The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England (16 page)

We have come a long way from 1564, when half of the JPs hesitate to swear the Oath of Supremacy. Just thirty-five years see Catholicism change from being the respectable norm to the religion of a persecuted minority. Between 1571 and the end of the reign at least 180 Catholics are executed as traitors – perhaps more than 250.
²⁵
If you are a Catholic in the last years of the reign, you can expect to celebrate Mass in secret, late at night or very early in the morning, in the houses of the gentry. No doubt you will experience that frightening moment when a stranger knocks insistently on the door and you look at the terrified faces of those around you, wondering whether you have been discovered. You may find out what it is like to hide in a priest hole – a small, secret chamber in a wall or beneath a floor – while the authorities search the house. Father William Weston, a Jesuit priest educated at Douai, describes just such an experience in 1585:

A house where I used secretly to be given hospitality was visited once by certain Catholics, who gave a satisfactory account of themselves, both to me and to the head of the family, and said that they wished to hear Mass. After the end of Mass, when the people had left, I stayed on as usual and went upstairs to the room where I kept my books and resumed my work. Not quite two hours later the house was surrounded by a large mob of men. Whether they came on information or on chance, I do not know. But the servant rushed up to my room – I was still there – and warned me of the danger. She made me come downstairs at once and showed me a hiding place underground; Catholic houses have several places like this, otherwise there would be no security. I got down into it, taking my breviary with me – it was all I had near me at the time, and to loiter would have been dangerous. In the meantime the heretics had already made their way into the house and were examining the remoter parts. From my cave-like hide I could follow their movements by the noise and uproar they raised. Step by step they drew closer, and when they entered my room the sight of my books was an added incentive to their search. In that room also there was a secret passageway for which they demanded the key, and, as they opened the door giving on to it, they were standing immediately above my head. I could hear practically every word they said. ‘Here, look!’ they called out, ‘a chalice! And a missal!’ The things were, in fact, there. There had been no time to hide them and, in any case, it would have been impossible. Then they demanded a hammer and other tools to break through the wall and panelling. They were certain now that I could not be far away.

Meanwhile I was praying fervently to God that He would avert the danger. At the same time I reflected that it would be better to surrender myself into the enemy’s hands than be dragged out ignominiously. I believed that some Judas had given information and betrayed me but, to cover up the traitor, they wanted my discovery to appear accidental, and not the result of treachery.

While I was reflecting in this way, one of the men, either by mistake or on purpose, or at the prompting of a good angel, shouted out: ‘Why waste time getting hammers and hatchets? There’s not enough space here for a man. Look at the corners: you can see where everything leads to. There can’t be a hiding place here …’

The whole of that day I lay in hiding, and the night and day following it as well, almost till sunset. The cellar was dark, dank and cold, and so narrow that I was forced to stand the entire time. Also I had to stay completely quiet, without coughing or making the smallest noise. If they failed to find me, I thought they would probably surround the house and cut off my escape. During those long hours not a servant came to open the door and this confirmed my suspicion that the enemy was still in possession of the house … The servant who had shut me in this place had been taken off to prison; those left behind did not know of it and had no idea what had happened to me.
²⁶

Father Weston is eventually caught in August 1586 and imprisoned with a number of other Catholics in Wisbech Castle. In 1599 he is transferred to the Tower of London, and only released after Elizabeth’s death, whereupon he is sent into exile.

The Tower is the most feared place of confinement for Catholics. Seven types of torture are used there to extract confessions from Jesuits and seminary priests like Weston. Another English Catholic internee, Edward Rishton, describes them as follows:

1. The first is the Pit: a subterranean cave, twenty feet deep and entirely without light;
   
2. The second is a cell or dungeon, so small as to be incapable of allowing a person to stand erect. From its effect on its inmates it is called the ‘Little Ease’;
   
3. The third is the rack, on which, by means of wooden rollers and other machinery, the limbs of the sufferer are drawn in opposite directions;
   
4. The fourth, I believe from the inventor, is called The Scavenger’s Daughter. It consists of an iron ring that brings the head, hands and feet together until they form a circle;
   
5. The fifth is the iron gauntlet, which encloses the hand with the most excruciating pain;
   
6. The sixth consists of chains or manacles, attached to the arms;
   
7. The seventh consists of fetters, by which the feet are contained.
   ²⁷
   

In view of all this, it is quite surprising that William Harrison can blithely state in his
Description of England:

To use torment also or question by pain and torture in these common cases with us is greatly abhorred, since we are found always to be such as despise death and yet abhor to be tormented, choosing rather frankly to open our minds than to yield our bodies unto such servile hauling and tearings as are used in other countries.
²⁸

Clearly there is a huge gulf between the complacency of a Protestant writer in 1577 and the experiences of Catholic priests in the 1580s and 1590s.

Few Catholics have left first-hand accounts of being tortured. However, one compelling account is that of Father John Gerard, who is taken to the Tower in 1597.

We went to the torture room in a kind of solemn procession, the attendants walking ahead with lighted candles. The chamber was underground and dark, particularly near the entrance. It was a vast place and every device and instrument of human torture was there. They pointed out some of them to me and said I would try them all. Then they asked me again whether I would confess.

‘I cannot,’ I said.

I fell on my knees for a moment’s prayer. Then they took me to a big upright pillar, one of the wooden posts that supported the roof of this huge underground chamber. Driven into the top of it were iron staples for supporting heavy weights. Then they put my wrists into iron gauntlets and ordered me to climb two or three wicker steps. My arms were lifted up and an iron bar was passed through the rings of one gauntlet, through the staple, and through the rings of the second gauntlet. This done, they fastened the bar with a pin to prevent it slipping, and then, removing the wicker steps one by one from beneath my feet, they left me hanging by my hands and arms fastened above my head. The tips of my toes, however, still touched the ground and they had to dig away the earth from under them …

Hanging like this, I began to pray. The gentlemen standing around me asked whether I was willing to confess now.

‘I cannot and I will not,’ I answered.

But I could hardly utter the words, such a gripping pain came over me. It was worst in my chest and belly, my hands and arms. All the blood in my body seemed to rush up into my arms and hands, and I thought that blood was oozing from the ends of my fingers and the pores of my skin. But it was only a sensation caused by my flesh swelling above the irons holding them. The pain was so intense that I thought I could not possibly endure it, and, added to it, I had an inward temptation. Yet I did not feel any inclination or wish to give them the information they wanted. The Lord saw my weakness with the eyes of His mercy, and did not permit me to be tempted beyond my strength. With the temptation He sent me relief. Seeing my agony and the struggle going on in my mind, He gave me this most merciful thought:
the utmost and worst they can do is to kill you, and you have often wanted to give your life for your Lord God. The Lord God sees all you are enduring – He can do all things. You are in God’s keeping
. With these thoughts, God in His infinite goodness and mercy gave me the grace of resignation, and with a desire to die and a hope (I admit) that I would, I offered Him myself to do with me as He wished. From that moment the conflict in my soul ceased, and even the physical pain seemed much more bearable than before, though it must, in fact, I am sure, have been greater with the growing strain and the weariness of my body …

Sometime after one o’clock, I think, I fell into a faint. How long I was unconscious I don’t know, but I think it was long, for the men held my body up or put the wicker steps under my feet until I came to. Then they heard me pray and immediately let me down again. They did this every time I fainted – eight or nine times that day – before it struck five …
²⁹

Confrontation with Puritanism, 1570–1603

You need to bear in mind that the religious divide in England is not just a two-way battle between Anglicans and Catholics. In most respects, Anglicanism is a middle way, a series of compromises between the two extremes of Roman Catholicism and more radical Protestant positions such as Calvinism and Puritanism. While there is as much conflict with Puritans as with Catholics, there is an important difference, however. The pope and England’s Catholic enemies pose a political threat; the conflict with Puritanism remains almost entirely religious.

The narrow defeat in 1563 of the Bill to abolish religious vestments and symbols does not mean that all those who would have a ‘purer’ form of worship simply acquiesce and start supporting the orthodox line from Westminster. Discontent simmers away throughout the
1560s. The triumph in Scotland of John Knox and his Presbyterianism – based on the ideas of Jean Calvin – encourages some people to think that such radical agendas should be adopted in England too. They find a leader in Dr Thomas Cartwright, professor of divinity at Cambridge, who uses his position to preach that the current system of church administration has no basis in the scriptures. He advocates abolishing archbishops, archdeacons and most of the higher clergy, and returning bishops to their original function of preaching and teaching, while deacons should administer to the poor. Such radical views incur the anger of John Whitgift, who becomes vice-chancellor of the university in 1570. Cartwright is deprived of his professorial chair and in 1574 he is driven into exile when he hears that orders for his arrest have been issued.

With a cause célèbre like this, Puritanism finds a new focus and gains vitality. It has a number of influential supporters, such as the queen’s favourite, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, who is an advocate of preaching (which the queen is not) and even subscribes to some Calvinist ideas. At a lower social level, among the gentry, Puritans argue that Elizabeth remains too close to the Catholics. In 1574 a gentleman from Essex, Thomas Bedell, declares, ‘They are not papists who say that the queen is a papist but rather divers others who call themselves Puritans.’
³⁰
Bedell is fined £100 for this remark, even after withdrawing it and repenting (by which he saves himself a few hours in the pillory and the loss of both of his ears). Most Puritans would agree with Bedell; it is just that saying such things is beyond the pale.

Herein lies the problem for the Puritans. They are religious thinkers who question the current state of the Church; yet for the queen, all such doubt is treasonable. She has made her mind up on religion, and wants to maintain the Settlement of 1559 as far as possible. When Puritan preachers continue to raise questions in people’s minds, the queen takes action: one or two preachers in each diocese will be sufficient, she declares, and they will have to be authorised by her. The archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Grindal, rebukes her in a letter in December 1576:

Alas, Madam! Is the scripture more plain in any one thing than that the gospel of Christ should be plentifully preached and that plenty of labourers should be sent in to the Lord’s harvest, which being great and large, standeth in need not of a few but many workmen?’
³¹

For this rebuke Grindal is suspended. The queen’s strong will to act against the Puritans also influences her selection of his successor in 1583: she chooses John Whitgift. In the year of his appointment Whitgift publishes three articles which emphasise that the queen has complete supremacy over everyone born within her realms; that the Book of Common Prayer and the church hierarchy are not contrary to scripture; and that the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563 are agreeable to God. This last point goes straight to the heart of the disagreements between Anglicans and Puritans, and more than two hundred clergymen refuse to accept it and are immediately suspended. William Cecil compares Whitgift’s actions to those of the Catholic Inquisition, but his articles are exactly what the queen wants. Four years later Anthony Cope, MP, boldly introduces a Bill for the repeal of all previous ecclesiastical laws and the introduction of a new Puritan-friendly form of common prayer. The queen immediately despatches him to the Tower.

For Puritans, like Catholics, the most difficult years of Elizabeth’s rule are the last. Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, dies in 1588 and although the queen weeps for him, his death allows her to take sterner measures against his friends. The Puritans respond in the same year with a series of pamphlets, signed by ‘Martin Marprelate’, which lampoons the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The printer John Penry is forced to flee to Scotland, but is caught on a visit to London and hanged. In 1593, the theologian Richard Hooker publishes
Of the laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
, which gives the Church of England a stronger theological basis than that provided by John Jewel thirty years earlier and heavily criticises Puritanism. The queen is most satisfied. Resigned to a lack of reform in the Church, the Puritans bide their time for the rest of the reign, before emerging as a powerful force in the seventeenth century.
³²