Regnans in Excelsis was a
Papal bull issued in
1570 by
Pope Pius V declaring
Elizabeth I to be a
heretic and releasing her
Roman Catholic subjects from any allegiance. It therefore opened the way for any Catholic to attempt an assasination, and provoked the English government into taking more repressive actions against the
Jesuits whom they feared were acting in the interests of
Spain and the
Papacy. In order to relieve the pressures on English Catholics, and to conceal the genuinely subversive,
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 the
Spanish Armada crisis, it transpired that most of the Catholics resident in England remained loyal, and that the real threat to the throne consisted of those like
Cardinal William Allen and
Robert Parsons who were already exiles.