy were but small, while Champagne, Picardy
and Brittany remained quite peaceful. The fate of the
Huguenots in the provinces, and whether they were killed or
spared, depended for the most part upon the attitude of the
governors. Moreover, it was not all Catholics who took a
bloody revenge. At Ntmes, where the rivers had run with
the blood of murdered Catholics, the inhabitants had so
great
magnanimity as not to touch a hair of the heads of their
mortal enemies. At Vienne the archbishop, Gribaldi, saved
the threatened heretics from death, nor in other places were
there wanting cases where the Catholics afforded shelter to
the persecuted Calvinists. At Lisieux, where the Bishop,
1 See SOLDAN, II., 457 seq., 461 seq. ; FOUQUERAY, I., 629
seq. Cf. also DUHR, lesuitenfabeln, 197 seq. The Protestant
L. Geizkofler relates in his Selbst biographic (ed. A. WOLF,
Vienna,
1873, 49 seq.) how he and his companions were saved on
August
24, 1572, by a Catholic priest.
THE MASSACRE. 489
Jean Le Hennuyer, protected the Huguenots, they almost
all returned to the Church. 1
The number of the victims cannot be decided with certainty.
That it has been very greatly exaggerated, as is wont to be
the case in almost all terrible occurrences, is beyond all
doubt,
and it is significant that the numbers become greater the
further the writers are removed from the date of the event.
According to the lowest estimate 2,000 men died in Paris,
and
3,000 in the provinces. 2
The Protestant world was filled with consternation and
horror at what had happened in France. The rumours that
had long been current at a conspiracy between the Catholic
powers and the Pope for the violent destruction of
Protestant
ism now seemed to have been fully confirmed. According to
some, the plan had already been formed in 1565 at Bayonne,
at the meeting between their French Majesties and Queen
Elizabeth of Spain, who was accompanied by the Duke of
Alba ; according to others the marriage of Henry of Navarre
had been arranged only for the purpose of luring the
Huguenots
to their ruin. A decisive influence was given to this view
by
the circumstance that the Cardinal of Lorraine, Charles de
Guise, in order to prevent once and for all any return on
the
part of the French crown to a conciliatory attitude towards
the Huguenots, 3 had caused Camillo Capilupi to celebrate,
in
a long work, at first in manuscript and afterwards printed,
the
massacre of St. Bartholomew as the concluding act of a
policy
which had been systematically followed for years past. This
version soon passed into literature, especially among the
Huguenots, and only recent critical historical research has
placed any such supposition in the domain of legend.
It is now beyond dispute that the massacre of St. Bartholo
mew was not the final act of a long prepared plan,
cautiously
1 BORDEAUX, Hennuyer et la St. Barthelemy a Lisieux, 1844.
2 Cf. SCHMIDT, Gesch. von Frankreich, III., 146 n. ; FUNK
in F/eib. Kirchenlexikon, II., 940 seq. ; DUHR in Stimmen
aus
Maria-Laach, XXIX., 135 seq. See also CHALEMBERT, Ix. :
THOMPSON, 450 ; MERKI, 466.
, 8 Cf. BAUMGARTEN, 251.
490 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
formed and kept absolutely secret, and no one any longer
doubts that it sprang entirely from personal and political
motives, and in no way from religious ones. 1 These latter
had no existence for Catherine except when they seemed
necessary for her private ends. At heart indifferent to all
religion, and devoid of all moral scruples, she planned the
attack on Coligny for the sole purpose of keeping the govern
ment of the kingdom in her own hands. The attack was not
directed against the Huguenots, but against the leader of a
powerful and well-organized party, who wished to impose his
will on the king in the matter of foreign policy, and was
making
ready to assume the power into his own hands. 2 When the
attack failed, Catherine acted merely on the spur of the
moment, and anticipated what she feared from Coligny and
his followers. With the Guise, too, what came first was not
Catholic interests, but their own, since everyone in France
at that time, according to the shrewd opinion of Salviati,
was
guided by that alone. 3 But once the carrying out of the
bloody act of vengeance had been entrusted to the Guise, it
was quite inevitable that the passions of the French people,
inflamed by the long civil and religious wars, should break
loose, for the people longed to be avenged upon the
cruelties
of the Huguenots, and, inspired by the desire for national
unity, would no longer tolerate in their midst the alien
Calvinist
body. 4
The complete destruction of the Huguenots was by no means
the intention of Catherine and of her temporizing policy,
and
she accordingly spared the two other leaders, Conde and
Navarre. Content with having recovered her complete
ascendancy over the king, she had no intention whatever of
letting herself be dragged at the heels of the Guise and
Spain,
and there can be no sort of doubt that she intended to
pursue
1 Cf. PLATZHOFF, Die Bartholc mausnacht : Preuss.
Jahrbucher,
CL. (1912), 54-
2 See SEGESSER, II., 162.
8 Cf. PHILIPPSON, Kurie, 129.
See ELKAN, Die Publizistik der Bartholomausnacht, Heidel
berg, 1905, 1 6.
STATEMENTS OF CATHERINE. 491
her former policy. 1 After the massacre, one of the first
acts
of Charles IX., who was now completely under her dominion,
was to give the assurance of French protection to Geneva,
the
head-quarters of Calvinism, which fancied itself threatened
by Spain and Savoy. Catherine also sought, after the tragedy
of August 24th, to resume her former relations with Orange,
Elizabeth of England, and the Protestant princes of Germany
;
of any sort of rapprochement with the Pope and Spain there
was no trace whatever. 2
Catherine tried in every way to obviate the anticipated
indignation of the Protestant powers by carefully contrived
statements as to the real genesis of the massacre of St. Bar
tholomew, so as not to allow any idea of vengeance to arise.
She assured them that it was not from any hatred of the
Huguenots, nor because of any principles she entertained,
and still less because of any agreement with any other
power,
but only as an act of necessary self-defence, and to render
void
and punish the treasonable conspiracy of the admiral and his
associates, that the king had adopted a course which was
certainly exceptional, but which was necessary in this case.
In these declarations there was developed a formal theory
of the rights of life and death possessed by sovereigns, and
to
the question as to why the crime of Coligny had not been
punished by the ordinary legal methods the reply was made
that to do so would have provoked a civil war. 3
It was quite characteristic of Catherine that she spoke in
quite another sense to the Catholic states of Italy, the
Pope
and Philip II. To them too she spoke of the conspiracy of
Coligny and the Huguenots, but at the same time she tried to
suggest the belief that in her zeal as a Catholic she had
long
planned some such act of vengeance upon the heretics and
rebels. As this suggestion of a religious motive ve:y soon
took its place in contemporary literature, it is scarcely to
be
wondered at that Protestant polemics laid the responsibility
1 See BAUMGARTEN, 250 ; PLATZHOFF, Frankreich und die
deutschen Protestanten, 58 seq.
2 See SEGESSER, II., 167, cf. in. n. 2.
3 See PLATZHOFF, Morbefugnis, 59 seq.
492 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
for the massacre principally upon the shoulders of the Pope.
To-day it is well known that no sort of blame attached to
Gregory XIII., and that he had no part either in the
planning
or the carrying out of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. 1
Any
1 Cf., to mention only the more recent non-Catholic authors,
PHILIPPSON, Kurie, 120 seqq., 132, and PLATZHOFF,
Mordbefugnis,
55. With them is included TORNE (Gregor XIII. und die
Barthol-
omausnacht. Supplementary article in Oefversikt af Finska
Vetenskaps-Societetens Forhandlingar, LI. [1908-09], Afd. B.
n. i) ; Tome remarks : Philippson " has shown, with a
demon
strative power that is convincing, that the celebrated Paris
night
of St. Bartholomew can in no way have been pre-arranged be
tween the Pope and the King of France, and that in any case
the two Popes, Pius V. and Gregory XIII., had no previous
warn
ing of it " (p. i). The question still remains
undecided, and
with the material in our possession so far cannot be
definitely
settled, as to what value must be attached to the assertion
of the
Cardinal of Lorraine, when he afterwards expressly boasted
that he had had previous knowledge of the plot against the
Huguenots. According to a conference by L. Romier, addressed
to the Institut de France on October 24, 1913, and published
in
the Revue du Seizieme Siecle, I. (1913), 529 seq., the said
Cardinal,
the Due d Aumale and Henry of Guise, had already formed the
plan as early as April 15, 1572, of killing the leader of
the Pro
testants on the occasion of the marriage of Navarre. Doubt,
however, has in the meantime been thrown upon this view by
Valois and Picot (see A cad. d. Inscript. et Belles Lettres.
Compte-
rendu, 1913, 512 seq.) ; MARIEJOL (Catherine de
Me"diois, Paris,
1920, 194) describes it as a mere hypothesis. Romier is
further
of the opinion that the Cardinal had informed the Pope of
his
design. In any case, it can only have been a question of
purely
general considerations of the favourable opportunity for a
blow
against the Huguenots afforded by the marriage of Navarre,
which, as is clear from the report of Castagna of August 5,
1572
(see THEINER, I., 327 ; cf. Lettres de Cath. de Medicis,
IV.,
Ixxviii.) was still as it were in the air. That Gregory
XIII.
" ne prit aucun part & la preparation et a 1
execution du massacre",
is looked upon as certain even by Romier. A further contribu
tion to the controversy in question is afforded by a *report
of
Arco of July 31, 1572, which I discovered in the State
Archives,
THE POPE S INNOCENCE. 493
such participation was definitely excluded by the extremely
strained relations between the Holy See and the French
court,
and also by the fact that the Papal nuncio, Salviati, no
longer
enjoyed the full confidence of the Pope. 1 At that time they
were engaged upon very different subjects in Rome.
During the summer of 1572 Gregory was above all occupied
with his plan for a prosecution of the war against the Turks
begun by his predecessor. All his thoughts and actions were
directed to getting the fleets of the league to put to sea
as soon
as possible, and to winning a decisive victory over the
Crescent. 2
But the realization of this hope was seriously threatened by
Vienna. This is manifestly the report to which later on Maxi
milian II. referred when speaking to the French ambassador,
when he said that they had written to him from Rome before
August 24 concerning the marriage of Navarre : that at that
time " all the birds would be in a cage, so that they
could all
be captured together " (Lettres de Cath. de Medicis,
IV., cxvii.).
In connexion with the use made of this report, which he has
reproduced with some slight alteration, by GROEN VAN
PRINSTERER
(IV., 13*), as a polemic against the Holy See, H. CARDAUNS
(KOLN.
Volkszeitung, 1872, n. 239), has already shown that the
version
of the French ambassador is adduced there for a contentious
purpose, namely to represent the motives of the French court
as being purely political, and on the other hand to throw
the blame
for the religious fanaticism upon Rome. The complicity of
the
Pope cannot be proved on the strength of Arco s report. The
words of a writer so hostile to Rome as Acton may be quoted
here ;
on p. 55 he remarks " that the marriage was celebrated
in mani
fest opposition to the Pope, who remained steadfast in his
refusal
of the dispensation, and was thus acting in a way that could
only serve to upset the plot." MARTIN (Gallicanisme,
107 seq.),
who accepts as certain the preparations for a blow against
the
Huguenots before August 22, of which the French in Rome were
also aware, remarks that Salviati did not approve of this
plan ;
of the attitude of the Holy See he says : "La cour de
Rome
ignora tout du project jusqu a sa realisation " (p.
107).
1 Romier has again called attention to this in the Revue du
Seizieme Siecle, I. (1913), 560.
* See supra p. 325:
494 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
the relations between Spain and France, which had become
more and more strained from the spring onwards. The out
break of war between the two kingdoms must render any
action on the part of the allied fleet impossible, and it
was
therefore one of Gregory s principal anxieties to maintain a
tolerable understanding between Spain and France. For the
accomplishment of this task in France, it seemed at first
that
no one was better fitted than Antonio Maria Salviati, who,
on account of his earlier sojourn in that country was
acquainted
with the state of affairs there, and who had influence there
on account of his relationship to Catherine. When Salviati
was sent to France on June nth, 1572, 1 the principal duty
laid upon him was the maintenance of peace. 2 When, on
account of the threatening attitude adopted by France, the
remaining of Spain in the league seemed doubtful, the
mission
of Ormaneto to Madrid as nuncio extraordinary was projected.
He too, with the same end in view was instructed to try to
prevent war between Spain and France. By the time
Ormaneto, who was then in Padua, reached Rome on June
27th, more reassuring news had arrived from France. The
Pope nevertheless sent him on his journey, so as not to give
occasion fo the idea that he was more afraid of France,
whither
Salviati had been sent, than he was of Spain. 3
Salviati s position in France was one of much difficulty,
1 See the *brief of that date in the Papal Secret Archives,
XLIV., 21. Cf. the account of PHILIPPSON, Kurie, 121 and the
Comment, de Rebus Gregorii, XIII. in RANKE, Papste, III., 56
seq. For Salviati see Vol. XVII I. of this work, p. 138 ;
cf. also
GARAMPI, 315. In the Colonna-Lante Archives, now in the
possession of Prince Barberini, there should be, according
to
Mgr. Mercati, further papers concerning the mission of
Salviati
to France.
1 See in App. n. 31 the "report of Salviati,
Boncompagni
Archives, Rome.
8 See the *letter of Galli to Salviati, dated June 30, 1572,
Nunziat. di Francia, CCLXXXIII., 9, Papal Secret Archives.
The "instructions for Ormaneto, dated July 4, 1572, in
Cod.
467, p. 126 seq., Corsini Library, Rome.
REPORT OF SALVIATI. 495
because he was suspected of entertaining Spanish sympathies.
1
The reports which he and the nuncio Frangipani, who was
still in Paris, sent to Rome in July, 1572, were once again
very
disquieting. They both clearly realized what great influence
the Huguenots had over the weak king, to make him decide
upon a war with Spain. The principal means which they
employed for this purpose, according to a letter from
Salviati
on July 6th, was to persuade Charles IX. that the refusal of
the dispensation for the marriage of Navarre was entirely
the
result of the intrigues of Spain, which was aiming at
stirring
up discontent and civil war in France. 2 Two days later
Salviati reported that the king was sparing the Huguenots
so as to make use of them in case of an attack on the part
of
Alba. 3 Salviati wrote on July 2ist that the Huguenot
volunteer levies, which, under the command of Genlis,
Coligny s
trusted friend, had crossed the frontier of the Low
Countries,
were clearly acting with the consent of Charles IX., who was
holding frequent secret conferences with Coligny, and that
the
eagerness of the Huguenots to involve the King in a war with
Spain was greater than ever. With the idea of definitely
bringing about a breach between the two powers, they were
everywhere spreading the news that the war was decided
upon. One day recently, when the king had retired to bed
to sleep, he had nevertheless sent for the admiral, and
conversed with him for a long time. 4
The chief hope of being able to prevent a breach between
the two great Catholic powers was Catherine herself, who, in
an autograph letter to the Pope had assured him of her
pacific
intentions. Salviati was therefore warned on July 26th to
counteract the intrigues of the other party as much as
possible,
but the Pope s representative realized better every day how
difficult a task this was. Even when Catherine had been
successful on her return to the court in holding back the
king
1 See ROMIER, loc. cit. 559,
2 See the "cypher report of Salviati of July 6, 1572,
in PHILIPP-
SON, Kurie, 124, n. 4.
3 Ibid. 124.
4 Ibid. 126.
496 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
from a declaration of war against Spain, 1 Salviati was
under
no illusions as to the motives which had guided the Queen-
mother. He expressly states that Catherine s only concerns
were, first to avoid a war which she thought would be dis
astrous at that moment, and secondly, not to allow the
admiral
complete dominion over her son, the king. " But for
another
reason " the nuncio says, " it appears to me that
this lady
has very different ideas from those of Our Lord (the Pope),
because, finding herself firmly established in power, and
dealing with the affairs of the kingdom as though they were
her own concern, she rejoices at the troubles of others on
account of the power which they bring to her, looking upon
it
as a good thing that the disturbances in Flanders should con
tinue, and that country be laid waste so that it may not be
as rich as that of France, so that God knows when it will
ever
be settled again, with great expense and labour on the part
of the Catholic King. To this end she allows Frenchmen
to go to Flanders under the guise of Huguenots, and alarms
the Spaniards with talk of armed forces and other similar
things. At the same time she keeps a watchful eye upon
the actions of the admiral, who on account of the reputation
which he has acquired by what he has accomplished is
building
his hopes too high, and then (when things take a turn) will
get
him into her clutches ; yet she carries on all these
intrigues
so cleverly, trusting so much in her skill and the power of
the
kingdom, and directing all things to the end she has in
view,
that it is amazing how little attention she pays to anything
but what will serve her own interests." 2
In the middle of August news reached Rome which caused
the Pope and his advisers to fear that all the efforts of
the
nuncios and the legates would not be able to avert the
terrible
1 Cf. supra, p. 483.
a Report in cypher of Salviati, Francia V., 102 seq. Papal
Secret Archives. See PHILIPPSON, Kurie, 129-130, who remarks
that this report gives a high idea of the great
statesmanlike qual
ities of Salviati, and describes beforehand the whole policy
which
Catherine continued to follow with regard to the Low
Countries,
notwithstanding the episode of the St. Bartholomew.
THE POPE AND THE MASSACRE. 497
catastrophe of a war between the two great Catholic powers.
In his irritation Gregory XIII. ordered his nuncio in Venice
to call the attention of the Senate to the danger of a war
which
was daily becoming greater, and to work for intervention on
the
part of Venice and the Emperor Maximilian, who were to
demand from the kings of France and Spain a promise that
the peace should not be broken, and to threaten with a joint
attack the one who broke this promise. On August 25th
Cardinal Galli sent word to Salviati to demand of Catherine
de Medici that she should do all in her power to prevent the
outbreak of war with Spain.
If the Holy See, immediately before and after the massacre
of St. Bartholomew, had so little idea of a blow against the
Huguenots on the part of the French government, as to look
upon the war between France and Spain, and therefore the
triumph of the Huguenots, as being imminent, it is
impossible
to speak of any previous understanding between the Pope
and the intriguing Catherine de Medici on the subject of the
massacre. 1 A further proof of this is afforded by a brief
from
Gregory XIII. to Alba, and a letter from Cardinal Galli to
Salviati in the last week of August. The brief to Alba is
dated August 23rd, 1572. In it the Pope congratulates the
duke on his victory over the heretics and rebels in the
Nether
lands, but at the same time warns him to do nothing that
would rouse the suspicions of the King of France, or give
him
a pretext for war, because that must lead to the breaking up
of the league against the Turks, and that would involve
grave
danger to Christendom. 2 These then were the things that
were preoccupying the Pope on the eve of the massacre of
St. Bartholomew. No less important is the letter of the
Cardinal Secretary of State on August 27th. This states
that on account of the approaching autumn the plans for the
war against the Turks must be settled for the following
year,
that Commendone was going to the Imperial court for that
purpose in the autumn, and that on August 25th the Pope
1 See PHILIPPSON, Kurie, 131-132 ; cf. T$RNE, loc. cit. 3.
2 Cf. the text of the letter in THEINER, I., 61.
VOL. XIX. 32
498 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
had appointed Cardinal Orsini as legate to France, whither
he was to go in eight days, to win over Charles IX. to the
under
taking of a crusade. 1
Lastly, it is clear that Gregory knew nothing of the murder
of the Huguenots which had been planned by Catherine from
a letter of the Cardinal Secretary of State, Galli, to
Salviati
on September 8th, 1572. The latter had been informed by
Catherine of her plan, but on condition that he would keep
secret from everyone, even the Pope, what he had been told.
He had kept this promise, and had contented himself with
reporting on August nth that he hoped " in a few days
to
be able to announce tidings which would certainly give His
Holiness joy and tranquillity." 2 Now Galli addresses
the
strongest remonstrances to the nuncio, because he had known
of the plan before it was carried into execution, and had
not
sent news of it ; it was precisely for cases of this sort
that the
diplomatists had codes. 3
As Salviati only sent the news when the keeping of the
secret was no longer necessary, the Curia was quite thunder
struck at the news of Catherine s action, which reached it
from
other quarters. 4 A gentleman who was in the service of the
1 This *letter, which is preserved in the Papal Secret
Archives
(Nunziat. di Francia, CCLXXXIII., 64) has not been used by
Philippson, loc. cit. (see the text in App. n. 3). For the
ap
pointment of Orsini see *Acta consist. Papal Secret
Archives.
Cf. also the "report of A. de Medici of August 28, 1572,
according
to which Orsini was intended, in addition to preventing a
war
between France and Spain, and winning over Charles IX. to
the
league against the Turks, to discuss a compromise in the
" materia
del Navarra." State Archives, Florence.
2 PHILIPPSON, Kurie, 132.
3 See PHILIPPSON, 132-133, and MARTIN, Gallicanisme, 166.
Salviati persisted in maintaining, as is shown by his *notes
in the
Boncompagni Archives, Rome, that his quite vague hints
should
have sufficiently enlightened the Pope as to what was about
to happen !
4 This surprise is clearly expressed both at the beginning
of
Galli s letter of September 8, which is omitted by
PHILIPPSON,
THE NEWS IN ROME. 499
governor of Lyons, whom his master had informed of what
had happened, formed the idea of earning a large sum of
money
by sending early information to Rome. He therefore sent a
courier in all haste. The latter, who was in Rome by Septem
ber 2nd, was the first to bring the news. 1 The Cardinal of
Lorraine, Charles de Guise, so Musotti relates, at once
went,
accompanied by three colleagues, the two Cardinals Este
and Pelleve, to Gregory, with whom was the French ambassa
dor, Ferals. After saluting the Pope the Cardinal of
Lorraine
addressed to him the question : " What news would Your
Holiness desire to receive above all others ? " Gregory
replied :
" For the exaltation of the Catholic faith, we desire
nothing
else than the extermination of the Huguenots."
"That ex
termination," replied the Cardinal, " we can now
announce
to Your Holiness, for the glory of God, and the exaltation
of
the Holy Church." 2
p. 134, and in that of September 12, 1572, addressed to
Ormaneto ;
see the quotations in TORNE, loc. cit. 5-6, which show that
Romier
is quite unfair in denying this surprise.
1 See the Avviso di Roma of September 3, and the letter of
Fr. Gerini of September 4, 1572, in TORNE, loc. cit. 4-5,
and the,
report of V. Parpaglia of September 5, 1572, in the Arch.
star.
Ital., App. III., 169. Since both Parpaglia and Gerini
expressly
say Tuesday, the date September 3, given by Capilupi (!NTRA,
Capilupi, 13) is wrong. Mucantius, too (*Diarium, Papal
Secret
Archives) says that the news arrived on September 2. The
nuncio in Florence *reported on September 3, 1572, the news
which had come from France, which stated : " che tutto
e stato
seguito per ordine del Re et che a questo e stato
consentiente
il principe di Navarra, quale va alle messe insieme col Re
et parla
et scerza con lui!" Nunziat, di Firenze, I., 118. Papal
Secret
Archives.
2 *" Quando Till. sig ri cardinalli di Loreno, Ferrara,
Est et
Sans li portorono la nova entrati in camera fatta la debita
river-
enza, disse il card, di Loreno : quale nova desiderarebbe la
S td>
Vestra piii d ogn altra. Rispose il pontefice : 1 esterminio
delli
Ugonotti per esaltatione della fede cattolica Romano. Et lo
esterminio loro portiamo alia S tA Vestra a gloria del Sig.
Dio et
grandezza della sua s. chiesa." *Notes of Musotti,
Boncompagni
Archives, Rome.
5OO HISTORY OF THE POPES.
Gregory XIII. , who was very susceptible to first
impressions, 1
wished at once to order great manifestations of joy, but the
French ambassador dissuaded him, pointing out that it was
right to wait for the official news from his king and the
nuncio. 2
The attitude adopted by Ferals was connected with his
strained
relations with the Cardinal of Lorraine, whom he blamed
for not having helped him sufficiently in the matter of the
dis
pensation. The Cardinal was of opinion that he was not
deserving of such blame. After the king had warned Ferals
to do nothing without the advice of the Cardinal, the latter
had done his utmost in the matter of the dispensation, as he
reported to Paris on July 28th, but as the question depended
upon religious considerations, he saw that he would not be
able to accomplish anything. The real reason for
Fe"rals
hostility lay in his jealous fear lest the Cardinal should
get into
his own hands the entire management of the interests of
France. 3 This fear was not quite groundless, since Lorraine
found much to help him, both in his position as a member of
the
Sacred College, and in the fact that since the time of the
Council
of Trent he had been very friendly with the Pope. He cer
tainly was not wanting in ambition ; this was clearly shown
by his efforts to ensure for his own house the glory of
having
destroyed the Huguenots.
The intervention of Ferals, by preventing any sort of cele
bration, at first caused many to doubt the truth of the news
of
the destruction of the Huguenots. 4 Two days passed in this
1 This characteristic, which Serrano very rightly brings out
(Liga, II., 171), Romier passes over (loc. cit.}, when he
concludes
from the Pope s attitude that he had known that the massacre
of St. Bartholomew was imminent.
* See the report of Ferals of September u, 1572, in ACTON,
56,
and Lettres de Cath. de Medicis, IV., 139, n.
8 For the strained relations between Ferals and Card.
Charles
de Guise see the report of Cardinal Delfino in ACTON, 54,
which
has not been made use of by H. DE LA FERRIERE (Lettres de
Cath.
de Medicis, IV., Ixviii.), nor by ROMIER (loc. cit. 531).
4 See the report of Capilupi of September 5, 1572, in INTRA,
THE NEWS IN ROME. 50!
way in anxious suspense. 1 At length on September 5th
definite tidings came. On the morning of that day, 2 there
arrived the reports of Salviati of August 24th and 27th, 3
and, as the envoy of Charles IX., Beauville, the nephew of
the
French ambassador. The Cardinal Secretary of State, who,
as well as the Pope, was spending that summer at the palace
of
S. Marco, at once went with Salviati s reports to his
master.
The latter caused them to be read at the consistory which
was
held a few hours later.
In his first letter, dated August 24th, Salviati announced
the massacre which had taken place by the king s orders, and
that Navarre and Conde had been spared, and also told of the
threats of the followers of Coligny against Catherine after
the first attempt on the life of the admiral. If this latter
attempt had been successful, Salviati thought, all these
terrible
things would not have happened. The whole city, he says,
is under arms, and the houses of the Huguenots are being
sacked, though a royal edict is restoring quiet. Lastly the
nuncio says : " When I first announced in code that
Coligny s
daring was going too far, and that he would soon be put in
his
place, it was because I foresaw that he would not be
tolerated
much longer. I was even more convinced of this when I wrote
that I hoped soon to be able to give His Holiness good news.
At the same time I could never have believed in the tenth
part
of what I see at this moment with my own eyes."
In his second report of August 27th, Salviati begins by say
ing that he would have sent his letter of the 24th by a
special
courier, but that by the desire of the king he was now
sending
it together with that of the latter, as His Majesty insisted
that
the envoy of France must be the first to convey the news to
the
Pope. Charles IX., as well as Catherine de Medici, had
charged him to say that everything had been done in the
1 A private letter to Cardinal L. Este, which arrived on
September 3, announces the imprisonment of the King of
Navarre ;
see ROMIER in Reviie du Seizieme Si&cle, I., 551.
* The courier had arrived during the night ; see the report
of
Fr. Gerini and Aless. de Medici in TORNE, loc. cit. 5.
3 See THEINER, I., 328 seqq. ; cf. MARTIN, Gallicansme, 105.
502 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
interests of religion, and that many other things would
follow
in due course for the same end, since, as time went on, the
queen intended, not only to revoke the edict of St. Germain,
but to restore the ancient observance of the Catholic faith
by force of law. 1
During the discussion of the reports of Salviati, in which
there was no mention of any particular conspiracy of the
Huguenots against the life of the king, the Cardinal of
Lorraine once again spoke very emphatically. Using all his
powers of eloquence he described t*o the members of the con
sistory the wickedness of Coligny and his followers, as well
as
the damage and devastation which they had inflicted upon
France ; he also revealed their plans and set forth in a
clear
light the labours and deliberations to which men of good
will
in France had been forced to have recourse in order to
destroy
1 SOLD AN in Hist. Taschenbuch, 1854, p. 194 and 235 seqq..
has very properly explained the sense of the subsequent
remarks
on the conference at Blois, which Alberi has employed in
order
to set aside a dangerous piece of evidence against his
fellow-
countrywoman, Catherine. We also owe to Soldan a true
estimate
of the remark in the report of I&ichele (ALBERI, I., 4,
295), accord
ing to which later on Catherine reminded Salviati that she
had
at one time hoped to make known through him to the dead Pope
(Pius V.) that he " would soon be the witness of her
revenge and
that of the king upon the Huguenots," a thing which
Salviati
had afterwards confirmed by her express desire. In reply to
the
way in which RANKE (Papste, II., 44 seqq.) made use of this
point,
SOLDAN (loc. cit. 196) remarks that it " does not alter
the facts.
That Catherine should have hinted to the Pope of the coming
vengeance on the Protestants, counts for nothing so long as
he
did not know when, how certainly, or to what extent this was
to
take place. The remark in question was made, for example,
during the last days of the war, and no one could doubt,
even
without it, concerning the hostile feelings of Catherine
towards
the Huguenots ; but what does it prove concerning the
massacre
of St. Bartholomew ? Naturally it was not the business of
the
nuncio, when called as a witness, to deny in the face of the
queen,
the application of the general expression to the particular
fact,"
Cf. further Vol. XVIII. of this work, p. 140, n. i,
FRENCH REPORTS. 503
these men at one blow. The Cardinal could hardly find words
strong enough to extol the Catholic sentiments of Catherine
and the king. Other French Cardinals spoke in the same
sense,
and Pelleve compared Catherine to Judith and Coligny to
Holof ernes. 1
The fact that the reports of Salviati differed from the
account of the Cardinal of Lorraine did not escape Gregory
XIII. He, as well as Cardinal Galli, did not conceal from
the
nuncio that they had expected more detailed news from him. 2
There was not, however, any real contradiction between the
letter of Salviati and the versions of the French Cardinals.
If the many treasonable plots which the Huguenots had to
their charge for many years past were taken into account,
the
statement that they had had something of the sort in prepara
tion during the days preceding August 24th, 1572, might will
be considered as credible. The Cardinal of Lorraine and the
others who were well acquainted with the state of affairs in
France looked upon it as certain that the Pope would believe
that the French government had really anticipated a Huguenot
rising, and had therefore made use of a quite legitimate
1 These important details are found in a letter of Capilupi
of
September 7, 1572, in INTRA, 15. For the consistory cf. also
the
*report of A. de Medici of September 5, 1572, State
Archives,
Florence, the report of Galli to Salviati on September 8,
1572,
in PHILIPPSON, Kurie, 134-135, and *Acta consist, in App. n
4.
Here, in accordance with the reports of both Galli and
Capilupi,
the consistory is placed on September 5, whereas the report
in
ACTON (57, n. 2) places it on the 6th. Quite erroneous is
the state
ment in THEINER, I., 46, that the consistory was held on
III.
Non. Sept. (September 3). The credential brief for Orsini,
in which there is no mention at all of the massacre of St.
Bartholo
mew, because at that date there was no confirmation of the
news,
is dated on that day. An allusion to the defeat of the
heresy,
though quite a general one, is to be found in the brief to
Charles
IX. of September 5, 1572 ; this points to the league against
the
Turks as the purpose of the mission of Orsini (see the text
in
FILLON, Inventaire des autographies, Paris, 1882, 10).
z See the letter of Galli of September 8, 1572, in
PHILIPPSON,
Kurie, 135 n.
504 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
stratagem. As Salviati too expressly alluded to the change
in favour of the Catholics which was to be looked for in
France,
the Pope, at the end of the consistory repaired to the
basilica
of S. Marco adjoining the palace, where the Te Deum was
sung, 1 to thank God, as the Imperial agent Cusano wrote to
Vienna, that at a single blow, not only had the King of
France,
but his whole kingdom and the Holy See as well, been set
free
from the danger which had threatened them, if Coligny had
succeeded in his plan, which involved the murder of the king,
his own usurpation of the crown, the support of the rebels
in
the Low Countries, and lastly marching upon Italy and
destroying the Papal States and Rome. 2
In the afternoon of September 5th the official
representatives
of Charles IX., Ferals and Beauville, presented themselves
before the Pope, not only to make their report of what had
happened in Paris, but also to ask for the dispensation to
ratify the marriage of Navarre. 3 The information which the
Pope received from FeVals and Beauville about the massacre
of St. Bartholomew is clear from the documents which they
presented on that occasion ; the first was a letter from
Charles
IX. to Ferals describing the massacre of St. Bartholomew as
the outcome of a dispute between the Guise and the Huguenots;
the second was a letter from Louis de Bourbon, Due de Mont-
pensier, to the Pope. In this letter the Duke describes how
Coligny and the Huguenots, in spite of the gentleness and
kindness of Charles IX., had conspired for the murder of the
king and Catherine, and of the leading Catholics, as well as
for the destruction of the Catholic religion in France. The
king had anticipated this by punishing Coligny and his ad
herents ; it was now the intention of His Majesty to destroy
1 See besides the letter of Galli mentioned in the preceding
note, the report of Capilupi of September 8 in INTRA, 15-16,
and the Avviso di Roma in BELTRAMI, Roma, 3. According to
the *notes of Musotti, the Pope also caused alms to be
distributed
to the poor. Boncompagni Archives, Rome.
2 Cf. the *letter of Cusano (State Archives, Vienna) in App.
n.
8 See the report of Ferals in Lettres de Cath. de Medicis,
IV.,
139 n.
CELEBRATIONS IN ROME. 505
that rabble and to restore the Catholic Church in France to
its former splendour. 1
On the strength of these reports Gregory XIII. ordered
the celebrations which were customary in those days on
such occasions as the crushing of political rebellion or a
victory over heresy, both of them things which threatened
the destruction of the Church and the Papacy. 2 Quite in
keeping with the same ideas was the thanksgiving celebration
which the Cardinal of Lorraine caused to be held on
September
8th in the national church of S. Luigi de Francesi. 3 The
1 See THEINER I., 336.
1 The opinion once held by the greater number of Catholic
writers, that the Pope s expressions of joy had reference
only
to the breaking up of the conspiracy of the Huguenots
against the
king, was refuted by FUNK (Freib. Kirchenlex., II., 942),
but has
once again been put forward by VACANDARD in his monograph
Les Papes et la Saint- Bart helemy (Etudes de critiques et d
hist.
religieuse, Paris, 1905, 217-292) though by no means proved.
3 That the celebrations at S. Luigi were carried out by the
orders of Cardinal de Guise, is expressly stated by THUANUS
(Hist,
sui temporis, pars II., Frankfort, 1614, 1080) : "
Eiusdem car-
dinalis instigatu biduo post supplicationes . . .
celebrantur."
The festivities are described in detail in the *Diarium of
Mucantius,
Papal Secret Archives. See also the *report of Fr. Gerini of
September 8, 1572, State Archives, Florence, the *Avviso di
Roma of September 13, 1572, State Archives, Vienna, the
"report
of B. Pia, dated Rome, September 13, 1572, Gonzaga Archives,
Mantua, and the printed report of the celebration : "
Ordine et
solennissima processione fatta dal S. Pontefice nell alma
citta
di Roma per la felice nova della destruttione della setta
Ugonotana
con la inscrittione posta la porta della chiesa S. Luigi in
un panno
di seta pavonazza e lettere d oro maiuscule." Roma,
heredi
A. Blado, 1572. Cf. BRUNEI, Manuel, VI., n. 23525. A copy
of this work is in the National Library, Munich, and in the
Bod
leian at Oxford (from this a photo -lithograph by Nicholson,
London, 1891. Cf. FERRIERE, La St. Barthelemy, 143 seq. ;
also the Zeits thrift fur deutsohe Geschichtswissenschaft,
VII. [1892]
341 seq.}. In this report there is also the full text of the
inscription,
which is only incompletely given by SOLD AN, II., 480, for
the
explanation of which cf. GANDY in Rev. d. quest, hist., I.,
377 seq.,
and the Civilta Cattolica, VL, n (1867), 25 seq.
506 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
Pope, accompanied by thirty-three Cardinals went to that
church in solemn procession, where he was received at the
doors by Charles de Guise and the French ambassador. After
the mass, which was celebrated by Cardinal Pelleve",
the choir
sang the XXth psalm, after which the Pope recited the same
prayers as had been used in the time of Pius V. at
processions
of thanksgiving. 1 In the inscription in gold characters
surrounded by garlands which adorned the main door, the
Cardinal of Lorraine declared that his king had at a single
blow destroyed almost all the heretics and traitors in his
kingdom, so that at the beginning of the new pontificate,
not
only was there reason to hope for the carrying on of the war
against the Turks, but also that the prosperity of the
Church
would be restored, and languishing religion brought to a
vigorous new life.
Filled with the same ideas a bull of September nth, 1572,
ordered a general jubilee, at which the faithful were to
thank
God for the destruction of the Huguenots, and to pray Him
to be pleased to purge of all error Catholic France, once so
pious, and to restore Catholicism there to its former
purity.
In this bull, which at the same time urged prayers for the
Low
Countries, for victory over the Turks, and for a happy
election
in Poland, mention is made not only of the vengeance taken
by Charles IX. on the Huguenots on account of their
iniquities
against God and the Church, but also of the fact that the
king had punished the principal leaders of the rebels, who
during recent years, with much cruelty and no respect for
persons, by murders and thefts, with sacrilege and pillage,
had laid waste his prosperous kingdom 2
1 For earlier similar celebrations during the Huguenot war
see
Vol. XVIII. of this work, p. 124.
8 Just as at the end of the Middle Ages the great indulgence
bulls were brought to the knowledge of all by means of
summaries,
so was it the case now. One of these simple pages, published
at
Paris, and reprinted in STRYPE, The Life of M. Parker,
London,
1711, App. n. Ixviii., p. 108-110, reproduces the contents
of the
bull in the manner above described. It is entirely false
that,
as VACANDARD, loc. cit. 276, states, without giving his
authorities :
CELEBRATIONS IN ROME. 507
It is evident that the festivities of September 8th and the
bull of jubilee were in exact accordance with those
celebrations
which had been ordered in Rome on the occasion of the
previous victories of the French government in its war
against
the Huguenots. Since now, in this life and death struggle,
it seemed that a great and, as it was thought, a definite
victory
had been won, it can be no matter for surprise that the Pope
should have caused a commemorative medal to be struck, 1
or given Vasari orders to perpetuate by a fresco in the Sala
Regia 2 an event to which, as the diplomatic representatives
reported, the Curia attached as much importance as
though a great kingdom had been recovered for the
Holy See, at a moment when it was the last thing that was
expected*
That the festivities had no reference to the atrocities
which
had been committed on August 24th, as such, but only to the
consequences that flowed from them, namely, as it was
thought,
the definite liberation of the French Catholics from their
mortal enemies, who had for years persecuted them with fire
" Un jubile fut annonce aux fideles et fixe pour chaque
annee au
jour de la St. Barthelemy." There is not a single word
as to this
in the ordinance. Cf. also Mucantius, *Diarium : " Die
mercurii
17 Septemb. [1572], S.D. ivit ad septem ecclesias ad orandum
Deum pro conversione haereticorum, victoria contra Turcos et
pro bona electione regis Poloniae, pro quibus concessit
amplis-
simum iubilaeum." Papal Secret Archives.
1 See VENUTI, 135 ; BONANNI, I., 336 seq. ; GANDY in Rev. d.
quest, hist., I., 382 ; U. BENIGNI in Miscell. di stor.
eccles., II.
(1903), 344 seq.
2 See GAVE, III., 343 ; cf. Vol. XX. of this work.
3 Tutta questa corte e in tanta allegria come si fosse
racquistato
un regno ben grande alia obedienza di questa s. Sede.
Capilupi
in INTRA 17. B. Pia *report of September, 1572 : Questa
corte
ha rinovato per quel fatione Francese 1 allegrezza rotta de
1 armata
Turchesca dell anno passato stimando ella altretanto la
strage
fatta dei ribaldissimi Ugonotti et da cosi alto principle la
s. chiesa
cattolica puo sperare quando manco si credeva di esser
reintegrata
et esaltata a gloria di Dio benedetto, Gonzaga Archives,
Mantua,
508 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
and sword, 1 is also clear from other sources of
information.
In the letter of the ambassador of Savoy on September 5th,
it is expressly stated : the event " has been extolled
in so far
as it affects the good of the king and of his kingdom and of
religion ; but it would have far more highly extolled if His
Majesty had been able to act with clean hands, as the Duke
of Alba has done in Flanders, and with the observance of the
forms of law." 2
As far as the joy of Gregory himself was concerned, though
it was undoubtedly very great, it was by no means complete.
Brantome relates that he had heard from a gentleman who
was very well-informed, and who was in Rome at that time,
that the Pope shed tears when he received the news, and that
when one of the Cardinals asked him why he was so troubled
at the defeat of the enemies of God and the Holy See, he
replied : "I am weeping for the conduct of the king,
which is
unlawful and forbidden by God." 3 This reply, which is
quite
in keeping with the Pope s character, is confirmed by the
report of the Spanish ambassador, Zum ga, on September 22nd,
1572, which states that Gregory, on receiving the news of
the
massacre of St. Bartholomew, was struck with horror. 4 An
1 DUHR in Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, XXIX., 271, very rightly
specially brings out this point, although he only partially
had
at his disposal the material which we have used above.
Moreover,
POLENZ, the Protestant historian of French Calvinism, had
already
stated (II. , 544) that " The exaltation of the
nuptials of blood
on its part [that of Rome] did not refer to the fact or its
author
or its details, but to the event in its general
importance." Even
more clearly before this ASCHSBACH (Kirchenlex., I., 486)
had re
marked : "In like manner does the Church sing a Te Deum
when a bloody battle has been won ; are its hymns of praise
then
to be taken as an expression of jubilation over the fallen ?
"
Cf. also BENIGNI, loc. cit., 345 seq.
2 Arch. stor. ItaL, App. III., 169.
8 See BRANTdME (died 1614), Me"moires, III., Leyde,
1722,
171 ; cf. also POLENZ, II., 544, n. DUHK (loc. cit.} ought
not to
have made use of the narrative given by G. Leti, as this
author
is not worthy of belief.
4 " se espantavo " ; see KERVYN DE LETTENHOVE,
Relations,
Hi., 14, n. 4.
THE POPE AND THE MASSACRE. 509
intimate, who was habitually in close contact with the Pope,
Alessandro Musotti, definitely states that the joy of
Gregory,
the manifestation of which he kept within strict bounds, had
reference only to the good of Christendom. 1 In agreement
with this is a report of Capilupi of September 5th, that
great
importance was attached in Rome to the massacre of St.
Bartholomew for the maintenance of the peace of Christendom,
and for the prosecution of the league against the Turks, for
it was thought that nothing more favourable could have
occurred, and that now it might be hoped that the tension
between France and Spain concerning the Low Countries
would be at an end. 2 This tension was one of the principal
obstacles to the maintenance of the league, which was extra
ordinarily dear to the Pope s heart, and for the promotion
of
which he had it in mind at that very moment to send Cardinal
Orsini to France. Under these circumstances we can under
stand why the representation of the massacre of St. Bartholo
mew was placed among the frescoes in the Sala Regia, which
had reference to the battle of Lepanto. We must further
bear in mind what danger threatened all Catholics, from the
humblest monk to the Pope himself, from the Huguenots,
since, after the Turks, the Catholic Church had no enemies
who were more bitter and bloodthirsty than the Calvinists.
Everyone in Rome knew of the cruelties which they had
practised for years past in France and the Low Countries,
when, as soon as they had got into power, they had system
atically robbed the wealthy Catholics, sacked or destroyed
the glorious cathedrals, profaned the graves, trampled under
foot the consecrated host, or thrown it to their horses as
fodder,
violated helpless nuns, and murdered many priests and re
ligious. Outrages which only a bestial cruelty could imagine
had been committed against the Catholics, merely because
they wished to remain true to their faith : they had been
1 *" Gust6 anco temperantemente la morte et esterminio
dell
Amiraglio et altri Ugonotti di Franza pure per II benefizio
della
christianita." Boncompagni Archives, Rome.
8 See INTRA, 12.
510 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
buried alive, plunged into boiling oil, their tongues torn
out,
disembowelled alive, and had suffered even more horrible
things. Trustworthy reports had also reached Rome of the
way in which Catholic priests had been hunted like wild
beasts,
as for example in Beam, and of the precipice near Saint-
SeVer, over which the Calvinists had thrown 200 Catholic
priests. 1
The end of this furious storm could not be foreseen. In
August itself news had reached Rome of the lingering
tortures
of the martyrs of Gorcum. If Coligny and his followers had
triumphed there would have been an end of the Catholic faith
in France and the Low Countries, and a thousand priests
would have been threatened with certain death. A Protestant
France, of this men felt certain, would proceed to attack
Italy,
and especially the Papal States, and the person of the Pope
himself would not be spared. In 1545, Luther, in his work
" against the Papacy set up in Rome by the devil,"
had
1 Cf. POYEDAVANT, Hist. d. troubles de Beam, I., Pau, 1820,
381 ; PICOT, I., 1 6 seq., 18 seq. ; Mem. de Claude Haton
p.p.
BOURQUELOT, II., Paris, 1875, 659 seq. ; R. DE BOYSSON, L
in-
vasion calviniste en Bas-Limousin, etc., Paris, 1920 ;
HANOTAUX,
Hist, de la nation frari9aise, VI; (GoYAU, Hist.
Religieuse), Paris,
1922, 356 seqq. A Protestant account of the bloody
acts of the Calvinists at Nimes in 1567 in HELLO, La St.
Barthel-
emy, Paris, 1901, 21 seq. ; ROUQUETTE, Les St. Barthelemy
calvinistes, Paris, 1906 ; AUIIN, L echec de la Reforme en
France
au i6 e siecle, Paris, 1918, 31 seq. The examples cited here
show
that the terrors inflicted by the Calvinists were no less
than those
of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. All this of course does
not excuse the cruelties of August 24th, 1572, but at least
makes
them intelligible. In a Latin "report on the massacre
of St.
Bartholomew (dated III. Non. October, 1572, Graziani
Archives,
Cittk di Castello) it is particularly stated that the anger
of the
people had become so great, because the Huguenots had so
greatly
harmed the nation, and had been guilty of so many
monstrosities.
The archivist, L. le Grand, has in preparation an edition of
the
documents : Les epreuves de 1 Eglise de France pendant les
guerres de religion. Recueil des documents tires des
Archives
du clerge" de France.
PROTESTANT OPINION. 51!
urged his followers to attack with all their might the Pope,
the Cardinals, and the entire " canker of the Roman
Sodom/
and to wash their hands in their blood. 1 The Jena
Matthaeus Judex, had in 1561, in allusion to this, urged an
expedition against Rome
had any doubt that the Calvinists in France and the Low
Countries were prepared to take part in such an under
taking. " We are all of us," declared Orange
ing against the devil, namely the Antichrist of Rome."
2
Like Pius V. 3 Gregory XIII. too feared a hostile invasion
of
The Pope, the Venetian ambassador, Paolo Tiepolo, reports,
knows well that his mortal enemies are the Turks and the
heretics, and that if the latter can force their way into Italy
they will turn first of all against the Papal
States and his own
person, in order completely to annihilate the Roman See. 5
With the blow that had been struck against the French
Calvinists by the massacre of St. Bartholomew, all these
dangers seemed to have been averted, and the whole state of
affairs changed to the advantage of the Catholics.
How genuinely men believed in Rome
in the policy of the French government is shown by a letter
from Cardinal Galli to Ormaneto, the nuncio in Spain
discusses the effect upon the whole policy of the Pope
towards
western Europe of the unexpected events in Paris
is expressed in this letter that if France
from the scourge of the Huguenots, the corresponding effects
in the Low Countries will
not be wanting. The letter goes
1 Cf. PAULTIS, Protestantismus und Toleranz, 20 seq.
2 See JANSSEN-PASTOR, IV. 15 " 16 316 seq
3 Cf. Vol. XVIII. of this work. p. 114.
4 See in App. n. 6 the *report of Cusano of September 6,
1572, State Archives, Vienna
5 P. TIEPOLO, 227. On May 8, 1574, *Galli warned the nuncio
at Venice
vallate al Piemonte." Nunziat. di Venezia, XIII., Papal
Secret
Archives. For the fear which was still felt in 1576 of an
invasion
of Lombardy by the
Huguenots see Arch. Lomb., II., 76.
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