[247] It might be inferred from some authorities that the catholics had become in a great degree disaffected to the queen about 1584, in consequence of the extreme rigour practised against them. In a memoir of one Crichton, a Scots jesuit, intended to show the easiness of invading England, he says, that "all the catholics without exception favour the enterprise, first, for the sake of the restitution of the catholic faith; secondly, for the right and interest which the Queen of Scots has to the kingdom, and to deliver her out of prison; thirdly, for the great trouble and misery they endure more and more, being kept out of all employments, and dishonoured in their own countries, and treated with great injustice and partiality when they have need to recur to law; and also for the execution of the laws touching the confiscation of their goods in such sort as in so short time would reduce the catholics to extreme poverty." Strype, iii. 415. And in the report of the Earl of Northumberland's treasons, laid before the star-chamber, we read that "Throckmorton said, that the bottom of this enterprise, which was not to be known to many, was, that if a toleration of religion might not be obtained without alteration of the government, that then the government should be altered, and the queen removed." Somers Tracts, vol. i. p. 206. Further proofs that the rigour used towards the catholics was the great means of promoting Philip's designs occur in Birch's Memoirs of Elizabeth, i. 82 et alibi.
We have also a letter from Persons in England to Allen in 1586, giving a good account of the zeal of the catholics, though a very bad one of their condition through severe imprisonment and other ill-treatment. Strype, iii. 412, and Append. 151. Rishton and Ribadeneira bear testimony that the persecution had rendered the laity more zealous and sincere. De Schismate, l. iii. 320, and l. iv. 53.
Yet to all this we may oppose their good conduct in the year of the Spanish Armada, and in general during the queen's reign; which proves that the loyalty of the main body was more firm than their leaders wished, or their enemies believed. However, if any of my readers should incline to suspect that there was more disposition among this part of the community to throw off their allegiance to the queen altogether than I have admitted, he may possibly be in the right; and I shall not impugn his opinion, provided he concurs in attributing the whole, or nearly the whole, of this disaffection to her unjust aggressions on the liberty of conscience.
[248] State Trials, i. 1162.
[249] 27 Eliz. c. i.
[250] In Murden's State Papers we have abundant evidence of Mary's acquaintance with the plots going forward in 1585 and 1586 against Elizabeth's government, if not with those for her assassination. But Thomas Morgan, one of the most active conspirators, writes to her, 9th July, 1586: "There be some good members that attend opportunity to do the Queen of England a piece of service, which I trust will quiet many things, if it shall please God to lay his assistance to the cause, for the which I pray daily."—P. 530. In her answer to this letter, she does not advert to this hint, but mentions Babington as in correspondence with her. At her trial she denied all communication with him.
[251] It may probably be answered to this, that if the letter signed by Walsingham as well as Davison to Sir Amias Paulet, urging him "to find out some way to shorten the life of the Scots queen," be genuine, which cannot perhaps be justly questioned (though it is so in the Biog. Brit. art. Walsingham, note O), it will be difficult to give him credit for any scrupulousness with respect to Mary. But, without entirely justifying this letter, it is proper to remark, what the Marian party choose to overlook, that it was written after the sentence, during the queen's odious scenes of grimace, when some might argue, though erroneously, that, a legal trial having passed, the formal method of putting the prisoner to death might in so peculiar a case, be dispensed with. This was Elizabeth's own wish, in order to save her reputation, and enable her to throw the obloquy on her servants; which by Paulet's prudence and honour in refusing to obey her by privately murdering his prisoner, she was reduced to do in a very bungling and scandalous manner.
[252] Questions were put to civilians by the queen's order in 1570, concerning the extent of Lesley, Bishop of Ross's privilege, as Mary's ambassador. Murden Papers, p. 18; Somers Tracts, i. 186. They answered, first, that an ambassador that raises rebellion against the prince to whom he is sent, by the law of nations, and the civil law of the Romans, has forfeited the privileges of an ambassador, and is liable to punishment: secondly, that if a prince be lawfully deposed from his public authority, and another substituted in his stead, the agent of such a prince cannot challenge the privileges of an ambassador; since none but absolute princes, and such as enjoy a royal prerogative, can constitute ambassadors. These questions are so far curious, that they show the jus gentium to have been already reckoned in matter of science, in which a particular class of lawyers was conversant.
[253] Strype, 360, 362. Civilians were consulted about the legality of trying Mary. Idem, Append. 138.
[254] Butler's English Catholics, i. 259; Hume. This is strongly confirmed by a letter printed not long after, and republished in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. i. p. 142, with the name of one Leigh, a seminary priest, but probably the work of some protestant. He says, "for contributions of money, and for all other warlike actions, there was no difference between the catholic and the heretic. But in this case [of the Armada] to withstand the threatened conquest, yea, to defend the person of the queen, there appeared such a sympathy, concourse, and consent of all sorts of persons, without respect of religion, as they all appeared to be ready to fight against all strangers as it were with one heart and one body." Notwithstanding this, I am far from thinking that it would have been safe to place the catholics, generally speaking, in command. Sir William Stanley's recent treachery in giving up Deventer to the Spaniards made it unreasonable for them to complain of exclusion from trust. Nor do I know that they did so. But trust and toleration are two different things. And even with respect to the former, I believe it far better to leave the matter in the hands of the executive government, which will not readily suffer itself to be betrayed, than to proscribe, as we have done, whole bodies by a legislative exclusion. Whenever, indeed, the government itself is not to be trusted, there arises a new condition of the problem.