s pretending to any power of absolving subjects from
their allegiance, or practising to withdraw them to the Romish religion,
with all persons after the present session willingly so absolved or
reconciled to the See of Rome, shall be guilty of High Treason." The way
in which the vast powers conferred on the Crown by this statute were
used by Elizabeth was not only characteristic in itself, but important
as at once defining the policy to which, in theory at least, her
successors adhered for more than a hundred years. No layman was brought
to the bar or to the block under its provisions. The oppression of the
Catholic gentry was limited to an exaction, more or less rigorous at
different times, of the fines for recusancy or non-attendance at public
worship. The work of bloodshed was reserved wholly for priests, and
under Elizabeth this work was done with a ruthless energy which for the
moment crushed the Catholic reaction. The Jesuits were tracked by
pursuivants and spies, dragged from their hiding-places, and sent in
batches to the Tower. So hot was the pursuit that Parsons was forced to
fly across the Channel; while Campian was arrested in July 1581, brought
a prisoner through the streets of London amidst the howling of the mob,
and placed at the bar on the charge of treason. "Our religion only is
our crime," was a plea which galled his judges; but the political danger
of the Jesuit preaching was disclosed in his evasion of any direct reply
when questioned as to his belief in the validity of the excommunication
or deposition of the Queen by the Papal See, and after much hesitation
he was executed as a traitor.

[Sidenote: The Catholic resistance.]

Rome was now at open war with England. Even the more conservative
Englishmen looked on the Papacy as the first among England's foes. In
striving to enforce the claims of its temporal supremacy, Rome had
roused against it that national pride which had battled with it even in
the middle ages. From that hour therefore the cause of Catholicism was
lost. England became Protestant in heart and soul when Protestantism
became identified with patriotism. But it was not to Protestantism only
that this attitude of Rome and the policy it forced on the Government
gave a new impulse. The death of Campian was the prelude to a steady,
pitiless effort at the extermination of his class. If we adopt the
Catholic estimate of the time, the twenty years which followed saw the
execution of two hund