ABSTRACT
The reason for this decline was twofold. On the one hand, the queen's government treated this large body of Englishmen with deliberate and calculated moderation in order not to drive them from the fold. On the other, the catholic powers of Europe, including the pope, who should have succoured the catholics in England, left them in the lurch for over ten years. In that time the catholic cause was lost in England. Philip II at first persisted in treating England as his subject protege; a papal emissary (Parpaglia) dispatched in 1560 to invite Elizabeth to the Council of Trent was prevented by Philip from crossing the Channel on
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the ground that he was pro-French, a step which saved the queen much embarrassment. Even as it became plain that the Church of England had broken with Rome for good, both the king of Spain, in the interests of his policy, and the pope (the gentle Pius IV who succeeded the fierce Paul IV in 1559) under Spanish pressure continued in their conciliatory attitude. Pius IV sent another messenger to England in 1561, the abbot Martinengo; since Philip did not oblige by stopping him too, Elizabeth had to show her hand by forbidding him to enter the country. In consequence the pope joined France at Trent in pressing for Elizabeth's excommunication, but Spain and the Empire resisted on the grounds that the sentence would do more harm than good since no one could carry it out. Their attitude \vas sensible, but it prevented the English catholics from receiving a clear lead from Trent. Since they were given no official indication that Elizabeth was a heretic and her Church damnable, most of them saw no difficulty in compromising their consciences by attending Anglican services. When to this feebleness from abroad there was added the studied moderation of the government at home-refusing to enforce the oath of supremacy too rigidly, careful not to enquire after fines for recusancy (refusal to attend at church) in notoriously catholic districts like Lancashire-the winning over of the catholic majority proved easy_ As usual the queen was milder than her council and her parliaments. In 1563, the obstreperous commons forced upon her an act \vhich sharpened the penalties for catholics: to support Rome by word, ,vriting, or deed was made punishable by prremunire, \vhile a second refusal to take the oath was made treason. The queen countered by ordering Parker not to tender the oath a second time, despite the clear tenor of the statute. Skilfully handled by a queen who continued to use cross and candles in her chapel and to drop hints of a possible return to Rome before credulous ambassadors, deserted moreover by their friends abroad, and \vithout priests of their own before 1575, most of the English catholics accepted the new state of things and became Anglicans.
