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Truth and calumny in Baroque Rome: Richard O'Ferrall and the Commentarius Rinuccinianus, 1648–1667

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2015

Ian W. S. Campbell*
Affiliation:
Centre for Neo-Latin Studies, School of History, University College Cork

Extract

Richard O'Ferrall's claim of 5 March 1658 that the Stuart monarchy had no right to rule Ireland was made almost in passing. The real purpose of the report made by this Capuchin friar and courtier at the congregation of Propaganda Fide, the committee of cardinals whose jurisdiction included nearly all those missions and churches under non-Catholic governments, was to exclude all Irish Catholics of English descent from high ecclesiastical office. At the centre of his argument was the confederate Catholic association of the 1640s and the place within it of the Old English community. The Capuchin argued that the confederates had remained too closely bound to the Stuart monarchy, and that the Old English had betrayed the confederate cause to Charles I's lord lieutenant of Ireland, James Butler, earl, marquis and later duke of Ormond. Many of O'Ferrall's Catholic contemporaries saw him as a dangerous member of a radical tradition: a clerical assembly at Dublin in June 1666 burned his report along with a copy of Conor O'Mahony's Disputatio apologetica of 1645, which had argued that all Ireland's Protestants should be killed or expelled and a native king elected. The Commentarius Rinuccinianus, begun by O'Ferrall, developed the argument of the 1658 report on a grand scale.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2012

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References

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31 CR., v, 418–31.

32 ‘Is nobilissima O Ferrallorum familia in Ibernia natus’, C.R., v, 418; ‘Non solum familia citra controversiam antiquissima et nobilissima oriundus sed etiam parentibus … nobilibus licet haereticorum persecutione patrimonio spoliatis, natus erat’, C.R., v, 430–1.

33 ‘Sicut in quodam P. Francisci Nugentii, Missionis Ibernicae Capucinorum fundatoris, acto ad annum 1633 scripto atque in Archivis Carolopolitanis asservato legi’, C.R., v, 430–1.

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48 Ibid., pp 418–31.

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58 See note 17 above.

59 CR., v, 246, 254–62, 268–76; Corish, , ‘Two contemporary historians’, p. 218.Google Scholar

60 CR., v, 277, 284–5, 301; Metzler, Joseph, ‘Die Kongregation in der zweiten Hálfte des 17. Jahrhunderts’ in Metzler, (ed.), Sacrae congregationis de propaganda fide, 1, 244–305Google Scholar at 259–60.

61 C.R., v, 280.

62 Ibid., pp 284–5.

63 Ibid.

64 For the complex question of the relationship between the versions of the report read by contemporaries and the extant copy, see Campbell, Ian, ‘Alithinologia: John Lynch and seventeenth-century Irish political thought’ (Ph.D. thesis, Trinity College Dublin, 2008), pp 64–6.Google Scholar

65 Goffman, Ervin, The presentation of self in everyday life (3rd ed., Harmondsworth, 1975)Google Scholar; Greenblatt, Stephen, Renaissance self-fashioning (Chicago, 1980)Google Scholar; Mayer, T.F., Reginald Pole: prince and prophet (Cambridge, 2000)Google Scholar; Villari, Rosario, Baroque personae, tr. Cochrane, L.G. (Chicago, 1995)Google Scholar. O’Connell’s Latin was much more conventional and classical, see as above C.R., v, 284–5.

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67 Biagioli, , Galileo, courtier, pp 270–3.Google Scholar

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69 Rinuccini’s report, 17 Aug. 1646, Aiazza, (ed.), Nunziatura, pp 152–3Google Scholar; idem, The embassy in Ireland, pp 193–5.

70 Tjoelker and Campbell, ‘Richard O’Ferrall’s report to Propaganda’.

71 C.R., v, 488.

72 C.R., v, 488–9.

73 O’Ferrall listed these: ‘quorum praecipui erant Butleri, Burghi, Nugentii, Geraldini, Plunkettii, Barnevallii, Prestonii, Flemingii, Barrii, Whitii, Cusacii, Talbotii, Breminghamii, Darcii, Purcellii, Taaffi, etc., his similes aucti beneficiis, divitiis et honoribus haereticorum’, C.R., v, 489.

74 C.R., v, 492.

75 Ibid.

76 ‘P. Robertus Nugentius, P. Oliverius Darcius nunc Dromorensis Episcopus, Pater Patricius Plunkettus nunc Episcopus Ardachensis, D. Nicolaus Plunkett Juris Anglici peritus, et D. Episcopus Fernensis, qui ejus intensiones et secreta quantum potuerunt, communicarunt, adversarios in Catholicos, Clerum et Laicos, praesertim in D. Eugenium O Neillium irritarunt, et erant autores fere omnium malorum subsequentium seducentes et corrumpentes quos poterant contra D. Nuncium et Catholicos’, C.R., v, 494. The bishop of Ferns referred to was Nicholas French. O’Ferrall applied the Latin dominus, lord, liberally to all persons of importance.

77 ‘separavit bonos a malis, sinceros a Politicis’, C.R., v, 495.

78 C.R., v, 501.

79 Corish, , ‘Two contemporary historians’, p. 220.Google Scholar

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82 C.R., i, 5–9.

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84 C.R., i, 9–272.

85 Ibid., pp 164–5.

86 C.R., v, 423. It was not the case then, as Lynch alleged, that O’Ferrall had been banished from Rome on account of his report, Lynch, , Alithinologia, p. 2 Google Scholar; idem, Supplementum, p. 2.

87 C.R., v, 289–96.

88 C.R., v, 288.

89 French, Nicholas, bishop of Ferns, ‘Apologia pro se et aliis Catholicis’ (T.C.D. MS 652, ff 3469)Google Scholar; Walsh, , History and vindication, pp 1314 Google Scholar; McHugh, Jason, ‘“Soldier of Christ”: the political and ecclesiastical career of Nicholas French, bishop of Ferns’ (Ph.D. thesis, 2 vols, N.U.I. Galway, 2005), ii, 314–15.Google Scholar

90 Lynch, , Alithinologia, p. 3.Google Scholar

91 C.R., v, 21–2.

92 Lynch, Alithinologia, sig. 1r; René D’Ambrières and Éamon Ó Ciosáin, ‘John Lynch of Galway (c.1599–1677): his career, exile and writing’ in Galway Arch. Soc. Jn., lv (2003), pp 50–63, at p. 52.

93 Lynch, Alithinologia, sig. 1r.

94 Ian Campbell, ‘Aristotelian ancient constitution and anti-Aristotelian sovereignty theory in Stuart Ireland’ in Hist. Jn., liii (2010), pp 1–19.

95 C.R., v, 430.

96 C.R., v, 423–6.

97 Kavanagh, ‘History and authorship’, pp 21–2; Robert O’Connell, Historia missionis Hiberniae Fratrum Minorum Capucinorum (Bibliothèque de Troyes, Cabinet des Mss, no. 706).

98 C.R., v, 296–8, 298–301, 301-2.

‘Cum D. Plunchetto et respondeatur’, O’Ferrall to Alberizzi, Florence, 29 Nov.1659 (A.P.F., Rome, Fondo di Vienna, vol 14, ff 17r-18v; microfilm, N.L.I. p5534); Benignus Millet, ‘Calendar of volume 14 of the Fondo di Vienna in Propaganda Archives: Part 1, ff 1–131’, Collect. Hib., no. 29 (1988), pp 34–58, at p. 39.

100 CR., v, 288–9; ibid., v, 424. For attempts to have O’Ferrall’s history stopped in 1662, see ibid., pp 425’6; Lynch, Supplementum, p. 3.

101 O’Connell discovered that not all the claims made by O'Ferrall about drafts of reports were truthful, see C.R., v, 284–5.

102 C.R., v, 494. See note 76 above.

103 Ibid., pp 429–30.

104 O’Ferrall died on 13 August 1663 in the Capuchin convent at Florence, C.R., v, 430.

105 [John Lynch], Cambrensis Eversus, seu Potius Historica Fides in Rebus Hibernicis Giraldo Cambrensis abrogada (St Malo, 1662); idem, Cambrensis Eversus, ed. Matthew Kelly (3 vols, Dublin, 1848–52); Morgan, Hiram, ‘Giraldus Cambrensis and the Tudor Conquest of Ireland’, in idem (ed.), Political ideology in Ireland, 1549–1641 (Dublin, 1999), pp 2244.Google Scholar

106 For example: CR., i, 159, 250, ii, 675, v, 15-17. For Lynch at Galway see C.R., v, 17–20.

107 C.R., i, 160, 162.

108 C.R. , v, 432.

109 ‘Joannem Linchaeum, cognomento Juniorem, sacerdotem Galviensem, Anglo-Ibernicum (inter ultimum Iberniae bellum Catholicum) Archdiaconum Tuamensem, qui in praefatum Nuncium, ejusque partes obstinatissime et scandalosissime a sua Ormonistarum factione steterat’, C.R., v, 432. Evidently Lynch did not wish to implicate formally the honour of his new French patrons in his efforts, hence the pseudonym Eudoxius Alithinologus, truth-telling possessor of true doctrine, Biagioli, Galileo, courtier, p. 63; D’Ambrières and Ó Ciosáin, ‘John Lynch’, p. 54.

110 Evdoxius Alithinologus [John Lynch], Alithinologia sive veridica responsio ad invectam mendaciis, falacijs, calumnijs, & imposturis foetam in plurimos antistites, proceres, & omnis ordinis Hibernos à R. P. R....F.... C.... congregationi de propaganda fide, Anno Domini 1659. exhibitam ([St Malo], 1664).

111 Shapin, Social history of truth, p. 114.

112 ‘aut in culina mediastinum, aut in equili equisonem, aut in via peditem’, Lynch, Supplementum, p. 161. O’Ferrall was the protégé of Francis Nugent, son of Sir Edward Nugent, see Martin, Friar Nugent, pp 7–9, 276. Richard Nugent, fifteenth baron of Delvin, was created earl of Westmeath in 1621, ibid., p. 4.

113 Shapin, Social history of truth, p. 93.

114 Sean Kelsey, ‘Conway, Edward, earl of Conway (c.1623–1683)’ in Oxford DNB; Sarah Hutton, ‘Finch, Sir John (1626–1682)’ in Oxford DNB; The Conway Letters: the correspondance of Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More, and their friends 1642–1684, ed. Majorie Hope Nicolson (revised ed., Oxford, 1992).

115 Knowles Middleton, W. E., The experimenters: a study of the Accademia Del Cimento (Baltimore, 1971), pp 1, 22, 24, 286–8.Google Scholar Curiously, Leopold, made cardinal by Pope Clement IX in December 1667, had Jansenist leanings, see ibid., pp 24, 319, 323.

116 John Finch at Florence to Ormond, 2/12 July 1667 (Bodleian Library, MS Carte 35, fols. 518r-519v; microfilm, N.L.I. p635).

117 Lynch, Supplementum, p. 3.

118 Buachalla, Breandán Ó, Aisling Ghéar: na Stíobhartaigh agus an taos léinn 1603–1788 (Dublin, 1996), pp 80, 84, 112;Google Scholar Siochrú, D, Confederate Ireland, pp 1519;Google Scholar Cregan, D.F., ‘The Confederate Catholics of Ireland: the personnel of the Confederation, 1642–9’ in I.H.S., 24 (1995), pp 490512;Google Scholar Nicholls, Kenneth, ‘Anglo-French Ireland and after’ in Peritia, 1 (1982), pp 370403 Google Scholar at p. 371. I would like to thank the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences for funding the doctoral thesis upon which this paper is based, and Jane Ohlmeyer, Thomas O’Connor, Micheál Ó Siochrú, Stefano Villani and Nienke Tjoelker for their remarks on earlier drafts. I am especially grateful to Benjamin Hazard and the two anonymous readers for their generous advice on sources.