and more than eight hundred of the insurgents were executed. The
failure of the Northern Rebellion served only to strengthen
Elizabeth's power, and to secure for Protestantism a firm footing in
England.

While preparations were being made in England for the rebellion,
Catholic representatives in Rome, both lay and clerical, pressed Pius
V. to issue a decree of excommunication and of deposition against
Elizabeth. Such a decree, it was thought, would strengthen the hands
of those who were working in the interests of Mary Queen of Scotland,
and would open the eyes of a large body of Catholics who stood firmly
by Elizabeth solely from motives of extreme loyalty. Philip II. was
not acquainted with the step that was in contemplation, though
apparently the French authorities were warned that Rome was about to
take action.[19] Had the advice of the King of Spain been sought he
might have warned the Pope against proceeding to extremes with
Elizabeth, and in doing so he would have had the support of those at
home who were acquainted most intimately with English affairs. In
February (1570) the process against Elizabeth was begun in Rome, and
on the 25th of the same month the Bull, /Regnans in Excelsis/,[20]
announcing the excommunication and deposition of Elizabeth was given
to the world. Had it come five or six months earlier, and had there
been an able leader capable of uniting the English Catholic body, a
work that could not be accomplished either by the Duke of Norfolk or
the Northern Earls, the result might have been at least doubtful; but
its publication, at a time when the northern rebellion had been
suppressed, and when Spain, France, and the Netherlands were unwilling
to execute it, served only to make wider the breach between England
and Rome, and to expose the English Catholics to still fiercer
persecution.[21] For so far Catholics had been free to combine with