The English Catholic Issue, 1640-1662: Factionalism, Perceptions and Exploitation Tompkins, Alexandra Kate
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Queen Mary Research Online The English Catholic issue, 1640-1662: factionalism, perceptions and exploitation Tompkins, Alexandra Kate The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author For additional information about this publication click this link. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/jspui/handle/123456789/1291 Information about this research object was correct at the time of download; we occasionally make corrections to records, please therefore check the published record when citing. For more information contact [email protected] The English Catholic Issue, 1640-1662: Factionalism, Perceptions and Exploitation. Alexandra Kate Tompkins PhD University of London, 2010. Abstract This thesis explores the responses of different groups within the English Catholic community to the civil war, interregnum and restoration, with close attention to Catholic political theory. The English Catholic community were not mere observers of the constitutional and religious changes made during this period but manoeuvred within shifting political frameworks, continually adjusting their politics to meet new requirements. After the defeat and the execution of Charles I, members of the community made a series of compromises with political parties to secure toleration. Until the Restoration these were almost all to the exclusion of the Stuarts. Catholic political theorists engaged with the pro-sectarian, tolerationist principles of the parliamentary Independents during the first part of the Interregnum, but after the failure of the Cromwellian Church settlement in 1655 began to interact with anti-sectarian pro- episcopal groups during the decline of the Protectorate. Further, the community’s membership of an international church, their ideological assumptions and patronage from, and allegiances to, European courts meant that English Catholics had to be an integral part of Cromwellian foreign policy. The 1650s did not signify a break in the politics and ambition of the community but instead saw a continuation of the divisions, back-biting and intolerance that Catholics had shown during the 1620s and 1630s. Due to the factional nature of both the politics of the interregnum and the community itself however, English Catholics stood to gain more from the Protectorate than they did from the Stuart monarchy. This thesis therefore reintegrates English Catholicism into the existing historiography of mid-seventeenth century British history. 2 Contents. Acknowledgements 6 Abbreviations 8 1. Introduction 11 1.1. The place of English Catholicism within the politics of the Elizabethan, Jacobean and Stuart regimes. 11 1.2. The historiography of English Catholicism. 19 1.3. Outline of the thesis. 27 2. English Catholics at the centre of the royal prerogative controversy 35 2.1.1. English Catholics and definitions of treason. 37 2.1.2. The trial of John Goodman. 41 2.1.3. Goodman in political context. 51 2.1.4. Priests and treason after Goodman. 55 2.1.5. The seven priests: treason and prerogative. 58 2.1.6. 1642 – Priests’ trials at the onset of civil war. 64 2.2. Anti-Catholic discourse concerning English Catholic priests. 71 2.3. Conclusion. 74 3. The emergence of an English Catholic royalist tradition. 77 3.1. Contemporary representations. 78 3.2. Eighteenth-Century representations. 90 3.3. Modern interpretations. 94 3.4. Catholic case studies. 107 3.5. Conclusion. 116 3 4. Turn Oak or Bramble? The English Catholics during the Commonwealth and Protectorate. 118 4.1. The beginning of the negotiations. 120 4.2. The Blackloists. 124 4.3. The pro-French English Catholics. 128 4.4. The Hispanophile English Catholics. 132 4.5. The impact of Commonwealth and Protectorate foreign policy on the Catholics. 141 4.6. The Blacklo-Leyburn controversy. 146 4.7. Persecution of the English Catholics, 1654-1658. 153 4.8. English Catholics and the exiled Stuart court. 163 4.9. The 1640s and 1650s: a continuation of earlier political trends. 171 4.10. Conclusion. 175 5. English Catholic politicised discourse. 177 5.1. Catholic political thought, 1650-1654. 178 5.2. English Catholics and visions of a national church settlement. 186 5.3. English Catholic pro-episcopal tracts. 194 5.4. Laudian responses to English Catholic pamphleteering. 200 5.5. English Catholic discourse and the failure of the Cromwellian Church settlement. 203 5.6. Catholics’ anticipation of the Restoration. 210 5.7. Conclusion. 211 6. The Restoration. 214 6.1. The Catholic secular chapter’s perceptions at the end of the Protectorate. 216 6.2. English Catholic reactions to the Restoration. 222 6.3. Catholic attempts to secure toleration after the Restoration. 231 6.4. Clarendon and Bristol’s dispute. 253 6.5. Sieur d’Aubigny and the English Catholics. 256 6.6. Conclusion. 260 4 7. Conclusion. 261 Appendices Appendix 1. Timeline 271 Appendix 2. English clerical sources 273 Bibliography 5 Acknowledgements. I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Michael Questier for his expertise and his continual wit throughout the last four years. He has taught me a lot. He has continually challenged me to think bigger and reach higher than I had thought possible. Professor John Miller has also been an enormous help and support, especially during the last painstaking six months of the process. His kindness can only be matched by his knowledge of the seventeenth century. I owe a tremendous amount to John, particularly as it was he who interviewed an extremely nervous seventeen-year old, eight years ago, about the Cuban missile crisis. I would also like to express my gratitude to the head of department, Professor Virginia Davis, and to the head of graduate studies, Professor Miri Rubin. I would also like to acknowledge the Arts and Humanities Research Council who funded two years of my doctorate. The Council also gave me funding for a three week research trip to Oxford which was essential to the thesis. I would like to thank the staff at the Archdiocese of Westminster archives and the Jesuit archives in Mayfair respectively. I would also like to thank Mgr Anthony Stark for his permission to use the Old Brotherhood archives. The staff at Northamptonshire Record Office, Warwickshire County Record Office, the Bodleian, the National Archives, and the British Library were all helpful and aided my research considerably. Mrs Kate Boyce at Brynmor Jones Library, Hull University deserves a special mention for her generosity and help during my research trip to Hull. I would also like to thank my family and friends for their acceptance of my continued absence and last minute cancellations during the last four years. I would especially like to thank my brother Tim and sister-in-law Gemma for their good humour and encouragement, and for providing much needed distractions along the way. Tim will be delighted that I can now get a ‘proper’ job. Last, but by no means least, I wish to express my eternal gratitude and love to my parents, Katherine and John, for their continued 6 support (emotional and financial) and their unfailing belief in me. Without them none of this would have been possible and so I dedicate this thesis to them. 7 Abbreviations AAW Archives of the Archdiocese of Westminster, Kensington, London. Anglia A Anglia A volume 5, the Society of Jesus Archives, Mayfair, London. Anstruther G. Anstruther, The seminary priests : a dictionary of the secular clergy of England and Wales, 1558-1850. Vol. 2, Early Stuarts, 1603-1659 (Great Wakering, Essex : Mayhew-McCrimmon, 1975). Belson Papers of Augustine Belson, Berkshire Record Office, Reading. BL The British Library, King’s Cross, London. BL Add Ms The British Library Additional Manuscripts. Blacklo’s Cabal R. Pugh, Blacklo's Cabal, 1680 ; with an introduction by T. A. Birrell (Farnborough : Gregg International, 1970). Brudenell Ms Brudenell Manuscripts, Northampton County Record Office, Northampton. CCC M.A. Everett Green (ed.), Calendar of the proceedings of the Committee for Compounding, etc., 1643-1660 (London: H. M. Stationary off, 1889-93), 5 Vols. Challoner R. Challoner, Memoirs of missionary priests as well secular as regular and of other Catholics of both sexes : that have suffered death in England on religious accounts from the year of our Lord, 1577 to 1684 (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, limited, 1924), 2 Vols. ClSP Clarendon State Papers manuscripts, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. CSP Dom W. Hamilton, S. Lomas (eds.), Calendar of state papers: domestic series: preserved in the Public Record Office. Charles I, 1625-1649 (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans and Roberts, 1858-1897). 8 CSP Dom Com M. Everett Green (ed.), Calendar of state papers: domestic series. Commonwealth, 1649-1660 (London: Longman and co and Truber and co, 1875-1886). CSP Ven A. B. Hinds (ed.), Calendar of state papers Venetian. Calendar of state papers and manuscripts relating to English affairs, existing in the archives and collections of Venice: and in other libraries of northern Italy (London: Longman, Green, Longmans, Roberts and Green, 1864- 1947). Drafts B Knaresborough Selected Transcripts of the Knaresborough Ms, Jesuit Archives, Mayfair, London. Foley H. Foley, Records of the English province of the Society of Jesus : historic facts illustrative of the labours and sufferings of its members in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (London : Burns and Oates, 1877-1883), 7 Vols in 8. HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission. JHC Journals of the House of Commons. JHL Journals of the House of Lords. Nicholas Papers G. Warner (ed.), The Nicholas Papers: correspondence of Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State (London: Printed for the Camden Society, 1885-1920). NRO Northampton County Record Office, Northampton. OBA Old Brotherhood Archives. Archives of the Archdiocese of Westminster, Kensington, London. ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).