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Practical Antipapistry during the Reign of Elizabeth I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Michael Questier
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Extract

We are so used to the “revisionist” account of the English Reformation as a story of Protestant failure and of (relative) Catholic success that it is easy to forget how late sixteenth-century English Catholicism was once viewed by scholars not as an innocent parish pastime or a culturally conservative reaction to puritan evangelical excess. In the older narratives of the religious struggle in early modern England, historians recounted a fierce battle—the papal excommunication of Queen Elizabeth, the endless plotting to promote the dynastic claim of Mary Stuart, and foreign enterprises to invade the realm and put paid to the Tudors. Here the politics of disagreement about religion engendered a fair measure of violence on the part of the state toward some of its Catholic subjects, and this confrontation has come down to us most vividly through the martyrological narratives in which leading Catholic clerics described the sufferings of the faithful. Yet these narratives were themselves deliberately depoliticized. The context of the state's proceedings was largely cut away, and the actions and opinions of the Catholic martyrs that so irritated the regime were glossed over as part of an incisive rhetorical statement that Catholics died for their religion, not for any treasonable inclinations on their part. This was a brilliant polemical reply to the official propaganda that described Roman Catholic Englishmen as not merely ungodly but a lethal threat to the security of the state. In the regime's opinion, and in the antipopish canon that developed at this time, they were a fifth column of dissent set fair to exploit and assist foreign attempts to unseat the Tudor regime. The language of antipopery rode continually on a fear of domestic plots and schemes to meddle in the settlement of religion and the succession to the throne.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , October 1997 , pp. 371 - 396
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1997

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45 Cashman, M. J., “The Gateshead Martyr,” Recusant History 11 (1971): 121–32Google Scholar, esp. 123–24. Once Huntingdon had ascertained whom Ingram represented, his fate was sealed; see Anstruther, , The Seminary Priests, 1:182–84Google Scholar; HMC, Salisbury MSS, 5:6, 73, 122, 391Google Scholar; Pollen, , ed., Unpublished Documents, pp. 239–40Google Scholar.

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50 HMC, Salisbury MSS, 6:378Google Scholar. John Mush, one of the leading northern Romanist clerics, handed over responsibility for the York-Ainsty district in the mid-1580s to Francis Ingleby, the priest, David's brother, though he was swiftly arrested and executed; see Aveling, J. C. H., Catholic Recusancy in the City of York, 1558–1791 (London, 1970), p. 71Google Scholar.

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54 Pollen, , ed., Unpublished Documents, p. 222Google Scholar.

55 Strype, , Annals of the Reformation, 4:480–82Google Scholar. For the Hodgsons, see Talbot, , ed., Miscellanea, p. 122Google Scholar; Lemon, and Green, , eds., CSPD, 1598–1601, p. 188Google Scholar; Recusant Roll No. 1., 1592–3, ed. M.M.C. Calthrop, CRS 18 (London, 1916), pp. 84, 89, 102; Recusant Roll No. 2 (1593–1594), ed. H. Bowler, CRS 57 (London, 1965), p. 215; Bowler, H., ed., Recusant Roll No. 3 (1594–1595) and Recusant Roll No. 4 (1595–1596), CRS, vol. 61 (London, 1970), p. 252Google Scholar; Surtees, , The History and Antiquities, LlxxviiGoogle Scholar. John Hodgson was the receiver at Grosmont Priory, under the protection of the Cholmley family, of the priests brought in by the Neville network.

56 “Two Sermons, Hitherto Unpublished, of Dr. Tobie Mathew, When Dean of Durham in 1591, afterwards Archbishop of York,” Christian Observer (1847), pp. 603–18, 664–75, 722–34, 776–90, esp. pp. 784–89Google Scholar.

57 HMC, Salisbury MSS, 7:300Google Scholar; Pollen, , ed., Unpublished Documents, p. 221Google Scholar.

58 Pollen, , ed., Unpublished Documents, p. 221Google Scholar; Morris, , ed., The Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers, 3:164Google Scholar. In February 1594 Atkinson notified Sir Robert Cecil that he was trying to trap Ingleby and “has hounds abroad,” which, he trusts, “will lodge him as well as he lodged” Boste; see HMC, Salisbury MSS, 4:478Google Scholar. Atkinson kept in touch with Lord Burghley concerning Ingleby's expected arrest during the summer of 1594; see Lambeth Palace Library (LPL), London, MS 650, fol. 202r.

59 Bain, et al., eds., CSP Scottish, 1585–86, p. 694Google Scholar.

60 Pollen, , ed., Unpublished Documents, pp. 219–20Google Scholar; Morris, , ed., The Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers, 3:164, 194Google Scholar; HMC, Salisbury MSS, 5:83Google Scholar. Years later Atkinson was still citing Boste's nemesis as the zenith of his career in the service of the crown against northern Catholicism; see ibid., 21:55.

61 Anstruther, , The Seminary Priests, 1:9Google Scholar; Aveling, , Northern Catholics, pp. 162–63Google Scholar; HMC, Salisbury MSS, 7:300Google Scholar; Challoner, , Memoirs of Missionary Priests, p. 232Google Scholar. Atkinson also arrested, in February 1597, Francis Middleton, “an ould massing preist,” who “is well acquainted with David Inglebie”; see LPL, MS 655, fol. 93r. Middleton, alias Roger Venys, had been involved in the 1569 rising and fled with the rebels; see Hilton, , “Catholic Recusancy,” p. 90Google Scholar.

62 For Atkinson's association with Sanderson, see PRO, Star Chamber Proceedings (Stac. Proc.) 5/A1/6, mem. la, Stac. Proc. 5/A34/8, fol. 10r.

63 HMC, Salisbury MSS, 10:203Google Scholar. Marmaduke Blakiston had been attainted for his part in the 1569 rising; see Sharp, C., Memorials of the Rebellion (London, 1840), p. 33Google Scholar. Sanderson secured control of William Blakiston's estates through the provisions of the recusancy statutes; see PRO, E 134/4 James I/Easter 7 and Michaelmas 23.

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67 PRO, Stac. Proc. 5/S17/17, mem. la.

68 HMC, Salisbury MSS, 10:350Google Scholar. Topcliffe cooperated with Atkinson over the arrest of Alexander Markland; see LPL, MS 655, fol. 93r. Topcliffe, Sanderson, and Atkinson were associated in customs matters; see PRO, SP 46/42, fol. 81r.

69 Hasler, P. W.. ed., The House of Commons, 1558–1603, 3 vols. (London, 1981). 2:466Google Scholar.

70 Anstruther, , The Seminary Priests, 1:205Google Scholar.

71 Pollen, , ed., Unpublished Documents, pp. 219–20Google Scholar. Later on, we find Ewhanck interrogating the priest George Gervase; see PRO, SP 14/19/2.i.

72 James, , Family, Lineage, and Civil Society, p. 158Google Scholar.

73 Morris, , ed, The Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers, 3:134Google Scholar; HMC, Salisbury MSS, 8:347Google Scholar; Lemon, and Green, , eds., CSPD, 1611–18, pp. 395, 465Google Scholar; PRO, Stac. Proc. 8/268/1, mem. 2a. For an assessment of Ewbanck's ecclesiastical temper, see Marcombe, , “The Dean and Chapter of Durham,” p. 199Google Scholar. Sanderson was on far from easy terms with Bishop William James, another antipapist; see PRO, SP 14/57/117. Francis Eglis-field, with whom Atkinson cooperated in the capture of Boste, decided to assist with the allegations of customs fraud brought against Atkinson in 1601. Eglisfield was formerly Atkinson's friend but had now turned against him because he, said Atkinson, “would not mayntayne him with monie, horse and apparell when he would call for yt”; see PRO, Stac. Proc. 5/A36/29, mem. la.

74 He obtained an official post there by destroying the credit of John Hewett, the searcher in residence, who subsequently became his severest critic; see PRO, SP 12/19/16; British Library (BL), London, Lansdowne (Lansd.) MS 52, fol. 149r, Lansd. MS 104. fol. 172r; HMC, Salisbury MSS, 6:67Google Scholar; Dasent et al., eds., APC, 1596–97, p. 167Google Scholar; Stanewell, L. M., ed., City and County of Kingston upon Hull: Calendar of the Ancient Deeds Letters, Miscellaneous Old Documents, &c, in the Archives of the Corporation (Hull. 1951), p. 162Google Scholar. Atkinson found time also to operate a commission against piracy; see BL, Lansd. MS 172, fols. 80r-4r, cf. Lansd. MS 145, fol. 33r–v; cf. Reid, , King's Council, p. 345Google Scholar.

75 Hull had a strategic significance, and having a reliable government man there made sense when there were rumors, however far-fetched, of conspiracies by Catholics to take over the port after bribing the customs officials to admit them; see HMC, Salisbury MSS, 5:184–85Google Scholar. Atkinson supplied information about the landing of Spanish soldiers in Scot-land and of Scottish military movements; see ibid., 4:478.

76 Atkinson instigated an aggressive searching policy. In May 1597 the mayor and aldermen of Hull complained to Sir Robert Cecil that Atkinson was petitioning the privy council that the number of quays should be restricted to increase the efficiency of inspection of vessels, while the corporation said it would ruin the commercial viability of the main street in Hull; see HMC, Salisbury MSS, 7:203Google Scholar. (Their dislike of Atkinson could not have been diminished by the assistance which he gave to the commissioners for defective titles working in and around Hull who were interested in what they thought were the defects of the corporation's own title to some of its property; see BL, Additional [Add.] MS 36767, fol. 176r.) Atkinson said he had advanced the customs of the port of Hull from £1,300 to £2,800 annually in the ten years since 1586, the sole reason why he was held in such “great hatred” there; see HMC, Salisbury MSS, 6:378Google Scholar; cf. LPL, MS 655, fol. 83r.

77 PRO, Stac. Proc. 5/A52/35; Hull Record Office, Bench Book 4, fol. 310v (for which reference I am grateful to Simon Healy). Graves assisted the persons who wanted to eject Atkinson from his customs post for fraud while in office.

78 In mid-1594 Lord Burghley had received from Atkinson information about the backwardness in religion and even recusancy of Thomas Beasant, the deputy of an official called Swynnerton; see LPL, MS 650, fol. 202r. Atkinson had previously removed Hewett by alleging not just that he was defrauding the customs but also that “he haith spoken yll of this Religion”; see BL, Lansd. MS 52, fol. 149r. In 1602 Atkinson repeated allegations that Hewett had assisted “unlawfull passengers” in and out of the port; see PRO, Stac. Proc. 5/A36/29, mem. la. (Thomas Gurling, temporarily a business partner of Atkinson, but subsequently a supporter of Atkinson's enemy, Hewett, had been subjected to accusations of conveying papists beyond the seas, hearing Mass, having a papist wife, and hoping for an alteration in religion; see PRO, SP 12/201/55, fol. 83r.) When the wheel came full circle and Atkinson was accused of corruption, Jane Jobson, a cousin of Sir Robert Cecil who petitioned on Atkinson's behalf (after he lost his post), claimed that Emmanuel Fenton, his successor, who conspired with John Hewett to manage the suit against Atkinson in exchequer chamber with the express object of supplanting him, had started to allow “popish passengers” through, as well as to perpetrate fraud; see BL, Lansd. MS 80, fols. 109r–12r; PRO, Stac. Proc. 5/A36/29, fol. 2r, Stac. Proc. 5/A1/6, mem. la; HMC, Salis-bury MSS, 20:148Google Scholar. Priests traveling from the Netherlands would arrive on the east coast, particularly at Hull and Newcastle; see Dures, A., English Catholicism, 1558–1642: Continuity and Change (London, 1983), p. 21Google Scholar.

79 Bain, et al., eds., CSP Scottish, 1589–93, p. 672Google Scholar.

80 Lemon, and Green, , eds., CSPD, 1598–1601, p. 24Google Scholar; Dasent, et al., eds., APC, 1597–98, p. 317Google Scholar. Anthony Scarcroft, the betrayer of Joseph Constable, also brought accusations against John Carr, the postmaster of Newcastle, which appear to link Carr with the Neville faction, in that he had aided John Boste; see Morris, , ed., The Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers, 3:177–78Google Scholar. Atkinson informed against Carr as well; see Pollen, , ed., Unpublished Documents, p. 221Google Scholar.

81 HMC, Salisbury MSS, 10:204Google Scholar; Hasler, , ed., House of Commons, 1:594Google Scholar; Lemon, and Green, , eds., CSPD, 1595–97, pp. 428, 501Google Scholar; Dasent, et al., eds., APC, 1596–97, p. 27Google Scholar, APC, 1597–98, pp. 225, 290, 317, APC, 1598–99, pp. 295, 357.

82 HMC, Salisbury MSS, 4:210Google Scholar; cf. BL, Royal MS 17 C IV, fol. 1r–v.

83 Lemon, and Green, , eds., CSPD, 1598–1601, p. 24Google Scholar.

84 Lemon, and Green, , eds., CSPD Addenda, 1580–1625, p. 345Google Scholar. Jenison complained how Sanderson and others had convened him before the ecclesiastical commissioners in Durham and how Mathew sent information against him to the privy council; see HMC. Salisbury MSS, 8:384Google Scholar.

85 James, , Family, Lineage, and Civil Society, pp. 138–41Google Scholar.

86 Ibid. p. 158; HMC, Salisbury MSS, 8:386Google Scholar.

87 Bishop Mathew made precisely the same complaint, HMC, Salisbury MSS, 6:62–63Google Scholar.

88 Ibid., 4:210.

89 PRO, E 134/40 Elizabeth I/Hilary 7, mem. 2a.

90 PRO, SP 14/83/37, fol. 60r. Poisoning and popery were closely connected in the Overbury investigations, and Sanderson was picking up the association prevalent in the minds of the prosecutors and general public; see Lindley, D., The Trials of Frances Howard: Fact and Fiction at the Court of King James (London, 1993), p. 165Google Scholar.

91 Richard Topcliffe (who cooperated with Atkinson over the arrest of Markland) did customs-related work; see Pollen, , ed., Unpublished Documents, p. 218Google Scholar; LPL, MS 655, fol. 93r; PRO, SP 46/42, fol. 81r. Atkinson knew John Thornborough, who for a time was the most enthusiastic crown and high commission official in the North for the enforcement of penal legislation against Catholics; see HMC, Salisbury MSS, 13:254. They were both interested in the raising of revenue by detection of defective titles, BL, Add. MS 36767, fols. 141r, 176r; Lemon, and Green, , eds., CSPD, 1603–10, p. 430Google Scholar.

92 Sir Richard Grosvenor, another vigorous practical antipapist, as Richard Cust and Peter Lake show, thought that the papist had “a temporal equivalent in the habitue of the alehouse.” Both practices “undermined the basis for a civilised social life”; see Cust, R. and Lake, P., “Sir Richard Grosvenor and the Rhetoric of Magistracy,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 54 (1981): 40–53, esp. 45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

93 LPL, MS 659, fol. 197r.

94 LPL, MS 655, fol. 83r; PRO, Proc. Stac. 5/A38/38, fol. 11r, Stac. Proc. 5/A34/8, fols. 8r, 66r, 3r, lOr, 92r; Lemon, and Green, , eds., CSPD, 1601–03, pp. 144, 209Google Scholar; Archives of the Archdiocese of Westminster, ser. A, VII, p. 199, for Henry Floyd's report in March 1602 concerning Atkinson's conviction for embezzlement and his remarks about Buckhurst's relations.

95 HMC, Salisbury MSS, 12:565–67Google Scholar; Hasler, , ed., House of Commons, 2:196Google Scholar; Loomie, A. J., “Spain and the English Catholic Exiles, 1580–1604” (Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1957), pp. 535–36Google Scholar. Atkinson claimed also that Buckhurst was making sure that no one touched his son-in-law, the second Viscount Montague, whose household provided a headquarters for the Catholic secular clergy. See also Archives of the Archdiocese of Westminster, ser. A, p. 199, for Atkinson's allegation that he had had to give so much for his office that if he was guilty of fraud it was only to make up what he had paid out to, inter alia, Anne Glemham, Buckhurst's daughter, “but this little avayled hym.”

96 BL, Royal MS 17 C IV.

97 Thornborough, John, A Discourse (London, 1604), pp. 28–29Google Scholar, The Joiefull and Blessed Reuniting (Oxford, [London, 1605?]), pp. 11, 76–77Google Scholar; Galloway, B., The Union of England and Scotland, 1603–1608 (Edinburgh, 1986), pp. 31, 33Google Scholar. This was the line also which Thornborough took in the debates with recusants in York Castle in 1599–1600; see BL, Add. MS 34250, fol. 13v.

98 Collinson, Patrick, “The Elizabethan Exclusion Crisis and the Elizabethan Polity,” Proceedings of the British Academy 84 (1994): 51–92Google Scholar.

99 Ibid., p. 71.

100 During James's reign, Archdeacon William Morton vented his anger on Bishop William James by proposing that the extensive secular powers attached to the bishop of Durham's office should be taken from him in order to benefit the crown; see James, , Family, Lineage, and Civil Society, p. 166Google Scholar.

101 Atkinson had been appointed to his searcher's post through Cecil patronage; see BL, Lansd. MS 104, fol. 172r; HMC, Salisbury MSS, 20:148Google Scholar. But in September 1596 he was sending the earl of Essex information about Ingleby and Constable and in February 1597 requested the earl's warrant to raid various places including Kirby Knowle: see ibid., 6:378; cf. LPL, MS 659, fols. 62r, 197r; BL. Add. MS 4117, fols. 44v–45r.

102 Graves, M. A. R., “Thomas Norton the Parliament Man: An Elizabethan M.P., 1559–81,” Historical Journal 23 (1980): 17–35, esp. 25–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am grateful for this point to Peter Lake.

103 PRO, Stac. Proc. 5/S17/17, mem. la; cf. Dasent, et al., eds., APC, 1598–99. p. 709Google Scholar.

104 Pollen, J. H., Acts of the English Martyrs (London, 1891). p. 119Google Scholar; Pollen, , ed., Unpublished Documents, pp. 209–10Google Scholar.

105 Graves, , “Thomas Norton the Parliament Man,” p. 33Google Scholar.

106 HMC, Salisbury MSS, 10:253Google Scholar; Bain, et al., eds., CSP Scottish, 1597–1603, pp. 541–43, 643–44, 647Google Scholar.

107 James, , Family, Lineage, and Civil Society, pp. 88–89Google Scholar. Sir John Claxton was involved in the earl of Somerset's attempt to eject Sanderson from Brancepeth Castle; see PRO, Stac. Proc. 8/268/1, mem. 2a.

108 Lake, “Anti-popery,” pp. 86–87; Cust, Richard and Hughes, Ann, “Introduction: After Revisionism,” in Cust, and Hughes, , eds., Conflict in Early Stuart England, pp. 1–46, esp. p. 21Google Scholar. For the way in which a traditional antipopish discourse, John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, became an oppositional text, see Knott, , Discourses of Martyrdom, pp. 34Google Scholar; and Milton, , Catholic and Reformed, p. 539Google Scholar.