Note 247 — Chapter III

It might be inferred from some authorities that the catholics had become in a great degree disaffected to the queen about 1584, in consequence of the extreme rigour practised against them. In a memoir of one Crichton, a Scots jesuit, intended to show the easiness of invading England, he says, that "all the catholics without exception favour the enterprise, first, for the sake of the restitution of the catholic faith; secondly, for the right and interest which the Queen of Scots has to the kingdom, and to deliver her out of prison; thirdly, for the great trouble and misery they endure more and more, being kept out of all employments, and dishonoured in their own countries, and treated with great injustice and partiality when they have need to recur to law; and also for the execution of the laws touching the confiscation of their goods in such sort as in so short time would reduce the catholics to extreme poverty." Strype, iii. 415. And in the report of the Earl of Northumberland's treasons, laid before the star-chamber, we read that "Throckmorton said, that the bottom of this enterprise, which was not to be known to many, was, that if a toleration of religion might not be obtained without alteration of the government, that then the government should be altered, and the queen removed." Somers Tracts, vol. i. p. 206. Further proofs that the rigour used towards the catholics was the great means of promoting Philip's designs occur in Birch's Memoirs of Elizabeth, i. 82 et alibi.

We have also a letter from Persons in England to Allen in 1586, giving a good account of the zeal of the catholics, though a very bad one of their condition through severe imprisonment and other ill-treatment. Strype, iii. 412, and Append. 151. Rishton and Ribadeneira bear testimony that the persecution had rendered the laity more zealous and sincere. De Schismate, l. iii. 320, and l. iv. 53.

Yet to all this we may oppose their good conduct in the year of the Spanish Armada, and in general during the queen's reign; which proves that the loyalty of the main body was more firm than their leaders wished, or their enemies believed. However, if any of my readers should incline to suspect that there was more disposition among this part of the community to throw off their allegiance to the queen altogether than I have admitted, he may possibly be in the right; and I shall not impugn his opinion, provided he concurs in attributing the whole, or nearly the whole, of this disaffection to her unjust aggressions on the liberty of conscience.