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John Macky’s 1707 Account of the English Seminaries in Flanders
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2016
Extract
The following report on English religious houses in Flanders was sent to Secretary of State Sunderland on 7 January 1707/8. When the Earl of Sunderland left office in 1710, he took this account, along with virtually all departmental papers, with him and it has remained in his private collection from that time to the present. As the covering letter reveals, it was prepared by John Macky on his own initiative. His purpose was to reveal the size and wealth of the English Catholic community residing in religious houses in the Low Countries. In particular, he stressed the income which came to these institutions from Britain. This was to substantiate his proposal to remove these bodies by cutting off this flow of money.
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References
Notes
1 The collection forms part of the Blenheim Papers which have recently been acquired by the British Library. The manuscripts are in the process of arrangement. The report which is presented here was originally in file C 2/8. It has now been placed in the volume of Post Office papers in the Sunderland collection along with most of the other documents relating to Macky's career which are mentioned below. This volume is arranged chronologically and will probably be grouped with the diplomatic and intelligence papers.
2 For Macky see: The Dictionary of National Biography, XII, 633-4, and Spring, Macky, Memoirs of the Secret Services of John Macky, Esq.; During the Reigns of King William, Queene Anne, and King George I (London, 1733).Google Scholar
3 For the role of the Post Office in intelligence gathering during this period see: Ellis, K. L., The Post Office in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1958), p. 74;Google Scholar Peter, Fraser, The Intelligence of the Secretaries of State and Their Monopoly of Licenced News, 1660-1688 (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 20–21.Google Scholar Macky's activities are briefly mentioned in: Horn, D. B., The British Diplomatic Service, 1689-1789 (Oxford, 1961), pp. 278–80.Google Scholar For Macky's early work for the Government see his correspondence with the Secretaries of State: B.L. Add. MSS. 28,882-4, 28,886-91, 28,893-4, 40,771-2, 40,775, passim.
4 The evidence of these activities is contained in his correspondence with Secretary of State Sunderland and the Post Office: B.L., Blenheim Papers (Sunderland), Post Office, passim. See also The Marlborough-Godolphin Correspondence, ed. Henry, L. Snyder, 3 vols (Oxford, 1975), pp. 1287, 1306, 1591.Google Scholar
5 Secretary of State Vernon to Macky, Whitehall, 17 November 1698: B.L., Add. MS. 40,772, fo. 320.
6 John, Macky, A View of the Court of St. Germain from the year 1690, to 95, with an account of the entertainment Protestants meet with there (London, 1696).Google Scholar
7 William, Coxe, Memoirs of the Life and Administration of Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Oxford, 3 vols (London, 1798), II, 284;Google Scholar B.L., Add. MS. 32,686, fos 341-2.
8 Macky to Sir Thomas Frankland, Postmaster-General, Dover, 12 March 1706/7: B.L., Blenheim Papers (Sunderland), Post Office.
9 Ibid.
10 Fonseca to Macky, Brussels, 5 March 1707/8: ibid., and passim. For Fonseca see also his correspondence with Secretary of State Harley: B.L., Portland Loan 29/45V, fos 1-21. Snyder, p. 1505n.
11 John, Macky, A Journey Through the Austrian Netherlands, second edition (London, 1732), pp.10–11,Google Scholar 18-19, 24, 37, 42-44, etc.
12 In the following documents the spelling, punctuation, and capitalisation have been modernised and abbreviations expanded.