Loyalty, religion and state power in early modern England: English romanism and the jacobean oath of allegiance

Historical Journal

Volumn 40, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 311-329

  Questier, M C ^a  

^a KING'S COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 85022704543     PISSN: 0018246X     EISSN: 14695103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X97007176     Document Type: Article

References (203)

1. K. Fincham and P. Lake, ‘The ecclesiastical policy of King James I’, Journal of British Studies, XXIV (1985), 170–206.
2. J. C. H. Aveling, Northern catholics (London, 1966), pp. 125–127
3. V. Burke, ‘Catholic recusants in Elizabethan Worcestershire’ (unpublished M.A. dissertation, University of Birmingham, 1972), pp. 278–280
4. J. T. Cliffe, The Yorkshire gentry (London, 1969), pp. 213–216.
5. Arguably, though, the financial penalties against recusants were more to do with a sensible system of tax-farming rather than the eradication of popery; M. C. Questier, ‘Sir Henry Spiller, recusancy and the efficiency of the Jacobean exchequer’, Historical Research, LXVI (1993), 251–266.
6. For the passage of 3 James I, c.4 through parliament, J. V. Gifford, ‘The controversy over the oath of allegiance of 1606’ (unpublished D.Phil. dissertation, University of Oxford, 1971), pp. 41–43
7. J. P. Sommerville, ‘Jacobean political thought and the controversy over the oath of allegiance’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1981), pp. 3–4. In the negotiations between the secular clergy and the regime starting in the late 1590s there had been proposed several forms of oaths and declarations of loyalty.
8. J. Bossy, ‘Henri IV, the appellants and the Jesuits’, Recusant History, VIII (1965), 80–122, at pp. 87–90, 96–100
9. J. Bossy, The English catholic community, 1570–1850 (London, 1975), pp. 39–41
10. Gifford, ‘Controversy’, pp. 46–55
11. D. Lunn, The English Benedictines, 1540–1688 (London, 1980), pp. 38–39
12. R. G. Usher, The reconstruction of the English church (2 vols., London, 1910), 11, 103, 312–13
13. cf P.R.O. (Public Record Office), S.P. 14/8/125.i
14. B.L. (British Library), Lansd. MS 487. fo. 3IV.
15. J. P. Kenyon, The Stuart constitution (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 458–459.
16. A.A.W. (Archives of the Archdiocese of Westminster), A Series [paginated], VIII, 17–20
17. H. Foley, Records of the English province of the Society of Jesus (7 vols., London, 1875–83), IV, 377, cf 284
18. Sommerville, ‘Jacobean political thought’, p. 29
19. C.S.P.V. (Calendar of state papers Venetian) 1603–1607, p. 322.
20. Sommerville, ‘Jacobean political thought’, pp. 32–3, 37.
21. Sommerville, ‘Jacobean political thought’, pp. 30–31
22. C.J. Ryan, ‘The Jacobean oath of allegiance and English lay catholics’, Catholic Historical Review, XXVIII (1942), 159–83, at pp. 166–7
23. W. K. L. Webb, ‘Thomas Preston O.S.B., alias Roger Widdrington (1567–1640)’, Biographical Studies, 11 (1953–1954), 216–69, at p. 222
24. Gifford, ‘Controversy’, pp. 58–59
25. A.A.W., A VIII, 31, 233, 237–9, 241–2
26. Bodl. (Bodleian Library), Tanner MS 75, fos. 238r-9r
27. Lunn, English Benedictines, pp. 40–53
28. L.J. Hicks, ed., Letters of Thomas Fitzherbert, 1608–1610 (C.R.S. (Catholic Record Society) XLI, London, 1948), 13
29. A.A.W., A IX-XV, passim.
30. The memorandum book of Richard Cholmeley of Brandsby, 1602–1623 (North Yorkshire county record office publications, no. 44, 1988), p. 44
31. Borthwick Institute, H.C.A.B. 12, fos. 84r, 89v for the leading Yorkshire recusants who took the oath in October 1607 before John Thornborough in York minster.
32. Peter Brasse, whose property was subject to sequestration for recusancy on more occasions than any other Yorkshire recusant, took the oath in July 1613. J. C. Atkinson, ed., Quarter sessions records (North Riding record society, 1–111, London, 1884), 11, 23.
33. J. C. H. Aveling, Catholic recusancy in the city of York, 1558–1791 (London, 1970), p. 83.
34. A.A.W., A X, 173 (printed in Tierney (M. A. Tierney, Dodd's Church history of England (5 vols., London, 1839–1843)), IV, clxxiii-clxxv).
35. Fincham and Lake, ‘Ecclesiastical policy’, pp. 171,185–6
36. Sommerville, ‘Jacobean political thought’, p. 25
37. cf. M. Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot (Manchester, 1991), p. 49
38. J. C. H. Aveling, The catholic recusants of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1558–1790 (Proceedings of the Leeds philosophical and literary society, literary and historical section, vol. X, pt. 6, Leeds, 1963), pp. 230–231.
39. Gifford, ‘Controversy’, p. iv.
40. Gifford, ‘Controversy’, pp. 40–41
41. James I, Triplici nodo, triplex cuneus (London, 1607), p. 3
42. Sir Francis Hastings, An apologie or defence of the watch-word (London, 1600), p. 170.
43. A.A.W., A XI, 269.
44. cf. Foley, Records, VII, 1059, the annual letter for 1614 repeating the sharp attack on some of the prominent secular clergy by Robert Jones S.J. that they failed to ‘lay before the faithful the Apostolic precepts about the profane oath’, and in consequence many take it, attend heretical churches and ‘swallow the Calvinist bread’
45. Foley, Records, IV, 377. Even the moderate archpriest Birkhead thought that the Society was undermining the seculars' position in England by making accusations that they compromised over the oath, when Birkhead was doing all that he could to ensure discipline among the seculars
46. A.A.W., A XI, 213.
47. Hicks, Letters, pp. 122–3. The clergy agent there, Thomas More, got into the Jesuits' bad books over his denunciation of Persons' line on the oath
48. A.A.W., A X, 411, 414. When William Bishop refused it in May 1611 he did it in such a way as to show that he was not in sympathy with the Jesuit-led official polemical opposition to the oath
49. P.R.O. S.P. 14/63/74, fos. 108r-9r
50. A.A.W., A XI, 347–8. He was still in trouble about his opinions on the deposing power in 1615 (expressed in what were regarded as suspect passages of his book A disproofe of D. Abbots counterproofe)
51. A.A.W., A XIV, 100, 237, 457, 469, 593.
52. A.A.W., A X, 57, 413. The Jesuit Nicholas Smith thought the oath could be taken by an equivocating catholic because it was not de fide
53. Sommerville, ‘Jacobean political thought’, p. 39.
54. A.A.W., A XIII, 230. The European reaction to the Jesuit Suarez's definitions of the pope's temporal power caused the Society some considerable embarrassment
55. A.A.W., A XIII, 355.
56. D. Lunn, ‘English Benedictines and the oath of allegiance, 1606–1647’, Recusant History, X (1969), 146–63, at pp. 149, 151–2.
57. A.A.W., A X, 307–8 (part printed in Tierney, IV, clxxvi-clxxxi), 347, 389, 513
58. cf. A.A.W., A X, 41, 73, 74, 93, XI, 64.
59. A.A.W., A X, 57.
60. A.A.W., A VIII, 39, XVI, 119.
61. Birkhead told More in August 1612 that he was ‘ever remisse in havinge any thinge don [even] against Mr Blackwell’; More's continued dissent, said Birkhead, ‘maketh me at my wittes end’, and he threatened to get another agent
62. A.A.W., A XI, 351–353
63. A.A.W., A XI, 63.
64. A.A.W., A X, 57
65. Sheldon, Motives, sig. Rr.
66. A.A.W., A XII, 387
67. John Clinch, a secular priest in the north (and confessor to Sir Roger Widdrington the loyalist catholic whose name concealed the polemical authorship of Thomas Preston), was reported in August 1612 to be of opinion with Mr Blackwell and the rest’; it seems that he may have been among the priests in the north in the 1590s who supported some compromise position over attendance of protestant churches, opinions which he was still maintaining in 1612; A.A.W., A XI, 352–3, 521
68. G. Anstruther, The seminary priests (4 vols., Ware and Great Wakering, 1968–1977), 1, 81
69. Aveling, Northern catholics, p. 168.
70. Anstruther, Seminary priests, 1, 22–24
71. Lambeth Palace Library, MS 2006, fo. 191r
72. Bodl., Barlow MS 13, fo. 103r
73. Bodl., Bodley MS 313, fo. 17r
74. A.A.W., A XI, 345.
75. A.A.W., A XI, 213.
76. A true report of the araignment…of…Robert Drewrie (London, 1607), sigs. B4v-C3r.
77. A.A.W., A XII, 461.
78. B.L., Lansd. MS 64, fo. 10v.
79. A.A.W., A VIII, 39
80. HMC Salisbury MSS, VIII, 407–408
81. J. E. Neale, Elizabeth and her parliaments, 1584–1601 (London, 1957), p. 54
82. cf. James Howell, ed., Cottoni posthuma (London, 1651), p. 154.
83. Gifford, ‘Controversy’, pp. 70, 78
84. Lunn, ‘English Benedictines’, p. 148
85. B.L., Lansd. MS 92, fo. 111r
86. A.A.W., A IX, 117 (part printed in Tierney, IV, clxiii), X, 93, XI, 85
87. P.R.O., S.P. 14/49/26, fo. 44r
88. William Harrison, The difference of hearers (London, 1614), sig. A7r, implying mass refusal in Lancashire
89. Sommerville, ‘Jacobean political thought’, p. 38.
90. R. Challoner, ed. J. H. Pollen, Memoirs of missionary priests (London, 1924), p. 332.
91. Fincham and Lake, ‘Ecclesiastical policy’, p. 184
92. cf. B.L., Lansd. MS 153, fo. 293v
93. L. J. Ward, ‘The law of treason in the reign of Elizabeth I, 1558–1588’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1985), p. 60.
94. C. H. McIlwain, ed., The political works of James I (New York, 1965), pp. 285, 323.
95. Gifford, ‘Controversy’, p. 43.
96. Sommerville, however, argues that this clause was just one of a number of aspects of the oath which Romanists found equally objectionable; Sommerville, ‘Jacobean political thought’, p. 109
97. but cf. Gifford, ‘Controversy’, p. 48
98. B.L., Lansd. MS 487, fo. 30r
99. zealous catholics were frequently prepared to swear loyalty to the king irrespective of whether the pope had excommunicated him, but rejected this clause and thus the entire oath, A.A.W., A XI, 77.
100. John Almond singled out this clause as the oath's principal offence against catholic sensibilities; Challoner, ed. Pollen, Memoirs, p. 331.
101. Lunn, ‘English Benedictines’, p. 147
102. William Bishop said the reason he would not take the oath was that by it ‘a man must abjure a certaine proposition as hereticall, which to be hereticall hee doth not finde that anie Counsell hath yet declared’; P.R.O., S.P. 14/63/74, fo. 108v
103. cf. A.A.W., B 24, no. 20.
104. Sectarian division occurred more clearly over who had power or authority to depose a king; J. P. Sommerville, Politics and ideology in England, 1603–1640 (London, 1986), p. 190.
105. Gifford, ‘Controversy’, chs. 5 and 6.
106. Cf. Sommerville, ‘Jacobean political thought’, pp. 154, 210, 272–4, 318
107. Sommerville, Politics and ideology, pp. 196–198.
108. Gifford, ‘Controversy’, pp. 182–190
109. Samuel Page, The allegeance of the cleargie (London, 1616), pp. 10–12.
110. Gifford, ‘Controversy’, pp. 80–81
111. Robert Persons, The iudgment of a Catholicke English-Man (St Omer, 1608), p. 13
112. John Percy, A reply made unto Mr. Anthony Wotton and Mr. Iohn White (St Omer, 1612), p. 82.
113. The act books of the high commission at York record that in February 1607 John Fletcher appeared in York Castle and was offered the oath of the ‘Kings supremacie [sic] maid in the last sess[ion] of Parliament’, Borthwick, H.C.A.B. 12, fo. 25r.
114. Stonyhurst, Collectanea MS P I, fo. 161v.
115. Sommerville, ‘Jacobean political thought’, p. 4. As Sommerville points out, the Elizabethan regime had forced priests to speak their minds about the deposing power, but recusants had not been quizzed thus
116. ‘Jacobean political thought’, p. 16.
117. B.L., Lansd. MS 47, no. 33.
118. Aveling, Northern catholics, pp. 214–15, 247–8
119. cf. Sommerville, ‘Jacobean political thought’, p. 73
120. Aveling, Catholic recusants, pp. 230–1. Sir Robert Cotton remarked that ‘the oath of Allegiance is not offered generally to servants and mean people’, and its adminstration was entirely inadequate
121. Howell, Cottoni Posthuma, p. 154.
122. Gifford, ‘ Controversy’, pp. 69–71.
123. Certainly financial considerations affected official thinking on the oath, P.R.O.,S.P. 14/65/89, S.P. 14/67/71, fo. 95v
124. forfeitures for refusal passed smoothly into the system of court patronage and royal grants; Cliffe, Yorkshire gentry, p. 179.
125. In May 1612 Richard Broughton said that compounding was in order ‘to fee the Scotts, as report goeth’; Lord Rochester had already begged Lord Vaux's composition from the king, A.A.W., A XI, 209
126. in February 1614 Lord Sheffield was delighted to obtain £1,000 from William Vavasour, the price of his refusal to take the oath, A.A.W., A XIII, 89.
127. J. H. E. Bennett and J. C. Dewhurst, Quarter sessions records…for the county palatine of Chester, 1559–1760 (Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, XCIV, 1940), pp. 57–58
128. P.R.O., S.P. 14/49/26, fo. 44r-v
129. Joseph Creswell, A proclamation (St. Omer, 1611), pp. 77–83.
130. Ryan, ‘Jacobean oath’, p. 171: the statute directed that the oath should be administered to wide classes of people (courtiers, officials, lawyers, university men, and so on), and made no exceptions in favour of peers as the 1606 statute had done
131. T. Birch, ed., The court and times of James the first (2 vols., London, 1848), 1, 116–117
132. La Rocca, ‘James I’, pp. 254–255
133. cf. C. H. Cooper and J. W. Cooper, Annals of Cambridge (5 vols., Cambridge, 1842–1908), 111, 35–36
134. A. J. Loomie, Spain and the Jacobean catholics (C.R.S. LXIV, LXVIII, London, 1973, 1978), 1, 155.
135. A.A.W., A IX, 115, 149.
136. A.A.W., A IX, 131.
137. A.A.W., A IX, 163–164
138. cf. Atkinson, Quarter sessions records, 1, 203.
139. C.S.P.D. (Calendar of state papers domestic), Addenda 1580–1625, p. 524.
140. A.A.W., A IX, 163, 269, X, 269, 273.
141. A.A.W., A X, 273, cf. X, 377.
142. N. McClure, ed., The letters of John Chamberlain (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1939), 1, 336–337.
143. A.A.W., A X, 73. Bishops like Anthony Rudd and George Lloyd were active in pinpointing influential catholics, and cooperating with the judiciary and magistracy in order to compel them to take it
144. P.R.O., S.P. 14/67/1, fo. 1r
145. Bennett and Dewhurst, Quarter sessions, pp. 57–58.
146. In October 1611 Thomas Dove, bishop of Peterborough, assured the privy council that he had not been lax in administering it in his diocese, P.R.O., S.P. 14/66/68, fo. 132r.
147. William James was enthusiastic that it should be enforced in full, P.R.O., S.P. 14/68/63.
148. A.A.W., A XI, 194.
149. A.A.W., A XI, 217.
150. A. G. Petti, ed., Recusant documents from the Ellesmere manuscripts (C.R.S. LX, London, 1968),pp. 208–10; after two refusals even Lady Stonor was compelled to take it
151. P.R.O., S.P. 14/70/54.
152. A.A.W., A XIII, 117.
153. J. Morris, The troubles of our catholic forefathers (3 vols., London, 1872–1877), 111, 453
154. A.A.W., A XI, 65, A XIV, 623
155. Borthwick, H.C.A.B. 12, fo. 145r
156. M. Murphy, ed., St Gregory s college, Seville, 1592–1767 (C.R.S. LXXIII, London, 1992), p. 172.
157. Foley, Records, VII, 1096; in 1614 Broughton reported that Coke had summoned in Hilary term forty gentlemen before him to swear the oath
158. A.A.W., A XIII, 59.
159. ‘Annual letters of the vice-province of England’ (for 1619), Letters and Notices, XI (1876–1877), 273–88, at p. 274
160. R.N. Worth, The Buller papers (privately printed, 1895), p. 7 (for which reference I am grateful to Kenneth Fincham).
161. For the principal Yorkshire compounders, Cliffe, Yorkshire gentry, pp. 178–179
162. A.A.W., A XI, 209
163. (George Talbot); C.S.P.D. 1603–1610, 589
164. C.S.P.D. 1611–1618, 137
165. (Edward Morgan paid £1,000 for the oath not to be tendered to him again, A.A.W., A XI, 370)
166. J. J. La Rocca, ‘James I and his catholic subjects, 1606–1612: some financial implications’, Recusant History, XVIII (1987), 251–62, at p. 252.
167. H. Bowler, ‘ Sir Henry James of Smarden, Kent, and Clerkenwell, recusant (c. 1559–1625)’, in A.E.J. Hollaender and W. Kellaway, eds., Studies in London history (London, 1969), pp. 289–313, at pp. 307–8
168. A.A.W., A XII, 524
169. P.R.O., SO 3/6, Mar. 1614, Nov. 1615.
170. Aveling, Catholic recusancy, pp. 231–232.
171. W. Notestein, The house of commons, 1604–1610 (London, 1971), p. 147.
172. P.R.O., SP 14/49/26
173. Eure was working in conjunction with Robert Bennett, bishop of Hereford, an enthusiastic promoter of conformity among recusants, S.P. 14/48/137, 138.
174. Page, Allegeance, p. 14.
175. P.R.O., S.P. 14/70/54.
176. Atkinson, Quarter sessions records, 1, 50–51
177. Miscellanea (C.R.S., LVI, London, 1964), p. xxxi.
178. P.R.O., E 368/579, mem. 138a-b.
179. Foley, Records, 1, 64–65
180. Gifford, ‘Controversy’, p. 61.
181. A.A.W., A X, 269, XII, 387
182. in November 1613 Birkhead told More that Preston's most recent book ‘seameth to say that no circumstance necessarie wanteth in there [the protestant bishops’] creation’, A.A.W., A XII, 444.
183. Theophilus Higgons, A sermon (London, 1611), p. 50
184. cf. Foley, Records, VII, 1014.
185. Higgons, Sermon, p. 54.
186. John Salkeld, A treatise of angels (London, 1613), sigs. ∗3r-4r
187. P.R.O., S.P. 14/68/81
188. Foley, Records, V, 854
189. A. à Wood, ed. P. Bliss, Athenae Oxonienses (4 vols., London, 1813–1820), 111, 488–9
190. cf. A.A.W., A XI, 351, XII, 159, 167, 375
191. Salkeld's printed work was limited to essentially non-polemical treatises, perhaps intended to reflect a moderate stance; A.A.W., A XI, 577.
192. Richard Sheldon, Certain general reasons (London, 1611)
193. cf. P.R.O., S.P. 14/63/18
194. Sheldon, Motives, sig. A2r-v, Bb2r
195. Sheldon was also a friend of John Salkeld; Richard Sheldon, Christ, on his throne (London, 1622), p. 13.
196. Henry Yaxley, Morbus et antidotus (London, 1630), pp. 8–9, 39–40
197. John Copley, Doctrinall and morall observations (London, 1612), p. 124.
198. K. Sharpe, ‘The King's writ: royal authors and royal authority in early modern England’, in K. Sharpe and P. Lake, eds., Culture and politics in early Stuart England (London, 1994), pp. 117–38, at p. 117.
199. Sharpe, ‘King's writ’, pp. 117–118.
200. J. Hurstfield, ‘Church and state, 1558–1612: the task of the Cecils’, in J. Hurstfield, ed., Freedom, corruption and government in Elizabethan England(London, 1973), p. 102
201. cited in Sommerville, ‘Jacobean political thought’, p. 17.
202. A. Walsham, Church papists (London, 1993), pp. 84–85.
203. Edmund Bunny, A booke of Christian exercise (London, 1585), sig. Yviir.