The war with France following, when the Pope took sides against the Queen, and in which England lost all her dominions in that country, only for a time stayed the persecution of heretics, and in October, 1558, it was again renewed; but the death of the Queen on the 17th of November in the same year closed this dreadful chapter of English history.
The Church was now again freed from the authority of the Pope, and gradually restored to what it was in the time of Henry VIII.; but in order not to hurt the Roman Catholics too much at first, a small number of Catholic ministers were retained in her Majesty’s Council. Commissioners were appointed to visit each diocese and to report on the state of things, especially as to the effects of the late persecutions. Amongst those selected for the Northern visitation was the Earl of Derby. The commissioners commenced their work on August 22, 1559, and were directed to minister the oath of recognition; they received many complaints from clergymen who had been ejected from their livings for being married and other causes, and in some cases these were reinstated. In Lancashire the oath of supremacy was ordered to be taken by a proclamation to the Chancellor of the duchy, dated May 23, 1559, both clergy and laity being required to take it. At the same time all the restored chantries were only to be now used in accordance with the Reformed Church: the Host was not to be elevated, and the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Gospels were to be read in English.
The progress of the Reformation was rapid in the South of England, but in Lancashire the feeling in favour of the old form of religion was so strong that for some years little or no permanent change was effected, as nearly all the oldest and most powerful families in the county were rigid Roman Catholics. It is a remarkable fact that when England, under Elizabeth, again became Protestant, and almost all the bishops gave up their sees, the great majority of the clergy in Lancashire agreed rather to accept the new form of religion than to resign their livings, the result being that in many parishes the vicars or rectors were really Papists in disguise, and had shown themselves but ill qualified shepherds to have the care of such large, scattered, and disunited flocks. But this exhibition of pliant and accommodating consciences was put in the shade by the rapidity with which the Earl of Derby changed front, and we now find the persecutor of Marsh every whit as keen in running to earth the recusant Roman Catholic. But in all extreme movements there is generally a reaction; so the harsh measures taken by Queen Mary laid the seeds for the formation of a new body of malcontents, to whom the reform meted out to the Church was not sufficient; and this, at first a mere sect, soon rose into a powerful party, which was recognised under the general title of Puritans. Queen Elizabeth hated a Puritan only with a less bitter hatred than she did a Catholic; so as both these were represented in Lancashire, this county was at once marked out for persecution; and it was not long before we hear of 600 recusants being presented at one assize at Lancaster, and that all the prisons were full.[196]
Catholics were forbidden to leave the country, and Puritans were not allowed to meet together to worship anywhere except in the church. In 1567 the Queen addressed a letter to the Bishop of Chester, in which she says: “We think it not unknown how, for the good opinion we conceived of your former service, we admitted you to be bishop of the diocese; but now, upon credible reports of disorder and contempts, especially in the county of Lancaster, we find great lack in you. In which matter of late we writ to you, and other our commissioners joined with you, to cause certain suspected persons to be apprehended, writing at the same time to our right trusty and well–beloved the Earl of Derby, for the aid of you in that behalf.
“Since that time, and before the delivery of the said letters to the Earl of Derby, we be duly informed that the said earl hath, upon small motions made to him, caused such persons as have been required to be apprehended, and hath shown himself therein according to our assured expectation very faithful and careful of our service.”
The letter concludes with instruction to the Bishop to make a personal visitation into the most remote parts of his diocese, especially in Lancashire, and to see for himself how the various church–livings are filled.
Notwithstanding this reproof to the Bishop, he had before this had many times to deal with rebellious clergy and their congregations. Many instances might be quoted. In 1564 the curate of Liverpool was admonished to warn the people “that they use no beades,” and that they “abolish and utterly extirpate all manner of idolatrie and superstition out of the Church immediately;” and at the same time the curate of Farnworth was presented “for showing and suffering candles to be burnt in the chapel on Candlemas daye, accordinge to the old superstitious custom.” In the same year complaints were made to the Archbishop of York that in all the livings in Whalley and Blackburn the clergy were neglecting their duty, and very seldom preached to their flocks. The Bishop made a visitation in the summer of 1568, but he has left little record of it, except that he was well entertained by the gentry, the only drawback to his perfect enjoyment being the excessive heat of the weather. The disaffection increased, and there was a determination on the part of a large portion of the community not to attend church nor to hear sermons, but to have Mass celebrated, and otherwise to act against the laws of the land; indeed, there is not wanting evidence to show that it would at this time not have required much excitement to have resulted in open rebellion.
Many of the Lancashire gentry, hoping to again establish the Catholic religion, openly espoused the cause of Mary, Queen of Scots. The Bishop of Carlisle, writing to the Earl of Essex in 1570, gives an account of the state of Lancashire in that year; he writes: “Before my coming to York, Sir John Atherton arrived there from Lancashire, where he long resided, and not being able to come to my house through infirmities, he sent to my father and declared to him how all things in Lancashire savoured of rebellion; what provision of men, armour, horses and munition was made there; what assemblies of 500 or 600 at a time; what wanton talk of invasion by the Spaniards; and how in most places the people fell from their obedience and utterly refused to attend divine service in the English tongue. How since Felton set up his bull so the greatest there never came to any service, nor suffered any to be said in their houses, but openly entertained Louvainists massers with their bulls.”[197] And the same year the Bishop wrote to Sir William Cecil (afterwards Baron Burleigh), that in Lancashire the people were falling from religion altogether, and were returning to “popery and refused to come to church.”
Ten years later things seem little improved, as Sir Edmund Trafford writes in 1580 to the Earl of Leicester, informing him that the state of the county was “lamentable to behold, considering the great disorder thereof in matters of religion, masses being said in several places.” And he winds up with a request that the Government will cause the offenders to be rigorously dealt with.[198] Possibly in reply to this appeal a Royal Ecclesiastical Commission was now appointed, consisting of the Bishop of Chester, Lord Derby and others, which was to bring the offenders “to more dutiful minds;”[199] and about the same time an Act was passed by which absentees from church for a month were to be liable to a penalty of £20. A contemporary Roman Catholic writer, commenting upon the appointment of Sir Edmund Trafford as Sheriff of Lancashire, describes him as a man “so thoroughly imbued with the perfidy of Calvin and the phrensy of Beza, that it might be said he was merely waiting for this very opportunity of in every way pursuing with insult all that professed the Catholic religion, and despoiling them of their property. For the furious hate of this inhuman wretch was all the more fiercely stirred by the fact that he saw offered to him such a prospect of increasing his slender means out of the property of the Catholics, and of adorning his house with the various articles of furniture filched from their houses.” He then goes on in the same strain to describe the manner in which the Sheriff’s officers took possession of Rossall, and expelled therefrom the widowed mother and sisters of Cardinal Allen.[200] The persecution in Lancashire now became more severe, and very few of the old families adhering to the unreformed religion escaped punishment. Amongst those who were imprisoned were Sir John Southworth, Lady Egerton, James Labourne, John Townley, Sir Thomas Hesketh, Bartholomew Hesketh and Richard Massey.
In 1582 the prisoners, on the ground of recusancy, were ordered to be sent to the New Fleet prison in Manchester, instead of, as heretofore, to Chester Castle. At this time numerous amateur detectives seem to have made out lists of recusants and forwarded the same to the Government officials, so that no man knew who was his accuser; but once his name got down on the list, persecution and fine or imprisonment invariably followed. In 1585 the sanguinary law against Jesuits, seminary priests, and others was enacted, and by it all such were ordered at once to quit the country, and anyone harbouring them was to be adjudged guilty of high–treason. This brought a new crime into existence, and many Lancashire people became the victims. Priest–harbouring was soon amongst the most prolific causes of arrest and imprisonment. As samples of the working of this Act in Lancashire, the following are selected from a long list: