Three years later Norfolk trod the traitor's path to the scaffold.

His death sealed the ruin of the old nobility whose privileges were incompatible with the new regime.

In the same year a parliamentary agitation in favor of the execution of Mary witnessed how dead were medieval titles to respect.
[Sidenote: Papal Bull, February 25, 1570] Too late to have much effect, Pius V issued the bull _Regnans in excelsis_, declaring that whereas the Roman pontiff has power over all nations and kingdoms to destroy and ruin or to plant and build up, and whereas Elizabeth, the slave of vice, has usurped the place of supreme head of the church, has sent her realm to perdition and has celebrated the impious mysteries of Calvin, therefore she is cut off from the body of Christ and deprived of her pretended right to rule England, while all her subjects are absolved from their oaths of allegiance.

The bull also reasserted Elizabeth's illegitimacy, and echoed the complaint of the northern earls that she had expelled the old nobility from her council.

The promulgation of the bull, without the requisite warning and allowance of a year for repentance, was contrary to the canon law.
The fulmination was sent to Alva to the Netherlands and a devotee was found to carry it to England.