Catholic Conspiracy in Early Elizabethan Foreign Policy

Abstract

In the tension-ridden environment of early Elizabethan England diplomacy was increasingly hampered by the intrusion of religious dogmas into foreign affairs. As Garrett Mattingly has so cogently stated, Opposed ideologies would distort the lines of policy, cut across old allegiances, and multiply the hostilities between states by the implacable hatreds of conflict over absolute, transcendental ideas.' In spite of Mattingly's assertion, however, recent studies of English diplomacy have moved away from ideological considerations and have focused attention on the impact of events to the extent that religion has been demoted to a position of only peripheral importance to the shaping of policy.2 It might be said that perhaps a more balanced interpretation of Elizabethan diplomacy would recognize the interrelationships between events, personalities, and ideologies than is currently the case. The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate how one important element of religious ideology-belief in a Catholic conspiracy to exterminate Protestantism-affected diplomatic thinking. It will be shown that belief in such a conspiracy was instrumental to the creation of an aggressive attitude, an elan vital, that gave Englishmen confidence in the future, in spite of impending or imaginary threats from abroad. Unfortunately, however, such thinking projected Philip II of Spain as the perpetrator of such plots and was thus instrumental to the deterioration of Anglo-Spanish relations in the 1560s. The frequency with which allusions to conspiracy are found in English diplomatic correspondence suggests widespread acceptance of such rumors. As might be expected, belief in the Catholic bogey was a common assumption among Protestant hot gospellers, such as Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, Christopher Mundt, Sir Henry Norris, and Sir Francis Walsingham. But even among diplomats considered to be religious and political moderates, such as Sir Thomas Gresham, Sir Thomas Challoner,