of
religious freedom he was far ahead of his age. Cromwell no doubt,
unlike Elizabeth, was a Protestant in the religious sense. But that
was not his reason. The mass to him, and still more to Elizabeth,
was a definite symbol of political disaffection. It was a rallying
point for those who held that a heretical sovereign had no right to
reign, and might lawfully be deposed, if not worse. Between the
Catholics of our day and the Catholics of Elizabeth's time there is
a great gulf fixed. What has fixed it is a question too complex to
be discussed in this place. Catholics still revere the memory of
Carlo Borromeo, Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, who gave his blessing
to Campian and Parsons on their way to stir up rebellion in England,
as well as in Ireland, and to assassinate Elizabeth if opportunity
should serve. God said, "Thou shall do no murder." The Pope,
however, thought that God had spoken too broadly, and that some
qualification was required. The sixth commandment could not have
been intended for the protection of heretics; and the Jesuits, if
they did not inspire, at least believed him. Campian is regarded by
thousands of good men and women, who would not hurt a fly, as a
martyr to the faith, and to the faith as he conceived it he was a
martyr. He endured torture and death without flinching rather than
acknowledge that Elizabeth was lawful sovereign over the whole
English realm. His courage was splendid. There never, for the matter
of that, was a braver man than Guy Fawkes. But when Campian
pretended that his mission to England was purely religious he was
tampering with words in order to deceive. To him the removal of
Elizabeth would have been a religious act. The Queen did all she
could to make him save his life by recantation, even applying the
cruel and lawless machinery of the rack. If his errand had been
merely to preach what he regarded as Catholic truth, she would have
let him go, as she checked the persecuting tendencies of her Bishops
over and over again. But it was as much her duty to defend England
from the invasion of the Jesuits as to defend her from the invasion
of the Spanish Armada. Both indeed were parts of one and the same
enterprise, the forcible reduction of England to dependence upon the
Catholic powers. Although in God's good providence it was foiled, it
very nearly succeeded; and if Elizabeth had not removed Campian,
Campian might, as Babington certainly would, have remove her.

The Pope had