‘Rigour upon men’s consciences’: Political Allegiance, Religious Profession, and the English Catholic Community during the Interregnum By Katherine Shreve Lazo Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in History December 15, 2018 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Peter Lake, Ph.D. Joel Harrington, Ph.D. Jane Landers, Ph.D. Paul C. H. Lim, Ph.D. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many friends, family members, and mentors have offered support and encouragement over the past several years as I researched, wrote, and revised my dissertation. Without their support I would not have been able to complete this work. First and foremost, I must thank Peter Lake for his invaluable wisdom and unflagging support throughout my doctoral studies. He patiently read multiple drafts of every chapter and discussed them with me. His insightful questions pushed me to think more broadly and more deeply about my subject, and the thesis is more interesting as a result. Michael Questier and David Como both listened as I wended my way to a more incisive argument. Experts on the early seventeenth-century English Catholic community and the English Revolution, respectively, they graciously lent their time and shared their knowledge with me. My committee members, Joel Harrington, Jane Landers, and Paul Lim, provided encouragement and outside perspectives that encouraged me to step back and ensure that I engaged a wider audience than historians of the English Revolution. Fellow graduate students, who hunkered in the trenches and celebrated milestones with me, were wonderful sources of empathy and camaraderie. Katie McKenna, Amy Gant Tan, Sean Bortz, Juliet Larkin-Gilmore, and Hillary Taylor helped me enjoy life and pushed me intellectually. To Kelly Brignac and Kelly O’Reilly, I am sorry to say that the nuns only make the briefest of appearances in the final version of my dissertation. From start to finish, my family have been unflagging in their support of my education. They have sustained me in a variety of ways. Everyone has been involved, including my nieces who assumed I must be a teenager if I still had “homework” and my cousins who snuck a glance at a chapter and inquired about “library of con-science”. Ann Aubrey Hanson generously applied her copyediting expertise to grammatical quandaries at several crucial points. My brothers, Mark and Nate Shreve, provided support in their very personal manners: Mark with his sharp wit; Nate with a steady flow of English Reformation memes, and his engagement with the paper I presented at the IHR. My grandmother’s genuine interest in my topic and long experience of living with an academic (as well as channeling my grandfather to remind me that I wasn’t spending sufficient time studying Latin), kept me going. Special thanks are due to my mother, Meg Shreve, who modeled the intelligence, stick-to- itiveness, and determination required to tackle a project like this. For years she pushed me to develop my writing skills and taught me that the only path to perfection is practice and persistence. I would not have been able to complete this dissertation, much less make it entertaining, without the skills that she patiently helped me develop. My father, Paul Shreve, also deserves recognition. A fellow history major, he dragged me to every historical site within fifty miles of our house in Surrey (an impressive number!), and somewhere along the way impressed upon me his fascination with the past. He also reassured me that history is salient to everyday life and encouraged me to use both the analytical skills I gained studying history as ii well as the knowledge to pursue my career. His favorite piece of advice—which he assures me is equally applicable to all aspects of life—has frequently echoed in my ears and pushed me onwards when my resolve flagged. Last, but certainly not least, I could not have completed my dissertation without David Lazo. You promised to support me through graduate school, little knowing that the journey would entail two cross-country moves, innumerable late-night editing sessions, and days of distraction where I asked the same question five times. But you stuck by me, enduring hours of my rambling aloud and routinely waking up early to brew coffee to ensure that I would be caffeinated the moment I arose. This is our achievement. Even if you still think “Lord Protector” is the oddest title for a ruler, your unfailing support ensured that I could complete this dissertation and claim the title Dr. Lazo. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................. ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................... vi NOTE ON DATES AND SPELLING .............................................................................................. viii Chapter 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 Background and Literature ......................................................................................................... 7 Overview and Methodology ....................................................................................................... 16 2. Catholics are “persons otherwise than Englishmen”: The Legal Creation of Papists ............... 21 Beginning the Exclusion: The Elizabethan Settlement ............................................................... 24 The Early Stuart Church ............................................................................................................. 34 Papists and Delinquents .............................................................................................................. 43 Liberty of Conscience for (almost) all ........................................................................................ 52 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 59 3. Covenants, Conscience, and Catholics: The Commonwealth’s Crisis-Based Governing .......... 62 “the present change of Government, from Tyranny to a Free State” ......................................... 63 A Beacon Set on Fire .................................................................................................................. 73 Catholics under the Commonwealth ........................................................................................... 86 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 101 4. The Place of the English Catholic Community in the Cromwellian Constitution ...................... 105 1647: A Turning Point ................................................................................................................ 108 Bringing “Form out of Confusion” ............................................................................................. 124 Priests and the Protector .............................................................................................................. 136 The First Protectorate Parliament and the Meaning of the Instrument ....................................... 148 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 165 5. An Arch Anti-Papist? Oliver Cromwell’s Autocratic Policies Reexamined .............................. 168 Posturing by Proclamation .......................................................................................................... 169 The Blackloists Return ................................................................................................................ 175 The Western Design and the Major-Generals ............................................................................. 189 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 202 iv 6. Authority, Allegiance, and the Second Protectorate Parliament ................................................. 204 The “unquiett fpirrit” of the Discontented: Managing Parliamentary Elections ........................ 205 An Extraordinary Occasion ......................................................................................................... 213 “the publick Profession of these Nations”: The Second Protectorate Parliament’s Religio- Political Settlement ..................................................................................................................... 223 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 233 7. The Second Protectorate Parliament Confronts Liberty of Conscience ..................................... 235 The Recusant Bill, Part I ............................................................................................................. 237 “The great Misdemeanors and Blasphemies of James Nayler” ................................................. 245 The Recusant Bill, Part II ............................................................................................................ 264 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................