Dr. Nicholas Sander Downloaded From

86 Jan. Dr. Nicholas Sander Downloaded from TPHE name of Dr. Nicholas Sander is hardly known except as that JL of the author of a work on the English Reformation. Never- theless there is much that is curious both in his own fortunes and in the history of his book, no account of which seems yet to have http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ l>een published. Moreover, though generally allowed to rank as an authority on the history of his times, his place as such has been left somewhat undefined. It may not be amiss, therefore, to look back at the man and his book, and to advert to the reasons which give it value. A life study of Nicholas Sander might by itself form a tempting subject for a biographer. It is intimately connected with some great phases of English history, materials for it are plentiful, and it at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 abounds in strong contrasts of scene. The quiet Surroy home and academic peace of Winchester and Oxford change to the splen- dours of Rome, Trent, and Madrid ; these again are varied by diplo- matic missions and ecclesiastical visitations in Prussia, Poland, and Austria, with pauses for literary work among tbe quaint cities of Flanders, while the curtain falls on a peaceful death-scene amid the horrors of a barbarous war. At presont we must only glance at those circumstances in his career which will throw light on his position as an author. Born of a good family, which afterwards suffered much in the cause of religion, Nicholas Sander had made some progress in the course of university preferment at Oxford, when the changes conse- quent on Elizabeth's accession drove him abroad. At Rome he came under the notice of Cardinal Hosius, who conceived so high an idea of his talents that he took him as one of his theologians to the council of Trent. After the close of the council, i Dec. 1563, Sander remained with his patron and Cardinal Commendone during their various missions from the Holy See to the king of Poland and other German princes, and thus it was not till near the close of that decade that he found himself free to devote all his energies to the special service of the cause which he had nearest at heart. Spanish Flanders and the north of France were then full of religious refugees from England, whose chief centre was Lonvain. There Sander joined them, and devoted himself earnestly to the sup- 1891 DR. NICHOLAS SANDER 37 port of their cause. His labours at this period were incessant, but they were also the most congenial he ever engaged in. Besides his work as professor at the university, his activity as a controversialist was wonderful. During the four years in which ho was engaged in a war of books with Jewel, Nowcll, and other protestant divines, ho produced three or four volumes a year, all of them full of close reasoning and showing much research. These qualities are seeu at their best in his great work ' De Yisibili Monarchia,' a folio com- Downloaded from prising a vast number of testimonies from the fathers, doctors, and councils, arranged chronologically, on the subjects then most contro- verted in Europe. So great was the success of this volume, that St. Pius V. summoned him to Rome in January 1572, and his friends confidently believed that he would now be advanced to the purple. http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ But the pope died shortly after Sander's arrival, and his plans were never known. Sander, however, remained at Rome for a year and a half, apparently in the post of adviser on English affairs, and it was during his sojourn there that he composed the smallest yet most famous of all his works, the ' Books on the Rise and Growth of the English Schism,' gathered, as he tells us in his preface, ' from public records, or from the testimony, oral and written, of men of the greatest consideration, or at least from my own knowledge and at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 observation.'l In November 1578 he went to Spain, and appears to have remained there for the next five years, presumably dealing with Philip about the pensions paid by him to the refugees, for they had elected Sander as their procurator before he left Flanders. Doubt- less, too, he urged upon the king his favourite scheme of reducing the protestant government in England by force of arms. ' The state of Christendom dependeth upon the stout assailing of England,' he wrote1 to his intimate friend Dr. William Allen, president of the seminary of Douay. But Philip was unfavourable. ' The king is as fearful of war,' in Sander's opinion, ' as a child of fire.' And thus he was all the more anxious to leave his naturally irksome post. ' I have none other thing in this world so at the heart as to be with you, nor can I get leave to depart hence.' Eighteen months later he left stealthily on his last fatal journey. Sir James Fitzmaurice and Sir Thomas Stukely had persuaded the pope to allow them to execute in Ireland the sentence of depriva- tion against Elizabeth. Stukely, whose strange changes of side stand out remarkable even in that age of adventurers, at once diverted the forces with which he had been entrusted to the&id of the king of Portugal in the conquest of Morocco, and was lost, with all his men, at the disastrous battle of Alcazar. But Fitzmaurice, in spite of 1 Preface, aubfin. 1 Stoic Papers. Dora. Eli?, v. 115, n. 13. Printed, F. Knoi, Bccorde of Enj. Catholics, ii. 38. 38 Dll. SIC HULAS SANDER Jan. Philip's prohibition, found means through the sympathy of the Spanish to slip over to Ireland, and Sander, by the pope's order, accompanied him as nuncio. It would not surprise us to find that Sander went rather from obedience than willingly in this feeble expedition, which was, after all, a mockery of the ' stout assailing' which he advocated. Certainly, his friends expressed their discon- tent openly. ' Why does the pope send Sander to Ireland ? We J value him more highly than the whole of Ireland.' But, once Downloaded from embarked, he threw himself heart and soul into the enterprise, and the rest of the story of his life is an unbroken tale of incredible difficulty and disaster met with absolutely unwavering courage. Fitzmaurice was shot through the heart in the first skirmish, and there was small appearance of that readiness to rise on which http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ the exiles had built so much. Moreover, the promised help from abroad seemed to be never coming, and such forces as could be raised were far too ill-armed and undisciplined to resist the English in the open field. Once Sander's party was actually captured by their pursuers, but he escaped in the twilight, passing himself off as one of the English force by hia shouts of ' Slaughter the Irish! Slaughter the Irish !' Such at least is the account of those who did not recognise him.4 at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10, 2015 Amid these reverses Sander was tho soul of the resistance. At first he held out high hopes of simultaneous risings in Scotland and England, and of powerful invasions from abroad—visions which to us, wise after the event, seem to point to something like extrava- gance in his mind, for we can now see that their realisation was never probable. On the other hand, there are not wanting signs that his dreams were not so quixotic as might appear; for powers were actually given by the English government to the lord deputy (of which Sander, of course, knew nothing) to treat with the rebels, and grant them, if necessary, toleration in religion.' But the fierce and barbarous vigour of the English officers reduced the Irish to the greatest straits, and Burghley's carefully disseminated reports of the destruction of all the Geraldines led to the delay of the papal succours at Corufia, in the belief that there was no one left to help. At last a frigate came over to discover the state of affairs in Ireland, and Sander, who had months before declared that he remained ' in pledge to be massacred (for that was his manner of speech) unless those forces did shortly arrive,'6 Joudly upbraided its officers for the remissness of their government in keeping faith. Again he received fair promises, and though their execution was once more delayed, slight gleams of good fortune, destined soon to be over- • J. Pita, 1M IUuatribus AnglUw Scriptoribiu, 1019, p. 774. • Calendar of Carew MS. 12 Aug. 1580. 1 Fronde, xi. 212 and 280, from Simancai MS, • Carew MS., January 1680, p. 199. 1891 DR. NICHOLAS SANDER 39 shadowed by Btill darker clouds of disaster, began at this time to steal over his cause. Fresh recruits joined the standard of revolt, which was immensely strengthened by the loss inflicted on the new deputy, Lord Grey, at the battle of Glendalough, and not long after that the promised troops arrived, bringing with them money and arms. The latter were stored for use in the fort of Smerwick (St. Mary Wick), where the newcomers had strongly entrenched themselves. Downloaded from Then fortune, which had thus, as it might appear, favoured them with a base of operations and fair field for fighting, turned once more. Don Bastian de San Josepho, the new commander, was, in fact, utterly unfitted for the desperate fighting which those Irish wars involved.

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