|
The issue of who would succeed the famously unmarried and childless Elizabeth I was the object of intense discussion and debate for many years prior to her death on March 24, 1603. Elizabeth was of course the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, the last of the Tudor Monarchs and a Protestant. Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister Mary, who had tried to reverse the Reformation in England, in 1558. As frequently depicted in film and television, Elizabeth had her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic, held in the Tower of London and then executed in 1587. By the time of Elizabeth’s death, the succession had settled on Mary, Queen of Scot’s son, James, then James VI of Scotland and subsequently James I of England. James, although baptized a Catholic, had been brought up Protestant. James’ Catholic background, however, and his tendencies toward religious tolerance gave hope to Catholics that his succession to the throne would result in the reversal of legal disabilities imposed upon Catholics by the Penal Laws.
This expectation of Catholic relief was acutely expressed in the south and west of Ireland in what has come to be known as the Recusancy Revolt of 1603. By the time of Elizabeth’s death, it had been sixty-nine years since the first Act of Supremacy (1534) had formalized Henry VIII’s break with Rome and more than sixty years since the Catholic monasteries had been dissolved, church properties stolen and the practice of the Catholic faith largely driven underground.
Elizabeth died, as mentioned, on March 24, 1603. News of her death reached Dublin, where James I was dutifully proclaimed as the new King, on April 5. When the news reached towns in Munster and Leinster about a week later, however, there was no immediate proclamation of James, as officials prevaricated, and the people rose in a remarkable, spontaneous and highly public demonstration of their Catholic identity.
In spite of James’ reputation for tolerance, civic officials seeking to proclaim his reign found themselves at odds, not just with the common people, but also by many among the “Old English”/Norman settlers, who had been just as Catholic as the native, Gaelic Irish. It was reported that, at a public meeting in Cork, citizens declared that “they should fight and venture theyr lives for the King of Spayne, who was their Catholick king, and should not suffer any Scottish man to rayne over them.” While there was opposition to the proclamation of James in civic spaces, it was the religious aspect of the Recusancy Revolt that was most remarkable.
In towns across Munster and Leinster, the people took back their churches, brought forth their priests and celebrated Mass in open defiance of the law. In Cork, for instance, the people re-took the Cathedral, cleaned it thoroughly, restored its Catholic identity and staged a public procession, featuring the mayor with the badge of his office, before the celebration of the Mass. In Waterford, the people presented themselves to the Jesuit Dr. James White and demanded that he assist them by purifying the local church, which he dutifully did, performing the rite of lustration. In many instances, the cathedrals, churches and chapels that were reclaimed had to be both ritually and literally cleansed, as with the the Cathedral in Waterford, which was found to have been “kept like a pigstye.”
The delay in formally proclaiming James as Elizabeth’s successor in these towns perhaps gave credence to the common belief that, during the time between the death of one monarch and the coronation of the next, the laws did not apply. This belief in a law-free interregnum was given, in contemporaneous accounts, as a possible cause of the outburst of Catholic expression that was seen. But there was another factor that no doubt contributed: Elizibeth’s death occurred just before Holy Week. The recovery of their churches meant that the people could fulfill their canonical Easter requirements. In a account sent to the Pope, the Jesuits reported that in two churches, eight masses were said in one day, with priests reporting that they had taken so many confessions that they “could barely breath.”
Ultimately, the Lord Deputy, Mountjoy, raisedan army and again expelled the Catholic people of Ireland from their churches. Catholic emancipation, on paper at least, would have to wait until 1829, but for one brief period in the Spring of 1603, the people of southwest Ireland were able to experience the “inexpressible joy” of practicing their faith openly, in the churches of their fathers.
| 
