Heretic Queen: Queen Elizabeth I and the Wars of Religion by Ronald Susan

Author:Ronald, Susan [Ronald, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Endeavour Press Ltd.
Published: 2013-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

For the time being, Elizabeth and her Councillors were blissfully unaware that Pius V had proclaimed his papal fatwa on England’s queen. In February 1570, word had reached them of several Guise plots to assassinate Elizabeth, with Sir Henry Norris, the English ambassador to France warning Cecil once again of “the great danger the Queen is in through the machinations of the Cardinal of Lorraine.” As Huguenots increasingly sought, and were granted, refuge in England, detection of potentially undercover French Catholic assassins became ever more difficult. Norris’s solution was for Mary to be “further out of the realm, as she being there the Cardinal daily devises some mischief here [in France] to be practiced by the Papists there [in England].”[242]

That spring, the council was split on how to address the Catholic threat that Mary continued to represent. Councillors Cecil, Bacon, Bedford, Sadler, Mildmay and Knollys advocated rigorous enforcement of the existing legislation against the Catholics. Leicester and Arundel strongly disagreed, and called for conciliation with France and Spain and advocated a mild attitude toward the English Catholics, who had failed at the end of the day, to rebel with the northern earls. Three main points were discussed: the impending hostility of France and Spain; widespread Roman Catholic sympathy at home and Mary Stuart.

Naturally, it was Mary who preoccupied them more than any other subject. To resolve the question of Mary would solve the other burning issues, or so they thought. In late May, Elizabeth believed she had reached an agreement with the French ambassador, la Mothe Fénélon, on how to restore Mary to her throne. First, the French king would need to induce the Hamilton’s to surrender the northern earls or at least abandon their cause. Next, France and England would work together to get the warring sides to lay down their arms. English troops could then be safely withdrawn from Scotland, providing of course that the French would not send any troops and withdraw those which were already there aiding the Hamiltons. Finally, Mary could proclaim that negotiations were at the ready for her release and restoration on the basis of Elizabeth’s offer.

The devil was, as always, in the detail of the offer. Essentially, Mary would need to renounce all pretended rights to the English succession; forbid any foreign troops in Scotland; surrender England’s rebels; continue the men who led the King’s party in Scotland in their offices; and maintain Scotland in its Protestant religion. Failure to do so would result in a joint and immediate condemnation of the English and Scottish Parliaments, resulting in Mary’s automatic forfeit of her Scots crown to her son.[243]

Fénélon dutifully sent off the proposed agreement to the French king in his dispatches of May 27th, in the hope that he had brokered the release of Mary and lasting peace between England and Scotland. Unfortunately, Fénélon, as all of Britain, was utterly unaware that Pius V’s bull excommunicating Elizabeth and absolving the English from their allegiance to the queen had been pinned to the door of the Bishop of London’s house in St.

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