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Old and New Catholics in Stuart Wales: The Carne Family of Glamorgan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2016

Philip Jenkins
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Extract

When James II began looking in Wales for Catholics who could be appointed to the Bench and lieutenancy, he found very few potential supporters in most Welsh counties. What Catholics there were tended to be minor figures, or outsiders who happened to hold Welsh lands. Monmouthshire had a strong contingent of recusants; but the greatest surprise came in Glamorgan, where there came forward a series of apparently recent converts from the Carne and Stradling families. Three Carne brothers served as enthusiastic Catholic Justices, all the more valuable because they held their position by their own prestige and ancestry in addition to political orthodoxy. In 1688, they were virtually the only family in south Wales to attempt serious (indeed, threatening) resistance to the Protestant coup.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , May 1985 , pp. 362 - 373
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1985

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References

Notes

1 Works used generally throughout this include—G. Williams, ed., Glamorgan County History, Cardiff: Glamorgan County History Trust, 1974, vol. 4; hereafter referred to as ‘GCH’; Jenkins, P., The Making of a Ruling Class: The Glamorgan Gentry 1640–1790, Cambridge University Press, 1983 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There is a sizeable collection of Carne papers in the Glamorgan Record Office at Cardiff, under the codes D/DC (Carne at Nash) and D/DE (Carne of Ewenni). The Carnes and later Nicholl-Carnes remained at Nash until 1951.

2 Phillips, J. R. S., The Justices of the Peace in Wales and Monmouthshire 1542–1689, Cardiff: University of Wales, 1972 Google Scholar; Charles Dalton, English Army Lists and Commission Registers 1661–1714, six volumes in three, London, 1960; G. F. Duckett, The Penal Laws and Test Act, two volumes, London, 1882–3; Dodd, A. M., Studies in Stuart Wales, Cardiff: University of Wales, 1971.Google Scholar

3 St. Peter’s Magazine, Cardiff, appeared in twelve volumes between 1921 and 1932, including a series of excellent articles on the history of Welsh Catholicism by the Rev. J. H. Canning and others. The account of Charles Carne is in volume III, 1923, pp. 94–101, 127–135, 314, 343–5.

4 Jenkins, P., ‘A Welsh Lancashire?’, Recusant History, 1980 Google Scholar; Emyr G. Jones, Cymru A’r Hen Ffydd, Cardiff: University of Wales, 1951.

5 GCH.

6 GCH, pp. 232–9; Turbervill, J. P., Ewenny Priory, London, 1901.Google Scholar

7 GCH, pp. 166, 272–2.

8 Calendar of State Papers Domestic (CSPD), 1645–7, pp. 120, 223; 1648–9, pp. 328–9; HMC Delisle and Dudley MSS, vol. 6, pp. 429–430.

9 St Peter’s Magazine, III, 1923, 38–47; Jenkins, P., ‘Antipopery on the Welsh Marches’, Historical Journal, 23, 1980.Google Scholar

10 PRO State Papers, 29/398, no. 185; The Penrice and Margam papers in the NLW contain a number of Ewenni documents such as rentals and inventories: 1027, 1031, 1867.

11 From many incidental references to the Carnes as friends of the leading gentry, see for example National Library of Wales, Penrice and Margam MSS L176, L181–2, L316–7; and many others into the 1720s.

12 Glamorgan Record Office, D/DC. 730–2.

13 Kenyon, J. P., The Popish Plot, London; Penguin, 1974 Google Scholar; Bossy, J., Then English Catholic Community, 1570–1850, London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1975.Google Scholar

14 CSPD, 1672, pp. 414–16; 1672–3, p. 455; 1675–6, p. 557; 1677–8, pp. 685–6; 1678, pp. 150, 285; 1679–80, pp. 106, 127; 1680–1, p. 88; 1683, p. 87; 1685, no. 1544; 1686–7, p. 1104; Dalton, Army Lists.

15 Duckett, Penal Laws; Phillips, Justices; NLW Penrice and Margam, L203–5.

16 Jenkins, P., ‘Two Poems on the Glamorgan Gentry’, NLW Journal 21(2), 1979, pp. 159–178.Google Scholar

17 NLW Penrice and Margam, L207.

18 Matthews, J. H., Cardiff Records, Cardiff: 1898–1910, six volumes: vol. 2, p. 182 Google Scholar. NLW Add. 6139C for Nicholas Kemys as a Jacobite in Ireland.

19 NLW Penrice and Margam, L256/L304. Compare the equally slender list of Papists’ estates about 1720 in Bodleian MS Rawl. D 387–8.

20 St Peter’s Magazine, II, 1922; ibid, III. 1923, p. 196.

21 Cardiff Central Library, Diary of William Thomas, 31 March 1765.

22 Foley: By the 1740s, an obscure Pyle man was the last known host for the two priests who occasionally visited the county, John Hill and John Scudamore.

23 The author would like to thank Mr. Andrew Breeze for his generous assistance with this article.