BOOKS.
JESUITS AND SECULARS UNDER ELIZABETH.* SUCH recent publications as the Dauay Diaries and the Letters' and Memorials of Cardinal Allen have already done much to clear up the history of English Catholics under Elizabeth. Mr. Law's work on The Conflicts between Jesuits and Seculars, now virtually carries on the story from the death of Allen to the death of Elizabeth. Half the book is taken up with a, reprint of Christopher Bagshaw's True Relation of the Fac- tion begun at Wisbech ; but its real value lies in the lengthy Introduction, which is the result of much patient research, and written with very great ability. From their own letters, it has abundantly appeared that Allen and Parsons were in close dependence on Spain, that they looked to Spanish arms to restore Catholicism in England, and that when the Spanish King faltered in his purpose, they were the first to excite him to renewed activity. On the other hand, it is equally clear that they were not supported in these designs by the great body of the Catholic laity, who, instead of siding with the invader, turned out to oppose him. After the defeat of the • A Historical Sketch of the Conflicts between Jesuit. and Seculars in the Reign of Queen Elisabeth, with a Reprint of Christopher Ragshaw's "True Relation of the Faction begun at Wisbech," and Illustrative Documents. By Thomas Graves Law, Librarian, Signet Library. London : David Butt. MD. Armada. Allen and Parsons did not abandon their hopes of securing at least the succession of a Catholic Sovereign through the aid of Spain ; but the clergy and laity resident in England, and feeling the full force of Elizabeth's repressive measures, began to aim more and more at obtaining some measure of toleration for themselves under the existing order. This was the state of things when Allen died in 1594, and left the English Catholics without any recognised leader. His death was speedily followed by the long and bitter fend between Jesuits and Seculars, absorbing all the energies of both parties, with which Mr. Law deals in the present volume. Having edited the first volume of the Douay Diaries, in con- junction with the late Father Knox, before his secession from the Oratory, he comes fully prepared to the subject. A factious and discreditable feud between rival ecclesiastics does not at first sight seem worth lingering over ; and Catholic writers have passed it by as lightly as possible. Mr. Law, however, has not much difficulty in showing that important political consequences were involved in its progress. He does not take sides strongly in the quarrel, but inclines rather to the Seculars than to the Jesuits, and chooses for reprinting Dr. Bagshaw's True Relation, one of the many polemical works issued on the Secular side.
What stands out most clearly from this and similar works, is the complete absence of the very idea of toleration on either the Catholic or the Protestant side, until it was developed to some extent among the English Catholics under the stress of Elizabeth's penal measures. She opened her reign by requiring the attendance of all her subjects at church, and so making the exercise of the Roman Catholic faith impossible. Then Pius V. issued his Bull of deposition, and the Catholic refugees began to plot her overthrow with Spain, while the Jesuits tried to stir up a Catholic reaction in England. Elizabeth, who had so far refrained from shedding blood, retaliated, and twenty-three priests were executed between 1579 and 1583. Twenty more priests and ten laymen were put to death in the heated state of feeling which followed the repulse of the Armada ; but it was felt that executions were dangerous, as exciting compassion, and for the most part captured priests were either shipped abroad or detained in prisons throughout the country. Such of them, however, as were "learned and politic, and of great persuasion," were interned in Wisbeach Castle, where the dispute in question broke out. Here they do not seem to have fared badly. They had com- fortable quarters, took their meals in common, received visitors, were allowed to go out, and even had a number of the sons of eminent Catholics under their charge, nominally as pages. The feud which Mr. Law investigates at such length seems to have been the outcome of the eternal jealousies and rivalries of Jesuits and Seculars. Ever since the coming of Campion, the Jesuits had shown themselves by far the ablest and most active members of the English mission ; but they were few in numbers as compared to the Seculars, and the latter com- plained that they arrogated everything to themselves, diverted all the alias of the faithful to their own uses, leaving the Seculars to starve, and endangered the safety of Catholics at home by their intrigues with Spain. The Jesuits retaliated on their opponents with charges of laxity and inefficiency. This was the state of things when the "stirs and garboils " broke out at Wisbea,ch in 1594-95. They began in the objection taken by a minority of Seculars to have Weston, a Jesuit, appointed agent, or head of the inmates of the prison. Then Weston and his followers declared themselves scandalised at the intro- duction of a hobby-horse into the castle hall at Christmas, and seceding from the minority, took a new dining-room, laid in a fresh stock of beer, and barred out their opponents. The quarrel was composed with difficulty, but flared up anew when, owing to the action of Parsons at Rome, Blackwell, a priest in the Jesuit interest, was created archpriest, with supreme authority in England. The Seculars took exception to the validity of his appointment, and he denounced them as guilty of schism. They appealed to Rome, but Parsons had their representa- tives confined in the English College, and sent back in dis- grace, without having their case so much as examined. A war of pamphlets followed, in which each aide brought the gravest charges of misconduct against the other. Parsons pronounced the productions of his opponents, a "horrible puddle of lies, slanderous invectives, and devilish detractions ; " but his own are nearly as bad as the worst on the other side. The most curious thing Mr. Law has brought to light is the way the Seen.
lam prosecuted a second appeal to Rome. Bluet, one of their number, entered into communications with Bancroft, Bishop of London, and through his agency had four Seculars banished the Kingdom, in order to give them a good pretext for going to Rome, and counteracting the Jesuits. Mr. Law calls attention to the Diary of Mash, one of these priests, preserved in the Inner Temple Library, and it is certainly a very singular docu- ment. The appeal was at length heard and decided after the Cardinals had been driven to distraction, and had pronounced both parties terribiles. The result, Mr. Law thinks, was a victory for the Seculars. Mush records a curious conversation with the Pope, who declared that toleration or liberty of conscience in England would do harm, and make Catholics become heretics, and that persecution was profitable to the Church, and they should not seek to avert or stay it by tolera- tion. No sooner were they back in England, than Elizabeth put forth a proclamation denouncing their insolence for insinuating "that we have some purpose to grant a toleration of two religions within our realm,"—so little encouragement did they meet either from Pope or Queen in their efforts for peace. They were not, however, deterred from drawing up a declaration denying the Pope's right to depose the Queen, and protesting that they would be bound to disobey any such decree ; but it is probable that Elizabeth died before seeing it. Such was the close of the quarrel, which, in Mr. Law's opinion, was not without important national consequences. It marked the final defeat of the Spanish faction, and the attempts which had been going on for thirty years to put a Catholic Sovereign on the throne. The idea of the deposing power was likewise discredited, and soon ceased to be put forward by the Pope himself. Nor must the effect of these internal dissensions, and the others which closely followed them, be lost sight of in undoing the Catholic reaction which Campion had provoked. Protestant panics were perhaps greater and more frequent after the Gunpowder Plot than before, but all chances of a large Catholic reaction had passed definitely away.
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