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English Catholics and the Papal Deposing Power 1570-1640

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Thomas Clancy S.J.
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Extract

If we survey the Jesuit writers on the deposing power during the period 1603-1640, we find that for the first seven years Persons is the only English Jesuit to treat of the subject and he touches on it in all his last four books. The fullest treatment is in A Treatise tending to Mitigation but neither there, nor in the other books is there anything more than an explanation of the points of contention, treated according to the system of Bellarmine. For a few years after Persons's death in 1610 the steady flow continued of Latin works by the Jesuit controversialists on the continent: Becanus, Gretser, Bellarmine, Lessius and others. Some of these works were translated into English, together with some of the works of the French Jesuits referred to in the previous article. After 1613 the decree of the Jesuit General Aquaviva, forbidding Jesuit writers to treat of the subject, took effect, and with the exception of the works of Thomas Fitzherbert against the defenders of the Oath of Allegiance the voice of the Jesuits, at least on the deposing power, was heard no more.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , January 1963 , pp. 2 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1963

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References

Notes

1. A & R 641, 630, 635, 628.

2. A & R 77, 80 (Becanus). Hoskins's Brief and Cleare Declaration (1611, A & R 405) was an adaptation of Bellarmine's 1610 answer to William Barclay, Tractatus de Potestate Summi Pontificis in rebus temporalibus, He says in the preface to the reader that it is too long to translate in full and so he undertakes to give it in substance.

3. A & R 314 and 315. Joseph Creswell's contribution (A & R 265) was surprisingly mild and limited itself mostly to disputing James's version of the history of Elizabethan Catholicism in regard to plots and assassinations.

4. An Oration made on the part of the hordes spirituall (1616, A & R 287).Google Scholar Both in his Letter to Casaubon (A & R 286) and in his Reply to the Answeare (A & R 288) he prescinded from any but purely spiritual questions. (See Letter p. 42 and Replie 463 f.).

5. Oration, p. 12. The translator in his preface (sig. * * * 2 r & v) warned the absolutists that all this discussion about royal power would do more harm than good by causing men to enquire curiously into Kings’ titles and power. “For now instead of being held as a kind of Divinity upon earth (which notion mens minds were fitter for, they are frowne to look abroad upon that light, which they were wont to be afraide would dazell their eyes … They touch and handle it by the discourse of reason and experience.” The same point is made by Owen (Letter of a Catholike Man p. 44) and by Persons (Quiet and Sober Reckoning p. 87; also in the memorandum referred to in Part II of this study (Recusant History, vol. 6 no. 5, p. 223,Google Scholar notes 17 & 20).

6. Oration 111f.

7. Survey of the New Religion (1603, A & R 429) bk. 6, 475–510.Google Scholar

8. See 3rd Douay Diary, 24 April 1616 (CRS. X 127ff, 365ff). There had been some murmuring about the fact that few wrote to defend the Catholic refusal to take the Oath. “… Many say that they see not why they should lose their lands or goods for an oath, which no man will take pen in hand, at home or abroad to defend …” John Nelson to Thomas More 8 June 1611 in Tierney-Dodd IV, p.clxxiv.

9. Douay, 1617 (A & R 429). In a note to the reader the printer begs pardon for the delay in printing the book, which, he says, has been ready for two years (p.317).

10. pp. 193ff.

11. p. 49.

12. pp. 304 ff.

13. Wilîson, D. H.: “James I and his literary assistants,” Huntington Library Quarterly, viii (1944) pp. 35–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. See Webb, W. K. L. in Biographical Studies iii (1959) p. 225 and p. 237.Google Scholar

15. De Regno, fol. 1b.

16. Léon, E. Martin: L'université de Pont-à-Mousson p. 66.Google Scholar

17. Persons doubted whether the De Potestate Papae extant under his name was really written by him (see Discussion of an Answere, p. 66).

18. See Victor, Martin, op. cit. p. 83;Google Scholar and Allen, J. W.: Political Thought in the 16th Century (3rd ed. London, 1951) 386 ff.Google Scholar

19. The Jesuits had charge of all the faculties except that of law and this was a haven for many of their enemies, e.g. Peter Gregory of Toulouse and Humphrey Ely. In his account of Barclay, Augustin Calmet (Bibliothèque Lorraine, Nancy, 1751) states that the Jesuits accused him of a heterodox proposition in one of his books.

20. De Potestate Papae (1609, A & R 69 & 70). Reprinted 1611 (STC 1409). There were numerous other editions. I am using the 1709 London edition but all references are to chapters.

21. Letter to More, 3 May 1611, in Tierney-Dodd, iv, p.clxviii. The book referred to is STC 22393.

22. Letter to More, 19 August 1611, in Tierney-Dodd, iv, p.clxxix.

23. Ch. 5, Ch. 12.

24. Ch. 25.

25. Ch. 8-10.

26. Preston, Thomas: Last Rejoynder (1619, A & R 671) 610 ff.; Warmington Google Scholar: Moderate Defence, pp. 159-171. See also Allen, J. W., op. cit., p. 156.Google Scholar

27. See the passage of Persons cited above pp. 47f.

28. Ius Regis (1612, A & R 72) Ch. 3-4 (pp. 21-66).

29. Section 12 & 13 of his Catholico-Romanus Pacificus (Oxford, 1680)Google ScholarPubMed which is supposed to have been written c. 1625.

30. Carier: Treatise (1614, A & R 207) pp. 13 ff.; Coppinger:Google Scholar Theatre (1620, A & R 256) Bk. 1, ch. 4-5 (pp. 30-43); Broughton: Defence ofCatholics (1630, A & R 154) pp. 169 ff.; B.C. Puritanisme the Mother (1633, A & R 185) pp. 35 ff.; Richelieu: Principall Points (1635, A & R289) pp. 22-24, 221-238, 258 ff.; 326 ff.

31. Treatise concerning Policy and Religion (1606-10, A & R 311, 316).

32. ad II Machabeees iv, I.

33. ad I Kings viii.

34. See e.g. Coppinger: Theatre (A & R 256) Bk. 8, ch. 4. There was a great insistence on how Catholics had always been loyal to the Stuarts. Carier said that it was the Catholics who fought for James's right to the throne (A & R 207, p. 13). Doughty said that Queen Elizabeth introduced the Protestant religion “only to keep your maiesties mother and her issue from their lawful right to the Crowne of England…“Humble Appeal, (1620, A & R 278) at sig. A2v. See also Ch. 14 and Conclusion.

35. Tournai, 1623. A & R 599. On the influence of this book in the 17th century, see Salmon, J. H. M.: French Religious Wars, p. 125.Google Scholar

36. p. 19.

37. Thomas Bilson's primary aim in his True Difference betweene Christian Subjection and Unnatural Rebellion (1585, STC 3071) was to answer Allen's Defence of Catholics, but he also had to defend, or at least excuse, the revolt of Protestants in various continental countries against their Catholic Kings and in this second part he “left so many windows for the enemies of royal rights to crawl through”that the book is said to have spoiled his chances of ecclesiastical advancement under James I.

38. The Image of Both Churches p. 64.

39. On Persons, p. 360; on Allen, p. 330. Patteson follows the Treatise of Treasons (1572, A & R 454) and the various answers to the Proclamation of 1591 in his account of Elizabeth's reign.