ABSTRACT
Elizabeth’s reign followed a period in which the Reformation of Henry VIII and Edward VI had been reversed and the Roman Catholic Church fully restored. In the 1559 settlement the pendulum swung back towards Protestantism, although the final defeat of Catholicism was by no means inevitable. Elizabeth was faced with a choice at the beginning of her reign of either maintaining the Catholic restoration of Mary or returning to the Protestantism of Edward. Elizabeth and her government could have opted at the outset for draconian measures to try to stamp out Catholicism altogether. Elizabeth’s government decided instead to put long-term pressure on Catholicism. Many Catholics were also highly suspicious of the activities of the missionaries, preferring to remain uninvolved either because they suspected treason or because they feared that they might themselves fall foul of a system which would exact a hideous revenge upon them.
