One of Queen Mary Stuart’s most devoted adherents was John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, who, like Norfolk, had been deeply implicated in the Ridolfi conspiracy, and had been imprisoned in the Bell Tower. When tried for treason, the Bishop pleaded that being an Ambassador he was not liable to the charge; he was kept for two years in the Tower and then he was banished.
Priests, and especially those who were Jesuits, were very harshly dealt with at this time, the utmost rigour being shown to all who opposed the Queen’s acts or intentions. We have one instance of this in the fate which befell that eminent theologian, John Stubbs, who had written a pamphlet against the proposed marriage of Elizabeth with the Duke of Anjou, the brother of the King of France, Charles IX., and himself afterwards King of that country under the title of Henry III. Dr Stubbs was sentenced to have his right hand cut off by the hangman, the unlucky printers of his pamphlet being treated in the same barbarous manner. Immediately his hand was cut off, Stubbs raised his cap with the other, shouting, “God save the Queen!”; this truly loyal incident was witnessed by the historian Camden.
Besides the penalty of losing the right hand for writing or printing matter which might be disapproved by the Queen or her Council, the same punishment was awarded to any person striking another within the precincts of the royal palaces, of which the Tower was one. Peter Burchet, a barrister of the Middle Temple, had been committed to the Tower in 1573 for attempting to kill the celebrated Admiral Sir John Hawkins, whom he had mistaken for Sir Christopher Hatton. During his imprisonment he killed a warder, or attendant, by knocking him on the head with a log of wood taken from the fire. For this he was condemned to death, but before being hanged at Temple Bar, his right hand was cut off for striking a blow in one of the royal palaces. At this time Elizabeth found it essential to drastically assert her authority, and in 1577 an individual named Sherin was not only imprisoned in the Tower for denying her supremacy, but was afterwards drawn on a hurdle to Tyburn, where he was hanged, disembowelled, and quartered. In that same year six other poor creatures were treated in the same manner, after being imprisoned in the fortress, for coining. From 1580 until the close of Elizabeth’s reign the penal laws were enforced with terrible rigour, owing to the invasion of the Jesuit missionary priests led by Parsons and Campion. Cardinal Allen’s seminary priests were ruthlessly hunted down, and when caught, imprisoned, generally tortured, and invariably executed. The Cardinal, who had set up a seminary for priests at Douai, maintained a large and ever increasing staff of young men who were ready to sacrifice their lives in what they believed to be the cause of Heaven. The first to suffer of these was Cuthbert Mayne. Between Elizabeth and the Cardinal the war became fierce and sanguinary. Plot was met by counter-plot, and Cecil showed himself as astute and deep as any Jesuit of them all, the priests of Douai and Allen’s Jesuits faring ill in consequence. Both Campion and Parsons had been at the English Universities, and both for a time succeeded in their mission of bringing over to their religion many from among the higher classes of this country. But Elizabeth’s great minister proved too strong for them, and Campion was arrested and sent to the Tower, whilst Parsons sought safety on the Continent. Campion, with two other priests named Sherin and Brian, was hanged at Tyburn. Many of the imprisoned priests were tortured in the Tower; some were placed in “Little Ease,” where they could neither stand up nor lie down at full length; some were racked, others subjected to the deadly embrace of the “Scavenger’s Daughter,” others being tortured by the “boot,” or the “gauntlets,” and hung up for hours by the wrists. Sir Owen Hopton, the Lieutenant of the Tower at this time, seems to have been a very hard-hearted gaoler, and on one occasion when he had forced some of these wretched priests, with the help of soldiers, into the Chapel of the Tower whilst service was being held, he boasted that he had no one under his charge who would not willingly enter a Protestant Church.