[This article is No. 24 in the series entitled "A Review of Sunday Legislation in Century Nineteen," but it will be of equal interest to those who have not read preceding numbers. The next will relate to the persecutions of that church.—Ed. S. of T.]
In this paper we propose to go back a few centuries in the history of the Church of England, and judge her character by her works. The facts of history shall then answer our question, "Has the Church of England persecuted?"
The Church of England, as stated before, entered upon her career during the reign of Henry VIII. It was not, however, until the reign of his daughter, Elizabeth, that that church was securely established as the State system of the British realm. It is from this point, therefore, that her history properly begins.
"Good Queen Bess," as Elizabeth is frequently termed, ascended the throne on November 17, 1558. And in the summer of the following year she appointed a "general ecclesiastical visitation to compel the observance of the Protestant formularies." Now this was a persecuting edict, if ever there was one. It moreover appears from the reports of this committee that about one hundred dignitaries and eighty parochial priests resigned or were deprived of their benefices.
These benefices, we may observe, had been bequeathed in ages past by pious individuals to the Church of Rome, and it does not yet appear from what source the Queen of England derived her authority to confiscate these benefices and give them to "men eminent for their zeal in the Protestant cause." It is unequivocally certain that such was not the intent of the donors.
In the same year, 1559, Elizabeth enacted the famous "Act of Supremacy." That it formed a disgraceful blot upon the British constitution cannot be successfully denied; and that "it pressed heavily for more than two centuries upon the adherents to the Romish Church" is an historical fact beyond contradiction.
By the Act of Supremacy—
all beneficed ecclesiastics and all laymen holding office under the crown, were obliged to take the oath of supremacy, renouncing the spiritual as well as temporal jurisdiction of every foreign prince or prelate, on pain of forfeiting their office or benefice; and it was rendered highly penal, and for the third offense treasonable, to maintain such supremacy by writing or advised speaking.
That this oath was an act of oppression in itself cannot be gainsaid. That it worked great hardship to honest Roman Catholics, highly capable of serving the British State in civil things, is a fact so potent that it needs no proof. To our previous note we have given the oath as it appeared in the Act. Here is a further clause of the Act:—
That any person whatever affirming, holding, setting forth, maintaining, or defending the doctrine that any foreign prince, prelate, person, State, or potentate whatever, has any authority, preeminence, power, or jurisdiction, spiritual or ecclesiastical, within this realm, shall be liable to fine and imprisonment; and that any person whatever who advisedly does anything for the extolling, setting forth, maintenance, or defense of such jurisdiction, power, preeminence, and authority, shall also be liable to fine and imprisonment.
It is manifest that under this Act every Roman Catholic in England was liable to fine and imprisonment for being a Roman Catholic. For it is certain that there was not at that time, and is not to-day, a Roman Catholic in the world who does not hold that some spiritual jurisdiction does reside in the bishop of Rome. Therefore, every Roman Catholic in England at that time was liable to fine and imprisonment under the Act of Supremacy. Now all of this was persecution, and persecution by the Church of England.
Another oppressive Act passed by Elizabeth was the "Act of Uniformity." Says Hallam:
The latter statute [the Act of Uniformity] trenched more on the natural rights of conscience, prohibiting, under pain of forfeiting goods and chattels for the first offense, of a year's imprisonment for the second, and of imprisonment during life for the third, the use by a minister, whether beneficed or not, of any but the established liturgy, and imposed a fine of one shilling on all who should absent themselves from church on Sundays and holy days.
This Act operated as an absolute interdiction of the Catholic rites, however privately administered. Thus Sir Edward Walgrave and his lady were sent to the Tower, in 1561, for hearing mass and having a priest in their house. Numbers of persons were harassed for not attending the Protestant church, and driven to insincere promises of conformity. Others were dragged before ecclesiastical commissioners for harboring priests, or for sending money to those who fled beyond the sea. Many priests, however, remained in England, celebrating their services in secret and by night.
In 1581 fresh laws were enacted against the Catholics. One of these imposed a penalty of £20, that is $100, per month on all persons absenting themselves from church, unless they shall hear the English service at home. Any who could not pay this fine within three months after judgment were to be imprisoned until they should conform. By subsequent acts two-thirds of the party's lands, and all of his goods, were to be seized for default of payment. Thus a persecution was enacted which fell but little short of that for which the Inquisition had become so odious. And they were executed in the most sweeping and indiscriminating manner.
In 1577 a priest, named Mayne, was hanged at Launceston, without any charge against him except his religion. A gentleman who harbored him was imprisoned for life. The next year a boy of fourteen years, named Thomas Sherwood, was executed for refusing to deny the temporal power of the pope.
During the latter part of Elizabeth's reign the rack in the Tower seldom stood idle. The government did not deny the use of torture. The indignities inflicted upon the Catholics were simply horrible. To such a length of unblushing effrontery were these carried that Lord Burleigh in 1583 actually wrote a pamphlet entitled "The Execution of Justice468in England for Maintenance of Public and Private Peace." In this he attempted to justify the vigorous prosecutions of Catholics by the Crown. In 1584 a law was enacted, enjoining all Jesuits, seminary priests, and other priests, whether ordained within or without the kingdom, to depart from it within forty days, on pain of being adjudged traitors. The penalty of fine and imprisonment at the queen’s pleasure was inflicted on such as, knowing any priest to be within the realm, should not discover it to a magistrate.
The Catholic martyrs under Elizabeth amount to no inconsiderable number. Dodd reckons them at one hundred and ninety-one; Milner has raised the number to two hundred and four. Many others died from hardships in prison. More anon.