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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
A priest who often visited Alexander Pope in the mid-1730s once observed that the English Catholics had ‘not so good hands’ to defend their cause in the late seventeenth century. The poet briskly replied: ‘Sir, I beg your pardon, we had really some very clever men, engaged on our side …’ Then he mentioned Woodhead, but Spence misunderstood and wrote ‘Whitehead’. That Pope used the pronoun ‘we’ shows what side he was on, and that he gave the pre-eminence to Woodhead shows how well acquainted he was with the controversies of the last age, for Woodhead never signed his works, usually employing the initials R.H. In 1736, his first biographer Simon Berington would call him ‘this great, but almost unknown Man’.
1 Spence, Rev. Joseph, Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men. Collected from the Conversation of Mr. Pope, and Other Eminent Persons of His Time, ed. Singer, Samuel Weller (London: W. H. Carpenter, 1820), p. 172 Google Scholar. Since there was no Catholic controversialist named Whitehead, it is likely that Pope pronounced Woodhead’s name this way. This anecdote was brought to my notice by Dr. Katherine Quinsey of Windsor, Ontario, who is writing a book on Pope’s Catholicism.
2 Berington, Simon, ‘The Preface: Giving a succinct Account of Mr. Woodhead’s Writings and Life’, in Ancient Church Government. Part III ([London], 1736), p. xiv Google Scholar, quoting the antiquarian Thomas Hearne, from a letter of 8 April 1734. This preface will be cited as ‘Life’.
3 From letters written on 1 January 1728 and 13 January 1730 by Francis Nicolson to Cuthbert Constable, in the Woodhead MS 46, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Leeds (hereafter K45).
4 Carr, William, University College (London, 1902), p. 133.Google Scholar
5 Whitby, , ‘Preface to his Appendix of Idolatry and Host-worship,’ cited in Berington, ‘Life,’ p. xviii.Google Scholar
6 Berington, ‘Life,’ p. xiv.
7 The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Clark, Andrew, 5 vols., Vol. 3: 1682–1695 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894), p. 165.Google Scholar
8 An Historical Narration of the Life and Death of Jesus Christ (Oxford: at the Theatre, 1685).
9 Life and Times, 3: p. 164.
10 Life and Times, 3: pp. 176, 196, 192–3. Wood says that the ‘phanatics made it worse than ’twas, and said that all the university were papists’.
11 Life and Times, 3: p. 198.
12 A list of these works can be found in M. Slusser, , ‘Abraham Woodhead (1608–1678): Some Research Notes, Chiefly about His Writings’, Recusant History 15:6 (October 1981), pp. 406–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13 Berington, p. lxvii.
14 Life and Times, 3: pp. 198, 209.
15 Life and Times, 3: p. 218. In his history of University College, Carr reports that Protestants left, but that members ‘of Catholic families, who before had been debarred the University, began to enter, and in some small degree took the place of those thus “frighted” away’ (142).
16 [Hutchinson, C.], Of the Authority of Councils and the Rule of Faith (London: Clavel, R., Rogers, W., and Smith, S., 1687), pp. 101, 102Google Scholar; and Basset, Joshua, Reason and Authority (London: Henry Hills, 1687), pp. 73, 76, 77, 83, 89, 99, 116, 119.Google Scholar
17 [Sherlock, William], A Discourse concerning a Judge of Controversies in Matters of Religion, Being an Answer to some Papers asserting the Necessity of such a Judge (London: Robert Clavell, 1686), preface.Google Scholar
18 [Aldrich, Henry], A Reply to Two Discourses Lately Printed at Oxford Concerning the Adoration of Our Blessed Saviour in the Holy Eucharist (Oxford: at the Theatre, 1687), 2, p. 68 Google Scholar. This came out, Wood says (3: p. 220), on 30 May 1687.
19 Wake, William, A Discourse of the Holy Eucharist, in the Two great Points of the Real Presence and the Adoration of the Host, in Answer to the Two Discourses lately Printed at Oxford on this Subject, 2nd ed. (London: for Richard Chiswell, 1688), p. 42.Google Scholar
20 [Smallridge?, George], Animadversions on the Eight Theses Laid Down, and the Inferences Deduced from them in a Discourse entitled Church Government Part V (Oxford: at the Theatre, 1687), p. 97.Google Scholar
21 Wake, William, A Continuation of the Present State of the Controversy, 2nd ed (London: Richard Chiswell, 1688), p. 20.Google Scholar
22 Berington, ‘Life’, p. li.
23 [Smallridge?], Animadversions, pp. 2, 6, 7, 8.
24 Francis Nicolson, ‘A Few Particulars relating to Mr. Woodheads Life and Works’, MS 46, YAS; Berington, ‘Life’, p. li.
25 [Smallridge?], Animadversions, p. 98. Wake scoffs at Woodhead’s ‘Protestant Concessions,’ saying that ‘some Men have a peculiar Faculty of amusing the World with nothing’ (Discourse of the Holy Eucharist, p. 96).
26 Nicolson, ‘A Few Particulars’, MS 46, YAS.
27 [Harrington, James], Some Reflexions upon a Treatise call’d Pietas Romana et Parisiensis (Oxford: at the Theatre, 1688), pp. 5, 20.Google Scholar
28 [Tullie, George], An Answer to a Discourse concerning the Celibacy of the Clergy (Oxford: at the Theatre, 1688)Google Scholar, preface. Tullie (of Queen’s College, subdean of York) fired the first shot after Walker’s conversion became public. He gave a sermon against popish idolatry at St. Mary’s Oxford, on 24 May 1686 and was suspended for it. He saw himself afterwards as ‘the first clergy-man in England who suffer’d in those dayes in the defence of our religion against Popish superstition and idolatry’ (Life and Times, 3: p. 186).
29 Berington, ‘Life’, p. v.
30 ‘Some Pious Sentiments of Mr. Abraham Woodhead, Found among his Collections’, appended to Berington, ‘Life’, p. xc.
31 Note to The Hind and the Panther, Part II, line 300, in Poems 1685–1692, ed. Miner, Earl, The Works of John Dryden, ed. Swedenberg, H. T., et al. 20 vols. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1956–), 3: p. 392.Google Scholar
32 H., R., A Rational Account of the Doctrine of Roman Catholicks Concerning the Ecclesiastical Guide in Controversies, second edition (n.p., 1673), pp. 223–4Google Scholar. This passage is on pp. 206–7 in the 1667 edition. (I have omitted some commas for the sake of clarity).
33 H., R., Considerations on the Council of Trent, being the Fifth Discourse, concerning the guide in Controversies, (n. p., 1671), pp. 234–6.Google Scholar
34 Berington, ‘Life’, p. lix.
35 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1998). The poet’s mythic design from the Song of Songs is the subject of the first half of the book; that of the second half is his plea for religious liberty, in the context of the campaign to repeal the Test Acts, 1685–1688.
36 Johnson, Samuel, Lives of the English Poets, 2 vols. ed. Waugh, Arthur (London: Oxford University Pres, 1961), 1: p. 316.Google Scholar
37 ‘John Dryden’s Purchases at Two Book Auctions, 1680 and 1682’, English Studies 42 (1961), pp. 192–217.
38 [Pittis, , William, ], Dr. [John] Radcliffe’s Life and Letters. 4th ed. (London: Bettesworth, A., Curll, E., and Pemberton, J., 1736), p. 16.Google Scholar
39 Montagu, Charles and Prior, Matthew, The Hind and the Panther Transversed, in Poems on Affairs of State: Augustan Satirical Verse, 1660–1714, Volume 4: 1685–1688, ed. by Crump, Galbraith M. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1968), p. 123.Google Scholar
40 Brown, Thomas, The Late Converts Exposed Part II (London 1690), pp. 28, 45, 11.Google Scholar
41 Anthony Wood says it was printed in May 1687 (Life and Times 3: p. 221).
42 I was told that the Buttery Books for those years are missing.
43 Poems on Affairs of State, 4: 84, line 103.
44 Shadwell, Thomas, ‘The Address of John Dryden, Laureat to His Highness the Prince of Orange’ (1689), in The Complete Works of Thomas Shadwell, 5 vols., ed. Summers, Montague (London: Fortune Press: 1927), 5: p. 350 Google Scholar. John Shadwell, Pepys’s godson, served as a physician in Paris in the 1690s and was on friendly terms with Catholics; he retired there in 1735 ( Private Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of Samuel Pepys, ed. Tanner, J. R., 2 vols. [London, 1926], 1: pp. 263, 280; 2: p. 10Google Scholar).
45 The Second Treatise Containing a Discourse of the Succession of Clergy, in The Second and Third Treatises of the First Part of Ancient Church-Government (Oxford: [O. Walker], 1688), pp. 78, 87, 83.
46 Guide in Controversies, p. 213.
47 [Woodhead, Abraham], A Brief Account of the Ancient Church Government with a Reflection on Several Modern Writings of the Presbyterians 2nd ed. (London: Benj. Tooke, 1685 [1st ed., 1662]), pp. 71–3.Google Scholar
48 Brief Account of Ancient Church Government, pp. 15–21, 25–28.
49 Ibidem, p. 35.
50 Guide in Controversies, p. 218.
51 O., N., Dr. Stillingfleet’s Principles (Paris: Christian and Guillery, 1671), p. 7.Google Scholar
52 Whitby, Daniel, A Sermon in Confutation of R. H. The Author of the guide in Controversies (London: H. Brome, 1679)Google Scholar. In the same year he also published against Woodhead, , The Absurdity and Idolatry of Host-worship (London: H. Brome, 1679).Google Scholar
53 Discourse concerning a Judge of Controversies, pp. 10, 8.
54 ‘Mr. Woodhead’s Life (so far as I can represent it)’, Woodhead MS 46, YAS.
55 Ancient Church Government, pp. 25–29; Third Treatise of the First Part of Ancient Church Government, in The Second and Third Treatises of the First Part of the Ancient Church Government, pp. 49–59, 84, 95. This third treatise is focused chiefly on the Pope’s supremacy.
56 Guide in Controversies, pp. 144–5, 111, 129.
57 Guide in Controversies, p. 228.
58 [Woodhead, Abraham], Concerning the Spirit of Martin Luther, in Two Discourses. The First, Concerning the Spirit of Martin Luther, and the Original of the Reformation. The Second, Concerning the Celibacy of the Clergy (Oxford: [Walker, O.], 1687), pp. 30, 35, 38.Google Scholar
59 Guide in Controversies, pp. 76–85, 182.
60 Guide in Controversies, p. 29.
61 For more on how Dryden borrows from Woodhead when he charges Protestants with a lack of humility, see my essay ‘John Dryden’s Eleonora and the Catholic Idea of Humility’, (Religion and Literature 34 1 [Summer 2002], pp. 1–20).
62 Spirit of Martin Luther, pp. 70, 29.
63 Spirit of Martin Luther, pp. 93–94; see also pp. 14–16.
64 [Atterbury, Francis], An Answer to Some Consideration on the Spirit of Martin Luther and the Original of the Reformation (Oxford: at the Theater, 1687), p. 57 Google Scholar, and preface. Atterbury accuses Woodhead of being a ‘sceptic’ (a charge often leveled at Dryden) for pointing out that Catholics and Dissenters died in England with ‘equal resolution for two Contradictories’. Atterbury claims this ‘strikes at all certainty’ (p. 56).
65 [Woodhead, Abraham], Church Government Part V: a Relation of the English Reformation (Oxford: [Walker, O.], 1687), pp. 252–3.Google Scholar
66 Church Government Part V, pp. 25–6, 31.
67 Wake, Discourse of the Holy Eucharist, p. 57.
68 Of the Authority of Councils, pp. 101, 102.
69 [Woodhead, Abraham] The Catholicks Defence for their Adoration of our Lord as believed Really and Substantially present in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, in Two Discourses Concerning the Adoration of our B. Saviour in the H. Eucharist (Oxford: [Walker, O.], 1687), p. 9.Google Scholar
70 Animadversions upon the Alterations of the Rubrick in the Communion-Service in the Common-Prayer-book of the Church of England, in Two Discourses Concerning the Adoration, pp. 6–7, 13. See also The Catholicks Defence, for their Adoration in the same Two Discourses, where he says that ‘genuine sons of the Church of England’ have in ‘no small number’ confessed ‘a real presence’ to ‘each worthy Receiver, tho not to the elements’ (p. 31).
71 Wake, Discourse of the Holy Eucharist, p. 76.
72 Animadversions, pp. 16, 33.
73 [Aldrich?, Henry], A Vindication of the Oxford Reply to Two Discourses there Printed AD 1687 (Oxford: at the Theatre, 1688), pp. 50, 59, 71.Google Scholar
74 Wake, Discourse of the Holy Eucharist, p. 83.
75 Animadversions, pp. 4, 22. Woodhead gives his source as ‘Ursinus, Theol. Heidelburgensis, p. 153.’ I wish to thank Dr. William Tighe for identifying Ursinus as one who was in 1561 ‘a Melanchtonian Lutheran, that is, one inclined to compromise with Calvinism’ and who co-authored the Heidelberg Catechism ‘which led to the Palatinate becoming Calvinist in 1564.’
76 Animadversions, p. 4.
77 There were three Test Acts passed, in 1661, 1673, and 1678. Receiving communion in the established Church became a prerequisite for local office, for national office, and finally for a seat in the House of Lords. Dryden’s arguments for religious liberties in his poem have close parallels to those in the pamphlets published against the Test Acts, in 1685–1688.
78 Gutch, John, Collectanea Curiosa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1781), Vol. I: XXXC, pp. 288–89Google Scholar. In parentheses, I give the numbers M. Slusser assigns to those works in the previously cited bibliography of Woodhead’s works (Recusant History, 1981).