The Execution of Justice in England
The English government’s printed defence of its executions of Catholic priests, dated 17 December 1583. It argues that they died for treason under the old law, for upholding the pope’s bull against the queen, and not for their religion.
The tract was printed without an author’s name. The preface to the 1675 reprint cited here says that it was “penned by the direction” of Lord Treasurer Burghley and was published in several languages for the courts of other princes. The reprint’s title page gives the date 17 December 1583.
Its argument runs as follows. The pope’s bull declared the queen no queen and released her subjects from obedience; the rising in the north of England and the war in Ireland followed from it; the seminary priests and Jesuits were sent to bring the people to obey it; and those put to death were condemned under the treason law of Edward III, not under any new law about religion. It prints a paper said to have been found after Edmund Campion’s death, recording the pope’s answer of 14 April 1580 that the bull did not bind Catholics as things then stood. It contrasts the number executed, not above sixty in twenty-five years by the Catholics’ own list, with almost four hundred who died for religion under Mary I of England.
It is the statement of one party. William Allen answered it point by point in A True, Sincere and Modest Defence of English Catholics.
Cited in
- 25 February 1570, firm date