But was it so?
The Earl of Arundel, the head of the House of Howard, was a Roman
Catholic, and he was in the Tower praying for the success of Medina
Sidonia. Lord Howard of Effingham was no more a Roman Catholic than--I
hope I am not taking away their character--than the present Archbishop
of Canterbury or the Bishop of London. He was a Catholic, but an English
Catholic, as those reverend prelates are. Roman Catholic he could not
possibly have been, nor anyone who on that great occasion was found on
the side of Elizabeth. A Roman Catholic is one who acknowledges the
Roman Bishop's authority. The Pope had excommunicated Elizabeth, had
pronounced her deposed, had absolved her subjects from their allegiance,
and forbidden them to fight for her. No Englishman who fought on that
great occasion for English liberty was, or could have been, in communion
with Rome. Loose statements of this kind, lightly made, fall in with the
modern humour. They are caught up, applauded, repeated, and pass
unquestioned into history. It is time to correct them a little.
I have in my possession a detailed account of the temper of parties in
England, drawn up in the year 1585, three years before the Armada came.
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