"Traitors to the Queen and the Realm": Treason and Catholics in Elizabethan England, 1569-1590
Date
2023-04-25
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Abstract
In 1570, Pope Pius V issued a bull of excommunication against Queen Elizabeth I of England. In the bull, Elizabeth was declared to be a “pretended” queen and had falsely claimed the authority of the English crown. Therefore, all English subjects were free to disobey her and declare their loyalty to another ruler. In doing this, the pope declared temporal authority over Elizabeth. However, Elizabeth viewed this as an attack on her sovereignty and declared papists – English Catholics who were politically loyal to the papacy instead of the queen – to be traitors. This thesis examines the treason policies made against English Catholics between 1569 and 1590. During that time, various forms of legislation, such as proclamations and statutes, passed to revise existing treason legislation. Previous legislation was insufficient in dealing with the papal threat because the pope believed his power over earthly rulers came from God. Therefore, quicker and harsher measures were needed to punish English Catholics who proclaimed loyalty to the papacy and encouraged sedition and rebellion against Elizabeth, going so far as to plot her death. Signal cases during this period demonstrate how these laws functioned in practice and also highlight the political language used by both the court officials and the offenders. Other publications supported these legislative acts and encouraged loyalty to Elizabeth. Previously, historians have claimed that Elizabeth was slow to respond to her excommunication and that her government did not take it seriously. This thesis engages with this claim, arguing that the creation of new treason legislation indicates the severity of the papal threat. Ultimately, this thesis argues that these treason policies were political acts; they were not formed out of a desire to control religious beliefs but rather as a way to preserve Elizabeth’s political authority against the pope, who claimed political authority over the queen.
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Keywords
treason, law, Elizabeth, English Church, excommunication, Catholics, legislation, papacy, England
Citation
Wygiera, H. J. (2023). “Traitors to the queen and the realm”: treason and Catholics in Elizabethan England, 1569-1590 (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.