Regnans in Excelsis (1570): The Pope Excommunicates Elizabeth I

Regnans in Excelsis was a papal bull issued by Pope Pius V on 25 February 1570 that excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I of England. It declared her a heretic, stripped her of her claim to the throne in the eyes of the Church, and released her Catholic subjects from obedience to her. The bull failed to bring her down, but it made the Catholic faith look like a political threat in England and helped shape decades of persecution.

Background

Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 and in 1559 restored a Protestant Church of England, building on the English Reformation of her father, Henry VIII. Catholic priests were removed, and attendance at the new Protestant services became compulsory.

For a decade the papacy held back from formally condemning her. Some Catholic rulers, especially Philip II of Spain, hoped she might yet be won over or wanted to avoid open conflict with England. Pius V, elected in 1566, was a stern Dominican who took a firmer line, encouraged by English Catholic exiles.

In late 1569 the Catholic Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland led the Rising of the North. Pius V prepared the bull partly to support such a rebellion. After a short legal process in Rome in February 1570, in which English exiles gave evidence against the queen, he issued it on 25 February.

What the bull said

The bull, named after its opening Latin words meaning “reigning on high”, called Elizabeth “the pretended queen of England” and condemned her as a servant of wickedness. It accused her of seizing control of the Church, imposing heresy and persecuting Catholics.

It then pronounced her excommunicated and deprived of her “pretended right” to the kingdom. It released her subjects from any oath of loyalty to her and forbade them to obey her laws, under threat of excommunication themselves. This put English Catholics in an impossible position: in theory they could not be loyal both to their faith and to their queen.

Publication in England

By the time the bull was issued, the Rising of the North had already collapsed. It was not formally announced to Catholic monarchs, and Philip II, who had not been consulted, was displeased.

On 25 May 1570 a Catholic gentleman, John Felton, fixed a copy to the gate of the Bishop of London’s palace beside St Paul’s Cathedral. He was arrested, tortured and executed for treason on 8 August 1570. The government treated the bull itself as an act of war against the queen, and copies found in England were seized.

England’s response

Parliament reacted in 1571. One act made it high treason to declare that Elizabeth was not the lawful queen or that she was a heretic. Another made it treason to bring papal bulls into England or to use them to absolve people. In the same year the Ridolfi Plot, a scheme to put Mary, Queen of Scots, on the throne with Spanish help, deepened official fears.

From 1574 Catholic priests trained abroad began arriving in England, and in 1580 the first Jesuit missionaries, including Edmund Campion, landed. That year Pope Gregory XIII declared that, for the time being, Catholics were not bound by the bull to act against the queen. The government saw this as proof that Catholic loyalty was only provisional.

Laws of 1581 raised fines for refusing to attend Protestant services to £20 a month, and an act of 1585 made it treason for a Catholic priest ordained abroad to be in England. Campion was executed in December 1581. Historians count roughly 180 to 190 Catholics, most of them priests, executed in Elizabeth’s reign.

Consequences

The bull did not depose Elizabeth, and most English Catholics stayed loyal to her. But it allowed the government to treat Catholicism as treason rather than simply as religious dissent. Later plots, such as the Babington Plot, and the Spanish invasion attempt of 1588 seemed to confirm these fears, and Pope Sixtus V renewed the excommunication in 1588.

Historians generally see the bull as a political mistake by the papacy. It came too late to help the northern rebels, it was not backed by Catholic powers, and it left English Catholics exposed to suspicion for generations.

Timeline

• 1559: Elizabeth’s religious settlement restores Protestant worship.
• 1569, November–December: The Rising of the North fails.
• 1570, 25 February: Pius V issues Regnans in Excelsis.
• 1570, 25 May: John Felton posts the bull in London.
• 1570, 8 August: Felton is executed.
• 1571: Parliament passes new treason laws in response.
• 1580: Gregory XIII suspends the bull’s demands on English Catholics for the time being.
• 1581, 1 December: Edmund Campion is executed at Tyburn.

Why it matters

Regnans in Excelsis was one of the last attempts by a pope to depose a reigning monarch. It turned the religious divide in England into a question of loyalty and treason, and its long shadow helped explain anti-Catholic laws that lasted until Catholic Emancipation in 1829.