But as shocking as the plot seemed, it was not an aberration in the English political world of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, simply the most extreme example of two generations of conflict. When Henry VIII broke away from the Pope and Catholic Church, replacing them with a mild Protestantism, he began a struggle for the hearts, minds and – as far as contemporaries were concerned – souls of England. By the reign of Elizabeth I, Catholics were a definite minority in England, subject to laws levying heavy fines if they refused to attend Protestant churches, oaths which made them traitors to their monarch or the pope depending on whether they swore or not, and criminals if they harboured the priests needed for their masses and confessions. Even Mass itself was banned.
With a government which considered religion intimately tied into political loyalty, and vehement verbal attacks on the Pope as a Satan, the climate was one of harsh, often outright bloodthirsty, repression. Simply writing texts against the Monarch or being a priest could earn your execution. The situation was made ever worse for Catholics by a cycle of repression causing a backlash causing more repression, and the Pope didn't help matters. In 1570 the papacy issued the bull Regnans in Excelsis, excommunicating Elizabeth and 'freeing' Catholics from her rule. Suddenly, as far as the government were concerned, all Catholics had just been ordered to commit treason.
Most Catholics tried peaceful solutions, including – after 1600 - equivocation, the practice of saying an oath verbally but continuing silently in your head so as to change the meaning. But there was a group of violent, angry, bitter or just plain confused English Catholics who resolved to defend their religion and their ability to practice it by force. Some remained in their country of birth, but many others fled to Catholic countries like Spain, where they formed into military bands to fight for Catholic causes, or joined seminaries rife with rebellion. Indeed, Spain was openly hostile to England and frequently suggested it would mount a religiously motivated invasion. These émigrés were a very divided group, fractious, full of ego and infighting, but by the time Elizabeth died in 1603, this small body of militant Catholics had existed and plotted to kill the Queen and overthrow the Protestant Parliament for two generations.
The final few years of Elizabeth's life had seen a downturn in attempts against her government, partly as the frustrations of Catholics turned into a hope that her successor, whoever it may be, would be more tolerant if not Catholic, and partly as the politically charged Catholicism of the mid sixteenth century turned into a quieter form which worked within the system. Indeed, the Gunpowder plot has been called "the last fling of the Elizabethan tradition of a politically engaged Catholicism" (J. Bossy, 'The English Catholic Community 1603-25', in Smith, ed., Reign of James VI and I, p.95.), before a new outlook dominated.
