Regnans in excelsis

The bull is short. It opens with the claim that Christ committed the one church to Peter and his successors to govern “in fullness of power”. It then lists what the pope charges against Elizabeth: that she has taken to herself the place of supreme head of the church in England, abolished the mass, ejected bishops and priests and put others in their place, forced her subjects to renounce obedience to Rome on oath, and imprisoned Catholic prelates, many of whom have died there.

On those grounds it declares her a heretic and a favourer of heretics, cut off from the body of Christ, and deprived of her “pretended title” to the crown. It absolves her subjects from any oath to her, forbids them to obey her orders and laws, and extends the excommunication to those who do.

The bull states the pope’s case and no other. Parliament answered it in 1571 with the Act against the Bringing In and Putting in Execution of Bulls from the See of Rome.