Regnans in Excelsis
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The Pope and the Queen
Regnans in Excelsis was a papal bull issued on February 25, 1570 by Pope Pius V declaring Elizabeth I to be a heretic and releasing all her subjects from any allegiance to her. It also declared any subject of Elizabeth who was loyal to her excommunicated from the Catholic Church. The name of the bull is taken from the first three words of its text, written in Latin and meaning "ruling from on high" (a reference to God).
Pius had previously reconciled with the Church of England under Mary I. After Mary's death Elizabeth returned the Church to Protestantism.
The bull opened the way for any Roman Catholic to attempt an assassination, and provoked the English government into taking more repressive actions against the Jesuits, who they feared were acting in the interests of Spain and the papacy.
In order to relieve the pressures on Roman Catholics in England, and to conceal the genuinely subversive nature of the bull, Pope Gregory XIII issued a clarification in 1580, explaining that Catholics should obey the queen in all civil matters, until such time as a suitable opportunity presented itself for her overthrow.
In 1588 Pope Sixtus V, in support of the Spanish Armada, renewed the solemn bull of excommunication against the Queen Elizabeth I, for the regicide of Mary Queen of Scots in 1587 as well as the previously catalogued offences against the Roman Catholic Church[1]. During the threat of invasion by the Spanish Armada, it transpired that most of the Roman Catholic residents in England remained loyal, and that the real threat to the throne consisted of those like William Cardinal Allen and Robert Parsons who were already exiles.
