Note 346 — Chapter II

One of the charges which, in 1588, Sixtus V. publicly brought against Elizabeth, was, that ‘she hath rejected and excluded the ancient nobility, and promoted to honour obscure people.’ Butler's Mem. of the Catholics, vol. ii. p. 4. Persons also reproaches her with her low-born ministers, and says that she was influenced ‘by five persons in particular—all of them sprung from the earth—Bacon, Cecil, Dudley, Hatton, and Walsingham.’ Butler, vol. ii. p. 31. Cardinal Allen taunted her with ‘disgracing the ancient nobility, erecting base and unworthy persons to all the civil and ecclesiastical dignities.’ Dodd's Church History, edit. Tierney, 1840, vol. iii. appendix no. xii. p. xlvi. The same influential writer, in his Admonition, said that she had injured England, ‘by great contempt and abasing of the ancient nobility, repelling them from due government, offices, and places of honour.’ Allen's Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland, 1588 (reprinted London, 1842), p. xv. Compare the account of the Bull of 1588, in De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. x. p. 175: ‘On accusoit Elisabeth d'avoir au préjudice de la noblesse angloise élevé aux dignités, tant civiles qu'ecclésiastiques, des hommes nouveaux, sans naissance, et indignes de les posséder.’