Elizabeth I and the Pope: How England’s Break with Rome Became a Battle for Loyalty

Elizabeth I and the Pope: How England’s Break with Rome Became a Battle for Loyalty

We all know that Henry VIII’s relationship with the Pope and Rome was, to put it mildly, complicated. His determination to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon eventually helped bring about England’s break with Rome, and in 1534 Henry was declared Supreme Head of the Church of England. But what happened after Henry died? Mary I restored England to the Roman Catholic Church, so when Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558, the relationship between the English Crown and the Pope was once again about to become enormously important.

Portrait of Pope Pius V by Scipione Pulzone, late 16th century. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Today I want to look at Elizabeth’s relationship with Rome and the Pope, because it developed very differently from her father’s. There was no single dramatic dispute over a marriage. Instead, Elizabeth’s reign saw a much longer struggle over religion, authority and, eventually, something even more dangerous: whether an English Catholic could remain loyal both to the Pope and to their Queen.

Elizabeth I in Coronation Robes, unknown artist, c.1600–1610, after a lost original of c.1559. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

When Elizabeth became Queen on the 17th of November 1558, the Pope was Paul IV. England had officially returned to Roman Catholicism during the reign of Elizabeth’s half-sister Mary I, and Rome was therefore watching closely to see what the new Queen would do. Elizabeth was the daughter of Anne Boleyn, whose marriage to Henry VIII had never been accepted as valid by Rome in the way Henry wanted, and this meant her legitimacy had long been controversial from a Catholic point of view.

There is an old story that Paul IV immediately rejected Elizabeth as illegitimate and refused to recognise her as Queen, but the appears to have been more complicated. French representatives certainly encouraged the Pope to act against Elizabeth, partly because this would have strengthened the position of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, but Paul did not immediately move to excommunicate Elizabeth.

For a while, there was still uncertainty about exactly what Elizabeth intended to do religiously. That did not last long. In 1559, Elizabeth’s Parliament passed a new Act of Supremacy, reversing Mary I’s reunion with Rome and restoring the monarch’s authority over the English Church. Elizabeth did not use exactly the same title as her father. Henry VIII had been called Supreme Head of the Church of England, whereas Elizabeth became Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

Alongside the Act of Supremacy came the Act of Uniformity, which restored the Book of Common Prayer and established the religious framework that became known as the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. The message was clear: the Pope no longer held religious authority within Elizabeth’s kingdom, and England had once again separated itself from Rome.

Interestingly, Pope Paul IV was not the man who eventually excommunicated Elizabeth. He died in August 1559, only months after the new religious settlement had been introduced. He was succeeded by Pope Pius IV, and there were still moments when Rome appears to have hoped that Elizabeth might somehow be persuaded back towards Catholicism. Elizabeth was even invited to send representatives to the Council of Trent, but she did not accept.

Then came Pope Pius V, who became Pope in 1566, and this was where Elizabeth’s relationship with Rome entered a much more dangerous phase. By the late 1560s, the political situation in England had become increasingly tense. Mary, Queen of Scots had arrived in England in 1568 and provided Catholic opponents of Elizabeth with a possible alternative monarch. Then, in 1569, the Northern Rebellion saw Catholic nobles attempt to challenge Elizabeth’s government and restore Catholic worship.

On the 25th of February 1570, Pope Pius V issued the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis. It formally excommunicated Elizabeth from the Roman Catholic Church, condemned her religious settlement and declared that her subjects were released from their obligation of loyalty to her.

From Elizabeth’s point of view, this was far more dangerous than a simple religious condemnation. The Pope was not just saying that he disapproved of the Queen’s religious policies. He was effectively saying that Catholics did not have to obey her. That was something else entirely.

That placed ordinary English Catholics in an incredibly difficult position. Many had no intention of rebelling against Elizabeth at all. They regarded themselves as loyal English men and women who happened to remain Catholic, but after 1570 it became much harder for the government to separate private faith from political loyalty. Increasingly, Elizabeth’s advisers worried that loyalty to Rome might also mean disloyalty to the Crown.

Those fears were strengthened by a series of plots involving Mary, Queen of Scots. The Ridolfi Plot followed in 1571, while later conspiracies such as the Throckmorton and Babington plots reinforced the belief that foreign Catholic powers might support attempts to overthrow or even assassinate Elizabeth. As a result, laws against Catholic priests, recusants and those accused of helping them became increasingly severe as Elizabeth’s reign continued.

This is what I find so fascinating about Elizabeth’s relationship with Rome. Henry VIII’s break with the Pope began largely with one king’s struggle to secure the annulment of his marriage, but under Elizabeth the conflict had become something much bigger. It was now about who possessed authority in England, whether the Pope could challenge the legitimacy of an English monarch and whether religious belief could be separated from political loyalty.

The papal bull of 1570 may have been intended to weaken Elizabeth, but in many ways it created an enormous problem for English Catholics themselves. People who might previously have quietly practised their faith while remaining loyal to their Queen were increasingly viewed with suspicion because religion and rebellion were now being linked together.

Elizabeth would remain on the throne for another thirty-three years after her excommunication. Rome never succeeded in removing her, and the Church of England survived. But the conflict between Elizabeth and the papacy helped transform religious disagreement into a question of national security, with consequences for thousands of ordinary people caught between faith and loyalty.

I think it is easy to remember Henry VIII as the Tudor monarch who fought with the Pope, but Elizabeth’s relationship with Rome was arguably just as fascinating and perhaps even more dangerous.

If you had been a Catholic living in Elizabethan England after 1570, where do you think your loyalty would have fallen- with your faith, your Queen, or would you have tried somehow to remain loyal to both?