Historic%20Yorkshire

126
CATHOLIC PERSECUTION.
At a later date an Act was passed directing that if
those who did not betray the hiding-places of Popish
priests who had reconciledProtestants to the Church of
Rome were to be hung, drawn, and quartered.
We find, according to an Actpassed in 1581, that persons
committing the offences indicated above, and also
whoever should say mass, were to be fined 200 marks
and suffer imprisonment for ayear,andthose whorefused
to attend the Anglican liturgy were fined £20 a month.
In 1598 an Act was passed which is more especially
directed against the poorer class of subjects. If they
could not pay the fines they were " most cruelly and
barbarously whipped in the open market-places, others
had their ears cut off, others burned through the ear, and
othersofboth sexescontumeliouslyand slavishlyabused."
The Earl of Arundel wrote, in 1586, to two Catholic
priests, saying that as he couldnot exercisehis religion
in Englandthat he thought of going abroad,and for this
he was fined five thousandpounds ?
We might quote numerous additional Acts directed
against the Catholics,but the foregoing are sufficient to
show the strictness of the law at the period undernotice.
Hallam, in his " Constitutional History of England,"
says that "the rack seldom stood idle for all the latter
part of Queen Elizabeth'sreign." The Rev. S. Baring-
Gould,M.A., vicar of East-Mersea,gives the number of
sufferersunder Elizabeth. On his authoritywe state that
" two hundred and four died the horrible death of
hanging, drawing, and quartering for their religion.
Fifteen of these suffered for denying that the Queen was
supremehead of the Church, one hundred and twenty-six
for exercising their ministry as priests, and the rest for
having left Protestantism for the Roman Communion."
Mr. Baring-Gould further adds that this in no way
exhausts the number of sufferers. Many died of their
hardships in prison, many lost their property, were
banished, and mutilated. The names of 1,200 who
suffered before the year1588 — that is,before that greatest