Burghley[38] and Philip II. were convinced that Spain could not rely
on their co-operation, and though in many parts of the country
Catholics volunteered for service to fight the invader, the government
determined to wreak its vengeance on the helpless victims in prison.
Within three days six priests and eight laymen were executed near
London (August); nine priests and three laymen were put to death in
October, and before the end of the year thirty-one had suffered the
terrible punishment reserved for traitors, merely because they refused
to conform. The prisons were so full of recusants that new houses were
opened for their detention. The government reaped a rich harvest by
the heavy fines inflicted on the wealthy Catholics and took pains,
besides, to annoy them at every turn by domiciliary visits in search
of concealed priests. Yet the reports from the country, especially
from such places as Lancashire and Cheshire, showed that the Papists
were still dangerously strong. A new proclamation was issued against
seminary priests and Jesuits (1591). Nine priests and two laymen had
been put to death in the previous year (1590), and in 1591 fifteen
were martyred, seven of whom were priests and the rest laymen.
Throughout the remainder of Queen Elizabeth's reign Catholics in
England were not allowed to enjoy peace or respite. If priests, they
were by that very fact liable to be hunted down and condemned as
traitors; if they were laymen of substance, they were beggared by
heavy fines imposed for non-attendance at the English service, or
punished by imprisonment, and if they were too poor to pay a fine they
could be driven from the kingdom for refusing to conform. Apart
altogether from the immense sums levied on Catholics by fines and
forfeitures, and from the number of people who died in prison either
from confinement or torture, one hundred and eighty-nine were put to
death for the faith under Elizabeth, one hundred and twenty-eight of
whom were priests; and yet, notwithstanding this persecution,