The Excommunication of Queen Elizabeth I

Pius V, April 27, 1570:

POPE PIUS V'S BULL AGAINST QUEEN ELIZABETH I OF ENGLAND: He that reigneth on high, to whom is given all power in heaven and earth, has committed one holy Catholic and apostolic Church, outside of which there is no salvation, to one alone upon earth, namely to Peter, the first of the apostles, and to Peter's successor, the Pope of Rome, to be by him governed in fullness of power....

[T]he number of the ungodly has so much grown in power that there is no place left in the world which they have not tried to corrupt with their most wicked doctrines; and among others, Elizabeth, the pretended Queen of England and the servant of crime, has assisted in this, with whom as in a sanctuary the most pernicious of all have found refuge.... [S]he has followed and embraced the errors of the heretics. She has removed the royal Council, composed of the nobility of England, and has filled it with obscure men, being heretics; oppressed the followers of the Catholic faith; instituted false preachers and ministers of impiety; abolished the sacrifice of the mass, prayers, fasts, choice of meats, celibacy, and Catholic ceremonies; and has ordered that books of manifestly heretical content be propounded to the whole realm and that impious rites and institutions after the rule of Calvin, entertained and observed by herself, be also observed by her subjects....

We, seeing impieties and crimes multiplied... and recognising that her mind is so fixed and set... are compelled by necessity to take up against her the weapons of juctice.... [W]e do out of the fullness of our apostolic power declare the foresaid Elizabeth to be a heretic and favourer of heretics, and her adherents in the matters aforesaid to have incurred the sentence of excommunication and to be cut off from the unity of the body of Christ....

[We] deprive the same Elizabeth of her pretended title to the crown.... We charge and command all and singular the nobles, subjects, peoples and others afore said that they do not dare obey her orders, mandates and laws. Those who shall act to the contrary we include in the like sentence of excommunication....

Given at St. Peter's at Rome, on 27 Apr 1570 of the Incarnation; in the fifth year of our pontificate.

Comments

[andres]

Next stop, Tehran. And with an Armada of Stealth Bombers. :-(

[agm]

Ah, memories from back when the Church thought it still had the power to appoint and depose monarchs in desultory fashion...

[James Wimberley]

Thanks for posting this. I get annoyed when Catholics like Eamon Duffy write as if the Elizabethan persecution of recusants and priests was mere paranoia. It was paranoid, and most of the priests executed for treason (not for heresy, unlike the Marian Protestant victims) were not involved in the various plots; but the government had reason to be scared, for the Papacy was out to get them.

Remind you of the fear of Communists in the 40s, and of Muslims today? Keith Thomas makes a good point in the NYRB (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=18936, paywall) that the response of James I's government to the Guy Fawkes plot was in fact quite moderate. Fawkes (who was caught red-handed) was tortured to get details of the plot, and he and other conspirators were executed horribly: but apart from a loyalty oath, there was no mass revenge on Catholics.

[Alex R]

It's interesting to me how similar the language of this bull sounds to the US Declaration of Independence. The pattern is the same: A statement of moral principle, followed by a list of the transgressions of the monarch, followed by the declaration of how the monarch is to be removed. I wonder if our founders had this document, or one like it, in mind as they drafted theirs?

[Dustin]

One thing I didn't know was how substantial a number of devout Catholics, even to this day, loathe Elizabeth, and consider her merely a tiptoe's height better than the Devil himself. Feverish crackpot books by Catholic scholars, arguing that Mary's rightful claim to the Crown is verified by ancient biblical prophecy, are promoted on mainstream Catholic apologetics websites like Catholic.com & Catholic.org . I read an interview with some Friar who said a few instructors at the hardcore Catholic university he studied at in Spain to this day refer to Elizabeth as the "Whore of England"

History is awesome.

[spencer]

There must be some good articles showing how the American colonist had watched two hundred years of outright warfare between various Christans groups in England and how this influenced the US constitution.

Does anyone have some good citations on this subject?

[Barkley Rosser]

I don't have any good sources on this, although fears of such religious warfare did influence the FFs.

When I was young I was told in the Presbyterian Church that its governing structure was the main model for the US Constitution, with its effort to balance off federal and state powers, in contrast to full centralizers (Catholic and Anglican models) and full decentralizers (Anabaptists, although not their lineal descendants in the Southern Baptist Convention today). The supposed link was the Presbyterianism of Princeton grad, James Madison, "Father of the Constitution."

[Steady Eddie]

Alex R -- This wasn't a model so much as reflecting the general form in which these kinds of institutional combat took place.

For a much better model that was well looked to by the framers of the Declaration, try the Grand Remonstrance of the 1641 Parliament against Charles I.

Spencer, for that matter, look very closely at almost anything written by Christopher Hill about 17th century British political and constitutional history. This was the period that really shaped our own constitutional thinking. Changes a lot of our erroneous stereotypes about the Puritans, and identifies a lot of the cross-currents that worked themselves out in our own early history.

Read e.g., the Putney Debates in 1647. Cromwell et al. were in many ways the precursors of our Framers, looking to property as representing a political "stake in society" and strongly opposing the Levellers who were more economically egalitarian and in a way, individualistic, and were sort of the precursors of our Jacksonians in the 1820s and 1830s. Among the many admirable things about the Framers was their willingness to create a constitutional system that allowed those whose views they disagreed with not only to take power but to reshape society. When so-called conservatives talk about the "intent of the Framers" about things like property, they're mistaking the political movement for economic opportunity of the Jacksonian period for the Framers' much more political view of property which was strongly at odds with the Jacksonian view.

[Freddy el Desfibradddoro]

An argument has been made that the Founding Fathers were much influenced by the structure and practices of the Iroquois Confederation. The complete text of a book on the topic, Forgotten Founders: Benjamin Franklin, the Iroquois and the Rationale for the American Revolution by Bruce E. Johansen (1982) can be found at
http://tinyurl.com/mo9e9

[auto]

Spencer, a lot's been written about the Founders and their seeing George III as following in the footsteps of the Stuart kings. The most recent writer to explore that theme is Kevin Phillips in a book from about three years ago called The Cousins Wars. He argues that the Puritan/Whig fights against the Crown were again played out in our revolution, with the same forces in Britain that loathed Charles I and II supporting our claims against George III.

That papal indictment of Elizabeth -- that's a damn fine piece of rhetoric. If only Bush could hire the Pope's speechwriter maybe more Americans would support him in our empire's adventures in Iraq.

[JRossi]

Religion is frequently the proximate cause of conflict between people but not the ultimate cause. The ultimate cause is human nature. We fight over status and access to resources. The details of conflict are variable and therefore interesting-the basic patterns remain the same.
Religion,ideology, nationalism-pick your own pretend reason to fight. The real reason is testosterone.

[dale]

JRossi,
I agree, in so far as there seems to be various ingroup-outgroup, dominant-subordinate group struggles that make use of religion, race, nationality, etc as the markers of status.

It's been shown that men attend to these dominance heirarchical struggles differently than do women.

But still, it's hard to separate human nature from ideology and rationalization.

[ccliff]

Your post reminded me of the following sci-fi book:

Keith Roberts wrote,Pavanne, an alternative history in 1968 using the premise that the Armada was successful. He outlines the stultifying impact of now Catholic/Papist control of the known world over the next four hundred years on technology innovation and human rights. There is a thread connecting each successive story. I think that Pavanne is still in print.

[sm]

There were a lot of influences on the FF. It is my conviction that when the time comes for new ideas, people grab at what's lying about, and corresponds, or seems to correspond to the deeper movements shaping events.

RR Palmer, in his Age of the Democratic Revolution -- read vol. 1 if you are serious -- pointed out that we often think that Rousseau's Social Contract shaped the French Revolution in a long range sort of way. But the SC was little read back in the 1760s when it came out. When the revolution was already under way in 1789 and later, the SC came out in multiple editions so that would-be revolutionaries looking for a whole new SC would know what was needed.

Actually that was a bad move on their part, but it's what they did.

In the earliest stages of the FR, the constitution of hte Commonwealth of PA was a favorite source. The US Constitution was too new and too federalist for French reformers.

I wonder if any American political thinkers knew the Putney Debates or the Agreement of the People in the 1770s and 80s? Or even later?

Agreement of the People here:

http://www.constitution.org/lev/eng_lev_07.htm

[Ereshkigal]

"[We] deprive the same Elizabeth of her pretended title to the crown.... We charge and command all and singular the nobles, subjects, peoples and others afore said that they do not dare obey her orders, mandates and laws."

That worked out pretty well, didn't it?

[sm]

That ref is to the earlier, and more concise, Agreement.

[Anderson]

Not just the Catholics bash Elizabeth. When I was a kid, I was reading in the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Presbyterians were not complimentary towards her.

Elizabeth's attitude towards religious observance was "sit down and shut up," so of course she alienated the pious to either side of her Anglo-Catholicism.

[spencer]

Thanks everyone.

But what I had in mind was more specifically the no religion clauses in the constitution.

[ilsm]

Rosser,

In the case of late reformation religious thought I go to Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, he asked why God talked to them and not him.

The line goes on who speaks for God? And a benevolent God would equally share His will.

Then I did use that line on a couple of Latter Day Saints recently when they asked if I wanted to know about thier "prophet".

They did not stop talking........

[Arun Khanna]

Re: The Excommunication of Queen Elizabeth I

When the head of church and head of State like Queen Elizabeth I tries to communicate on her subjects behalf directly, Papal authority does tend to excommunicate.

[Matt]

'The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe' by Charles Nicholl is a wonderful book that gives the reader a feeling for the political and religious paranoia of those times.

[sm]

Agreement of the People:

"1. That matters of religion and the ways of God's worship are not at all entrusted by us to any human power, because therein we cannot remit or exceed a tittle of what our consciences dictate to be the mind of God, without wilful sin. Nevertheless the public way of instructing the nation — so it be not compulsive — is referred to their [National Representatives'] discretion."

[johne]

"The real reason is testosterone."
I have read (no citation, sorry) that Pius V, in his informal moments, would say that he and Elizabeth should get together and found a new race, free of the weaklings and ciphers that both of them had to put up with.

[Steady Eddie]

"I wonder if any American political thinkers knew the Putney Debates or the Agreement of the People in the 1770s and 80s? Or even later?"

sm, it was in their blood.The most frequent examples cited in the Constitutional Convention and the ratification debates (including the Federalist and anti-Fed pamphlets) were about the relationship between the Stuart Kings and Parliament, and the themes fleshed out at Putney -- natural rights, social contract, consent of the governed, right of revolution -- went in a direct line from Putney to Locke to the Framers. It's what they knew best, and was "much on their minds".

In fact, the greatest achievement of the Framers was answering Locke's question about how to deal with tyranny of the majority in a government by consent. All he could suggest was an "appeal to heaven," i.e., revolution. Whereas as Madison wrote in Federalist 51, "A dependence on the people [i.e. elections to identify the majority] is, no doubt, the primary control on the government, experience has shown mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions." I.e., separation of powers, checks and balances, judicial review, a written Bill of Rights, etc.

What they didn't forsee was a Congress so corrupt, gutless, and office-holding- (it ain't power-) hungry, and judges so mindlessly and irresponsibly ideological, that they would not step forward to exercise their own power in their own institutional self-interest. And that's the biggest threat to our Constitution today (along with a corporate media that refuses to recognize what's at stake).

[Ian Whitchurch]

"Thanks for posting this. I get annoyed when Catholics like Eamon Duffy write as if the Elizabethan persecution of recusants and priests was mere paranoia. It was paranoid, and most of the priests executed for treason (not for heresy, unlike the Marian Protestant victims) were not involved in the various plots; but the government had reason to be scared, for the Papacy was out to get them."

By redefining religious dissent as treason, you dont have to execute anyone for heresy, as they are already traitors.

This way, you can pretend, in the immortal words of Phillip II to the French Ambassador 'There is no question of religion in this dispute, merely in the lawful obedience of subjects to their soverign'.

But lets not bullshit here - the Tudor regime murdered priests for performing Confession.

"Freedom of religion" was only a tactical demand of the Reformed. Once they had control of the State, you worshipped their way, you left, or you were put on trial for your life.

France in the Wars of Religion has dozens of cases of proof that someone could be loyal to a Crown or a State without sharing it's confessional allegiance.

Bloody-handed Elizabeth deserves everything she gets from hostorians who dont buy the carefully-constructed Tudor mythology.

[derrida derider]

If Liz was bloody handed, Ian, so were her enemies (her predecessor wasn't called "Bloody Mary" for nothing, and Mary Stuart's accession would not have been a gentle affair). And don't forget Liz had come very close to the chopping block herself in her youth, and the terms of the excommunication were not merely a grave threat to her power but to her life. It's the way politics was played then.

Myself, I like Archbishop Laud's response to the excommunication. In stiff-upper-lip English style he merely had the following clause put in to the Articles of the Church of England:
"The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England"

(this, BTW, presumably had the curious effect of legally binding any Englishman visiting Rome to follow the Pope's orders).

[Count Tradula]

That's some great stuff, and a helpful reminder of why Pope St. Pius V was one of the greatest popes of all time. If only the Catholics of the time did have courage to topple the Whore of England.