Ministry of fear

Just because you’re paranoid, as the cliché runs, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t out to get you. They certainly were out to get Queen Elizabeth I — and how. Her situation was strange and dangerous. She was a Protestant queen ruling a country the majority of whose citizens remained Catholic. ‘The ancient faith still lay like lees at the bottoms of men’s hearts,’ as Sir Ralph Sadler, a member of her Privy Council quoted here, put it, ‘and if the vessel were ever so little stirred, comes to the top.’ She was obliged to harbour the main Catholic hope for succession, Mary, Queen of Scots, in her own kingdom, albeit under house arrest. And in 1570 the Pope issued the bull Regnans in Excelsis, which excommunicated the Queen and absolved her subjects of their allegiance to her, effectively declaring open season for any Catholic with a mind to assassination or rebellion.