DOCSLIB.ORG

Anne Ashley Davenport

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Anne Ashley Davenport Suspicious Moderate THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF FRANCIS À SANCTA CLARA (1598–1680) ANNE ASHLEY DAVENPORT , University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 www.undpress.nd.edu Copyright © 2017 by the University of Notre Dame All Rights Reserved Published in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Davenport, Anne Ashley, author. Title: Suspicious moderate : the life and writings of Francis áa Sancta Clara (1598–1680) / Anne Ashley Davenport. Description: Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2016058496 (print) | LCCN 2017013688 (ebook) | ISBN 9780268100995 (pdf) | ISBN 9780268101008 (epub) | ISBN 9780268100971 (hardcover : alkaline paper) | ISBN 0268100977 (hardcover : alkaline paper) Subjects: LCSH: Franciscus a Sancta Clara, 1598–1680. | Franciscus a Sancta Clara, 1598–1680—Political and social views. | Catholic Church—Clergy— Biography. | Franciscans—England—Biography. | Theologians— England—Biography. | England—Church history—17th century. | Catholic Church—England—History—17th century. | Catholic Church— History of doctrines—17th century. | BISAC: RELIGION / Christianity / Catholic. | HISTORY / Modern / 17th Century. Classification: LCC BX4705. F7318 (ebook) | LCC BX4705. F7318 D38 2017 (print) | DDC 282.092 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016058496 ∞This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). PREFACE In the summer of 1644, after three years in the Tower of London on charges of high treason, the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, was brought to trial before Parliament. The charges against him included the claim that he had conspired to “advance Popery in England” and reconcile the English Church “by degrees” to Rome. The evidence that was cited to prove Laud’s guilt was largely circumstantial, except for a vividly hard fact. Laud, it was alleged, had “wittingly and willingly” held conferences with a Roman Catholic priest—“one called Sancta Clara, alias Damport , a Dangerous Person and Franciscan Friar.” Who was this Franciscan, known to many of his contemporaries simply as “Sancta Clara,” and why would pinning Sancta Clara to Laud help to secure a conviction? Because he was embroiled in powerful historic trends shaping early modern Europe, Sancta Clara’s life and writings deserve special attention for three chief reasons. The first is that Sancta Clara made the strange choice of joining a loathed, feared, and persecuted “papist” minority. Born into a Protestant family of Coventry, he attended Oxford from 1613 to 1615, then converted to Roman Catholicism, ran o ff to the English College of Douay, and joined the Franciscan Order in 1617. Why would a sim ple Midlands youth from a middling Protestant family embrace Roman su - perstition, vow to live in voluntary poverty, and devote himself to restor - ing Franciscan life in England? The question is all the more perplexing given that Sancta Clara’s half brother, John Davenport, founder of New Haven in the American colonies, made a diametrically opposite choice and became a leading pioneer of New England Congregationalism. By ex - amining Sancta Clara’s trajectory, Suspicious Moderate seeks to shed light on a dynamic English generation for whom religious self-invention opened up new existential pathways. ix x Preface What motivated Franciscus à Sancta Clara to become an author? A second reason to study Sancta Clara’s life and writings is that he matured into an exceptionally good theologian. In his written work, he sought to reframe Catholic theology so as to show that (1) Catholicism is compati ble with freedom of conscience, (2) Catholicism is compatible with civil gov - ernment, and (3) Catholicism is compatible with experimental science. Suspicious Moderate examines Sancta Clara’s theological works in careful detail in order to bring his method and doctrines to light. Contemporary accounts speak of Sancta Clara’s personal “charm” and “graceful” manner. A third reason to study his life and writings is that they provide a window into obscure and colorful aspects of seventeenth- century England. Who were Sancta Clara’s allies and why? He was elected provincial of his order three times, serving from 1637 to 1640 (during the reign of Charles I), from 1650 to 1653 (during the Commonwealth), and from 1665 to 1668 (during the reign of Charles II). Appointed chaplain to Queen Henriette-Marie and theologian to Queen Catherine of Braganza, Sancta Clara sought out a wide variety of interlocutors, from statesmen to scientists. He forged ties of friendship with theologians on both sides of the Channel. He conferred with the Irish Franciscan Luke Wadding and with the Flemish chemist Van Helmont, befriended the Caroline divines Augustine Lindsell and Jeremy Taylor, and interacted with Lord Balti more’s right-hand man in Maryland, John Lewgar, and with Francis Windebank. Most importantly, he enjoyed a lifelong friendship with the controversial philosopher-priest Thomas “Blackloe” White and through him came into contact with the circle of Kenelm Digby. In the process of researching this book, I made the lucky discovery that the mysterious “Philip Scot” who published one of the earliest En glish discussions of Hobbes in 1650 was none other than Sancta Clara (first an nounced in Hobbes Studies in 2014). I now explore some of the ramifi - cations of my discovery. As we will see, Sancta Clara joined the e ffort to fight Hobbes’s Erastianism by carefully reflecting on Hobbes’s pioneering ideas and by attempting, in characteristic fashion, to find common ground with him, no matter how slight. During the Commonwealth, Sancta Clara petitioned Cromwell for religious freedom in the name of civil peace and formed a friendship with the Oxford librarian and Hobbes admirer Thomas Barlow. After the publication of Leviathan (1651), Sancta Clara attempted to refute Hobbes’s demonization of Roman Catholicism. Six Preface xi years after Sancta Clara’s death, Pierre Bayle praised Sancta Clara by name in his landmark treatise on religious toleration, the Commentaire philoso - phique . In the nineteenth century, Sancta Clara’s vision of a less hectoring and more inclusive Catholic Church would help to shape the Boston mis - sion of Bishop Cheverus and the apologetics of Étienne Badin, missionary to Kentucky and donor of the land that became the site of the University of Notre Dame . John Henry Newman’s famous Tractate 90 , in turn, owed a close debt to Sancta Clara’s defense of the English articles of religion, which the Anglican reunionist canon F.G. Lee translated and published in 1865. Finally, attesting to a sort of enduring haunting of the English imagi - nation, Joseph Shorthouse published a best seller in 1881, John Inglesant , in which Sancta Clara is prominently featured. As Sancta Clara’s life was largely lived underground and in the secre - tive wings of the Stuart court, his written works, mostly in Latin, consti tute our chief record of his journey as a Franciscan priest grappling with the legacy of English odium. Only two book-length biographies of Sancta Clara have been written to date, both by Franciscans: one in German by Ermin Klaus (1938) and one in English by John Berkermans Dockery (1960). Neither examines Sancta Clara’s theology in detail or provides su fficient context to interpret it. Sancta Clara’s hallmark irenicism, however, has long attracted attention. In an influential monograph published in 1951, the French scholar Maurice Nédoncelle praised Sancta Clara’s subtle ar - guments and enthusiastically described him as an “intrepid archangel” for trying to win tolerance for Roman Catholics from Cromwell. George Tavard, in turn, described Sancta Clara as a “fine and little known” theolo - gian. Most recently, Sancta Clara found a champion in Bruno Neveu, who emphasized the innovative character of Sancta Clara’s chief theological work, Systema fidei , in an article published posthumously in 2004. Lead - ing scholars of the history of religion in Stuart England, such as Caroline Hibbard, Anthony Milton, Michael Questier, Brian Tyacke, Beverly South - gate, Stefania Tutino, and Je ffrey Collins, to name just a few, have consis - tently cited Sancta Clara in their rich contextual studies. They have not, however, examined his doctrines in detail to show his full impact on Roman Catholic theology. Why the title Suspicious Moderat e? The epithet was framed by a mem - ber of the Great Tew circle and fellow Roman Catholic convert, Hugh Sere - nus Cressy, apparently to denounce, but actually to praise, Sancta Clara’s xii Preface irenic strategy of “conciliation.” Viewed with suspicion from all sides for his attempt to reconcile opposing views, Sancta Clara was himself suspicious—of dogmatism, of the political uses of religion, of Roman Catholic blindness, and of Puritan fanaticism. It is by trusting his own suspiciousness of human folly that Sancta Clara navigated storm after storm to become a champion of freedom of conscience. There is yet a third, darker sense in which the title is meant to remind us of a perennial obstacle facing sincere reformers. As we will see, Protestants were most often unwilling to believe that a Roman Catholic could genuinely be “mod - erate.” Even someone like William Penn, who was himself persecuted for being a Quaker, remained suspicious of Sancta Clara’s e ffort to reframe Catholicism and denounced him as a fraud. By calling attention to Cressy’s characterization of Sancta Clara, the book’s title hopes to emphasize the multidimensional context of suspicion and prejudice in which Sancta Clara’s life and theology evolved. Eschewing the satisfaction of clear-cut positions, moreover, we will immerse ourselves in realms of ambiguity and in strategies that were shaped as much by unreasonable hope and un - reasonable suspicion as by facts. Starting before Sancta Clara’s birth, as an intellectual biography must, because acculturation is marked by initiation before new departures are possible, the first two chapters evoke a key aspect of the anti-Catholic ha - tred that was transmitted to Sancta Clara by his Protestant milieu and that loomed large over his life.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Six Unpublished Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria
    SIX UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF dUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA R. A. BEDDARD IN the morass of papers left by that diligent servant of the House of Stuart, Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State to Charles I and Charles II, is a small cache of six letters written by, or at the command of, Queen Henrietta Maria.^ Five of them are addressed to Nicholas in his official capacity as Secretary.^ Three of them are informal, being little more than hastily penned notes in the Queen's own hand. These are undated by her, but two of them have been endorsed by Nicholas with the date on which he received them: 5 September and i October 1641. His endorsement locates them in the difficult period of Charles Ts residence in Edinburgh, when his master was seeking to build a party among the Scottish nobles. The third most probably belongs to the same year. All three show that the King was during his absence from England regularly employing his wife in the routine business of despatching, and, on occasion, restraining the time of delivery of his correspondence.^ The other two letters addressed to Secretary Nicholas are of greater historical moment. Not only are they more ample in content, they are also more formal in nature. They belong to a much later period in the Queen's life, when she had taken up residence in her native France following her successful flight from Exeter in July 1644.^ The two communications are cast in the form of royal warrants, drafted by the clerk attending the Queen at the palace of St Germain-en-Laye, outside Paris, where for a time she occupied grace and favour lodgings given to her by her sister-in-law, Anne of Austria, Queen Regent of France and the widow of Louis XIII.^ As such, they are signed by Henrietta Maria at the beginning in the customary fashion, and are dated coram regina 9 and 22 June 1648 respectively, according to the New Style of the Gregorian calendar in use in Catholic France: that is, 30 May and 12 June, according to the Old Style of the Julian computation still in use in Protestant England.
    [Show full text]
  • The Ferrar Family of Little Gidding C.1625-1637
    THE GOOD OLD WAY REVISITED: The Ferrar Family of Little Gidding c.1625-1637 Kate E. Riley, BA (Hons) This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The University of Western Australia, School of Humanities, Discipline of History, 2007. ABSTRACT The Good Old Way Revisited: The Ferrar Family of Little Gidding c.1625-1637 The Ferrars are remembered as exemplars of Anglican piety. The London merchant family quit the city in 1625 and moved to the isolated manor of Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire. There they pursued a life of corporate devotion, supervised by the head of the household, Nicholas Ferrar, until he died in December 1637. To date, the life of the pious deacon Nicholas Ferrar has been the focus of histories of Little Gidding, which are conventionally hagiographical and give little consideration to the experiences of other members of the family, not least the many women in the household. Further, customary representations of the Ferrars have tended to remove them from their seventeenth-century context. Countering the biographical trend that has obscured many details of their communal life, this thesis provides a new, critical reading of the family’s years at Little Gidding while Nicholas Ferrar was alive. It examines the Ferrars in terms of their own time, as far as possible using contemporary documents instead of later accounts and confessional mythology. It shows that, while certain aspects of life at Little Gidding were unusual, on the whole the family was less exceptional than traditional histories have implied; certainly the family was not so unified and unworldly as the idealised images have suggested.
    [Show full text]
  • The Great Tew Circle, 1630-1639
    Athens Journal of History XY The Great Tew Circle, 1630-1639 By Michael J. Langford The Great Tew Circle comprised a group of theologians, philosophers and poets who met regularly in Lord Falkland's house at Great Tew, near Oxford, from the early 1630s until around 1639. Although strongly royalist and Anglican, on many matters, especially that of toleration, they defended views that would later be classed as liberal.1 This article introduces the reader to the Great Tew Circle, and explores its relationship with the better- known Cambridge Platonists, most of whom flourished a few decades later. Common ground included the influence of Plato and an appeal to 'reason', although exactly how reason should to be understood raises interesting issues. Introduction The Great Tew Circle comprised a collection of theologians, philosophers and poets who met together in Lord Falkland's house at Great Tew, about sixteen miles from Oxford, from the early 1630s until around 1639 when rumbles of the civil war – which broke out in 1642 -- summoned Falkland to matters of state, and the group discussions were discontinued. Thereafter, despite the deaths of Falkland and Chillingworth, the Circle maintained some influence and a degree of association between many of its members remained, in part through the continued patronage of Falkland's widow. At first sight, the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 might seem to mark a kind of success for the aspirations of the Circle, and particularly for the efforts of Henry Hammond during the Commonwealth period, but although the return to monarchy and state Anglicanism did represent some aspects of the Circle's agenda, the generally narrow and intolerant agenda of the new order certainly did not.
    [Show full text]
  • Debating the Free Sea in London, Paris, the Hague and Venice Van Ittersum, Martine Julia
    University of Dundee Debating the Free Sea in London, Paris, The Hague and Venice Van Ittersum, Martine Julia Published in: History of European Ideas DOI: 10.1080/01916599.2021.1871930 Publication date: 2021 Licence: CC BY-NC-ND Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication in Discovery Research Portal Citation for published version (APA): Van Ittersum, M. J. (2021). Debating the Free Sea in London, Paris, The Hague and Venice: The Publication of John Selden’s Mare Clausum (1635) and Its Diplomatic Repercussions in Western Europe. History of European Ideas. https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2021.1871930 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in Discovery Research Portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from Discovery Research Portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain. • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 26. Sep. 2021 History of European Ideas ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage:
    [Show full text]
  • “Against Such Hellish Mischief Fit to Oppose”: a Grotian Reading of Milton’S War in Heaven
    Elizabeth Oldman “Against such hellish mischief fit to oppose”: A Grotian Reading of Milton’s War in Heaven y the time the latter parts of Paradise Lost came to be written,” remarks Stevie Davies, “the revolution had failed and the new tyrant, Charles II, had been restored” (45). In Paradise Lost, this essay proposes, Milton “Bcalls upon Hugo Grotius’s version of natural law to distinguish evil from good at a time when evil seemed to prevail. He attempts to make natural law perform beyond the restoration of monarchy, to ultimately prove God’s just intention in allowing the unfortunate outcome of the English Civil War to take place. Demonstrating the poet’s Grotian belief that the parameters for legitimate military action must be circumscribed in accordance with the laws of nature, two models of warfare—criminal battle originated by Satan, and God’s justifiable defensive response—take place in the War in Heaven in Book 6 of the epic. This three-day conflict fought between God’s troops and Satan’s enables Milton to investigate “what kind of rebellion was justified and what not” (Hill 366). As explanation for why the angels agree to battle, I consider how the War in Heaven ensues in a Grotian manner as a necessary instrument, for there is no other way of obliging errant nations which are uncivil to conform to reason. In response to unjust war, that is, one must wage just war. In contrast to Satan, who reveals himself as a usurper who initiates his ‘‘foreign” or international campaign for conquest and plunder of land, commendable rulership is embodied in juxtaposition with the author’s depiction of God.
    [Show full text]
  • The Evolution of Puritan Mentality in an Essex Cloth Town: Dedham and the Stour Valley, 1560-1640
    The Evolution of Puritan Mentality in an Essex Cloth Town: Dedham and the Stour Valley, 1560-1640 A.R. Pennie Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Research conducted in the Department of History. Submitted: November, 1989. bs. 1 The Evolution of Puritan Mentality in an Essex Cloth Town: Dedham and the Stour Valley, 1560-1640 A.R. Pennie Summary of thesis The subject of this thesis is the impact of religious reformation on the inhabitants of a small urban centre, with some reference to the experience of nearby settle- ments. Dedham has a place in national history as a centre of the Elizabethan Puritan Movement but the records of the Dedham Conference (the local manifestation of that movement), also illustrate the development of Reformed religion in Dedham and associated parishes. The contents of the thesis may be divided into four sections. The first of these concerns the material life of the inhabitants of Dedham and the way in which this generated both the potential for social cohesion and the possibility of social conflict. The second section examines the attempt at parish reformation sponsored by the ministers associated with the Dedham Conference and the militant and exclusive doctrine of the Christian life elaborated by the succeeding generation of preachers. The third element of the thesis focuses on the way in which the inhabitants articulated the expression of a Reformed or Puritan piety and, on occasion, the rejection of features of that piety. The ways in which the townspeople promoted the education of their children, the relief of the poor and the acknowledgement of ties of kinship and friendship, have been examined in terms of their relationship to a collective mentality characterized by a strong commitment to 'godly' religion.
    [Show full text]
  • Part 1 – a Multifaceted Career
    WHO WAS DR JOHN MORE? RICHARD H. TURNER PART 1 – A MULTIFACETED CAREER John More, a Catholic recusant physician, has been a footnote figure - having left behind almost no writings of his own, a somewhat shadowy bit-part player on the early Stuart public stage. This essay draws on contemporary national, local, ecclesiastical, medical and family records, as well as subsequent historical and biographical material, to establish his contribution to the social, political and economic context of his times. Again and again paradox is encountered, exemplifying Shakespeare's observation that - in the seventeenth century at any rate - 'one man in his time plays many parts'. Underlying Dr More's activities and aspirations can be detected ambition to advance both his religion and his kin. Consequently he and his heirs became involved, over three generations, in numerous and contrasting fields of action – medicine, politics, commerce, military service, the Church, landholding. As with all human endeavour, the actual outcomes reflect the impact of unforeseeable events, social change, personal foibles, and mere chance. Part 2 of this essay examines this working out of his legacy – both religious and material – by his heirs, in search of a fuller answer to the question Who was Dr John More? The early Stuart recusant physician John More came from Thelwall on the north Cheshire border, just south of the river Mersey and a few miles east of Warrington. His origins, like much in his life, are obscure, in the sense of indistinct - how far so in the Hardyan sense of undistinguished is difficult to pin down. His parents, Edward More and Alice Mar(tin)scroft, appear to have been, at most, local gentry, with few if any pretensions to arms i - they were not listed as recusants, though Alice probably had recusant connections - and lacking wills or other documents to illuminate them.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-51704-1 - Reason and Religion in the English Revolution: The Challenge of Socinianism Sarah Mortimer Excerpt More information Introduction On the fertile banks of the river Czarna, in the south of the Polish Commonwealth, lay the town of Rakow. In the early seventeenth century it was a peaceful, idyllic town, filled with craftsmen and workshops and dominated by its flourishing Academy. Its atmosphere of learning and of harmony made such an impression on one visitor that he felt himself ‘transported into another world’. For, as he recalled, all its inhabitants were ‘calm and modest in behaviour, so that you might think them angels, 1 although they were spirited in debate and expert in language’. Yet Rakow was the centre of Socinianism, a theological position perceived as so danger- ous that it could only have been raked out of hell by men intent on blaspheming against God. It was denounced in lurid terms, by Protestants and Catholics alike, and outlawed in almost every country in 2 Europe. From Rakow, the Socinians produced a series of religious and political works which spread across Europe, capturing the attention of scholars, clerics and educated laymen. Few religious groups inspired such extreme reactions, or found such careful readers. The people of this quiet, well-ordered Polish town had a lasting impact in Europe and this book will explore the English reaction to their potent theology. It was widely agreed that the Socinians posed a serious challenge to European religion and society – and yet the nature of the challenge they presented has never been fully explored or explained.
    [Show full text]
  • Sir Francis Crane Kt. and Dr. William Davison; Patient and Doctor in Paris in 1636
    Medical History, 1979, 23: 346-351. SIR FRANCIS CRANE KT. AND DR. WILLIAM DAVISON; PATIENT AND DOCTOR IN PARIS IN 1636 by LAURENCE MARTIN* THIS DUAL biographical essay concerns two outstanding men of the seventeenth century, an Englishman and a Scotsman. They made their reputations in very different walks of life and in different countries. Both were proteges of royalty; Sir Francis Crane of James I and Charles I, and William Davison of Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, as well as of the kings of France and Poland, to whom he was successively appointed physician. Crane was a courtier, administrator, and man of the world; Davison was a chemist, botanist, and Paracelsian physician. The two were briefly brought together in Paris in 1636 as patient and doctor. Both died in Paris; Crane in 1636 and Davison in 1669. Nothing is known of the parentage or ancestry of Sir Francis Crane (Fig. 1); neither the date and place of his birth nor his exact age at death are recorded. This is all the more remarkable because he and his relations were prominent people holding appointments in the Court, royal households and State. Thus his only brother, Richard Crane (d. 1645), was Captain and Gentleman of the Privy Chamber in the reign of Charles I and was created a baronet in 1642. His cousin, John Crane (1576- 1661) of Loughton, Bucks., was an Officer of the Admiralty and Surveyor General of Victuals for all ships. He had been a servant of Queen Elizabeth I before becoming Chief Clerk of the Green Cloth to James I, Charles I, and Charles II.
    [Show full text]
  • Manuscripts Collected by Thomas Birch (B. 1705, D. 1766)
    British Library: Western Manuscripts Manuscripts collected by Thomas Birch (b. 1705, d. 1766), D.D., and bequeathed by him to the British Museum, of which he was a Trustee from 1753 until his death ([1200-1799]) (Add MS 4101-4478) Table of Contents Manuscripts collected by Thomas Birch (b. 1705, d. 1766), D.D., and bequeathed by him to the British Museum, of which he was a Trustee from 1753 until his death ([1200–1799]) Key Details........................................................................................................................................ 1 Provenance........................................................................................................................................ 1 Add MS 4106–4107 TRANSCRIPTS OF STATE PAPERS and letters from public and private collections, made by or for Birch, together with.................................................................................... 8 Add MS 4109–4124 ANTHONY BACON TRANSCRIPTS.Transcripts and extracts of the correspondence of Anthony Bacon (d. 1601), chiefly in..................................................................................................... 19 Add MS 4128–4130 ESSEX (DEVEREUX) PAPERSTranscripts of original letters and papers in the British Museum, Lambeth Palace Library,............................................................................................. 32 Add MS 4133–4146 FORBES PAPERS. Vols. II–XV.4133–4146. Collections of Dr. Patrick Forbes, consisting of lists, copies, etc., of.......................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Godliness with a Difference: Religious Arguments for Toleration in Mid- Seventeenth-Century England
    University of Alberta Godliness With a Difference: Religious Arguments for Toleration in Mid- Seventeenth-Century England by Jeremy Aaron Nathan Fradkin A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Department of History and Classics ©Jeremy Fradkin Spring 2012 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission. Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du 1+1 Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-87875-0 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-87875-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats.
    [Show full text]
  • The Great Tew Circle, 1630-1639
    Athens Journal of History - Volume 5, Issue 4 – Pages 247-258 The Great Tew Circle, 1630-1639 By Michael J. Langford The Great Tew Circle comprised a group of theologians, philosophers and poets who met regularly in Lord Falkland's house at Great Tew, near Oxford, from the early 1630s until around 1639. Although strongly royalist and Anglican, on many matters, especially that of toleration, they defended views that would later be classed as liberal.1 This article introduces the reader to the Great Tew Circle, and explores its relationship with the better-known Cambridge Platonists, most of whom flourished a few decades later. Common ground included the influence of Plato and an appeal to 'reason', although exactly how reason should to be understood raises interesting issues. Introduction The Great Tew Circle comprised a collection of theologians, philosophers and poets who met together in Lord Falkland's house at Great Tew, about sixteen miles from Oxford, from the early 1630s until around 1639 when rumbles of the civil war – which broke out in 1642 -- summoned Falkland to matters of state, and the group discussions were discontinued. Thereafter, despite the deaths of Falkland and Chillingworth, the Circle maintained some influence and a degree of association between many of its members remained, in part through the continued patronage of Falkland's widow. At first sight, the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 might seem to mark a kind of success for the aspirations of the Circle, and particularly for the efforts of Henry Hammond during the Commonwealth period, but although the return to monarchy and state Anglicanism did represent some aspects of the Circle's agenda, the generally narrow and intolerant agenda of the new order certainly did not.
    [Show full text]