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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 May 2021
Gulielmus Laurus, a recusant exile and neo-Latin poet from Yorkshire has left a variety of evidence for his existence from 1587 through to the late 1590s, mostly in published verse in which he reflects on his life and experience, protests against the Anglican settlement, and asserts his faith. The article attempts to piece together his biography from the meagre information he gives, and offers two alternative interpretations of the data: one in which he was born around 1565, and one, marginally preferable, which makes him about ten years older. His poems are highly personal documents which reveal his interactions with the ‘republic of letters’ in Belgium, Germany and France, and the intense practical and psychological pressures of life as a friendless exile.
The author would like to express thanks to Dr Melanie Marshall.
1 See W.C. Trevelyan, ‘Names of Pilgrims from England to Rome in the years 1502-1507, 1581-1587’, Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica V (London: John Bowyer Nichols & Son, 1838): 62-88, at p. 86. 1581-1587 is from Archivum Venerabilis Collegii Anglorum de Urbe (AVCAU), Liber 282, for 3 July 1587. See also J.C.H. Aveling, Catholic Recusancy in the City of York, 1558-1791, Catholic Record Society Monograph Series 2 (London: Catholic Record Society, 1970).
2 Laevinus Torrentius, Correspondance, ed. Marie Delcourt and Jean Hoyoux, 3 vols (Paris: Société d'édition “Les belles lettres,” 1950-54), 2: 518, no. 618, to Jean Matal, topic, Gulielmus Laurus patria, 25.7.1589.
3 This is not the François Noël SJ who was a missionary and Latin playwright: the collection was made in Venice in 1795, and the Jesuit died in 1729.
4 ‘Belgium took me as a guest, with a smiling face, though she was embroiled in war:’ Hospitio excepit laeto me Belgica vultu/Illa licet bella exagitata fuit.
5 Katy Gibbons, ‘No Home in Exile? Elizabethan Catholics in Paris’, Reformation, 15:1 (2010): 115-131.
6 Liesbeth Corens, Confessional Mobility and English Catholics in Counter-Reformation Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
7 William Cecil to Thomas Copley, 1574, in Philip Caraman, ed. The other face: Catholic life under Elizabeth I (London: Longmans, Green, 1960), 141.
8 Christopher Devlin, The Life of Robert Southwell, Poet and Martyr (London: Longmans Green and Co., 1956), 222.
9 The reason of church-government urg’d against prelaty by Mr. John Milton ; in two books. (London: Printed by E. G. for Iohn Rothwell, 1641), 29.
10 Fr Christopher Grene, making notes on persecution in England in the late seventeenth century, notes ‘one hundred and sixty reduced from schism and heresy by one priest, some of the nobility, some gentlemen, gentlewomen, and of all sorts’. John Morris SJ, The Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, related by themselves, 3rd series (London: Burns and Oates, 1877), 51.
11 J. C. H. Aveling, Catholic Recusancy in the City of York ([London]: Catholic Record Society, 1970), 42, 44-5.
12 Morris, Troubles, 39-40.
13 Ibid., 84-102.
14 Peter E. B. Harris, ‘Turner, Robert’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (hereafter ODNB) online edn September 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/27861. Accessed 12 February 2021].
15 ‘Non inopem, sed deliciis opibusque fluentem/Deserui Patriam, deseruique lares./Incertis igitur ventis confisus & undis,/Quero novas sedes, qua tulit unda ratem./Hospitio excepit laeto me Belgica vultu,/Ille licet bella exagitata fuit’. Gvilielmi Lavri n.p. Harmonia Lavrea, Quae ex tristi, & lepido argumento constat. Diuiditur in tres libros. Primus est Tristium Catholicorum. Secundus variarum Elegiarum. Tertius Syluarum (Köln: Peter Keschedt, 1595), 47.
16 Torrentius, Correspondance, 2: 518, no. 618, Laevinus Torrentius to Jean Matal in Cologne. On Matal, see Peter Arnold Heuser, Jean Matal: Humanistischer Jurist und europäischer Friedensdenker (um 1517-1597) (Cologne and Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 2003). On Torrentius, see J. van Damme, ed. Laevinus Torrentius. Tweede bisschop van Antwerpen (Antwerpen: Kathedrale kerkfabriek van Onze-Lieve-Vrouw, 1995).
17 ‘Hîc ego quaesivi Musas, doctumque Minervam,/Sed frustra, expulsas à Marte fuere Deas.’ The distinguished reputation of Louvain took many Englishmen there, while a number of Protestant Belgians made the reverse journey. C. J. Fordyce, ‘Louvain and Oxford in the Sixteenth Century’, Revue belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 12.3 (1933): 645-652.
18 ‘Ausonias repeto post tot discrimina gentes/Hospitium dederant quae duo lustra mihi’.
19 See Jonathan Woolfson, Padua and the Tudors: English Students in Italy, 1485-1603 (Cambridge: James Clerk, 1998).
20 An impecunious Scotsman, James Fraser of Kirkhill, travelled thus for reasons of economy, though he was not a Catholic. His account of his three years’ peregrinations is in Aberdeen, Aberdeen University Library MS 2538. See vol. II, f. 16v: ‘Mr Waites … resolves to putt him selfe in my Garbe, and Instantly sent for a Tailor, whom he caused make a Long Pilgreme Coate, conforme to mine, with scrip and girdle suitable.’
21 ‘Munitas et quas Scaldis praeterfluit urbes/Effuso toties sanguine tinctus aquas’.
22 Gvilielmi Lavri n.p. Harmonia Lavrea, Quae ex tristi, & lepido argumento constat. Diuiditur in tres libros (Köln, Peter Keschedt, 1595), sig. 5.
23 Florentissimae, et tam avitae religionis inviolatae cvltv, qvam omnis praeclarae scientiae professione, doctorvmque virorum celebritatae Laudatissimae. Academiae Coloniensi G. Lavrvs a Poëtarum minimus Salutem, & omnem optat felicitatem (Köln: Peter Keschedt, 1596).
24 P.F.X. de Ram, ‘Lettres de Laevinus Torrentius à Ernest de Bavière, prince-évêque de Liège', Bulletin de la Commission royale d’Histoire, 4 (1863): 257-306, at p. 261 (Ernst was a pluralist, and Liège was another of his sees). On Billée’s appointment as privy counsellor see Théodose Bouille, Histoire de la Ville et Pays de Liège, 3 vols (‘Liège’, Guillaume Barnabé, 1725-32) 3: 44.
25 ‘Charles Billée, l’un des Conseillers intimes de notre Serenissime Evêque & Prince, celebre par ses députations dans les Cours de Princes, & par la connoissance qu’il avoit des langues étrangeres, mourut à Liege le dixiéme Mars de la présente année 1606. Il avoit assisté en 1594 à une Diette de l’Empire, où il déploya si heureusement ses rares talens, que l’Empereur Rodolphe le créa Chevalier, & l’admit à ses Conseils ; plusieurs Grands lui offrirent de grands avantages our l’avoir auprès d’eux, mais il demeura constanment attâché au Serenissime Prince Ernest’. Bouille, Histoire, 3: 105.
26 Sermo Panegyricus de Triumpho, quo Bavariæ Dux Ernestus, Archiepiscopus Coloniensis et Sacri Romani Imperii per Italiam Archicancellarius, Princeps Elector fuit inauguratus Episcopus Leodiensis, in Orationes XIV. - Commentationes in loca scripturae expressae ad imitationem antiquorum Ecclesiae Doctorum. Panegyrici duo, de duobus triumphis (Ingolstadt, David Sartorius 1584). On Turner’s biography, see Harris, ‘Robert Turner’, ODNB.
27 Another example is C.B., Adelphomachia, or The warrs of Protestancy· Being a treatise, wherein are layd open the wonderfull, and almost incredible dissentions of the Protestants among themselues ([St Omers, English College Press], 1637).
28 ‘Ut quondam patriis extorris Ovidius oris,/Scripsit sub Getico carmina maesta polo,/Sic Laurus Vates nunc exul ab orbe Britanno/Hos tristes Elegos, exiliumque, canit …’
29 ‘Tristia dum nuper legi tua carmina, Laure/Dulcibus Aönii mista liquoris aquis,/Singultus Charitum, gemitusque audire videbar/Musarumque, itidem condoluisse malis/Nobilibus dignus Musis tu, Laure, poëta es/Conveniens etenim nomen et omen habes/Macte animo sis ergo, precor, post tristia secla/Aetas venturaq. est aurea forte magis/Sin minus, aeternum, tristi tibi carmine nomen/Crescat, et exilio tu mage clarus eris.’
30 Exiliumque lubens Musis comitata subivit/Coelica, difficiles et terit usque vias/Hanc ego per duras rupes et inhospita saxa/Per densos sentes, et nemora alta sequor./Occurrunt soli per tanta pericula vates,/Cetera fortunae turba sequuntur iter. Harmonia Laurea, 4.
31 See G. Rolandi Palingenii Poemata … nuncprimum in lucem prodeunt (Paris, veuve J. Liberti, 1650).
32 Marie-Claude Tucker, ‘Crichton, George’, in ODNB, online edn 2004 [https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/6695 Accessed 01/02/2021].
33 ‘Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevæ … Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exsilium ostende’.
34 Corens, Confessional Mobility, 23.
35 Elizabeth Jane Weston, Collected Writings, ed and trans. Donald Cheney and Brenda Hosington (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2000), 228-9.
36 Weston, Collected Writings, 70-3, 430-1: ‘tristibus utque olim placandas Caesaris iras /Carminibus, duxit Naso poëta suis …et simile, insimili sorte, perita facis’.
37 Hoyt H. Hudson, The Epigram in the English Renaissance (New York: Octagon, 1966), 145–68.
38 James Doelman, The Epigram in England, 1590-1640 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), 33.
39 I.D. McFarlane, ‘George Buchanan and European Humanism,’ The Yearbook of English Studies, 15 (1985): 33-47, at p. 45.
40 ‘Dum gravibus languent mortalis pectora curis/Musica singultus, tristaque fugit/Haec raptas hominum tollit super aethera mentes/Et divis illos efficit esse pares’. Harmonia Laurea, 120.
41 Harmonia Laurea, 144, 127.
42 In Ventosos multa Poëtis promittentes, et nihil praestantes/Sublimis nuper, dictu mirabile, Pindus/ Parturiis, sed quid fuderit ipse rogas?/Pro monstro peperit magno tum murmure ventum, /Ergo satis venti, ni male fallor, erit./Ergo levis docto dabitur pro carmine ventus,/Venales etenim non decet esse Deas./Venalem, fateor, non convenit esse poesin,/Ventosas Charites sed minus esse decet./Aura levis gravibus certe est indigna Camoenis,/Munera pura a magis Numina pura decent./Purius at nihil est, fulvo aut preciosus Auro,/Nil ideo Musis aptius esse potest./Convenit quamvis levibus levis aura Poetis,/Aurum, non auram, docta Camoena petit./
43 Ad reverendiss. dominvm Laevinvm Torrentivm, Antvverpiens…. De Musarum exilio, et diuinae artis poëticae contemptu, qverimonia. (Köln: Peter Keschedt, 1593).
44 Hanc de nihilo elegiam, nemini exvlantivm et afflictarvm mvsarum Mecoenati vnico Gvilielmvs Lavrvs Anglus exul, et afflictus, nuncupauit…. (Köln: Lambert Andreae, 1594).
45 Gvlielmi Lavri n. A. Sylvarvm lib. Vnvs (Köln: Johann von Mertzenich, 1597).
46 Centum Italiæ vrbes breuissime quoad celebritatem descriptæ (Köln, Jan Bussemecher, 1608), and Centum Italiæ vrbes breuissime quoad celebritatem descriptæ (Douai, Pierre Auroi, 1609).
47 In Ebrium qui multa promisit, et nihil sobrius praestitit/Ebrius ingentes qui montes obtulit auri,/Polliciti non est sobrius esse memor./Dum bibit, aut praestet, quicquid promittit amico/Aut nunquam ut redeat sobrius ipse precor. Harmonia Laurea, 101.
48 ‘In quendam adolescentem Sectarium’/ ‘In imberbes Iuvenes a Sectariis ad doctoratum promotos’. Harmonia Laurea, 123-4.
49 ‘Venerable Edmund Genings and Companions’, in John Hungerford Pollen, ed. Unpublished Records Relating to the English Martyrs I, Publications of the Catholic Record Society (London: Catholic Record Society, 1908), 107.
50 Mark Rankin, ‘Richard Topcliffe and the Book Culture of the Elizabethan Catholic Underground,’ Renaissance Quarterly, 72.2 (2019): 492-536, at p. 493.
51 Unpublished Records, 201-11.
52 Diane K. Bolton, H. P. F. King, Gillian Wyld and D. C. Yaxley, A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 4, Harmondsworth, Hayes, Norwood With Southall, Hillingdon With Uxbridge, Ickenham, Northolt, Perivale, Ruislip, Edgware, Harrow With Pinner (London: Victoria County History, 1971), 260.
53 ‘Leake’s Relation of the Martyrdom of Father Southwell’, Unpublished Records, 333-37, 334.
54 Original gives a meaningless ‘Angbigenûm’; Dr Melanie Marshall suggested to me that this might be Angligenûm’ (there is an errata page at the back of the volume, but nothing is said of this poem); I am most grateful for her help.
55 Dum nimia saevit rabie sceleratus Iudas/Qua rigat Angbigenûm prata Thamesis aquis/Dum fidei antiquae cultores opprimit omnes/Innocuo quorum sanguine tingit humum;/Pro quaestu hospitio celeres ad fluminis undas,/Haeretico natam concubuisse ferunt./His pater audierat Papistas aedibus esse,/Currit, et insanus rumpit ubique fores./Papistas intrans per cuncta cubilia quaerit,/Papistis clamans omnia plena fore./Dum furit ardelio, et canis latrat instar atrocis,/Cum moecho natam repperit ille suam/Blasphemus[,] Divisque, Deoque, renunciat ipsi,/Et nasi puduit seque, suosque, sui.
56 The National Archives, London, State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth I, SP 12/269.69.