Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-12T15:27:21.426Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Anti-Catholic Polemical Writing on the ‘Rising in the North’ (1569) and the Catholic Reaction1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Daniela Busse
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This article seeks to investigate the public images of the 1569 Rising in the North, as conceived by government policy, propaganda and loyalist writers on the one hand and by Catholic theologians and sympathisers on the other. It focuses especially on texts such as proclamations, homilies, street and folk ballads, pamphlets and tracts. To date there is only one study which deals extensively with the polemical literature on the Rising. This is that by J. K. Lowers published in 1953. He concentrates on Tudor ideas of civil obedience and its representation in loyalist writing wanting to help literature students to understand contemporary texts. As a literary study his book is valuable and he makes some highly relevant points.

To date there is only one study which deals extensively with the polemical literature on the Rising. This is that by J. K. Lowers published in 1953. He concentrates on Tudor ideas of civil obedience and its representation in loyalist writing wanting to help literature students to understand contemporary texts. As a literary study his book is valuable and he makes some highly relevant points.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , May 2004 , pp. 11 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 44th Annual Conference of the Catholic Record Society in July 2001. I would like to thank all participants for comments and suggestions and Dr. Christine Newman and Dr. Leo Gooch for their help.

References

2 Lowers, J. K., Mirrors for Rebels. A Study of Polemical Literature Relating to the Northern Rebellion 1569 (Berkeley, 1953)Google Scholar.

3 Selden, J., Table Talk, ed. Reynolds, S.H. (1698, Oxford, 1892) p. 105 Google Scholar.

4 Rollins, H. E., ed., A Pepysian Garland. Black-Letter Broadside Ballads of the Years 1595–1639. Chiefly from the collection of Samuel Pepys (1922, Cambridge, Mass. 1971) p. xii Google Scholar.

5 Köhler, H.-J., ‘Fragestellungen und Methoden zur Interpretation frühneu-zeitlicher Flugschriften’, in: Köhler, H.-J., ed., Flugschriften als Massenmedium der Reformationszeit. Beiträge zum Tübinger Symposion 1980 (Stuttgart, 1981) p. 27 Google Scholar.

6 Marotti, A. F., Catholicism and Anti-Catholicism in Early Modern English Texts (Basingstoke, 1999) p. xvi CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Hughes, P. L / Larkin, J. F., eds., Tudor Royal Proclamations, vol. 2 (1553–1587), vol. 3 (1588–1603) (New Haven & London, 1969)Google Scholar.

8 (24.12.1569) By the Queene. The Queenes Maiestie was sundry wyse about the latter ende of this summer infourmed of some secrete whysperynges in certaine places of Yorkshire, and the Bishopricke of Durham, that there was lyke to be shortly some assemblies of lewde people in those partes, tendyng to a rebellion (STC 8021) SP 12/59/20.

9 (19.12.1569) A Proclamation set forth by the Lord Levetenant the xixth of Novembre, 1569, by vertue and commandment of the Quenes Majesties Warrant, directed to hym for that purpose, bearyng date the xvth of November, 1569 Printed in Sharp, C, Memorials of the Rebellion of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland (Durham, 1840, 1975), pp. 50fGoogle Scholar.

10 (18.02.1570) The queens most excellent maiestie consydering the pardoning of certain rebels (STC 8023) SP 12/66/54.

11 (1570) By the Privy Council. The fourme of the othe made by such as haue made their humble submission to the Queenes Maiesties Commissioners, for their offences in the late rebellion begun in the North in Nouember. 1569. and the twelfth yere of the raigne of the Queenes Maiestie, Elizabeth by the grace of God. &c. (STC 8024) Printed in Strype, J., Annals of the Reformation and establishment of religion, and other various occurences in the Church of England, during Queen Elizabeth’s happy reign, vol. 1 part 2 (Oxford, 1824, New York, 1965) pp. 321fGoogle Scholar. PRO 30/26/116.

12 ‘And you shall also swear that you do utterly testify and declare in your consciences that the Queen’s highness is the only supreme governor of this realm and of all other her highness’ dominations and countries, as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes temporal; and that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, preeminence, or authority ecclesiastical or spiritual within this realm.’ (Hughes, P. L./Larkin, J. F. (1969) p. 329.).

13 Printed in CSP Dom. Add. 1566–79, ed Lemon, R., (London, 1856, Nendeln, Liechtenstein, 1967) pp. 251fGoogle Scholar.

14 Homilie agaynst disobedience and wylful rebellion. Certain sermons or homilies appointed to be read in churches (STC 13675; 13679.2; etc) Part of text in Strype, J. (1965) pp. 322–24.

15 ‘Exhortation concerning good order and obedience, to rulers and magistrates’ (1547), in: Certayne Sermons, or Homilies appoynted by the kynges maiestie, to be declared and redde, by all persons, vicars, or curates, euery Sonday in their churches, where thei haue cure. (STC 13638.5; 13639).

16 White, H., Social Criticism in Popular Religious Literature of the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1944) pp. 168fGoogle Scholar.

17 Allen, J. W., A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1928, 1957) p. 131 Google Scholar.

18 STC 995; Printed in Lilly (1867) pp. 121–23.

19 STC 7555; Printed in Lilly (1867) pp. 174–78.

20 Cf. Reid, R. R., ‘The Rebellion of the Earls’, in: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, new series 20 (1909) p. 198 Google Scholar.

21 STC 20289.

22 Rollins, H. E., ‘William Elderton: Elizabethan actor and ballad-writer’, in: Studies in Philology 17 (1920) p. 243 Google Scholar.

23 For further information on Thomas Norton see Graves, M. A. R., Thomas Norton: The Parliament Man (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar.

24 STC 10591.

25 To the Queenes poore deceiued subiectes of the north countreye, drawne into rebellion by the Earles of Northumberland and Westmorland (STC 18679.5; 18680) Partly printed in Strype, J. (1965) pp. 328ff.

26 Churchyard does so in: Come bring in Maye with me, my Maye is fresh and greene: (a Subiectes harte, an humble mind) to serue a mayden Queene. A discourse of Rebellion, Drawne forth for to warne the wanton wittes how to kepe their heads on their shoulders (STC 5224).

27 A similar list of arguments can be found in Lowers, J. K. (1953) p. 79.

28 Lock, J., ‘“How Many Tercios Has The Pope?” The Spanish War and the Sublimation of Elizabethan Anti-Popery’, in: History 81 (1996) pp. 197–214 Google Scholar. Cf. also Lake, Peter, , ‘The significance of the Elizabethan identification of the pope as Antichrist’, in: Journal of Ecclesiastical History 31 (1980) pp. 161–80 Google Scholar.

29 Wiener, C. Z., ‘The Beleaguered Isle. A Study of Elizabethan and Early Jacobean Anti-Catholicism’, in: Past & Present 51 (1971) p. 33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Trimble, W., The Catholic Laity in Elizabethan England 1558–1603 (Cambridge, Mass., 1964) pp. 174ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Walsham, A., Church Papists, Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (London, 1993)Google Scholar.

31 ‘For anti-Spanish feeling to become so important, it was necessary to move somewhat away from the tradition of Protestant apocalypticism, which was both international in its production and concerned with supranational, indeed supernatural, forces more than with the question of the virtues and vices of individual countries.’ (Lock, J. (1996) p. 210.).

32 Giesen, B., ed., Nationale und kulturelle Identität (Frankfurt a. M., 1991, 1996) p. 12 Google Scholar: ‘(. . .) nationale Identität wird hier von der Emphase patriotischer Tugend getragen und durch die Unbedingtheit des Glaubens gestützt.’ See also C. Z. Wiener: ‘The ambivalence of Elizabethan England can be seen, then, as an expression of the growing pains of nation-building. As they tried to establish their country’s sovereignty and integrity, Englishmen encountered hostility from many sides—the old local and aristocratic interests which might have destroyed the nation from the inside, the Roman Church which might have destroyed it from without.’ (1971, p. 61.).

33 Loades, D. M., ‘The Press under the Early Tudors. A Study in Censorship and Sedition’, in: Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 4 (1964) p. 50 Google Scholar.

34 Questier, M., ‘Practical Anti-Papistry during the reign of Elizabeth’, in: Journal of British Studies 36 (1997) p. 372 CrossRefGoogle Scholar comments on this reaction to the rising: ‘The Elizabethan state was never more efficient than when it defended itself against Romanist incursions in the North’.

35 Printed in Percy (1876) pp. 266–78, Child (1860) pp. 82–91, Child (1898) pp. 401–08 and Ingledew, C. J. D., ed., The ballads and songs of Yorkshire (London, 1860, Norwood, 1974) pp. 104–12 Google Scholar.

36 Printed in Percy (1876) pp. 279–94, Child (1860) pp. 92–103 and Child (1898) pp. 408–16.

37 Printed in Child (1898) pp. 416–23.

38 Child (1898) p. 417.

39 Child (1898) p. 403, also Percy (1876) p. 267.

40 ‘Exclamatioun Maid in England Vpone the Delyuerance of the Erie of Northumberland furth of Lochlevin quho immediately thairefter wes execute in Yorke’. Printed in: Pinkerton (1786) pp. 219–22; Cranstoun (1891) pp. 240–43 and in Craigie (1920) pp. 182–85.

41 Printed in Pinkerton (1786) pp. 223–27, Cranstoun (1891) pp. 244–47 and in Craigie (1920) pp. 186–89.

42 Printed in Pinkerton (1786) pp. 228–34, Cranstoun (1891) pp. 248–53 and in Craigie (1920) pp. 190–96.

43 Lowers, J. K. (1953) p. 47, cited from ‘Inveccyde’, 3rd stanza lines 3–6.

44 ‘Ballad of the death of Ratcliffe which rose with the Earl of Northumberland Lord Percy which he made a little space before he was hanged’. Printed in Seng, P. J., Tudor songs and ballads: from MS Cotton Vespasian A-25 (Cambridge, Mass., 1978) pp. 93–96 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and in Böddeker, K., ‘Englische Lieder und Balladen aus dem 16. Jahrhundert’, in: Jahrbuch für romanische und englische Sprache und Literatur, vol. 3 (Leipzig, 1876) pp. 92–95 Google Scholar.

45 ‘The Copie of a Ryme made by one Singleton a gent, of Lancashire now Prisoner at York for religion’ Cotton MS. Caligula B. iv, f. 245, II. 7–42. Printed in Wright, T., Queen Elizabeth and Her Times, vol. 1 part 2 (London, 1838) pp. 432–34 Google Scholar. Part of text in Guiney, L. I., Recusant Poets. With a selection from their works (New York, 1939) p. 251 Google Scholar under the title ‘The Betrayal of Northumberland’.

46 Guiney reports that the author probably was the son of James Singleton, Esq. and of a daughter of Sir Thomas Talbot, and was married to a Bolton, but this is uncertain. Cf. Guiney, L. I. (1939) p. 245 and Gillow, J., Literary and Biographical History: Or, Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics from the Breach with Rome in 1534 to the Present Time, 5 vols (New York, 1962) vol. 5, p. 267 Google Scholar.

47 (24.06.1572) CSP Dom. Add. 1566–79 (1967) p. 414.

48 Holmes, P., Resistance and Compromise: the Political Thought of the Elizabethan Catholics (Cambridge, 1982)Google Scholar.

49 Aveling, J. H. C, The Handle and the Axe. The Catholic Recusants in England from the Reformation to Emancipation (London, 1976) p. 50 Google Scholar.

50 Sanders, N., De origine ac progressu schismatis anglicani (1585) cited in: Southern, A. C, Elizabethan Recusant Prose, 1559–1582: a historical and critical account of the books of the Catholic refugees printed and published abroad and at secret presses in England together with an annotated bibliography of the same (London, 1950, Folcroft Pa., 1975) p. 36 Google Scholar.

51 Edwards, F., The Marvellous Chance. Thomas Howard, Fourth Duke of Norfolk, and the Ridolphi Plot, 1570–1572 (London, 1968) pp. 381ffGoogle Scholar.

52 STC 13869.

53 STC 15506; ARCR, vol. 2, p. 98.

54 ARCR, vol. 1, pp. 139f.

55 Merrick, M. M., Thomas Percy. Seventh Earl (London, 1949) p. 123 Google Scholar.

56 ARCR, vol. 1, pp. 119f.

57 Briefe Treatise of diuerse plaine and sure wayes to finde out the truthe in this doubtful and dangerous time of Heresie: conteyning sundry worthy Motiues vnto the Catholike faith, or Considerations to moue a man to beleue the Catholikes, and not the Heretikes. Sette out by Richard Bristow Priest, Licentiat in Diuinitie (printed by John Fowler in Antwerp ‘Cum Privilegi’ 1574, repr. 1599) (STC 3799; ARCR, vol. 2, pp. 19f.) The Motives were based on a manuscript of William Allen known as ‘Allen’s articles’ (ARCR, vol. 2, p. 16.).

58 Cf. Lowers, J. K. (1953) pp. 46f.

59 STC 18259.

60 STC 11449, cf. Milward, P., Religious Controversies of the Elizabethan Age (London, 1978) pp. 39–45 Google Scholar.

61 William Allen in True, Sincere and Modest Defence of the English Catholics that suffer for their faith both at home and abroad (1584) (STC 373). Cited in Southern, A. C. (1975) p. 391. The greater part of this edition was confiscated by the English government and used in the trial against Edmund Campion in 1581 in order to prove the treasonable activities of the Catholics.

62 Rogers D. M., ed., Concertano Ecclesiae Catholicae in Anglia adversus Calvinopapistas et Puritanos, (John Gibbons, Trier, 1588, Farnborough, Westmead 1970).

63 True, Sincere and Modest Defence of the English Catholics that suffer for their faith both at home and abroad (1584) (STC 373).

64 Verstegan, R., Theatrum Crudelitatum Haereticorum Nostri Temporis, (Antwerp, 1588, Columbus, Ohio, 1888). (ARCR, vol. 1, pp. 171f.)Google Scholar.

65 Walsham, A., ‘“Domme Preachers”? Post-Reformation English Catholicism and the Culture of Print’ in: Past & Present 168 (2000) p. 113 Google Scholar.