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The Edict Passed Against the Catholics by the Advice of the Earl of Leicester, and of His Death, and That of Several Servants of God

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The Edict Passed Against the Catholics by the Advice of the Earl of Leicester, and of His Death, and That of Several Servants of God Book 3, chapter 1 The Edict Passed against the Catholics by the Advice of the Earl of Leicester, and of His Death, and that of Several Servants of God After the queen and her councilors saw themselves free of their fear and anxiety about the Spanish Armada, straightway they turned like lions against the kingdom’s Catholics, to persecute and eradicate them. Thus it was that an inhuman edict was enacted to seek them out in every corner, apprehend them, and pour out upon them their rage and fury.1 The principal author of this edict was Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, a mortal foe of the Catholic faith and all who professed it, so rabid and barbaric that he said he wished to see the entire city of London painted with the blood of Catholics.2 This accursed man was the son of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, who had been beheaded as a traitor in the reign of Queen Mary; his four sons had been condemned to the same fate, one of whom was Robert Dudley, who with his brothers was reprieved by the clemency of Queen Mary. After her death he attained such fa- vor and license with Queen Elizabeth that he became the most powerful man in the kingdom, deciding questions of war and peace according to his will. He was governor of Holland and Zealand and captain general of the realm, hold- ing all its forces in his hand—and, not satisfied with these preferments and titles, he sought another, extraordinary and supreme over the entire kingdom.3 This the queen granted him, but when her council obstructed the decision and refused to sign and seal the new patent for the office of steward of the realm, the earl was so distraught and infuriated (for to great lords and favorites any sort of obstacle to their desires strikes them to the very soul) that he was immediately struck with an illness so grievous that he was swiftly carried off 1 This seems to be a reference to a proclamation issued before the climax of the Armada crisis: on July 1, 1588, Elizabeth declared martial law against possessors and disseminators of papal bulls and other Catholic documents. See trp, 3:13–17. 2 The earliest reference to this remark I have been able to identify comes in Richard Chal- loner’s (1691–1781) Memoirs of Missionary Priests (1741). Challoner almost certainly had it from Ribadeneyra. Richard Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, as Well Secular as Regu- lar; And of Other Catholics, of Both Sexes, That Have Suffered Death in England, on Religious Accounts, from the Year of Our Lord 1577, to 1684, 2 vols. ([London]: [For F. Needham?], 1741), 1:209–10. 3 Ribadeneyra’s description of Robert Dudley, first earl of Leicester, follows, in abbreviated form, the defamatory portrait of the earl in Philopater, 14–20. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi �0.��63/97890043�3964_�0� <UN> 558 Book 3, chapter 1 in a horrible, frightful death.4 Some, however, said that his second wife had killed him, and that this was God’s judgment, in punishment for his having murdered his first wife and the earl of Essex, the first husband of his second wife.5 Nevertheless, whatever happened, the tyrant’s death came so promptly that all who knew and recognized his wicked spirit and what he had plotted against the Catholics regarded it as the singular providence of the Lord, who by the punishment of so impious and degenerate a man intended to demonstrate the providence he had for his Church. For, though this man had been the son of a Catholic father—who on the scaffold itself, about to die, had movingly ex- horted the people to persevere in the Catholic faith and beware of the heretics ravaging the kingdom (described in the first part of this history),6 and though God had done him the mercy of freeing him from the death to which he was condemned, he ignored the Lord’s gifts and turned his back on him. Deluded by his great intimacy with the queen and deceived by the favorable wind that bore him along, he was so far gone as to become the Catholics’ cruelest and fiercest enemy in the kingdom, in order to show himself the queen’s most zeal- ous servant. And he gave himself up to a life as dissolute and degenerate as the religion he professed. But our Lord cut short his steps, and after he had raised 4 Dudley had served as Elizabeth’s master of the horse since her accession. In 1587, he surren- dered this office, which was replaced with that of lord steward—which office he did, pace Ribadeneyra, enjoy until his sudden death (probably of malaria) on September 4, 1588. Ad- ams, “Dudley, Robert,” in odnb, 17:110–11. The story that the council opposed Leicester’s appointment comes from Persons: “In fact, some believed he had died from rage and fury […] for, when the queen granted his petition requesting the highest position and extraordinary authority in England, the other councilors refused their assent, nor could he ever prevail upon the chancellor to set the great seal on the writ.” Philopater, 18. 5 Leicester’s first wife, Amy Dudley, died on September 8, 1560, having broken her neck fall- ing down a flight of steps. The murky circumstances surrounding the event and Leicester’s known intimacy with Elizabeth prompted swift and enduring speculation that the earl had arranged his wife’s demise. Likewise, when Walter Devereux, first earl of Essex (1541–76), died on September 22, 1576, it was rumored that Leicester had had the late earl poisoned, so as to wed the dowager countess, Lettice Knollys (1543–1634)—which he duly did two years later. Though modern historians reject these allegations, such notoriety virtually ensured that at Leicester’s own death, foul play was suggested. See Chris Skidmore, Death and the Virgin Queen: Elizabeth i and the Dark Scandal That Rocked the Throne (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2010). Cf. “Others thought that he had been killed by the just judgment of God, indeed, at the hands of his wife, for the sake of attaining of whom, as we said, he had removed the earl of Essex, her first husband.” Philopater, 18. 6 In the margin: “Book 2, Chapter 10.” <UN>.
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