1568-72: the pivot of the reign

Mary, Queen of Scots in captivity
by Nicholas Hilliard.
Public domain.

The captive Queen

The period 1568-1572 is the pivot of the reign when Elizabeth entered a period of danger. The arrival of Mary, Queen of Scots in England posed an acute dilemma for Elizabeth. Her initial reaction was horror at the violation of the rights of a fellow-sovereign, an anointed queen. But Mary was a discredited figure. She could not send her back to Scotland, where her half-brother, the Earl of Moray, was Regent for the young James VI, neither could she allow her to go to France.

She was a powerful presence in the north of England, where Catholic loyalties were still strong. She managed to persuade many Catholics of her innocence and she represented an alternative to Elizabeth’s Protestant settlement. Under these circumstances, Elizabeth felt she had no alternative but to imprison her; as long as she was in England she represented a threat.

In mid-July 1568, Mary was moved to Bolton Castle in Yorkshire. Elizabeth refused to see her, and her enemies produced a series of letters – the ‘Casket Letters’ – that ‘proved’ her complicity in Darnley’s murder. In January 1569 she was moved to the inhospitable Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire and was guarded by George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. (There were to be many other changes of places of imprisonment.)

The Duke of Norfolk and the Northern Rising

From the end of 1568, the Queen’s second cousin, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, was planning to marry Mary. He was supported by Leicester, though not by Cecil. In November, after Elizabeth had learned of his plans (and of Leicester's apparent betrayal) he was placed in the Tower, and Mary was kept under stricter surveillance.

Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk,
by Hans Ewerth,
Public domain.

This provided the signal for Norfolk's Catholic allies. Thomas Percy, seventh Earl of Northumberland and Charles Neville, sixth Earl of Westmorland were summoned to court. Fearing to comply, they acted in traditional baronial fashion and mustered their forces. From November 1569, much of the far North was in the hands of the rebels. They marched to Durham, and on 14 November restored Mass in the cathedral.


But the earls failed to mobilise widespread support. Mary was moved to safer custody and the rebel earls fled.The government acted with great ruthlessness, executing over 800 humble supporters. Elizabeth resisted pressure to have both Norfolk and Mary executed, but this was the first armed insurrection of her reign and she blamed Mary for it.

Elizabeth 'deposed'

For the first decade of Elizabeth’s reign, Catholics had been quiescent, most of them attending their parish churches- the minimal test of obedience - though it is not clear whether they took communion. And for a decade the papacy had been silent. This changed dramatically in February 1570. Unaware of the collapse of the Northern Rising, Pius V lent his support to the rebels by publishing the Bull Regnans in Excelsis, that declared Elizabeth deposed.

We do, out of the fulness of our apostolic power, declare the foresaid Elizabeth to be a heretic and favourer of heretics, and …[we declare] her to be deprived of her pretended title to the aforesaid crown … and also [declare] the nobles, subjects and people of the said realm… to be forever absolved …from any duty … and so deprive the same Elizabeth of her pretended title to the crown.

When Parliament met on 2 April 1571, it was in a militant mood, and passed a series of acts cracking down on Catholic recusants. It would now be high treason to ‘compass, imagine, invent devise or intend the death or destruction’ of the Queen’, to challenge her right to the throne or call her ‘heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel or usurper’. One Act declared that it would be high treason to bring in or promulgate ‘bulls and other instruments from the see of Rome’. 

The Ridolfi Plot (1571)

Roberto Ridolfi was a Florentine banker and papal agent (possibly also an English double agent!). His plot, financed by papal money, aimed at landing 6000 Spaniards at Harwich in order to depose Elizabeth and enthrone Mary, who would then marry Norfolk.  When the plot was uncovered in autumn 1571, Norfolk, who had been released in the preceding summer, was re-arrested. In January 1572, he was tried by his peers for treason and found guilty. 

The plot intensified Parliament's hostility to Mary. At an emergency session in May 1572, both Houses called for her to be executed. Elizabeth refused on the grounds that she was an ‘absolute princess’, subject to no law. But her enemies called her ‘a most wicked and filthy woman’, a killer of her husband and ‘a common disturber of the peace of this realm’.

Refusing to hand Mary over for execution, Elizabeth instead encouraged members to pass a bill excluding her from the succession. But this was to grant unwelcome powers to Parliament, and when the bill was passed, she vetoed it - to Cecil's enormous frustration. He wrote to Walsingham 

All that we have laboured for and had with full consent brought to fashion – I mean a law to make the Scottish Queen unable and unworthy of succession to the crown – was by her Majesty neither assented to nor rejected but deferred. (Quoted John Guy, My Heart is My Own. Mary, Queen of Scots.)

Parliament’s demand for Mary’s execution was a severe challenge to Elizabeth’s authority, limiting her room for manoeuvre. She would save Mary, but she was forced to sacrifice Norfolk - a peer of the realm and her blood relation. After much dithering, she finally ordered his execution, and he was beheaded on 2 June. Mary was heartbroken at the death of ‘my Norfolk’, the man who could have saved her.

Europe: the Netherlands and France

From the late 1560s, the Netherlands were in revolt against their ruler, Philip II of Spain. This is the start of what the Dutch call the 'Eighty Years' War' in which they gained their independence. Their most formidable leader was the Dutch aristocrat, William of Orange-Nassau, known as William the Silent. England was tied economically to the Netherlands and many of Elizabeth’s council were ideologically in sympathy with the Calvinist rebels. Elizabeth did not share their views. Understandably, she disapproved of subjects who revolted against their rulers, and she did not share the Calvinism of many of the Dutch rebels. Philip was determined to assert his rule and reimpose Catholic orthodoxy and he sent the ferociously ruthless Duke of Alba to put down the revolt.  

In this dangerous situation England turned to France, which was also observing the Dutch revolt closely. In 1570, Walsingham had been sent to France as ambassador. Soon his commission was to negotiate an anti-Spanish Anglo-French entente, to be sealed by a marriage between Elizabeth and Catherine de Medici’s second surviving son, Henri, Duke of Anjou, the heir to the French throne. 

'The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Day'
François Dubois - Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts.

But France was embroiled in its own religious wars of Catholics against the Protestants (Huguenots). The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Day (24 August 1572) triggered a wave of massacres throughout France in which thousands of Huguenots were killed. This atrocity cut off England's diplomatic options. For the time being, there could be no French alliance.

Conclusion

1. With Europe embroiled in religious wars, England risked political isolation. 
2. In England, the clamour for Elizabeth to deal with Mary, Queen of Scots intensified.
3. Could Elizabeth keep Mary alive? Could she avoid conflict with Spain?