9 - Pope and ideology

Summary

What is now published, is only to be considered as a general Map of Man, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connections, but leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are to follow.

(An Essay on Man, “The Design” [TE, iii.i, p. 8])

This essay will unpack the simple statements that Alexander Pope was born to Catholic parents in 1688, and that he died in 1744, still a Catholic. His coreligionists constituted a small percentage of the national population. They formed a conspicuous block of society in only a few parts of the country, notably Lancashire and Cheshire, although there was an important group of recusant gentry in the Thames Valley, with whom Pope made lasting connections during his youth. Some humbler folk in the provinces retained an allegiance to the old faith, but as yet there had been no large-scale immigration from Catholic countries to major centers, so that the urban poor were Protestant for the most part. Within months of Pope's birth, James II was ousted from the throne, having lost popularity in considerable measure because of his attempts to impose freedom of worship, that is official tolerance of Catholicism. The backlash which followed under William and Mary saw the introduction of severe penal laws against the papist community. Excluded from succession to the throne, Catholics had to take oaths of loyalty, on pain of losing most civic rights. At the same time they were precluded from living within ten miles of the center of London, and from becoming members of the legal profession. Out of fear that insurrection would break out, they were likewise forbidden to keep arms, ammunition or, bizarrely, a horse worth more than ten pounds. A particularly fierce law passed in 1700 incapacitated all Roman Catholics from inheriting or purchasing land, unless they formally abjured their religion. If they refused, their property was legally transferred for life to their next of kin in the Protestant faith.