1. Catholic Threat:
Religious Settlement – (Elton) Catholics in the House of Lords forced Elizabeth to make the RS more Catholic than she intended. VS. (Neale) Puritan Choir in House of Commons forcing her to make the RS more Protestant in nature than she intended. Evaluation: lack of evidence of the existence of a Puritan Choir – Neale’s method of study, plus in 1559 only a small number of Puritan exiles from Mary’s reign had returned. The Lords still dominated in 1559 by Caths from Mary’s reign. Judgement: Catholics posed a threat to her authority in passage of RS as the evidence of existing peers combined with lack of returning Puritans between Jan and Easter of 1559 adds weight to the judgement that it was the Caths in the Lords that had the power and influence to have forced a change.
1560s – lack of a Catholic threat in England – Catholics ‘happy enough’ because of the low fine for non attendance to Church. English Catholics accepted the legitimacy of Elizabeth. Many leading Catholic bishops went into exile. Judgement: English Catholics were not a serious threat to Elizabeth before 1568.
– MQS arrival in England. She is locked in Fotheringhay Castle and Privy Council can recognise the threat she posed. Eliz refuses to order her execution. But she becomes a centre piece of English Catholic rebellion after the excommunication in 1570 because the English accept Eliz’s legitimacy as monarch until that point. It is leading Catholic gentry and Privy Councillors (Norfolk, and Northumberand) who make MQS a serious threat to Eliz before the excommunication by organising the Northern Rebellion of 1569 – the aim was for Norfolk to marry MQS and replace Eliz on the throne. The rebellion was stopped by government forces once the 3000 strong rebels had marched to York. Evaluation: Mainly seen that it was leaders who were in favour of replacing Eliz and the rebels who gathered were simply the laity following the orders of their powerful landowners. They were easily dispersed at the end of the rebellion and nothing similar ever happened again. Judgement: Northern Rebellion posed a serious threat to Eliz as it’s aim was to assassinate her. However the strength of the rebellion was limited due to the lack of genuine support from the rebels, as it was only really the leaders who had a determination in their aim.
1570 – Excommunication of Elizabeth by the Pope. This meant the legitimacy of Elizabeth was no longer accepted by Catholics and therefore English Catholics could be torn and many turn against the Eliz. Judgement: This was a turning point for a real and serious Catholic threat to Eliz both domestically and abroad.

2. Counter-reformation: Impact of the Excommunication came in the form of Seminary and Missionary Priests who arrived in England from Europe. They were trained Catholic Priests, many of whom had been trained in Douai, France by Cardinal William Allen who had fled to France at the start of Elizabeth’s reign and had established a Catholic training school where Missionary Priests such as Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons were trained. The first ‘wave’ of the Counter-Reformation saw the arrival of these Priests from 1571 – they were hid by Catholic gentry in their homes with the plan to spread Catholic rhetoric and doubts of the Prot church and legitimacy of Eliz. The second ‘wave’ in the 1580s saw more Seminary Priests and Jesuits arriving in England, again hiding in Catholic gentry homes, where the mission of the Society of Jesus was to reconvert the English to Catholicism and be ready to rise up against Eliz when a Catholic invasion arrived. (Cardinal William Allen published the ‘Admonition’ to the English encouraging them to revolt against the "deposed" "bastard" Elizabeth.). BUT the Catholic penal laws which were passed by the government throughout the 1570s and 1580s seriously undermined the work of the Counter-Reformation Priests by, in 1571 making it treason to declare Eliz is not the Queen, and to introduce any Papal Bulls. By 1571 Seminary Priests had been arrested and executed. By 1581 it was treasonable to reconvert someone to Catholicism and more seminary Priests were executed, including Edmund Campion. By 1587 it was treasonable to be in England if you had been ordained by the Pope and all priests were ordered to leave English soil; plus anyone helping or hiding a Priest could be executed. Evaluation: (Haigh) the Catholic penal laws, although reactionary were severe enough to control the impact of the Miss, Sem Priests and Jesuits. It removed their support case and directly attacked the objective of their ‘mission’. (Bossy would also argue that in fact in part, the failure of the Miss, Sem and Jesuits was down to their own mistakes in remaining primarily in the South East of England – a protestant stronghold, meaning attempts to spread the word of Catholicism and reconvert would be easily spotted. Instead they should have based themselves in the North where far more Catholic sympathisers would have been more likely to support and help the mission of the Priests and Jesuits, possibly making them more successful. Judgement: In theory the Counter-reformation was a huge threat to Elizabeth’s authority and position as Queen, and life. Their mission was the removal of her from the throne and was supported by the power of the Papacy, with the eventual invasion from Spain (partly at the request of Cardinal William Allen). However in reality the actual threat faced by Eliz never materialised. The Catholic penal laws and work of Richard Topcliffe stopped many Priests and Jesuits with a large number arrested and executed. And if Bossy is to be believed, the mistakes of the Priests and Jesuits themselves of not travelling North to garner support had a hugely detrimental impact on the real impact the ‘mission’ of the Counter-Reformation in England actually had.

3. MQS – Following the excommunication the threat of MQS’s presence in England became heightened – English Catholics had an obvious replacement for Eliz on their doorstep. The question was more abut how willing Mary herself was to be involved in the planning and execution of any plots against Eliz – her cousin. This meant that Eliz faced a potentially severe threat from MQS as she was likely to be – and was – at the centre of a number of plots to assassinate Eliz. These continued between 1571 un until the Babington plot of 1586 for which Mary was finally executed. Other than English Catholics wanting to organise the replacement of Eliz with MQS, the support many plotters were promised also posed a real and serious threat to Eliz – in 1571 Ridolfi had been promised the support of Philip II and the pope. The threat of these plots grew and the Throckmorton plot saw an organised approach with French Catholic forces backed by Spain and the Papacy planning to invade England to support in the assassination of Eliz. Babington plot, which finally saw Eliz eventually, after 17 years, agree to execute Mary, meant to receive support from the Spanish. All of the plots were discovered and stopped in the planning stages by Walsingham and Burghley’s ‘spy network’. The continual observation and investigating of English Catholics and the communication MQS herself received and sent meant that plans to assassinate Eliz, whether Mary was directly involved or not were discovered. Evaluation: although the cumulative nature of the MQS plots, supported by Spain, the Papacy and the French, posed a very real and serious threat to Eliz’s security in theory, the reality of this support never materialised in any of the plots.; this was most notable in the discovery of the Babington Plot on 1586 – the one which finally implicated Mary enough for Eliz to have to accept her involvement and finally sign her death warrant. Judgement: The response by the Privy Council to push for the execution of MQS for 17 years is understandable given the nature of the threat she posed and the organised plots, however whether these plots posed a serious and real threat is debateable; with the lack of an actual outcome or the evidence of any of this ‘support’ for any of the plots actually existing, it could be more appropriate to suggest that MQS posed a real and serious threat only in theory.

4. Armada – The saw the end of Philip II belief that he should be the rightful King of England, along with plans to assassinate Eliz on English soil and organise an uprising of the English against her. Whether it was the storm which put an end to the Armada’s expedition, or whether the organisation and tactical play of the English navy were the reason behind it’s defeat, the ultimate consequence was a strategic and obvious movement away from England towards fighting the English indirectly in the Netherlands. Philip believed God had sided with Eliz in this matter, so turned his attention to defeating Prot rebels in the Netherlands. Evaluation: the weather, Spanish mistakes and immovable galleons are generally accepted to be the main reasons for the success of the English fireships in defeating the Armada, the defeat of it did impact Philip’s policy towards Eliz and how to influence and dampen the reaches of English Protestantism. Judgement: the defeat of the Armada saw an end to a Spanish, organised and real threat to Eliz’s England. After this point, the war with Spain took a different turn and although hit Eliz’s purse-strings throughout the 1590s, never posed an actual or real threat to her.
1590s – by the later part of her reign, recusants numbred into the thousands (in 1582 it was estimated 1939 existed in England). Due to Walsingham’s spy network, loyalty to Elizabeth and the work of Richard Topcliffe, by the 1590s a large number of Missionary Priests, Seminary Priests and Jesuits had been arrested and were imprisoned in the Tower. In 1588 when the Armada was on route, the government arrested hundreds of Priests and many people thought to be supporting the Priests. In an attempt to lessen the Catholic threat, Elizabeth's government tried tactics of "divide and rule". In 1590, a dispute developed between Jesuits and other priests imprisoned at Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, over who (the Jesuits or a Bishop appointed for the purpose) should control the mission to England. The quarrel soon spread throughout the English priesthood. Richard Bancroft helped the group of priests who opposed Jesuit control (known as the Appellants) - even arranging to have their pamphlets printed. In 1594, Parsons (under the pseudonym Doleman) published A Conference about the next succession, which argued that the people of England had the right to choose their monarch, and that on Elizabeth's death, Parliament should appoint Philip II's daughter - not the Protestant James VI. Naturally, this alienated James VI who was eager to succeed to the English throne, and who had the best claim to do so. This did not happen, nor did it receive much support in England. In 1603, 13 leading Appellants made a Protestation, repudiating the political ideas of the Jesuits. This was a real propaganda coup for the English government. Judgement: the impact of the counter-reformation had been limited prior to 1588, but with the notable lack of support from both the Papacy and the Spanish following the Armada the priests received not leadership and were manipulated by the English authorities into looking weak and divided. This ultimately led to the lack of support from English Catholics. Without leadership and support from abroad, the mission of the Priests and Jesuits failed.