Catholicism in the British Isles 1558-1649

1. Catholicism in the British Isles 1558-1649 Gabriel Glickman

2. Historical rediscovery of English/British Catholicism • Key authors – Eamon Duffy, John Bossy, Michael Questier, Ethan Shagan New interpretations: - Reformation more contested/resisted than old narratives suggested. • Protestantism in Britain too divided to present united front against Rome • Catholic less cut off from politics – challenge to the ‘Catholic as victim’ argument

3. Catholics vs the state • Laws of 1593: ‘recusancy’ fines raised to potential £20 for failure to attend Church; Catholics need licence to travel more than five miles; death penalty for harbouring a priest. • 234 Catholic executed in England on political/religious grounds 1535-1603 • 124 priests executed in reign of Elizabeth. • 1606, An Act for the better discovering and repressing of Popish recusants – imposes new state oath.

4. ‘Priest hole’, Harvington Hall

5. Throckmorton family chapel at Harvington Hall

6. Catholicism and the English state – grounds for accommodation? • Recusancy laws enforced sporadically: mainly in times of national emergency • Catholic lay leaders of high social status – titles families e.g. Howards, Paulets, Petres. • 1642 – c. 20 per cent of Yorkshire gentry are Catholic. - Phenomenon of ‘church papistry’ e.g. earl of Northampton and Viscount Montagu at court/in public office under Elizabeth I.

7. James VI and Scottish Catholicism • Policy of informal toleration: • Military confrontation averted with earls of Huntly and Erroll, 1589, 1594. • Freedom for Catholic missionaries operating in the Highlands. • Crypto-Catholic allies/favourites of James on Council of Scotland e.g. earls of Melrose and Dunfermiline. • Archbishop David Beaton used as ambassador to France.

8. Catholicism in Ireland more centred on opposition to the Crown • Small number of Catholic allies of the crown e.g. Richard Burke, 4th earl of Clanricarde; Randal MacDonnell, earl of Antrim – but the exception not the rule. • Two key reasons for Catholic-crown enmity: • Political – Irish resistance to royal centralisation/ plantation - new antagonism between the Crown and the ‘Old English’. • Religious – greater influence on Ireland of the militant Counter-Reformation.

9. The British Isles and the Counter-Reformation • Counter-Reformation programme (three sessions of Council Trent, 1545-1563) - aims to make Church purer, more uniform and more militant – aim to convert/reconvert the world. • Foundation of English, Irish, Scots colleges in Catholic Europe e.g. at Douai, Rome, Louvain. • Missionary priests sent into British Isles e.g. Jesuits enter England 1574. • New Irish bishops created. • Production of polemic/ propaganda against Protestants and the state.

10. The Counter-Reformation and British national identities • Challenge to Protestant narratives of British nationhood: • Clergymen Maurice Clynnog and GruffyddRobert produce Welsh prayers and poems from Rome - ‘Rout them with sword, you true Welsh Britons/ The hatred of Jesus by traitorous Saxons, unholy heathen... To arms!’ • Robert Persons, Treatise of Three Conversions (1603) – British Christianity historically dependent on missionaries from Rome. • Persons, Memoriall for the intended reformation of England(1596) – Preservation of Catholicism the highest priority for the nation : the Pope/the people can depose an heretical monarch (parallel with radical Calvinism of John Knox, Andrew Melville)

11. Resistance to the militant Counter-Reformation from English and Scottish Catholics • William Barclay, De PotestaePapae (1609) – monarchs appointed by God and therefore sacred. • 1603 – Appellant ‘Protestation of Loyalty’ to Elizabeth I. • Arguments of Anthony Copley (1567-1607): • ‘Unnatural’ for ‘a man to goe against his own Countrey’. • Kings are supreme in all temporal affairs; Pope is absolute only in spiritual matters. • The radical Counter-Reformation therefore a ‘bastard religion’, mainly concerned with elevating the power of Spain, Rome, the Jesuits.

12. Counter-Reformation makes more headway in Ireland • Militant Catholicism provides unifying message in rebellions against Tudor rule. • Poems of MaolmhuireO’hUghinn, archbishop of Tuamrepresent Irish as new Chosen People struggling under captivity. • Pope Clement VIII on Tyrone Rebellion (1594) – a struggle by ‘the Catholic army in Ireland’. to ‘throw off the yoke of slavery imposed on you by the English, deserters from the Holy Roman Church’. • Message of Counter-Reformation unites Gaelic and ‘Old English’ factions behind common vision of a Catholic Ireland.

13. More pro-Catholic political climate created under Charles I • Only three priests executed 1625-1642 • 1633 – Charter to Maryland gives Calvert family full religious freedom as proprietors. • Catholic presence at court increased after arrival of Henrietta Maria as queen. • Informal papal embassy at court of Charles I under Scottish Jesuit George Con. • Common ground between Catholicism and Laudian strand of the Church of England.

14. Irish Catholicism and the wars of the three kingdoms • October 1641 – outbreak of Catholic rebellion in Ireland, though rebels claim to be acting against planters/parliament, not Charles I. • Catholic nobles and bishops take charge of rebellion – draw up the Confederacy of Kilkenny. • March 1642 – Confederacy releases Catholic Remonstrance: support for Charles I on condition of greater religious freedom and self-governance plus reversal of some plantations. • Confederacy calls into Ireland papal envoy Giovanni Rinuccinni to represent its case to Europe.

15. Political and religious conflict splits the Confederacy 1646-8 • Viscount Mountgarret’s faction seek alliance with royalist army under duke of Ormonde. • ‘Ormonde Peace’ (March 1646) and ‘Inchiquin Peace’ (April 1648) – Mountgarret’s faction reduce radicalism of Confederate demands: concentrate on basic religious and civil rights for Catholics in Ireland. • Opposed by ultra-Catholic faction under Rinuccinni and Owen Roe O’Neill. • Rinuccinni excommunicates Mountgarret and his supporters as traitors to the Church. • O’Neill arrests Mountgarret’s supporters on the Confederates’ Supreme Council, 1648.