according to John Carey "John Donne - Life, mind and Art" Faber&Faber 1981 the fine was £20 per month. Donne came from a very well-connected Catholic family but he turned apostate eventually. Presumably the random nature of the persecution was far worse than anything else and the torture and execution of Catholics would have been gruesome and public with many victims being either friends or family. Apostasy was little better as this meant 'hellfire and damnation for all eternity' which was then believed absolutely. Sadly, there are modern parallels!
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 28 February 2007 15:49 To: David Rastall; Nancy Carlin Cc: [email protected] Subject: [LUTE] Re: More on Sting again REVISED --- David Rastall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If you were a Catholic in the England of > 1600, probably you > would be left alone as long as you didn't get > political. > --- David Rastall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If you were a Catholic in the England of > 1600, probably you > would be left alone as long as you didn't get > political. > Yes, but what of something like the 20-pound fine - initiated under Elizabeth - that was imposed upon anyone not present at the state-church's Sunday services? This is quite considerable when you consider that the average person brought in around _2_ pounds a year! This would have been a serious burden for even the wealthiest of Catholics. Today we can point to instances of a few people like Byrd who were able to jump over the hurdles of state-sponsored discrimination, but that doesn't mean that the powers-that-be were willing to look the other way in every case. Why _would_ they want Catholics in these primo positions? Consider the case of blacks in the US before the civil rights movement. As a black, you might very well have been, say, the most gifted lawyer applying for a position at a firm. In spite of this merit, there's every likelyhood that your resume would have ended up in the waste basket before it ever even got past the front desk. Chris ____________________________________________________________________________ ________ Have a burning question? Go to www.Answers.yahoo.com and get answers from real people who know. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
