A rise of the Catholics in the north was the next of these,and it was only checked by many executions and much bloodshed.It was followed by a great conspiracy of the Pope and some of the Catholic sovereigns of Europe to depose Elizabeth,place Mary on the throne,and restore the unreformed religion.It is almost impossible to doubt that Mary knew and approved of this;and the Pope himself was so hot in the matter that he issued a bull,in which he openly called Elizabeth the 'pretended Queen'of England,excommunicated her,and excommunicated all her subjects who should continue to obey her.A copy of this miserable paper got into London,and was found one morning publicly posted on the Bishop of London's gate.
A great hue and cry being raised,another copy was found in the chamber of a student of Lincoln's Inn,who confessed,being put upon the rack,that he had received it from one JOHN FELTON,a rich gentleman who lived across the Thames,near Southwark.This John Felton,being put upon the rack too,confessed that he had posted the placard on the Bishop's gate.For this offence he was,within four days,taken to St.Paul's Churchyard,and there hanged and quartered.As to the Pope's bull,the people by the reformation having thrown off the Pope,did not care much,you may suppose,for the Pope's throwing off them.It was a mere dirty piece of paper,and not half so powerful as a street ballad.
On the very day when Felton was brought to his trial,the poor Duke of Norfolk was released.It would have been well for him if he had kept away from the Tower evermore,and from the snares that had taken him there.But,even while he was in that dismal place he corresponded with Mary,and as soon as he was out of it,he began to plot again.Being discovered in correspondence with the Pope,with a view to a rising in England which should force Elizabeth to consent to his marriage with Mary and to repeal the laws against the Catholics,he was re-committed to the Tower and brought to trial.He was found guilty by the unanimous verdict of the Lords who tried him,and was sentenced to the block.
It is very difficult to make out,at this distance of time,and between opposite accounts,whether Elizabeth really was a humane woman,or desired to appear so,or was fearful of shedding the blood of people of great name who were popular in the country.
Twice she commanded and countermanded the execution of this Duke,and it did not take place until five months after his trial.The scaffold was erected on Tower Hill,and there he died like a brave man.He refused to have his eyes bandaged,saying that he was not at all afraid of death;and he admitted the justice of his sentence,and was much regretted by the people.
Although Mary had shrunk at the most important time from disproving her guilt,she was very careful never to do anything that would admit it.All such proposals as were made to her by Elizabeth for her release,required that admission in some form or other,and therefore came to nothing.Moreover,both women being artful and treacherous,and neither ever trusting the other,it was not likely that they could ever make an agreement.So,the Parliament,aggravated by what the Pope had done,made new and strong laws against the spreading of the Catholic religion in England,and declared it treason in any one to say that the Queen and her successors were not the lawful sovereigns of England.It would have done more than this,but for Elizabeth's moderation.
Since the Reformation,there had come to be three great sects of religious people-or people who called themselves so-in England;
that is to say,those who belonged to the Reformed Church,those who belonged to the Unreformed Church,and those who were called the Puritans,because they said that they wanted to have everything very pure and plain in all the Church service.These last were for the most part an uncomfortable people,who thought it highly meritorious to dress in a hideous manner,talk through their noses,and oppose all harmless enjoyments.But they were powerful too,and very much in earnest,and they were one and all the determined enemies of the Queen of Scots.The Protestant feeling in England was further strengthened by the tremendous cruelties to which Protestants were exposed in France and in the Netherlands.Scores of thousands of them were put to death in those countries with every cruelty that can be imagined,and at last,in the autumn of the year one thousand five hundred and seventy-two,one of the greatest barbarities ever committed in the world took place at Paris.
It is called in history,THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW,because it took place on Saint Bartholomew's Eve.The day fell on Saturday the twenty-third of August.On that day all the great leaders of the Protestants (who were there called HUGUENOTS)were assembled together,for the purpose,as was represented to them,of doing honour to the marriage of their chief,the young King of Navarre,with the sister of CHARLES THE NINTH:a miserable young King who then occupied the French throne.This dull creature was made to believe by his mother and other fierce Catholics about him that the Huguenots meant to take his life;and he was persuaded to give secret orders that,on the tolling of a great bell,they should be fallen upon by an overpowering force of armed men,and slaughtered wherever they could be found.When the appointed hour was close at hand,the stupid wretch,trembling from head to foot,was taken into a balcony by his mother to see the atrocious work begun.The moment the bell tolled,the murderers broke forth.During all that night and the two next days,they broke into the houses,fired the houses,shot and stabbed the Protestants,men,women,and children,and flung their bodies into the streets.They were shot at in the streets as they passed along,and their blood ran down the gutters.