England s Struggle with Catholicism

But England had still to face a crisis greater even than that through which she had already passed. After 1568 the Roman Catholic church, which had begun to regain ground in Europe by winning back converts in Spain, Italy, France, and southern Germany, made an attack on England, partly to recover that land for the old faith, and partly to weaken the Protestant cause, of which England was the main support.

The instrument of Roman Catholicism in England was Mary Stuart, who from this time forward became the centre of plot after plot against Elizabeth and the Protestants. Mary Stuart had finally given up all expectation of aid from France, for Catherine was making friendly advances to England, and henceforth depended on the pope, Philip, and the duke of Alba abroad and on the Catholic lords at home. So numerous were her negotiations with these Catholic leaders, largely carried on through the Spanish ministers in England, De Spes and afterward Mendoza, that peace with Spain became more and more difficult to maintain, and the years 1568 to 1571 were marked by a series of acts and counter-acts, which were but warnings of the great religious struggle to come. For instance, in 1568, Cecil seized a large sum of money, which Philip had borrowed of Genoese bankers and which the latter had sought to convey at their own risk to Flanders. Philip retaliated by confiscating all English property in the Netherlands. Then Cecil in his turn confiscated all Spanish property in England, thereby causing consternation and disaster in Spain. This act injured Spain's commerce, destroyed her credit, and weakened the resources not only of Philip at home, but also of Alba in the Netherlands.

Next followed secret efforts of the Continental and English Catholics to overthrow Cecil, restore the old nobility, place Mary Stuart on the throne, and make Roman Catholicism the religion of England. Pius V established seminaries on the Continent at Douai and St. Omer in the Netherlands as training schools for the education of English priests. He despatched money and agents to encourage the Catholic party in England, while the duke of Alba not only sent money to England and Scotland, but also encouraged a new Irish revolt under the Fitzgeralds, or Geraldines. Though Cecil had imprisoned De Spes for his insolence, Mary Stuart continued to send letters to the pope, Philip, and the duke of Alba, begging for aid, and promising cooperation in any conspiracy that might be formed to dethrone Elizabeth. A conspiracy was actually formed in 1569." Mary was to marry the duke of Norfolk, the leading Catholic noble in England, and a rising, beginning in the north, was to follow. But Cecil knew all the details of the scheme. Elizabeth had Norfolk arrested and shut up in the Tower, and then summoned to her the earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, who, as Cecil knew, had promised to arouse the region of the north and capture it for Catholicism, release Mary, restore the Catholic faith, and return the Spanish property confiscated by Cecil. The earls refused to obey the queen's summons, and without waiting for the troops that Alba had promised to send, rose in revolt. This movement, the only important armed revolt against Elizabeth in England, was quelled before the end of the year, and the defeated earls fled to Scotland, where they joined the Scottish Catholics in plots against the queen.

The Ridolfi Plot

Though the Catholic cause was not making progress in England, it was gaining elsewhere, and Elizabeth, in 1570, had good reason to fear a Spanish invasion of England. The Roman Catholic party seemed to be winning in the religious wars in France and the Netherlands. In England the conspirators were in no wise discouraged, and the Italian banker, Ridolfi, was passing back and forth between England and Italy weaving plots. On February 25, Pius V, in order to strengthen the Catholic cause in England, excommunicated Elizabeth and absolved all Englishmen from their oaths of allegiance. In Scotland the regent Moray had been murdered in Linlithgow, and the friends of Mary, assisted by the Northumberland earls, were ready to cross the border.

In the presence of this activity, Cecil not only sent aid to the Huguenots in La Rochelle and the Dutch in the Netherlands, and allowed English privateers to sweep the Spanish from the English Channel, but also promoted friendly relation with France and advocated a marriage between Elizabeth and the duke of Anjou, younger brother of Charles IX. A peace made at St. Germain in August, 1570, between Catherine de' Medici and the Huguenots, made this alliance possible by bringing the anti-Spanish party into control in France.

Cecil's diplomacy had the desired effect. The assistance given the Huguenots, the alliance with France, and the proposal to make a French prince king-consort of England terrified Philip, and drove the English Catholics to despair of further aid from him. At once, Cecil, now Lord Burghley, was ready to unfold the details of a plot, called the Ridolfi plot, which he had long been following and in which he suspected Mary Stuart and the duke of Norfolk were implicated. From confessions of conspirators he had learned that the pope, Philip, and the Catholic party in France were pledged to a vast crusade against England in order to crush Protestantism, destroy Elizabeth, assassinate himself, and raise Mary Stuart to the throne. Without hesitation he caused De Spes to be banished from England and the duke of Norfolk to be arrested. The next year (1572) the latter was tried by his peers,' found guilty, and executed, and Mary Stuart was saved from the same fate only because Elizabeth was unwilling to injure a crowned head. Then, as a counter-stroke to the Spanish plot, Cecil aided the Dutch and Flemish Beggars in their siege of Brill (1572), which began the revolt of the Netherlands against the authority of Spain.