Excommunication of Elizabeth I

Regnans in Excelsis ("reigning on high") was a papal bull issued on 25 February 1570 by Pope Pius V declaring "Elizabeth, the pretended Queen of England and the servant of crime", to be a heretic and releasing all her subjects from any allegiance to her, even when they had "sworn oaths to her", and excommunicating any that obeyed her orders.

"We charge and command all and singular the nobles, subjects, peoples and others afore said that they do not dare obey her orders, mandates and laws. Those who shall act to the contrary we include in the like sentence of excommunication."

The bull, written in Latin, is named from its incipit, the first three words of its text, which mean "ruling from on high" (a reference to God). Among the queen's offences, "She has removed the royal Council, composed of the nobility of England, and has filled it with obscure men, being heretics."

The Papacy had previously reconciled with Mary I, who returned the Church of England and Church of Ireland to Catholicism. After Mary's death in November 1558, Elizabeth's Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy of 1559, which re-established the Church of England and Church of Ireland's independence from papal authority. This bull can be seen as an act of retaliation for the religious settlement, but as it was delayed by eleven years it was most likely instigated by pressure from Philip II of Spain, the Duke of Norfolk or Mary, Queen of Scots, all of whom had a vested interest in overthrowing Elizabeth. The delay was caused in part by a number of royal Catholic suitors who hoped to marry Elizabeth, and because she had tolerated Catholic worship in private. The Bull was issued in support of, but following, the 1569 "Northern Rebellion" in England, and the first Desmond Rebellion in Ireland, with foreign Catholic support, and hardened her opinion against her landowning Catholic subjects.

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