In 1559 non-attendance at church cost twelve pence a Sunday. By the 1580s the fine had risen to twenty pounds a month, and since only a handful of rich men could afford such a sum month after month an Act of Parliament authorized seizing the land and chattels of those behind in their payments. In all his plans for the restoration of the faith in England Allen had counted most on the Catholic landed aristocracy. But no landed class could preserve their leadership indefinitely against the grinding attrition of such fines.

Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish A…, loc. 141