Mary's execution

Welcome Nierva my fellow Scot.   Some things never change -  although I do think the North of England feels as disenfranchised from the South East as we in Scotland.   In my opinion, devolution has not brought government one iota closer.   It just costs a fortune to house and pay this 'parcel of rogues'.

Apologies for going, ever-so slightly, off-topic.

tsaria

At least you have a pretty interesting new house of Parlaiment...or whatever it is called.

)

And were her lips really still moving after the head was struck off?

Being an avid golfer, she probably said when her head hit the basket: Hole in one!

Kind regards,
Le Chat Noir

I wonder perhaps if Mary's execution may not have been deemed necessary had it not been for the awful Papal Bull  'Regnans In Excelsis' of 25 February 1570, excommunicating Elizabeth. By the terms of this Bull, Catholics were encouraged to show no allegiance to Elizabeth (who until then had been accused of being too tolerant of 'Papists') & was as good as saying they would be absolved from any crime against her.
This left the Catholics in a terrible position for many who might have been loyal subjects now found themselves torn apart. It led, too, to the Government's fears that Elizabeth was a prime target for a Catholic uprising & hence led to the unnecessary martyrdom of many heroic people.
Above all, IMO, it gave Elizabeth & her advisors, every reason to be wary of Mary.
It was, I think, a ridiculous & unnecessary thing of the Pope to do, even bearing in mind his drive towards Sounter Reformation. (And I am R.C.!)

I am sorry, I must disagree. Pope St PiusV did not act in a "ridiculous and unnecessary manner. " From  a political point of view, the bull was a disaster and led to the martyrdom of many, but from a spiritual point of view it was necessary. St Pius V was well aware of what the consequences would probably be for the English Catholics. As he saw it at the time (and I realize that in this day and age this is totally incomprehensible to most people) it was his duty as a pastor to give clear moral guidance to the English Catholics so that they would know where they stood.

i think he did wrong. as a christian it is wrong to encourage murder. no matter how you look at it. through his bull he encouraged elizabeth's murder. that is wrong and not christian. she was not a mass murderer, she did not persecute catholics who weren't asking for it, all she did was ask for a little discretion, which was a good request considerring the time this happened. very few people were tolerant at the time, many were still shocked by mary's persecutions which had created martyrs and a sort of history, which before that did not exist for the english protestants.  the catholics were much safer if they were discreet. elizabeth was one of the most tolerant (if not the) monarchs of the time. i think the bull was totally uncalled for.

Pope St Pius V did not encourage murder. If Elizabeth chose to murder  hundreds of people, while depriving thousands of their property and civil rights, that was her decision

the bull suggested that had someone killed elizabeth not only would he be forgiven for it, but rewarded in heaven. because by killing someone who is taking so many human souls with her in hell (encouraging protestantism) you would save lots of souls. if that is not an encouragement to murder i don't know what is. elizabeth never killed anyone on religious grounds only. yes, being a catholic made some people easier to suspect than others and, yes, i am convinced that there were people who were wrongly accused and tried and executed because they were catholics. but it wasn't because elizabeth said 'kill all the catholics' it's because most english protestants were inclined to get rid of them. you can't completely control what a nation does. elizabeth, i think, stopped it and slowed that particular process as much as she could, considerring her indecision and insecure position. challenging such a monarch with a bull such as that one is like throwing gas on a spark.

Ilyala, if you are going to debate these matters with such authority, would you mind quoting an occasional book or reference?

Ilyala, if you are going to debate these matters with such authority, would you mind quoting an occasional book or reference?

i have searched the three books on english history that i have at hand, trevelyan, arnold-forster and andre maurois (most of the books i read were loaned from the library so i can't search everything i've read). and while i did not find anything that could involve the pope, i could find a quote from his secretary that said, in december 1580 (it doesn't say who the secretary was - by that time i believe pope pius was already dead but the excommunication was still standing): 'because this sinful woman is the cause of the loss of faith of so many millions of souls, there is no doubt that the man who shall send her in the next world with the pious intention of serving god, not only shall he not sin but also receive thanks'. i apologize for accusing pope pius of this, i had stayed with the impression that it was his declaration. however, it is this kind of declarations that made the catholics' position what it was in england. and even if elizabeth did not freak out when hearing of it, her protestant subjects, i'm sure, felt that this was another good excuse to pick on their catholic neighbours, while men such as walsingham felt it was a good excuse to burn some more...

O.K. Ilyala. Thanks. We are terribly off topic, and this is not the place to debate the intricacies of moral theology and papal encyclicals. For the full text of Regnans in Excelsis see http://www.papalencyclicals.net/all.htm. (For the meaning of "excommunication" see "The Catechism of the Catholic Church," paragraph 1463. It does not mean someone is condemned to hell (the Pope can't do that, only God), but that the person cannot receive Catholic Holy Communion until they rectify their situation.) Keep in mind that in 1580 Pope Gregory XIII issued a clarification explaining that all Catholics should obey the queen in civil matters, while not acknowledging her as Head of the Church. St Edmund Campion and his companions all protested (before being hung, drawn and quartered) that they were loyal subjects of the queen and meant her no harm. Elizabeth had abolished the Mass, the plan being for Catholics to be gradually absorbed into the Church of England, which is why Pope Pius spoke out as strongly as he did, and whether it was the "right" thing to do is still being debated, here and elsewhere. It seems harsh, but Elizabeth's abolishing of the Mass, the chief form of Catholic worship, was very harsh to many of her subjects.

she abolished the mass publicly. but generally if a catholic wanted to get a catholic priest in his house to do the services, the officials looked elsewhere.

to clarify: i am on no-one's side in this thing. i think both catholics and protestants did a lot of wrong in their wars. as i pointed out in the james 2nd thread, i think that had there not been religion, there would have been something else. some other reason to fight about. there were peacefui catholics and peaceful protestants, just like there were mean people on both sides. what i am doing is blaming the whole religious wars on the people rather than the monarch. sure, some monarchs encouraged them, but had the people not wanted to fight about it, they wouldn't have.  a tolerant nation cannot be controlled by a rigid monarch, just like a rigid nation cannot be controlled by a tolerant monarch. while i think henry 8th was an awful monarch, and encouraged persecution, just like edward 6th would have and like mary tudor did, i believe elizabeth did her best to calm the spirits. maybe because she was a pacifist, or maybe because she was afraid for her insecure throne and life, i don't know, but given the circumstances, i believe it would have been hard to completely stop catholic persecution and it might have cost her her throne.